Merry Christmas

So far today has been a nice relaxing day. It started by waking up to happy screaming children running down the hall. Joe's sister Nancy, and her family are here for the holidays as well, so my kids get to play with their cousins. We had a great pancake breakfast. 

Since then, I have spent the majority of my time on hair. First I did Winter's hair up, and then Ginger's.  They both got fancy hair-do's I found on a blog I read.  Since the curling iron was hot, I decided to curl my own hair too. I have this new curling sculpting gel, that works amazingly well. Usually my curls fall out just about as soon as I get them in there. It has now been a few hours, and the curls are still bouncy! Sterling's hair just got a quick spike. 

I also trimmed Nancy's hair in the back. I have never really cut hair into a style like she has, so I was a little nervous. She seemed to be happy with it, so that's a relief. Richard needed a trim too, so I did that as well. I really enjoy cutting hair, especially when I don't have to clean up afterwards.

The rest of the day will be nice and relaxing too, as the only thing I have planned so far is eating lucnch, dinner, and doing the nativity play tonight after dinner. Joe's family has the tradition to act out the story of Jesus' birth on Christmas eve. We dress up and everything! It's a lot of fun, and keep the true purpose of Christmas in the front of our minds the day before the big celebration.

Injuries on the rise

I'm not sure what's going on with me these last few weeks, but I have been prone to injury.  It all started when I stubbed my toe on some hardwood flooring that is waiting to be laid. It was bleeding pretty badly, and hurt for a long time. Oh, btw, Joe was laughing at me when it happened, because that wood had been laying there for a few weeks. Only then, he was punished by the karma Gods a few days later, when he too stubbed his toe really hard.

The next injury I incurred was just a few days ago when I was doing a mad-dash cleaning session in the kitchen. I was picking up stuff to go in the trash, when out of the corner of my eye saw a can top. I had already kind of turned away from it, and blindly reached backward to grab it. The serrated edge cut straight through my sensitive pinky skin, all the way to the bone (or so it seemed). 2 advils, 4 band-aids, and 24 hours later it was just barely starting to feel better. Here it is 4 days later

The final (hopefully) injury occurred just a few minutes ago while I was out feeding our new pig. Oh yes, I totally forgot to blog about our cute little potbellied pig named "Biggie Smalls". 

Joe found Biggie on Craigslist. Some people had him as a house pet, so he is potty trained. But of course we are not the types to have pets in the house, let alone pigs, so his new home is with Justin (dog), and the goats. They seem to get along quite nicely. Anyways, I was out there to feed them, and I tried to shoo away the goats so Biggie could eat. Well, I made the mistake to bend over, so that when one of the goats jerked his head up when I scared him, his big horn hit me hard in the forehead. At first I thought it was just a bump, but after touching it, and discovering blood on my hand, it appeared to have split open my head. I cleaned the blood off, and made the executive decision to patch it with a band-aid, instead of going to get stitches. So here I sit, typing with one hand while holding ice to my forehead, hoping my executive decision was a good one.

While I was out taking pictures of Biggie, I noticed my chickens' water was frozen over. I cracked the ice, which they seemed to appreciate, because they all started drinking immediately.

Are U ready?

Are you ready for Christmas? I finished wrapping my last presents on Friday, so I can relax until Christmas. I have been amazed to talk to some of my friends, and find out they have only just begun shopping. My husband also likes to shop at the last minute, although he has surprised me a few times by getting his shopping done more than 24 hours in advance.

Today our church had a special Christmas program, which was practically the same program as the creche. I hadn't touched my harp all week, so I got up early to practice through my solo, and duet. The only thing I was sad about, was that my sister-in-law Ruthie sang Oh Holy Night in the Plano ward, but we couldn't attend since I had to play in my own ward. Maybe I can get her to give me a private performance??

With last night's CVS shopping trip (got home at 1.30am), and having to get up early for church, I have been in quite a funk today. I crashed as soon as I got home from church at 2pm. When I woke up at 6pm, the whole house was dark, the kids were asleep, and I was so confused! I didn't know whether it was night or morning, and it wasn't until after I talked to my husband on the phone, that I realized it was still Sunday. (Joe had to go on a last minute business trip, during his VACATION) Of course, after such a late nap, there was no way the kids would go to bed at their usual 7.30pm bedtime, so I let them stay up. Overall they played nicely together, and here's some of the sights I was privied to

Winter's handmade/taped on glasses

Sterling the rocking Santa

Ginger playing with a nativity scene

All together cuteness

OMG

CVS is known for its good deals, but around Thanksgiving and Christmas they are through the roof. Yesterday I was able to go to CVS for their pre-Christmas sale, which started at midnight (at the 24-hour CVS)

So here's $215.62 worth of Stuff (thanks Winter for arranging it!)

