How we get our turkey

Let's talk turkey. Today Harrison came home from school with his interpretation of how turkeys get to our Thanksgiving table. Here is his storyboard creation.

Step One: The turkey is running around happy and carefree and loving life not knowing of it's impending doom.

Step Two: The turkey becomes scared and bolts when he figures out that someone has come to catch him.

Step Three: The turkey is unable to escape and meets his fate when he is slaughtered with an axe. Am I wrong to be disturbed by the fact that my 7 year old portrays the slaughter of a turkey so descriptively?

Step Three: The turkey has been baked and prepared for us to eat on Thanksgiving.

Happy Turkey Day.

A new kind of Batmobile

The other day as I walked past David's car, I noticed something small and brown protruding from the grill.

I guess that gives new meaning to "batmobile".

Never understanding

Last week someone that I thought a lot of passed away at the age of 48. While our relationship wasn't on a particularly personal level, he was an important part of my life during a very difficult time.

I met him the first time I moved to Charleston when he became my family doctor. From the time I met him, I felt at ease. He treated everyone as a friend and I believe he truly cared about his patients health and well being. I got to know him pretty well over the years and even after having moved away and back again, he knew who I was when we would run into each other somewhere.

Last year, Harrison had the privilege of having this man's wife as his kindergarten teacher. I got to know her and through her got to know her husband even better. If there were matches made in heaven then I truly believe this was one. It was evident that they loved each other and their children.

For days after I heard the news of his passing, I searched my soul for answers as to why such a good man would be taken at such a young age. The harder I searched for an answer the further away from understanding I got. I talked to my dad about it and he suggested that there was no logical reason for these things and that while it was difficult, I should look at the life that he lived while he was here. Some people live more more in a short time than most do in an entire lifetime. And he truly did. So while I don't understand why, I do know that I have faith enough in God to know that he had a plan. I may not understand it now, but one day perhaps after my death, I finally will. And I do know that one day again I will see my friend.

Someone sent this video to me this week and it touched me. I think the words say it all, "I'm going to miss that smile, I'm going to miss you my friend..I'm not cryin for you 'cause I feel so sorry for you, I'm crying for me."

Toby Keith   More CMT Music   More CMT Music Videos

Keep Out

Kids deal with things in different ways when facing something challenging. When Holden gets frustrated, he starts making grunting noises and stomping his feet. If he gets really frustrated he might even start flailing around on the floor. Homework tends to be the time when this happens most often. Some weeks we go with no problems and some weeks it occurs on a regular basis.  This week hasn't been all that bad except for tonight. He and David were reviewing his spelling words. I had already gone over them last night with him and he knew 75% of them with no problem but for some reason he kept getting them tonight. David kept making him repeat them and the more he repeated them the more frustrated he got.

When I left to go pick Haley up from swim team David was trying to get Holden to spell and Holden was arguing with him. When I got back David was downstairs and Holden was no where to be seen. Apparently Holden had gotten so mad at David that he started screaming and went up stairs and slammed the door and got in bed.

When I went up stairs to see if he was okay and to tell him goodnight, this is what I found taped to his door.

Guess Holden got the last word in after all.

Messy matter

This is what happens when you tell one of my children to go and clean up the playroom without being specific as to what "clean-up" means.

Which is why I spent 20 minutes this morning looking for the tennis shoe that was located inside the entertainement unit along with the mass of cords. Logical place for it, right? Only I didn't find it until after he had gone to school mad because he had to wear Crocs.

Notice the flip flop? I found it underneath the entertainment unit when I was down on my knees looking under the couch for the tennis shoe. Wonder how long that has been there?

Halloween

We went last week and picked out our pumpkin from the pumpkin patch at Hibben UMC. We decided that this year we were only going to get one pumpkin because carving three pumpkins takes a tremendous amount of time not to mention the cost. It was much easier for the children to agree on one pumpkin than I thought it would be. The kids let me take a few pictures of them in the pumpkin patch even though Haley was not very happy about it. I told her she would thank me when she was my age and she had nice pictures to look at.

Our busy schedule prevented us from carving the pumpkin until Halloween Day. The kids are now getting old enough to pretty much do everything themselves once the top is cut off the pumpkin. Haley and Holden did most of the work but left a little for Harrison so he would think he had a part in carving.

Our neighbors had a Halloween get together at their house so we all went down for dinner before trick or treating. This year was the first year in a long time that I actually got to go with the kids trick or treating because Haley and her friend handed out candy at our house. We had a group of 9 children (8 boys and 1 girl) who went along with us. It was funny to see how fast they moved from house to house. Harrison and Helena were always in the lead. I think that Harrison was all about getting as much candy as he could and Helena was all about chasing Harrison. The kids had a good time and came home with a huge bag full of candy. If all the kids in the neighborhood got as much candy as our kids did, there will be a lot of busy dentists come this winter.

Here are the boys in their costumes :

Holden as "The Scream" and Harrison as "Ninja Warrior"

NOTE: The nunchucks in Harrison's hand are foam. He did however get in trouble for hitting the other kids BEFORE we even had dinner so they had to be put away.