RazNoggle

Yesterday Stuart came home a little early and as Qade was napping still, I took the opportunity to take my 2 mile walk.  It was nice just to walk alone and briskly down the dirt road.  Not that I mind taking Qade.  It’s one of the fun things we get to do, but it was just nice to get some fresh air and breathing space.  As it runs out I’m kinda glad I didn’t have Qade with me.  I was walking along with the dog and I noticed that there was “something” in the road up ahead.  The sun was shining in my eyes so it took a minute for me to figure out that those blobs up ahead were cows!  There’s a good friend of the Noggle family who rents their land for his cows and he told me that he was going to move them to this side of the road after Thanksgiving.  So sure enough there they were.  When we got a little closer they stopped walking and just stared at me and the dog.  Then one of the big gals took off running and Cisco, of course, thinking he’s all macho dog, had to chase it!  They all moved off the road for me, except one…..  the bull. :-O  Now Jim told me there was a bull, but he said he’s “friendly” whatever that means in bull language.  All I knew was that he weighs several several hundreds of pounds more than me!  I kept my cool though, looked right at him and walked on by.  He only seemed mildly curious, but wasn’t about to relinquish his spot on the road for one measly dog and some weird lady.  One good thing is he has no horns so he’s not as intimidating as he would have been otherwise.  So that was my big adventure. Ha ha!

This morning is going pretty well.  It’s overcast and wintery looking out there, but I don’t think we’ll be lucky enough to get snow.   I do wish for it though.  Around Christmas time I always feel like I’m missing something when there’s no snow.  Guess that’s what I get for growing up in Colorado!  But aside from that things is good.  I had yet another wretched diaper from Sage.  Oh, was it bad!  I was actually gagging while I changed his diaper, and that stunt is usually reserved for Stuart!  Plus on top of that I had to suction Qade’s nose, and that’s kinda sick too.  Man, the things you do when you’re a mommy!  Speaking of… I think I’m getting whiffs of a second helping from Sage- Oh No!!!!

Well, before I get to that I’ll just tell you that Qade and I had fun this morning doing some Pilates together!  On one of his Baby Einstein DVD’s there’s a bonus section from this lady who teaches Pilates and she showed some moves you can do with your munchkin so you add play time to work out time.  It’s pretty cool!  Hopefully we’ll be able to fit some in every morning.  That would help my saggy belly a bunch I think. Hee hee.  Okay, I’m bracing myself for this icky diaper, help!  Have a wonderful day full of pleasant odors.

Both the lil guys are asleep at the moment. Hopefully it will last for several more moments. This morning I had to deal with a doozy of a diaper from little Sage! WOW! I just about lost it! Not that it was any worse than I see regularly, but the smell would just about knock you down! I’ve learned that you kinda get used the odors your own little one puts out, but other babies can really dish out some gruesome things. Ha, so how’s that to start out a blog post! Sorry, just sharing my own life experiences on here. Hee hee!

Today I’ve got laundry and dishes and such on my list to do. Actually I don’t have a “list” I just know they need to get done. Ya know that part in scripture where Christ says, “The poor you’ll always have with you.”? Well, sometimes it feels like he should have added laundry and dishes to that list too. I am thankful though that I have a dishwasher AND my dryer is now working correctly!! Can you imagine what life would have been like way back when they had to wash everything in a bucket by hand? It’s no wonder they wore the same clothes day after day. I really am spoiled. But heaven will be even better because there will be no laundry!

Yesterday I had to take Qade in for his flu shot. He got one last month, but for some reason after their first shot they have to have a booster a month later. Don’t ask me why. I hate having to get my boy poked, but the nurse did such a fabulous job that he didn’t even know it happened till he already had a bandaid on and was getting dressed again. He only just barely complained and I think it was more because someone he didn’t know was messing with him. I’m just glad it was fast! Anyway after that I had to run to Walmart to pick up our Christmas cards (yay-fun!!) and I found some baby rice crackers for Qade. I’ve been giving him these club cracker sticks to practice munching on, but I think they are too salty for his tastes. These rice ones are made for babies so they don’t have all that added fat and salt that we adults like. Anyway, he got to much on one while Stu and I had dinner and he really enjoyed it! Well, I’m not sure how much he actually swallowed but he did have a grand time chewing and spitting it out. Ha! It was pretty fun to watch too. He’s getting really good about eating his baby food. I’ve been introducing new things to him as they recommend, but probably not as fast. I don’t feel like I need to rush him into eating everything right now. He’s had peas (loved it) squash (did great!) apple sauce (did NOT like it- I think it’s a texture thing) bananas (likes real banana, but not so keen on the baby food kind hmmm…) and yesterday he ate carrots and like those really well too. Besides that he has cereal every day, and he does really well with that. I think I’ll finish up his carrots today and tomorrow try pears. I can’t figure why he likes all the veggies better than the fruit, but I guess it’s a good start to healthy eating!

