Durango Palmers: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Remember Last Week?

Yeah me too. It was Thanksgiving and I'm finally posting some pictures!!!

I will admit that I have been a bit on the busy side. Many things to blog about that have happened in the last 5 days. Like our Pastor resigning, Kate losing her first tooth and putting up all our Christmas decorations (we crank it out all at once rather than over a few days...). I tried posting something yesterday but I couldn't get my pictures up. And I'm really trying to include pictures to make my ramblings a bit more interesting :)

So to catch up on our last week:

We spent Thanksgiving in Greeley with Mark's mom's family. We hadn't seen them in almost 4 years so it was so great to meet up with them and catch up! And see how stinkin huge their kids had grown as well as introducing them to Jack-a-bo.

Our serious picture

And the crazy fun one

We didn't realize that we were missing someone until I looked at these pictures that Mark's cousin's wife sent me. Another cousin's wife is missing! How in the world do you have everyone in the house in a picture and miss one? Who knows. Sorry Nicole!

The little kids table

The fancy "big kids" table

My beautiful sister-in-law, Julie, and my wonderful father-in-law, Doug

Julie is preggers with my first nephew, Kieran Arthur. She's due any day now! We begged him to come out early so we could meet him but he resisted. Bummer for us :(

Here's Julie with my other beautiful sis-in-law, Alisha, who is due the end of January. She recently was put on bed rest and we're praying that little girly stays in there until she's ready! She stood up long enough for a picture!

Mark's grandma - we call her Dorothy the Great - is 96! We had a picture taken of her and our kids and then her and all the great grandkids.

And a final pic of Mark and I. Sorry for all the grainy pictures. Hard to take them with low light.

Whew! Finally got that one done. Now for like 5 more....I promise to work on them this week! So much to say!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Fun on Friday - 29 {luncheon}

I'm delayed because I'm in Denver and have just now stolen my sister's laptop so I can add some photos and a little story just so you know I'm still around and still blogging although my lack of communication could show the opposite. And I win for longest sentence....

Last Thursday my little family hopped in our minivan and drove up to Denver to surprise my dad. He was honored at a luncheon on Friday for Outstanding Professional in Philanthropy - Fundraising. He works for a children's home. They take care of, and counsel, abused children and their families. He does awesome work and has raised literally millions of dollars for the children's home in the last couple of years. He was honored at this luncheon along with several other Coloradans and it was so cool being a part.

He was surprised to see my kids walk in to their house on Thursday night. My uncle, his brother, was already here and he knew about him. A couple hours later my aunt Holly from Connecticut walked in a surprised him again. Then Friday morning we went and picked up my sister Katie who flew in from NY and we surprised him again. Surprises all around!

Mark's folks came down and watched our kids so they had FF with them instead of us and I think they loved it. They got to go to the park.

Mark and I headed to a hotel downtown for a lunch with 970 of our closest friends.

I told Mark that this was the nicest meal we've had in many moons! Yeah I totally took a picture of my salad plate. YUM!

This is a picture of my dad up on the big screen giving his acceptance speech. He was too far away to get a live one of him so this worked just fine. I was so proud of him.

After the lunch we took family pictures to document the occasion. Here I am with my siblings. Nate, Katie, Kelly, Meghan and moi. You probably can't tell we're related...

And here is the entire crew who turned out for the occasion.

Katie, Meghan, Nathan, Sarah (Nate's fiance), Kelly, Carson (Kelly's boyfriend), my dad, My aunt Holly, my mom, my uncle Kim, me and Mark. My sister Meghan's husband was missing.

It was so fun to hang out with my family.

The kids and I are staying in Denver through Thanksgiving. Mark drove back Saturday morning to get home in time to help with a wedding. He'll come back up on Wednesday and we'll do Thanksgiving with his family.

Saturday evening I went out with my mom and sisters, aunts and cousin to a Girls Only show. A hilarious improv comedy about the joys of being a woman. So fun!

Since we've been here we've gone to the park, the museum (to see robot animated T-Rex and Triceratops), saw friends, watched movies and hung out with more family. Tomorrow we'll be baking in preparation for the big day and waiting eagerly to see Mark.

And now I think you're about caught up...until I get home and can blog some more! :)

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Empty

It's hard to blog when you feel like your mind is empty. I've sat and stared at a computer screen a couple of times this past week, with great intentions, and nothing came out of it.

So now the kids and I are in Denver. I don't have my regular computer. Mark is back in Durango. And I have things to share. And no way to share them.

Hopefully I can figure something out. And quickly...

