Thanksgiving in Illinois

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you and yours found much to be thankful for. Even though life doesn't always go our way, there is ALWAYS something to be thankful for. We had a great time in Illinois with Jeff's family. We don't always know what we are going to "get" at his family gatherings, and some years have been less than desired, but this year we had a really good time. I will try to explain the collage above:
Top, left to right: Jeff's brother Wayne with his new baby daughter, Leighton. Jenna and Grandma arm wrestling, grandma beat her, she's pretty strong! Our niece Melissa with her boyfriend Tommy. The girls with Scooby, Daisy and Shadow.

Middle row: All the grand kids that were present. Brawnson, Mikki, Haley, Melissa, Ryleigh on lap, Austin, and Heather with Leighton, Jenna and Jessica on the back of the couch. Haley on grandpa's lap. Mikki with Ryleigh. Uncle Edwin (Jeff's brother) with Haley.

Bottom row: Mikki could have sat ALL DAY holding Leighton, grandma with Ryleigh, my girls with Ryleigh, the grand kids that night swimming at the hotel, our niece Heather with Ryleigh (she and her sister Melissa were flower girls in our wedding 16.5 years ago!) and Jenna with Leighton.

As you can see Leighton stole the show! She and her sister are so cute! We enjoyed them very much.

Happy Birthday Scooby!

Well Scooby's 3rd birthday is coming up and so we got him a birthday present. A NEW PLAYMATE! All my feet dragging and refusing came to a halt this afternoon when we came upon these darling puppies for sale. Of course the girls fell in love. I have to admit, so did I. We have been having so many problems with Scooby because he is so lonely. If he gets out of the house without being tied up he roams the neighborhood looking for other dogs, he usually goes right down to his friend's house. If she isn't home, he roams all over., often getting far away. We decided the only way to stop that, was to get him a playmate. We found this cute Shi-poo (Shih-tzu/poodle) puppy. Female. We have named her Daisy . Isn't she darling? Scooby fell in love at first sight. Guess what- he didn't roam the neighborhood when Daisy was outside with him. Yeah, I know...we're crazy. But ya only live once!

Easter egg dyeing

Happy Easter! We dyed Easter eggs today on our last day of Spring Break! Boo Hoo! It went waaayyy too fast. Jeff and I were up at the new house so much this week, especially Jeff, so many decisions to be made. Exciting things, like where we want the light switches, outlets and cable. Boring! I never realized that those decisions really are difficult and the electrician is like standing there waiting on us to make it! Scooby got a new hair cut yesterday and is a new man. He is all decked out in his Easter best from the groomer.

Oreo Cookie (Dec. 2000-March 2008)

Well, today was the day. Today at 11:30 Jeff kept the appt. with the vet for Oreo to be put to sleep. We all said good-bye this morning. A very teary good-bye. We will miss her very very much but it was time, she was really struggling to breathe and was totally blind. Jeff came to my classroom at noon and his eyes were all red rimmed. He took it really hard, but of course he was the one who was in there holding her while it took place.

Last night the girls painted the sides of the box that Oreo would be put in and buried. And we took some final pictures last night and this morning. After school we all went to the new house, where Jeff had already traipsed back into the woods and had dug a hole. We buried her there. We all cried, of course.

Row one- Oreo and Scooby- BEST friends, Oreo, Oreo with Mikayla and Mikayla decorating the box.

Row two- Haley decorating the box, Haley with Oreo, Oreo with her all time favorite toy that usually was only reserved for grandma and grandpa's house, they brought it in for Oreo to enjoy during her last days. She sure did enjoy it, I really think that that toy was the only thing that actually got her up and moving for the past couple weeks, Oreo with Jenna this morning before school.

Row 3- The box that we buried Oreo in- all painted and looking pretty. Jeff out in the woods behind the house putting the box into the ground. If you look way up at the top of the picture you probably can see the house at the top and Jeff down at the box by her grave. The last picture is a close-up picture looking at the back of the house.

Row 3- Repeat of row 1

We will really miss her and as Jenna has been saying all along, she is just a dog. Jenna has been very brave, but when she did see Oreo in her little box she did break down quite a bit. We are letting the girls know that it is ok to grieve but yet she IS only a dog without a soul.

We found out some very terrible news today that really puts things into perspective. A very sweet couple from our church in Madison Heights, Michigan had a little 2 year old beautiful baby girl that died of childhood cancer yesterday. Her name was Alleta Lopez. Her parents, Dan and Flor Estella, and Alleta's brother, have broken hearts far worse than we can even imagine. This puts our sadness of losing Oreo into CLEAR perspective as we grieve with this family. Dan and Flor you are in our prayers and the tears we cry are for you also.

Sad News

Well, last Thursday we found out some pretty sad news. Our little Oreo, who we have had since Jenna was about 5 has cancer. She has been acting sickly, and having a hard time breathing, and pretty lethargic. We then noticed some lumps on her neck. We took her to the vet and the vet confirmed our fears that yes, she didn't have long to live. Oreo is already "legally" blind. (Like, for sure wouldn't be able to drive a car or anything :) ) The only reason she functions ok is because she has Scooby to follow around and she knows our house well. We were really wondering how she would do in a new house, she would probably run into the furniture all the time. Outside, she runs into trees! It is sad. Anyway, we aren't sure how long she will be with us, and so we are treating her like a queen. Lots of extra love and snacks. Even scraps off our plates!

