happy thanksgiving

i promise i tried to blog on the 28th of november, but blogger wouldn't upload my pictures! and it's just not a good post without pictures....at least i don't think so!

i don't have a lot of pictures from thanksgiving break because i'm still using the old camera. my good camera still hasn't recovered from it's sweet-tea-diving-adventure.

last wednesday was the first day of thanksgiving break. colby had an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat doctor because his pediatrician thought he saw a small hole in his eardrum the last time we were there. he sent colby to the e.n.t. because they have more powerful equipment. and sure enough, colby has a HUGE hole in his eardrum. he has to go back on the 11th for more tests with an audiologist, and then the e.n.t. will decide what to do next.

after that lovely news, we loaded the car and headed for edmond by way of hunan chinese buffet! this first picture is of one of the items offered on their buffet. i had to have photographic proof of this because i had never seen it before...these are chicken balls. {giggle!} no joke! it even said so on the sign above them!

{and no i didn't actually eat one! when i cut it in half it was gray and mushy. i'm sure it's just ground up chicken parts that have been battered and fried, but i just couldn't bring myself to eat it.}
chicken ball sign courtesy of spencer hayes!
thursday morning i got to watch nearly all of the macy's thanksgiving day parade! i would have watched more, but i slept too late! ahhhh......
while the parade was going i made sweet potatoes......yum-o! i don't have a final picture of them, but these smelled so sweet while i was cooking them that i think i could have eaten them plain!

we had a delicious lunch at my sister-in-law's house thursday afternoon. after we'd stuffed ourselves and cleaned up the kitchen, my oldest niece begged me to watch phantom of the opera with her. i had only seen the old movie made back in the 40's or 50's, so i was a little skeptical about watching it.

this new version was amazing, especially the parts i was awake for! the music was beautiful, and the story was better than i remembered. as soon as that movie was over we loaded up and went to see the new movie planet 51. it was cute, but i wouldn't recommend seeing it if you're paying full price.

on friday i ventured out with my mom and my sister for a little black friday shopping. and, NO, it wasn't at some unbelievably horrible hour of the morning. i've been there, done that, and i'm not doing it again! they picked me up at 9:00 and that was plenty early.
mom quit on us early which totally surprised me because i am usually the one who's done shopping first! shopping just isn't my thing unless i'm antiquing/treasure hunting!

we had dinner at chili's with my family friday night. everyone was there except my brother. he wasn't able to come this year, and we missed him. it's just not the same when he's not around. hopefully he'll be there for christmas!

as we were sitting at the gas station, i realized i'd left martha in my sister's van. we had to go back to her house to get it, and i'm glad we did! she told me that we should drive by this house not far from hers because they had some really cool christmas lights. she was right!!! this picture doesn't do this house justice. it was magical. i loved the trees!
we came home friday night. and saturday i did absolutely NOTHING! it was wonderful. i knitted, watched tv, took a nap, knitted some more, watched some more tv.....

and sunday after church and lunch, i spent the rest of the time grading papers and writing lesson plans. blah...hate doing that.

monday it was back to the trenches. who knew that just 5 days away from school could change the kids so much? it was like their brains had been sucked right out of their little heads!

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tonight colby came downstairs and said, "hey mom, wanna see something cool?" then he proceeded to plop his shoe down on the desk and tie it all by himself! yay! milestone accomplished finally!
quote of the day: "Is division gonna be on the REAL test or just the quarterly test?"~one of my students

catching up....AGAIN

yes, i know it's been a week....i'm sorry, i'm sorry!

i was having so much fun this weekend that i didn't blog!

let's go back to friday. {nothing much happened on thursday except survivor was awesome!}

friday afternoon, daryl and i looked at a few houses. i want this one.

friday night i got to hang out with the SMORS again! first we had supper at one of our favorite eating establishments.....Q'doba! one of the employees stood on the booth to take this picture for us!

then we all went to the church at battlecreek for their annual christmas gathering. i went last year and LOVED it, so i was super-excited for the smors to join me this year! there were tons of delicious desserts as well as tons of ladies! the line was ginormous, but it didn't take long once everyone started moving!