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Fun on Friday - 28 {Christmas and Veterans}

First off, we slept in. Kinda. Well at least I did. I got up at 7 instead of 6. Jack does not care what day it is or what everyone else wants to do. When he's awake - we all are.

~~~on a side note: Jack woke up early this morning as well, and I told him he had to stay in bed till 7. He didn't want to sleep - which was fine with me - but he had to stay quiet in his bed. A little after 7 I went in to free him from his little "prison" and couldn't find him. It was dark in his room but you could still kinda see. I was so confused. Then I saw the window curtains move. Jack had climbed into his window sill and is small enough that the curtains easily cover him. I opened the curtains to find that he had drawn, with orange marker, on the window and on his window sill and of course on himself. Grr...~~~

Anyway, we headed to the Family Dollar to do a little Christmas shopping for our Operation Christmas Child box. Every year we try to sponsor a child and fill a shoe box with toys, toiletries and anything else we can stuff in there. We usually have done one box for each child but this year there are many opportunities for us to donate. So we decided to do a little of each. Do a box, give money for an orphanage in Romania, sponsor a child or two in a Mexican orphanage and hopefully help out a child in Durango. It was so hard to just pick one! They are all wonderful ways to give back at Christmas.

The kids had blast finding toys and candy and socks and toothbrushes. They all understood that this was for a child somewhere in the world. It was neat to see them participate.

Then we headed to town for Durango's Veteran's Day Parade. I swear Durango has so many parades! It's great!

We met some friends and enjoyed honoring veterans! What a great thing to teach our children. That we are allowed to worship God, go to school at home and live where we want (among countless other freedoms) because of men and women who have sacrificed for us.
What a blessing!

Kim, Ashley, Jo, Mark, Kate, Benen, Jack, Anna, Kale and Celine.

Kale, Anna and Jack

Love the bagpipes!

Kate, Jack, Anna and Kale

This car was so fun!

I'd ride this bus

Low. Ride - er...

Ended the day with hot chocolate and naps. Oh and Mark did a wedding...and we had small group.
What a fun Friday!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Spa Day

If you read my post yesterday you would know that by 9:15am I needed a spa day. Unfortunately my day only continued to spiral. It wasn't a horrible, no good, very bad day but it certainly wasn't one that I wanted to repeat every day. Just a lot of miscommunication, noise and mishap after mishap. I'd like to say that I took the challenge and came through like a champ but I can't. I think I had moments of grace and patience but they were mixed in with moments of frustration and annoyance. God still has a lot of work to do in me and my attitude :)

Thankfully today is a new day!

I wanted to share, though, some of the good things my children were up to yesterday in the midst of the stress.

They each got one treat after lunch and they chose suckers. They all laid on the floor of Kate's room and begged me for a picture. I obliged.

Then a bit later Kale came to me asking me for cucumbers. I asked him why on earth would he need cucumbers. He told me that were playing "spa" and that they needed cucumbers for their eyes. I have no idea how they know about that. Mark says Phineas and Ferb. Who knows. I told them I did not have cucumbers but they could cut out green circles and pretend they were cucumbers.

I helped them with their project and this is how I found them later. It's hard to see that they're colored green but you get the idea...

Monday, November 7, 2011

Wow. (and a little Fun on Friday-27)

Sometimes that's all I can say. I realize I left you to read over and over - if you so desired - a story of throwing up and potty training. I am so that mom sometimes! Sorry for the nasty details of my glamorous life. It's reality people.

This week continued in the wow-ness. I desperately tried to catch up with homeschooling. Kale and I had several stand off's. He was not interested in school and I said that that was fine but he wasn't going to have any privileges - ya know TV, staying up late, lunch... - until he decided to finish it. And lest you think I'm a mean ole homeschooling mama, the kid gets plenty of breaks and one stand off in particular, he'd been working on school for about 30 minutes and 10 of that was me reading to him (which he loves). So I knew he could do a little more. Part of homeschool training is perseverance. For both of us...

We worked at the soup kitchen on Tuesday. Jack came for his first and only time for a while. He did great helping for about 30 minutes then he was more of a distraction than a help. I was glad he wanted to come but probably won't do that again until he's a bit older.

We also raided Walmart, this week, for costumes and candy on sale. We don't really do much on Halloween, our own personal convictions, but we all love the costumes and the candy. So I love going the day after and getting new dress up clothes for cheaper and bags of candy for the kids to enjoy for the next 6 months or so. Lord help me.

Fun Friday consisted of a trip back to Walmart to get Cars 2. The big kids wanted to split their allowance money to buy the DVD. They came home and we popped pop-corn and watched the movie. Nothing too exciting but the kids liked it. Jack had all his Cars cars lined up and was playing with them throughout the movie.

Saturday we got a babysitter and Mark and I ~~went on a date~~ helped a friend move. We left early in the morning and were gone till dinner. Unfortunately it was blizzarding most of the day. Check that off my bucket list - moving in the snow :) We may not have liked doing it in the snow but we were glad to help out our good friend. She's the gal who got us Mishka and we were happy to be a part of the adventurous moving day.

Church, staff pictures, naps, and card games rounded off our weekend.

This morning - full of hope and a mile-long check list - I got up to have my quiet time. I discovered while making my coffee that the boys were awake and playing with their bedroom light on at 6:15. Curse you daylight savings! Thankfully they stayed in their room until my quiet time was over.