I am including an email that my neice Madison wrote to Jenna. They are 13 hours apart and absolutely BEST friends. It is very sweet! All the yellow moving smiley faces didn't copy, she had crying "smiley" faces. And at the end, she had 2 "smileys" hugging each other. I about cried when I read it...

'Hi Jenna i am so sorry to here about Oreo .(crying smiley) How is she right now does she still run and play with little Scooby. i hope your OK about it all if you need to talk to me just e-mail me and i will call you. k? (winking smiley) i would give you a hug if i was there so here'(hugging smileys)

Show 'N Tell

In Mikayla's class they only get to have show n tell when it is their "Handy Helper" week. Mikayla was the handy helper this past week so she got to bring in her dogs for show n tell. Jeff had to go home from work, get the dogs, bring them to her class at 2:45, take the dogs back home and then go back to work. (Oh, and Scooby, who sometimes gets car sick, proceeded to throw up on the way to school!-so Jeff had to clean that up too!) Mikayla was on cloud nine though so the trouble was worth it. I snuck out of my class and took some pictures.


I am very glad the week is over. It went so much faster than last week, which lasted an eternity, but by Friday night I am just so exhausted. I have decided that as much as I look forward to the weekend, I don't like Friday night. I get home and just want to go to bed! Jeff wants to rent a movie or something and I just want to go to bed. His busy nights are Sat. nights as he does his final prep for Sundays, so then Sat. nights are shot. The weekend evenings are pretty much boring.

Today in school one of my kids made it clear to me that I have to go into detail about every little thing that is said, and written. On their back to school supply list they were to buy "red pens", ok, seems easy enough. So today as the kids were going through their corrected assignments in their "Friday Folders" a boy came up to my desk and I could just tell that he wanted to "prove" me wrong on something by the way he thrust a paper in my face. At the top of his paper I had written, "Please use a red pen!" (we correct their assignments in class sometimes and they need to use a red pen to do that) And he brought his pen up and said, "I did use a red pen!" I scanned the paper and saw that the ink was blue. Hmmm...??? It hit me, he and his parents thought that the color of the outside of the pen needed to be red, not the ink!!! Sure enough, the outside of his pen was red, but it had blue ink. So I tried to explain this to him. He finally understood it. Sigh...it's going to be a long year.

Well, that 's all for now. I hope you have a great weekend and Labor Day!

It's a scorcher!

Hi all- It is sure hot today!!! When I complained about the heat today, Leah said that she thought it was a "beautiful day because she was choosing to look on the bright side of things!" Touche' Leah, you got me back. (read yesterday's blog) It really was hot. It was around 95 with a zillion % humidity. The second you stepped outside you were dripping wet. That didn't stop the kids from having a blast out at grandma and grandpa's. Grandpa got a pony, decided to rent again, instead of buy since the summer is almost over, he will buy next summer. He is renting "Taffy" from an Amish family. Taffy is small, kind of like a Shetland pony, she had a baby recently and they are weening her from her colt so the Amish family is glad to have her gone from their farm for awhile. She is a very gentle pony and the kids are loving her. Of course the 4 wheeler went through a couple tanks of gas again. Scooby and Oreo got haircuts today and are looking spiffy. Jenna took a shower at G & G's house and is wearing one of grandpa's t-shirts and then thought she would be funny and borrow a pair of his underwear!!! A little too big. Jenna and I have volleyball camp again tomorrow morning from 9-11:30. It was a whole lot of fun today, but I will be sore tomorrow. Everyone is tucked in bed now. Mikayla and Haley fell asleep on the way back in to our house, we got home around 9 p.m. Madison is sleeping over tonight so she can go and watch Jenna at camp tomorrow. They have their alarm set for 6:15 tomorrow morning so they can do some things before camp at 9. Can't they just sleep?? Those 2 are 2 peas in a pod and just have a blast together. Well, it's been a long day so I will sign out. I have a few blogs to catch up on myself so I will read those before bed. Good night!

Mikki put Scooby's tail in pony tails.

Mikayla and Haley use chocolate pudding as fingerpaints.

I know, I know...It's been a couple days since I have updated my sight. I don't have much to report. The last several days haven't been that exciting. Swimming lessons started Monday so that is what we did in the morning, then we went home for lunch. Haley had Ramen Noodles, Mikayla had spaghetti with Parmesan cheese on it and Jenna had a cheese pizza, and I had a homemade taco salad. Am I crazy for making four different lunches? Yes, I am but when you don't have anything planned and you make the casual comment, "What do you want for lunch?" You get 4 different answers. After our 4 different lunches we went back to the pool, met lots of people from the school and the girls had a great time playing with them.

Today Mikayla, Jenna and I all got haircuts. Mik and I got trims and Jenna got a couple inches taken off, layered etc. She looks quite stylish! The rest of the day we just hung out. I worked about 4 hours on Curriculum Guides for School. I am about half way done with History. My room is coming along. I worked Monday night for several hours. I cleared off my back table where I hold my "book clubs chats", I have about 3 or four more piles to go through! When i started out Monday night my desk was totally clean, now it is piled very high. Did I just move the piles from the back table to my desk?!?! :(

We are off to see Lucky again tomorrow. We have been told that he got his feet manicured but will probably be sore for a few days but the girls are anxious to get on his back and see if he will take even one step! They would be thrilled with that!

Have a good one!