Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends out there in blogland!
Hope your day was very merry!

 

RIP Hammie

Garrett had a mechanical hamster named Hammie.  This was one of those little hamsters that came with a clear ball that you can buy at Cracker Barrel, like the one below.

In the last four years or so, we’ve made many a stops at Cracker Barrel restaurants.  All the driving back and forth to Oklahoma and going on trips made this possible!  I like to stop there because you know it is going to be decently clean, if it is a meal time, you can eat decent food, and you can shop (all in the name of stretching your legs!).  Well, Garrett had wanted one of these hamsters forever!  So, finally, one trip a few years ago, he had enough of his own money with him to buy it himself.  Like most toys, he played with it a while, then we wouldn’t see Hammie for a while.  BUT, he would always reappear when it was time for a trip.  Hammie made the trip to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, minus the big plastic ball, that I think disappeared long ago. 

Anyway.  Just as we were getting ready to leave Grandma’s and head for home someone hollered “Callie has a hamster in her hair!”  I came into the room to see Hammie hanging from Callie’s head by her hair.  She had turned it on and gotten the wheels too close to her hair, and yes, the wheels had sucked her hair up onto the axel.  The hair was not budging.  I really, really did not want to cut it.  She has not ever had her hair cut.  It is finally coming in thicker, not a lot longer, but it least it is thicker!  We finally determined that the only way was to cut it out.  I let the hamster dangle to go get scissors and, it fell to the floor.  With a huge chunk of Callie’s hair.  She didn’t seem the least bit disturbed about it but was excited because now “Hammie looks like a horse!  He needs to go in a barn”, and she proceeded to start setting him up in a barn.  Yes, Hammie had so much of her hair it looked like a horse’s tail.

But, the story doesn’t end there.  Move ahead a few days, we are home.  I hear the same call, “Callie has a hamster in her hair”.  Seriously people?  Again?  I would think this would be a lesson learned after one time.  No one will fess up to getting the hamster too close to Callie’s head.  This time Hammie was in the back of her hair, so I’m not convinced that she didn’t have a little help getting him there!  Well, it was twice as much hair this time and still not moving.  I wasn’t going to do what I did last time, and I was definitely not going to cut out that much hair!  So, Hammie met his demise by way of a screwdriver.  I pried his little wheels off and unscrewed his battery pack, and retrieved the hair.  Very tangled hair I might add!  I feel a little bad about Hammie.  He actually survived two moves and many trips without being lost.  But, I think it was a good lesson for the boys.  When it comes to girls, it’s all about the hair!

Thanksgiving

First of all, we were thankful to be close enough to travel to Oklahoma this year for all the Turkey Day festivities!  We had planned to drive two cars to Tulsa so Todd could spend a Thanksgiving day with extended family for the first time in years, but he was sick.  The kids and I had already left by the time he decided that he just couldn’t make it, so I was a little bummed.  I felt bad leaving him two years in a row on Thanksgiving.  But, we made the best of it and enjoyed Thanksgiving day with the Foxx family in Tulsa.  The kids were so excited to see their cousins!

 

All the Foxx kids at Nana and Poppa’s!

Karlee, Callie, Taryn, Kymree, Kellen, Gannon, Jack and Garrett

Just the girls!

We left Tulsa and went on to Shawnee to spend time with my side of the family.  Another fun day with lots of kids!  I didn’t take a picture on this day, unless you count the pics Callie took with my phone!  I really, really have to get better at this!  

 Here we are all eating at Hamburger King.  A yummy hamburger place that has been there since my grandparents used to go on dates there!  Can you tell it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, OU/OSU game day?  We were all decked out!  Can yo see the boys in the booth behind Grandma and Grandpa?  I just have to brag.  The waitress said she had never waited on a better table of kids.  Warms this mama's heart.  I hope I remember to do this for mama's I don't know.  It is always nice to feel like something your doing is working!  And yes, we left immediately so she didn't get a chance to see their true colors!  Not really, but it was tempting!

Since Todd works non-stop this time of year we stayed a couple of days in Shawnee then stopped back in Tulsa for a short visit.  So, lots of driving.  But, lots of good times with our families.  I can’t wait for the day that Todd can be there too! 

All the time in the car gave me lots, and lots of time to think about what I am thankful for.  My list doesn’t change too much from year to year, but I count that as a good thing!  That means all the things that are dearest to me have not changed much.  I am so thankful for my little family.  I have a great, hard-working husband and four great kids.  I am thankful for my extended family.  I am thankful for the comforts I have in this life right now.  A home, cars, food, cloths.  I know I have been blessed and have more of all these things than a person really needs.  I am thankful for old friends, I am thankful for new friends.  I really think I could go on and on.  When a person really stops and thinks about it, even on their worst days, they can find something be thankful about.  Sometimes it might be hard to think about that when things are not going our way.  But, if you will just let your mind go there, and think of something you are thankful for, I bet your mood will start to change.  I can usually come up with something earthly that I am thankful for on whatever day it is.  I am most thankful for Jesus that died for my sins.  That is something that will never change, no matter what on this earth I have or don’t have.  Whatever people are in my life or not in my life.  If that is not something to be thankful for, I don’t know what is!  So, go, be thankful for all that God has given you, especially His Son!  (Yes, I am totally preaching to myself!)

Fall Fashions

No, I’m not writing about what you should be wearing for fall.  I have no clue, except that Todd told me that I’m not allowed to buy any more black.  So, I’ve branched out to brown.  Of course what he doesn’t realize is that adding a color of top means adding a color of shoes, coats, socks, anything else that may need to go with the new color.  He may rethink that decree soon!

Fall fashions is to show you pictures of Callie’s things that I have made for her for fall.  Not too much.  I’m finally being realistic about how much time I have to sew.  Which is not much. :(

How cute is this?  It is reversible with a polka-dot print on the other side (of course!) but I can’t find a picture of that side.  This was the easiest jumper ever so I’m sure you’ll see many more of these!   Love her big girl pose!

This is a terrible picture, but the only one I can find of her in this dress.  I didn’t do a very good job of getting pictures this time around, and it is not worth it to dress her up in all this for a picture.  Not that she doesn’t cooperate, she just talks and talks and tells me one more thing and has to do one more thing, and on and on!  It takes forever to do anything with her!  This is her usual little jumper in fun fall tree fabric.  So cute on her.  My phone cover has stretched or something so I can’t get a picture without the cover coming up in the picture.  That is what you see at the bottom, not some strange effect.

Here are couple of little t-shirts I appliquéd for her.  I love them both.  The orange one is a little owl dressed up like a witch.  The brown one is a pink and brown turkey!  I don’t think that really does, but I had my heart set on a pink and brown turkey and a brown tee.  I didn’t really think about how those wouldn’t really work together until I set down to work.  But, I think it turned out ok.  She loved it!

No, I didn’t make this.  But, I couldn’t resist a picture of her after-Halloween batgirl costume.  After she realized she couldn’t be War Machine for Halloween, she moved on to Batgirl.  I was not about to let her be that either, but I didn’t know they had pink Batgirl!  This is like a size 6 or something so it’s huge, but she doesn’t care!