Yikes!!

My blog designer notified me this morning that all her images have been LOST!! The company that she uses, which I will not name at this time, seems to have deleted all her things! She does blogs for many folks and it has messed all her blogs up!! She is hoping that the company will be able to find her images soon and they will all be restored.

In the mean time...our blog will look just a little bit different :( Please send a prayer up for Alexis. She has put a lot of time into designing these blogs and this will definitely put a kink in her holiday season.

BTW my signature line is also an image that is lost!!!

There goes the neighborhood....

well almost!! UPS made a delivery to our house yesterday morning. As I looked out the front door I noticed smoke. Upon further investigation I saw that the vacant lot north of our house was on fire! I grabbed some shoes and stepped out. Our neighbor to the northeast was burning trash in the barrel behind their house. Apparently the fire had blown out of the barrel and caught the dry grass on fire. We didn't have much wind, but every so often the fire would get a light breeze and would flare up and really take off towards the west and our other neighbors house.




Just about the time we thought the fire had stopped I looked out again and it was making fast progress across the vacant lot. We finally decided to call the fire department. We tried to contact our neighbor who's house was in the path of the fire, but no one was home and their phones were unanswered. Mark walked over and knocked on their door thinking that maybe someone was home and didn't hear the phone, but again no one answered the door. By the time he walked back home the fire department arrived and they wasted no time driving up on the lot and spraying water on the flames. We watched as they inspected the fire barrel and stomped out a few hot spots. They came over to our house and thanked us for calling. We thanked them for coming out...who knows what would have happened if we had not seen it!! Emergency responders....great to have when you need them!!!

And life happens....

We received sad news this past week. Mark's paternal Grandma passed away. The girls called her Grandma Great. Actually, when the girls were much smaller they called her Grandma Grape because of a misunderstanding! And a great Grandmother she was! We were planning a family reunion in Tulsa next June when she would be 100 years young. Instead we had a reunion here in Kansas for her funeral. It was more a celebration of her life. She enjoyed all her kids...old and young. She also enjoyed good health until the last year which was a blessing. We attended her 90th birthday when RaeAnne was just a toddler.



All of Mark's siblings were here for the funeral. We were also able to celebrate a couple of birthdays while everyone was here. My birthday was the 19th and Mark's sister, Kris was on the 20th. Everyone arrived in town Friday evening. We decided on Mexican that evening and had a great time at La Fuentes. Then Saturday night we tried out Boss Hawg's. Sunday found almost the whole family at our house for chili, taco soup, and other snacks and a football game bonanza!






While we were at the restaurants someone pointed out that a couple of us were celebrating birthdays! At Boss Hawg's they delivered this scrumptious cake. Good thing they also brought lots of spoons to share as it was very rich! The girls loved having their Aunts and Uncle here. And since they had just seen all of them in Wisconsin this summer now they will remember who's who!






Sad times, good times and times to remember!!

Needing suggestions for stock?

I'd say buy in the Tooth Fairy stock!! The Tooth Fairy has two stops to make tonight. Jordis has been working on her tooth for several days and it finally fell out tonight.



And Kendalan lost her first tooth tonight! She is so excited that the Tooth Fairy will come visit her tonight! Good thing for the Tooth Fairy that they sleep in the same room!!

Silly girls and fish

We have been talking about getting an aquarium for some time. Daddy had aquariums before many years ago and Mommy has always wanted one. We decided a few weeks ago it was time! We decided that we wanted a salt water tank. So first we had to get our living rock and sand...add the salt water and make sure the pH was okay. Check.




Then it is time to slowly add fish and "ground crew" as Daddy calls them. Our first two fish were clown fish. We named them Bozo and Ronald. We also have a Sally Lightfoot crab. She is known as Sally and she is an eating machine!! Jordis is our child "eating machine" and we always wonder where does she put all that food?? Same way with Sally, she moves her claws to her mouth so quickly it is fun to watch her!



Daddy has been checking the pH of the water regularly and since we were still looking good, we decided to add more ground crew to eat the algae that is growing on the rock. We now have two Peppermint Shrimp, 5 hermit crabs and 1 Emerald Green crab. The Peppermint shrimp are named Pep and Patty even though we can't tell them apart, the hermit crabs unfortunately all look alike so they are nameless. The Emerald Green is known as Oz.

We decided to add a couple more fish today and beef up our ground crew. So today a coral banded shrimp joined the group who we named "Whiskers" because of his long white antenna. Tessa picked our her fish which is a fire fish we named "Sparkle" and ZoraLin picked out her fish. It is a Blue Green Chromis whom we named "Shimmer".