While reading my Bible I heard a noise like water running. I look up to see the cat peeing on a blanket that had been left on the floor. Again with the pee. I'm sorry. I jumped up, grabbed the stinkin cat and threw him outside. Then started a load of laundry to get the nasty smell out asap. I'm thinking he's unhappy with his current living situation. Ya know, the dog.

I had barely finished reading my Bible when the kids got up and I've been running since. I discovered, while doing the boys' laundry, that, while I do check what I'm putting in the washer, things still sneak in there. Like a pull-up. I was transferring clothes from the washer to dryer and found all those little white nasty things that are inside diapers and pull-ups. Apparently there was one inside some jammies that I did not thoroughly inspect. Grr! So I had to clean out the washer and pray that the little balls would get caught in the lint thingy in the dryer. Oh bugger.

And it's only 9:15!
I've got to stop typing now and start school. You can never be sure of what kind of school day you'll have. It could take two hours or ten. It just depends on the moods of the students and the teacher :)

Friday, November 4, 2011

Visit from Family

----This post comes with a warning for those of you who have weak stomachs. There may be references (a lot) to bodily functions of the non-pleasant variety.---

Like I said yesterday, we had more company coming into town on Friday. My folks and my sister, Kelly, and her boyfriend, Carson, came down Friday night for a quick weekend trip. This was Carson's first trip to Durango and I'm sure it will be a memorable one.

Saturday morning, 2am to be exact, Kate came into our room and said that her tummy hurt. After trying to get her to poop (yes sometimes that's why they have a tummy ache), giving her a drink of water and a children's pepto, she promptly threw up all of her pizza and ice cream from dinner. Wow. This went on every hour for the rest of the evening. What a way to start off a weekend!

Saturday morning Jack said his tummy hurt. It took him a few false alarms but eventually he threw up too. Then after Kale ate his breakfast, he went and threw that up. Seriously so fun. They hadn't even seen grandma and grandpa yet since they had stayed in a hotel.

In between throwing up episodes the kids acted fine. But you could tell when the nastiness was coming back...they started getting clingy and wanting snuggles. After a little while with no puke we decided to risk it and go sight-seeing. Like I said, Carson had never been here.

So we loaded up the two vehicles - we had Jack and Kate and aunt Kelly with us - and led the rest for a tour. It went really well until about 2/3 of the way through. Just about when we hit Main street Jack lost it again. We had to drive down the rest of Main with the nasty smell. Thankfully we had brought with us a pot and he totally hit his target. About 10 blocks later Kate lost it again...into the same pot. We were overwhelmed at this point and had to pull over to empty it out. Dis-gust-ing.

We headed to the hotel to watch the Nebraska game and let the kids rest. They really wanted to swim at the hotel. As you read this you probably can't believe that I even let them go swimming. Don't worry. We brought the puke pot with us :)

They did fine at the pool. No throwing up. In fact they had a great time. After the pool they snacked on saltines and Ginger Ale. They kept everything down so we decided to risk it again and go to the train museum.

See how well they look?

Jack has been potty training this past week. I'm hesitant to say it but I'm almost sure he's figured it out and is now fully wearing big boy undies. Can I just say that little 3 yr old chubbies are adorable in tighty whiteys? Especially with Cars characters on them? :)

Anyway, I say this because Jack had a small accident at the museum but then told me he had to poop. I raced him down the track to the main part of the train station and was able to catch it. We went back to the museum only to race back to the bathroom 15 minutes later because he wasn't finished. Let's just say that kid can go! He doesn't like wearing even pull-ups at night so I'm pretty sure we are done with the diaper wearing! (on a side note - as happy as I am to be done buying diapers, I'm a bit sad at the fact that this totally signifies the end of a season. No more babies...sniff, sniff)

Back to the weekend.
After the train museum we went home for dinner and then after the kids went to bed we played games. Mark and I put the kids to bed and when we got done we found this:

Everyone was either playing on their phone or their iPad. My dad looked up and tried to look innocent at the last minute but he wasn't :)

We played Cranium and laughed and talked smack. It was wonderful.

Sunday morning Mark woke up with the crud so he didn't get to go to church. He stayed home with Jack and Kate while they continued to recover. Somehow I managed to escape it. I don't know how. I'm just thankful I did. Caring for those with the crud wore me out!

Our company left after church :( and the rest of the day was spent recovering!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Fun on Friday - 26 {um...a walk}

As you read yesterday, we spent our Friday morning and early afternoon cleaning. Not such a FF. So after nap we decided to get out and have a little fun.

We took Mishka out for his first FF with the Palmers. We went to the river trail behind the mall and visited the bridge they recently opened. It was still so gorgeous down there!

This is a picture of us whining about the last 20 feet we had to walk.

After the walk we got some pizza and ice cream and came home and ate and watched the Cosby Show and waited for our next round of company to come to town. More on that tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

It Came!

A few weeks ago I posted about our FF trip to Farmington to look at furniture. We decided not to get anything from there once we shopped at a local store and found an incredible deal. They told us it would take two weeks to get in.

Then early on Friday we got a call saying they a surprise shipment had come in. Our furniture was here and could they deliver it that day...um yes!

So we spent our Friday morning cleaning and rearranging in preparation for our new hide-a-bed and two chairs. After they were delivered, Mark and I spent quite a while arranging and rearranging them until we got them where we {think} we want them.

Notice Mishka peeking out from behind the ottoman!

Aren't they fun and crazy red?! I think we might be a little obsessed with brown and red...

Pages