Teen Drivers, Gray hair, and Mother's Curses

I thought I was doing pretty good getting to 35 with little to no gray hair. I only have to color my hair if I want a color change, not to hide grays. Well there must be some truth to your teens turning your hair gray and I want to blame it on my teen driver.

It's amazing all the things you can do while your driving that you don't even have to think about...all those things start blaring when your son's behind the wheel. Like the pressure of a foot on the gas pedal or brake for instance. The passengers should not have to be held in their seat by a seat belt to start and stop a car under normal driving circumstances...I think I might have to see my friendly chiropractor for having whiplash!

What about taking a right turn on red. You stop, inch up until you can see, then go if there is nothing coming. Inch up, not get half way in the intersection so if there was something coming they would hit you anyway.

Oh, I have another one...Get in the left lane. Get in the left lane. THERE IS THE DRIVE, GET INTO THE LEFT LANE, as we are sitting in a diagonal across the driving lane and turn lane in the middle of State Route 42 (on the way to driving school ironically).

Or stop, stop, STOP! The amazing thing is that he says quit yelling at me it makes me frustrated...like he didn't hear the two times I said it in a normal tone. He only hears when I have to yell it....talk about be frustrated.

We haven't had any real mishaps, just some heart stoppers or accelarators....

Did you know the speed limit in Hayesville is still 35 and not, oops I'm doing 45?

I'm sure we all looked like this when we began driving...this is when you hear your mom's curse in your head....just wait until YOU have kids. Yep, they frustrate me as much as I frustrated her, but I still love 'em!

Traditions

I've always sworn off the Black Friday Shopping day. I'm not really interested in being out in the crowd and hustling for savings. It's worth it to me to pay regular prices as to not have to be up before the sun is shining. Well, this year my husband said, Walmart is having some really good deals, let's try it. Being a shopping sucker and liking the fact my husband wanted to spend some money, I took the bait. We dragged our daughter with us, while Dakota chose to stay at home sleeping where I should have stayed. We witnessed a fight at Walmart over a laptop. We ended up only getting one of the great deals because it really wasn't worth it to me to fight over electronics. We went to McDonald's and had a nice hot, quiet breakfast. We moved on to Home Depot to get our $0.99 poinsettas and then ventured into Kohls. We bought some more gifts and then ended at Sam's Club finishing off the kids' list. Christmas isn't as magical when Santa isn't involved; meaning you can have your daughter try things on first.

Later is when the real magic for me started. We started several years back going to Grandma and Grandpa Beninghof's to cut a live Christmas tree. I told Kyle since it was so biting cold that when we found a good one, I didn't want to look for one better I just wanted to take that one. I found a tree right away and he cut it down.

Tada, this is not a Charlie Brown tree at all. It's nice and full all the way to the top!

They always look smaller in the outside, but when you bring it in, they really fill up the space we put the tree in the house.
It really fills up the bay window where we like to put our tree.

I really like live poinsettas. I really like the reds. I'm not sure why I like them, but I always have to buy some at Christmas time.
Athena's first Christmas and she is really checking everything out. She got herself stuck inside the box of the ornaments came out of. Silly kitty.
Kyle and Kota worked hard at setting up the outside decorations in the bitter cold. We haven't had lights and decorations outside for awhile. I convinced Kyle to put things out this year.

Happy Birthday Carlo. My Brother has Thanksgiving for my dad's side of the family the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year we celebrated my nephew Carlo's birthday too. Every scout-aged kid needs a multi-tool don't you think?

Baby Malea is getting so big.

Carter and Kota decided to trek around outside for a bit, but came back in shortly since it was so cold outside.

Not too bad of spread for the second Thanksgiving Dinner.

My sister Amy.

Carter attacking the birthday cake with a butter knife to eat it...too cute!

Kota enjoying the birthday cake too. Kayla missed out on the dinner, she was at a friend's house, partly my fault since I thought the dinner started at 5 pm not noon. Oh well, we had a good time anyhow.

I love our traditions.

Name them One by One

I'm counting my blessing today. Rightfully so being Thanksgiving and all. I'm just going to list everything I've been thinking about over the week.

1. Of course, my family

2. My Faith (that keeps me plugging away at life)

3. My church family

4. Our jobs (which keeps the house functioning)

5. Our old victorian home (that keeps us warm, when I turn up the heat)

6. Our cars that get us every where we want/need to be

7. Memories of what we've learned

8. Memories of what we've overcome

9. My marriage that was announced 17 years ago (stressing our parents out because we only knew each other for 2 weeks.)

10. Visiting Teaching (laughing and crying with my sisters)

11. Relief Society (for all the things I've learned to manage my faith, family, and home)

12. Genealogy (a hobby that makes me happy)

13. teaching under priveledged students (even when it's hard)

14. watch my children figure out who they are

15. watching my children grow into good people

16. the smell of good food being cooked in my kitchen

17. the testimony I have that gets me through the trials in life

18. Priesthood blessings, for when I feel like I've been pushed over the edge

19. pumpkin pie with whipped cream

20. warm cups of hot cocoa on gray days....