Now here's what I "paid" for it

I started with $19.00 ECB (Extra Care Bucks)

I paid for $2.90 with a gift card

I ended with $32.98 ECB 

$13.98 ECB didn't print, so I will go back to the store to get that money

$3.99 MIR (mail in rebate) 

-------------------------------

So in essence they paid ME $29.05 to take all this stuff home.

 

Now anyone who asks me if it's really worth it to do all this coupon clipping, researching, and shopping can see that it IS worth it!

I was looking through my receipts and was amazed by this little tidbit of information

And this doesn't even include all the savings I have earned at Walgreens, Kroger, Albertsons, or Walmart (or last night's $215 trip). So every time I start wondering if I should keep investing $3 a week for a newspaper, 6 hours for shopping, and a few hours to clip and plan, I just need to come back to this post.

Ice day

Monday night we had a lot of freezing rain/hail, which just stuck to the ground in a thick layer of ice. Whenever this happens, our city is not equipped to take care of that problem. So they just shut down. The kids' school was cancelled. Texas has ice days, instead of snow days. The only thing that sucks about that is that they can't go out and play in the snow. 

At one point Winter and Sterling did venture out into the backyard, and headed for the trampoline. They were so excited, because it also had a sheet of ice on it. They started jumping on it, and shattering the ice, and then proceeded to put that ice in cups and eat it! They are crazy, but I figured, eating snow never hurt anyone, so ice should be okay too.

This morning they delayed school by 2 hours again, which was just fine with me. I don't mind getting up at 8.15am versus 6.15am any day.

Another party

Today we had another party, this time for our Foster Adoption Agency. We had to get up at the crack of dawn, because the party started at 9am, and we had a 1.5 hour drive ahead of us. Our agency is located in Hurst, which is in between Fort Worth and Dallas. They are hopefully opening up another office in Richardson, which is only 45 minutes from our house. The reason we chose our agency, is that their training was at a convenient time, and a convenient location. Don't get me wrong, I think they are great, but sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't be getting more calls for placements if they were in Collin County. My caseworker told me today that most of their kids come from Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, and Denton County. Only Collin would work for us.....

Being there with a lot of foster parents was bitter sweet. Bitter, because they all had foster kids, and we don't. Sweet because I saw proof that little babies and toddlers do go in the system: there is hope for us. The combination of our location (boonie land), and a new law that says you need a court order signed by a judge before you can remove a child from their home, make it so we have only gotten 1 call in the whole 3.5 months we have been verified. The hardest thing is not to give up, keep up hope, and trust we are doing the right thing by being there, available.

The kids were spoiled rotten with all sorts of yummy foods, a visit from Santa, and even a bunch of presents. Winter got a bike!! and a tamagotchi (electronic pet), and a jewelry bling set. Sterling walked away with 2 bionicles. And Ginger is the proud owner of a new baby doll with her own carrier. Thanks Santa!! 

Insensitive Expert

Every time I kill and slaughter a chicken, I feel like I've become more of a farm women. One of our roosters had the privilege of being slaugthered by a first timer -uncle Josh.  Joe was still working, so we were on our own. I usually rely heavily on Joe's expertise and insensitiveness, but I had to have courage today. The only thing I have yet to ever do is cut the throat, and pull the insides out. 

I gave Josh the honors of cutting the neck. The only thing was, that the knife was pretty dull. Joe still does the job somehow, but for a first-timer it's tricky. After cutting the neck, and letting some blood drain out, we put the rooster down to let it have after-death spasms. Well, the rooster just got on its legs, and walked away. So much for killing it. We hunted it down in the bushes, and decided the knife was not the right tool. 

The shovel was our next choice. I held the neck out, and Josh placed the shovel on the neck. Then he made a quick little jump, and off was the body. Skinning, de-gutting, and washing it was surprisingly non-gross. I guess I'm just becoming insensitive. The kids usually attend these slaughter sessions too, and don't seem to be bothered by it much anymore.  At least if the grocery stores close, we'll still have meat to eat