Sally the crab gave us quite the scare the second day we had her. We couldn't see her in the tank. Then Tessa said that she saw two of them. The girls headed off to school on the bus and we continued to look for Sally. We found her shell!! She had molted her shell!! She stayed hidden in the rock for a couple of days while her new shell hardened.

Tonight after we added our new crew, Tessa decided to pose for me. She is so goofy! I keep trying to convince her that we should get rid of the other front tooth soon so Santa has something to bring her for Christmas!

New furniture!!

Right after I graduated from college..a few moons ago...I purchased new living room furniture. When Mark and I were married we combined households. Our house in Wichita was very large...oh how we miss that house! We bought a couch and love seat for our family room then. A few years ago for Father's Day Daddy received a new rocker/recliner. After breaking a couple of times we decided that we had purchased from the wrong store! We finally found a chair that will hold up under "Big" Daddy. He has had the chair for almost a year now and (fingers crossed) it has held up well. So it was time for Mama to get her new chair to match!! Okay the material matches, the style of chair is more Mama sized! And since the store was having a BOGO sale...it was time to retire the love seat that I purchased in 1994!!



Daddy always thinks that Mom's taste in color is questionable. You think he would learn after all these years! When I chose the material for the love seat it took a LOT of persuasion to convince the man of the house that it really was going to be a great looking match.

Well, he has said that it looks pretty good and I have only been able to get on it a couple of times. Seems one cat and a few girls also like it!! RaeAnne wants to sleep on it!!

Oh the places we will go.......

We have been on the go lately. We drove to Hays for a wedding a few weeks ago. I used to spend lots of time with the groom and his family. His Mom and I started 1st grade together and graduated from high school together. She married her sweetheart very soon after we graduated and they settled down to farm and raise a family. I was the single one, footloose and fancy free. However, I realize now that deep down inside, I wanted to be the one with a family and I made them my surrogate family of sorts. It was a beautiful wedding and a chance to see people I grew up with. The girls had a great time...what little girl doesn't love to see a bride walk down the aisle to get married. A fairy tale come true! Of course, blowing bubbles to help welcome the new couple to their reception is fun too!










This past weekend we were invited to a birthday party. Not just any birthday party, it was my stepdaughter's son's 2nd birthday. I guess that makes me the step grandmother. I should be excited..right? Well, my stepchildren have not had much to do with their Dad since we started adopting. Why? I really have no idea...I have multiple guesses. My stepdaughter went to China with us in 2000 when we adopted her baby sister. My stepdaughter was living with us when we traveled to China in 2003 to adopt her second little sister. Then she started dating a man who we were told "doesn't really like kids." So the relationship between us and the daughter became strained to say the least. We moved and distance didn't help. We moved back and adopted again. She married the boyfriend and asked her stepdad to walk her down the aisle. More distance grew. Her little sisters asked lots of questions, "Why don't we see her anymore?" "Why weren't we in her wedding?" "Why doesn't she come to see us?" Questions I didn't and still don't have the answers to. I see how this hurts my girls and I go into Mama Bear mode. Don't hurt my girls!!

Anyhow we went to the party. The girls had a great time. Maybe an olive branch has been extended? Don't know...guess time will tell.





The afternoon before the party we received a phone call that most parents never want to hear. My almost 20 year old stepson was being arrested for driving on a suspended license!! My husband had asked him if he had paid his ticket many times in the last few weeks. Evidently he didn't! He was on his way to Salina to watch his high school team, the Great Bend Panthers, play when he cruised around a cop on I-70 going 82 miles an hour in a 75 mile/hour zone. She pulls him over and during a routine check of his license and registration it pops up that they have been suspended! We hope that this has been a learning experience for him. Since it was a Friday evening his vehicle was impounded until Monday when we could clear up the fact that the state had suspended "his" tag in error. The Jeep is registered to us!! He will still probably have to go to court to get his license reinstated and in the mean time his Dad has to drive him to and from classes!





Photos from the county court house. The jail is on the fourth floor and only Dad was allowed in the building. We kind of wanted photos of him behind bars...to blow up and remind him that unpaid tickets can come back to bite you!!

Never a dull moment around here! Calgon...take me away!!

The fun things were the girls deciding what to be for Halloween. They dressed up differently for school than they did to actually go treat or treating.





Then on Halloween night there were sudden changes in costumes.



During all this running around...Jordis came home with a sore throat and sure enough..it is strep!! Now I have a wonderful sinus infection/bronchitis that I am dealing with!! Things have got to start getting better around here soon?! I hope!! What's a Mom to do???