Just like the Pilgrims did it.

I am going grocery shopping today.

The Monday before Thanksgiving. It will be my own personal Hell, but it only gets worse from here. I am not a big fan of grocery shopping on a good day, but the closer we get to Thanksgiving the nuttier it gets. And my stupid grocery store likes to put all these dumb displays in the isles. Isles that are just big enough to let two carts pass each other...except when the put dumb displays in the isle!

I have a bad grocery shopping attitude. I don't have to drag little ones around with me, it's not as hard as it used to be. In fact I usually bring one of the kids to help.


It's just kinda funny to watch people with that crazy look in there eye the closer it gets to Thanksgiving. Like their entire existence depends on getting the right brand of canned cranberry sauce. And they'll knock over grandma to get it first if they have to. I'm telling you it's nutty out there.

If I'm not back in a few hours, please send reinforcements.

Don't let those serious faces fool you.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I should really just let this photo speak for itself, but I think we all know that's not going to happen.

My SIL sent me that photo and I just cracked up! I LOVE it! We went hunting/camping this weekend with Sir D's Brother D and his family. We had a BLAST. I just love camping. No cell reception, no internet, no interruptions. Just family and laughing and conversations and making memories. It's really want it's all about.



It makes my heart melt to see Sir D traipsing off to the pond with the girls and fishing poles or off to the woods with the boys and their guns. I almost burst with contentment when I sit around the campfire listening to Sir D and His Brother D telling stories from when they were kids growing up in the jungle. The kids laughing and listening intently for the ending of the story like they haven't heard it a thousand times.



To me those are the moments that make the family. Those are the memories my children will take into their families. I pray that they will one day, sit around with their siblings surrounded by all their kids and tell the stories like the ones they lived this weekend.

Thank you seems so inadequate

We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us. - George Orwell

Thank you Veterans, that I and my family, slept safely in our beds one more night.

Yet another addiction.

I am addicted to this site.



I need professional help.

Last night I saw warthogs. And antelope.

I. Can't. Stop.

By the way, the best way to begin your addiction is to visit the site at dawn and sunset. That's when all the animals visit to drink. It's opposite from ours so the sun is coming up there at about 7pm here.

Enjoy, just know...there is no cure.

Homeschool Skip Day

Yesterday the girls and I skipped school. We even went so far as to recruit one of their friends to skip with us.

It was just so nice yesterday. It seems it has done nothing but rain for the whole month of October and in Tx Oct is usually one of the few months you want to be outside here.

So we've gotten a bit of a warm trend (big surprise) for November and yesterday we took advantage of it.

The leaves are all changing right now and are more beautiful then I've seen them in years, I think because we've had so much rain, and the temps were hovering around 78. How do you possible justify staying inside on a day like that?

Eve had some volunteer work she does at a pre school nearby, but when she was done with that, we headed out to grab some fast food and go feed the ducks! Here are my girls and their friend that we grabbed on the way there.



This was our view from our bench.



Here are the three girls deciding the best way to get the attention of the ducks.



Once the girls left to go to the other side of the lake, I sat back and read my book. This was my view.



I love Fall. Honestly though, I would have loved to go look at the lovely Fall colors and be able to wear a sweater while doing it, but this is Texas. We wear shorts and T-shirts in Nov.



Happy Fall!

Lame Sauce

Last night I told Bob he could not attend something he wanted to attend. He would have been out too late on a school night.

He replies, "That's lame sauce."

"Sorry Bob, sometimes the parents have to be the lame sauce. It's our job." I said.

Bob looked at me for a minute and said.

"Yeah, you're like the maker of lame sauce, you're like a lame sauce factory!"

It's a great caption don't you think. 'Mom's of Teenagers: Lame Sauce Factories'.

This was of course all said in fun, because if he'd said it in anger he would have gotten a lot more than lame sauce from me!

Halloween 09

Here are my adorable kids on Halloween. Gone are the days of puppy dogs and fairies, but they are still pretty darn cute don't ya thing?

Here's Will and Bob in their Turnout Gear. They are both doing an apprenticeship type program through the Fire Department. Bob wants to be a Fireman.






Will wants to do the Paramedic/Fireman thing, and maybe go on to get a 4 year in nursing (or the more PC name...Health Sciences)



Are they handsome or what!
(If you're wondering why practically grown men are dressing up for Halloween, they were working a booth at our Church's Trunk or Treat, I promise they weren't knocking on doors asking for candy!)