Well, must go! The Christmas cards are calling and begging me to start addressing them so I’d better get going on that. Have a wonderful day, friends!

This is the transformation of our living room from paneling to perfect. Well, pretty much. I like it anyway!

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had! We ended up having my family (parents and brother- other bro and wife couldn’t make it *sniff*) and Stu’s family (parents, foster bro, Uncle and girlfriend, her 2 granddaughters, and Stu’s 2 cousins and grandma) all at our house for the big event. I got up at 6 something to get the “bird” in the oven. We had a 23 pound gobbler to cook. I read some stuff online about what to do for seasoning and such. There are some good ideas out there. Next year I think I’ll soak it in brine for 24 hours before we cook it. However it did turn out well this year too, and was quite nummy! Everyone brought something so the whole meal didn’t fall on my shoulders.  It was still a lot of work, but it was fun too, and after it was all over I got a good neck rub from my mom.

The day after the turkey carnage we had “projects” to do, oh yeah!  Stuart and his dad got busy crawling under the house and cutting holes in the wall so they could hook up the heat in Qade’s room.  None too soon either for it was only 10* that night!!  We’d been using a space heater lest any of you think that our poor boy was in there freezing, but now he has his very own wall unit and it works nicely to keep him toasty at night.  While they were busy with all of that me and my mom and bro were slathering the walls with primer and paint!  It took a long time, but I was sooooo thankful for their help because it would have taken ages without them.  As it was by about 3pmish or so I had a brand spankin’ “new” living room!!!  Yay!  I just couldn’t take the paneling. I’ve lived in too many houses with it and it makes it so dark inside.  So now I have a pleasantly light room.  Two walls are a deep maroon color and the rest are a light gray with red undertones so it all goes together VERY nicely!  I’ll post some pictures of it up here as soon as I get the slideshow thing figured out.  If I don’t get it figured out then I’ll just post some the regular way-ha!

On Saturday, even though I’ve totally sworn off the “black” weekend shopping, we had to go to town to get our tree!!!  It was so fun!  The Home Depot actually had some really good trees for not so much!  I was impressed, and ours is a very aromatic “noble fir” with very thick branches.  I just can’t wait to decorate it!  After we got the tree we had to brave Walmart for some “stuff.”  It wasn’t too bad.  We actually made it through the line lickity split which is always the worst part about the wally world experience.

One thing we just happened upon in the store were these cups of coffee that were self heating.  We were skeptical of course, but decided we HAD to give it a try.   So I got the French Vanilla Latte and Stu got the Rich Hot Chocolate.  After we got all loaded up in the Envoy we got our special drinks out and gave it a whirl.  You had to push this button on the bottom to do uh… something, and then you waited a few minutes and sure enough it started to get hot!!!  The cup said it was a technology called “quicklime” or something, but either way it worked, and we got to enjoy a toasty drink all the way home!  It was cool too, because it stayed hot the whole time rather than cooling like a regular drink.  Still even though it was totally cool I think that 2 bucks for a 9.5 oz drink is a bit much.   But it was worth it for the fun we had in the process.

Just so you all know, these posts are written in advance. I write them at home, and then when we have a chance we upload them to the web server and then they “publish” at the magic time that we’ve set them for. I know, it takes the spontaneity out of life to a point, but I don’t know how else to get my blogging done when we have no steady internet. So…
Oh yes, the late part. WELL… usually in October the mood really hits me, and it did this year too, but we were so stinkin’ busy that whole month that I couldn’t do anything about it! Now here we are heading into mid November and I still haven’t had a chance, but I’m going to make it happen this week!!! I will start listening to my Christmas music!! I can’t believe I’ve lasted this long! Of course it’s been pretty warm, and that doesn’t help. Still to make up for lost time I might just have to keep listening right into February. Hee hee!!

Qade and I have been taking a 2 mile walk, well it’s a 2 mile RIDE for Qade, but he loves it just the same. There is this big rock in the dirt road up to our house that is just about a mile, so we walk there and back for a really nice walk. We got a really nice jogging stroller for Qade, but I have to tell you that even with those amazing tires, it is a workout trying to push that buggy up the sandy hill. The last half of the road is mostly Arizona sand and the stroller more snowplows than rolls through it. But I need the exercise anyway. Qade just loves to be outside!! Even if he’s having a fussy day, when I take him out he’s happy. I love that! The dog usually goes with us, but he’s busy chasing imaginary rabbits. Sometimes the cat condescends to come too, but he doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much. Yesterday we had to cut our walk down to only a mile because there was a really BIG thunder cloud that came up and started chasing us! It never did rain, but there was lightning and thunder. I’m not willing to brave those critters just for the sake of exercise. Ya got to draw the line somewhere…. so lets break out the dark chocolate and celebrate. Hee hee!