...There are so many more, but the list is endless.

It's amazing when you take the time to count your blessings to see how quickly they add up. So I'm going to try to count blessing more when I'm feeling discouraged. It's an instant attiude adjustment.

Happy Thanksgiving....I hope yours was as blissful as mine.

I can't forget my daughter's kittens who like to attack your feet and hide in the decorations...

Hang up the Football and Bring out the Basketball

Ahhhh, no more mohawk head. I'm glad to have my boy back. I don't really like the extreme hair, but it's worth looking at for the feeling of being a team member. And it only last a couple of weeks. If this is the worst thing my teenager does, I'm in good shape!

No more mohawk head, so we just have the summer buzz cut getting ready for winter!

So our family has hung up the football season and is moving right into basketball. Although Kota doesn't play basketball Kayla cheers. Here she is in her brand new uniform. She doesn't get someone else's hand-me-downs in high school. She has a uniform tailored to fit just her. (She was so excited about that detail.)

Tonight was picture night for them so she got to break out the new uniform shoes and pose for the camera.

Last year the basketball team won the WCAL Championship (if I'm not mistaken)...it should be interesting going to basketball games. I haven't been to a high school basketball game since I was in high school. We've watched several middle school games over the last two years to go and see Kayla cheer, but it will be interesting sitting in the big crowd and having the band and all the hipe that goes with High School sports.

Football Season Comes to a Close

The Falcons played hard last night, but just couldn't hold on to the 2 point lead they had at half time. The final score was 28-19.

I am proud of these boys. They took the WCAL championship and the won a regional runner-up trophy for the first time ever. They have nothing to be sad about.

This week the mohawk hair will be coming off and life back to normal. It's a bittersweet moment in life.

Little Princess gets a Buck

How long does is take for a Crawford girl to sit in the freezing cold woods and shoot her first buck? 1 hour. She wasn't messing around. Smart girl. Get the deer then you can go inside where it's warm.

So she kept up her end of the taunting with her brother. She got the good buck before he did. Last year was Dakota's first time hunting. He shot at a bigger Buck and missed it. Oh well, at least he's a good sport about it. He says he'll get his tomorrow. They didn't have time to go back out in the woods after tagging and getting pictures taken at the Fin today. Kota has to get ready for the big game tonight.

Can you say Hillbilly. We have a deer hanging on our back porch. I'm going to be processing deer meat this week. This will be interesting because I've never done that before. Pig and cow, but not deer.
We are going to can most of it like my mother-in-law does because it makes it tender and good. It makes the best stew meat. Then we are going to make some jerky. We shall see if we do well.

Thanks to my brother-in-law Tim. He helped us a lot with hunting the last two years. He went with Kyle and the kids again. He sat with Kayla in the tree stand as Kyle sat with Dakota in the brush pile.

The big question now is whether or not to mount the head. Kayla's uncle Kasey in MN said daughter's first year buck is priceless. So do we fork out the big bucks ($$$) or not?

A Hunting We Will Go

When I think of hunting, I think of the Elmer Fudd character from Looney Tunes. Every Sunday morning before church my sister, brother and I would camp out in front of the TV with our cereal and watch the Looney Tunes. Elmer was always after Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny.

Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, he would sing with his speech impediment. But that's not the kind of hunting my husband and children have in mind.

They are all packed up tonight for the first day of youth deer season tomorrow morning. No sleeping in for these cats, they will be out at the crack of dawn (literally) to be in tree stands and deer blinds. Freezing their buns off for a trophy buck.

Kids, what kids?...........

Oh, there they are!

Last weekend after the game we camped out at a Holiday Inn Express in Perrysburg, Ohio.

That way we could visit the best places to get the hunting gear these two still needed (or wanted).
See, it even says it's the best place to get hunting gear.

I love the wild life statues and the autumn leaves still hanging in on this tree.

The shop is all decorated in back woods style.

That is one huge Christmas Tree. Probably 20-30 feet tall!

That is one heck of a fire place. I could get used to cozying up next to it with a good book!

They had fun hunting games for the kids. Look even a cute pink one for the girly, girl.

It's alot easier when they aren't moving targets.

Nice shot Moose!

This was one huge aquarium for fresh water fish.

Kayla's checking out a pike (I think). The glass was about 6 inches thick.

The Buffalo are from Cabela's. We traveled the extra 30 miles up into Michigan to see if they had anything else we wanted, I mean needed. The best part about Cabela's for me is the Russel Stover Outlet acrossed the street!

We shall see what our hunters come up with. They are leaving with the motto, "If its brown it's going down."