Here's my Eve. She's a nerd. She had a lot of fun putting together this outfit. Her entire small group is doing a booth at our trunk or treat this year and they are all dressing up as nerds. One of the leaders (the college age one) took the girls out to a thrift shop to help them pick out their nerdy attire. She had almost as much fun shopping for this outfit as she did at the trunk or treat, I bet.



Here's Ann. She's a farm girl.



She's my last little one to dress up just because she's a kid and she wants too. She and her neighbor friend dressed up together. See their little freckles! How adorable they looked. These two look so much alike they could be sisters.



Happy Halloween!

BTW, if you are reading this and you have photos up on your blog of your kids dressed up for Halloween, leave ma a comment. I LOVE little kids in costumes!

Slow Down, so I Can Catch My Breath.

Have you ever noticed that time seems to pass in fits and starts? Or maybe we just pay attention in fits and starts.

This year I have a lot of firsts, a lot of monumental things happening. Those milestone moments in a persons life seem to be happening fast and often on the Hilltop these days and I'm not sure I like it.

Will is a Senior in High school. He's already taking college classes, but we've begun the process of officially graduating him. We're doing it with the home school co op we've been a part of for years now. There are meetings to be attended where venues and gown preference are chosen, and where speakers are nominated. It's a big deal, this graduating a kid from high school, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it.

There is something about this transition that is unsettling to me. Instead of seeing what a great young man Will is, seeing all he knows, and all he can do, all I can see is what I've not taught him yet. All the things we've not done, all the books yet unread and the projects left undone. Has he read Ping? Did we ever read that together? Did he get to play with enough playdough? I hate playdough. I never let them play with it! What about finger painting? He rarely got to do that!

And what about all the things of God? Did we teach him enough? Does he know enough of the Bible? Did he memorize enough? I know I failed at teaching him math, poor kid! And what about household and life skills? I remember teaching him to sew on a button, but should he know how to sew a little bit? Did I teach him how to iron? Does he know not to wash the reds with the whites, or to never use the same dish for the raw meat and the cooked meat?

I am starting to panic a little because technically he's already an adult and after May of this year, he'll be a high school graduate. I will be done. DONE.

When he was in Kindergarten it seemed like I had forever to teach him all of this stuff. Forever. Well, forever flew by and now my baby is ready to jump out of the nest and I'm not sure he knows how to fly! It's a terrifying thing being on this end of things. I thought jumping out of the nest myself was scary, but it's nothing like knowing that in a few short months your baby is going to jump out into that cold cruel world, ready or not. And it is my job to make sure he is ready.

Seeing Will on the precipice of adulthood has made me look back at my other kids as well; Bob, who's just starting in high school, and Eve who's just starting Jr. High, and Ann who's in her last year as an elementary student. They're right behind him. I have so much work to do. So many things I want to talk about, so many lessons still to teach...

I feel the passage of time very acutely these days, it's going so fast and I can't catch my breath.

It's all wobbly!

So, I'm not feeling so well today. I don't think I have the flu, just a cold. I feel dizzy and very week and tired, my throat hurts I have a headache and a low grade fever. No coughing, no clogged head or runny nose or any of that. But the dizziness is really annoying. I've been hanging out in bed most of the day.

While here, I've been trying to fix the blog. I have given up. I've done all sorts of stuff, basically taken it all the way down to the bare bones and re built it. If you spent anytime on my blog today you probably got whiplash.

I finally just put everything back the way it was. I simply can not figure out why my right sidebar is at the bottom of the blog. I blame Internet Explorer or Blogger. I've been told those that are looking at it with Firefox or Safari see it fine. It just seems to be IE that messes it up. Of course I use IE. I also think Blogger may be doing some kind of updating or something. I blame them. It's either them or I'm an idiot. I'd rather not here your opinion of the likeliest choice, thankyouverymuch.

I did however score this nice new background. I like green. Green is soothing to me. I find this background to be very easy and soothing to look at. This is helpful when your brain is swimming around in your head.

So for now, I give up. The right sidebar will just have to stay at the bottom of the blog unless someone out there can tell me exactly how to fix it or Blogger and IE stop messing with me.

May your weekend be straight and stay right where you put it.

Technical Difficulty

For some reason, it appears the blog has completely fritzed out. I have no idea why. I have been trying to fix it but I can't figure out why my column's are all messed up. Do they look messed up to you? There are supposed to be three and for some reason I see two columns of blog posts on one side bar and then the other side bar is all the way at the bottom of the blog.

ACK!

Sorry things are visually confusing at the moment. I'm having the tech department here on the Hilltop get right on it, and by tech department, I mean me and maybe a teenager if I can corral them long enough to help out.