All I want for Christmas is...

Blissful Sleep

Is it too much to want 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep? I'd even take just 6! That's not too much to ask for for Christmas I think. But I bet the kids won't give it to me until my birthday...next June...

Not for the weak stomach...

The other morning I opened the front door to find this on our front porch...

A Rat

Oh, is it sleeping? you may ask...

No, fortunately it was already dead. I am actually holding it by its tail (with a paper towel!) so I could throw it away. Man, the things I have to do when Dan is out of town!

So if you are not totally grossed out by the above pictures and still reading this post (Mom - it's ok, I understand if you've already closed the window), you may be wondering why we had a dead rat at our door. You see we have a front-yard cat that we feed and who has taken up residence in the bushes in our front yard (hence our name for her is "front-yard cat" so original!), and apparently she feels the need to thank us for feeding her. This was the 4th dead rat that she has now brought us. At first she was leaving them in the front yard, GROSS but at least we didn't have to step over them. Then just before Dan left she delivered a huge, bloody rat right on our front door mat - I was so glad Dan was here to throw the rat and mat away! It made me gag just looking at it. After that occurrence I told the cat she did not need to "honor" us anymore with yucky dead rats!

And then she brought us yet another.

We may or may not be taking the front-yard cat with us when we move.

Things that make me smile

Natalie was in her very first Primary Program this past Sunday. She missed last year's program because we moved right before our ward had theirs, and our new ward had already done theirs. I was so sad that I wouldn't see my little Sunbeam sing and wave to me from the stage last year, so I was REALLY excited about this year's program. We practiced the songs all year so that Natalie would be comfortable with them (we even listened to a CD with the songs in the car). The part they gave Natalie was for her entire CTR 5 class to memorize. I wasn't sure if Natalie could memorize several lines yet - but she did! And made it look easy too!! She was a little nervous about the program (probably because I was making such a big deal about it) but I told her that it was for Mommy and I just wanted to see her sing. So when it came time for her to go up there she went right up to her spot and sat down, then her class was the first to stand up and say their part together - Natalie was too busy watching me wave to her so she totally missed saying her part but that's ok! I knew she knew it :) And she sang every single song!! Can you tell how proud I am of her?! I almost took the camera in for pictures (I mean this is for posterity, right?) but thought better of it in the end. We're so sad that Dan had to miss it, but don't worry, he got an even longer version of this story than what I'm posting here!

Natalie right before church started

Natalie loves to climb the tree in our front yard and has gotten quite good at it...

Apparently heights don't bother her!

She is such a sweetie!

One morning as we were getting ready I found Nathan like this...

What IS THAT you say?


See, Mom? It's a bandaid!

(don't worry, it's clean)

So of course Natalie had to get her own "bandaids" too, and just look at that face Nathan is making - pure mischief!!

What you aren't seeing is that Nathan was also wearing my shoes. But to keep this blog clean I couldn't post those pics (seeing as how the pads and shoes were ALL that he was wearing!)

I had such a good laugh with the kids!! They keep me smiling all the time and I am so thankful to have them for my family.

Enjoying a Sunday Afternoon

Now that Fall is here I decided it would be nice to take pictures outside in the afternoon - something you can never do during the summer in Texas! Of course only Tyler was excited about this activity...

Yep, it's like herding cats to get all three of them

Cute brothers :)

This one's for you, Dan!