silver bag divas....nellie, gina, and samantha

after every segment of the program, the "elves" came out and deliver a gift to every single lady in the audience! the gifts were even better than last year!

samantha and gina with their shiny, new purse-size measuring tapes...

saturday was colby's 7th birthday! i can't believe my little man is so old! 7 just sounds so much older than 6!

since i was staying in BA friday night, i thought it would be a great idea to have a surprise party for colby and invite all his buddies from park lane. so i got on facebook and put the word out!

these are his friends hiding behind the couch waiting for him to come in. apparently they'd never been to a surprise party before because when i said the secret word, they didn't jump out and yell surprise! it was so hilarious!!! maybe we should have practiced first!

after the party, we had dinner at rib crib. we let colby choose, and that's what he wanted!

i think this monster-sized dessert had something to do with his choice!

right after this picture was taken, our camera was dropped into daryl's glass of sweet tea! he says it's my fault, and i think it's his! it doesn't really matter except that now the camera won't come on!

so the rest of the pictures were taken with my old camera that puts spots on all the pictures!!! so frustrating!

sunday night we went to a cook-out at the bean's house. we had burgers and smors!!! there was the most adorable hound dog that came from the neighbor's to visit our party. i kept trying to take her picture, but i just couldn't get a good one!

now i'm on thanksgiving break and loving it!

quote of the day: "Log off and go home!" ~ my boss...ten minutes early!

it's official...

the first lights of the christmas season were spotted on our way home from church tonight {as we were playing another game of freeze out!}

photo of the day 11-18-09

first lights

i wish there was a christmas light setting on my camera!

quote of the day: "If I toot IN the water it smells worse!" ~Colby

photo of the day 11-16-09

do you see what i see?

{probably not. it's blurry! there's a woodpecker on the tree!}

for all of you non-facebook friends out there, you haven't heard my latest disgusting story...

thursday night, spencer dumped the remainder of his halloween candy out on the counter and left it. i came along after he'd gone to bed and found it all over, so i started to put it back in the bucket for him. that's when i noticed them....4 maggot-looking things squirming around on the counter amid all of the candy!!! i immediately screamed, "eewwwwwwww!!! daryl come here and look at this!"

do you know what? he wouldn't get up and come look!!! i had to tell him what was wrong, and he told me just to sort through the candy and keep the stuff that was still all wrapped up. i thought he was joking! but no.....he was serious!!! of course i didn't follow his advice. i proceeded to put ALL of the candy in the trash during which time i also found more of those little worm things...totally disgusting.

of course i took a picture of them!

photo of the day 11-12-09

ewwww!!!!!

going to our local not-so-good flea market put me in the mood for some antiquing. so saturday morning the boys and i went for a quick junking trip to kansas. there's a place just as you cross the border that makes me drool every time i see it. there is junk all around the place, and the building itself looks junky. unfortunately, the place is for sale. {sniff.} i wish they would just let me in to see what kind of wonderful things they've left behind.....

photo of the day 11-14-09

junk store for sale

we drove on to the place in coffeyville that spencer and i visited on our last trek. they had lots of fun things....

a smurf!

i love plastic light-up snowmen!

the price tag said this is a "vintage sprinkler".

quote of the day: "Now I'm an optimum pooper." ~from a dog food commercial!

junking again...

today the varmints and i went to the local flea- market-mall-thing because i'd heard that it had some really neat things in it. i guess all the good stuff was long gone because i didn't see anything worth buying. someone was actually trying to sell a scrabble game that wasn't that old for $25. the really bad thing was that ALL of the letters were gone! what's up with that????

the boys found a way to entertain themselves while i hunted....

notice that "einstein" has his hulk fists on the wrong hands!!!

right hook straight to the nose!!! (not really....totally posed for this picture!)

if you look behind spencer's shoulder, you'll see something black. this was a plastic bust someone was trying to sell. after they were done with the hulk hands, i told spencer he should try the bust on, to which he replied, "nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!"

so of course colby said, "i will!!!!!" he held it up and this is what he looked like! what a dork!!!! he kept saying, "woo-woo!" he thought it was funny, but after he saw this picture he was all embarrassed. he even told me not to put it on my blog.......yeah, right!

dork!

quote of the day: A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn't act that way very often. ~Author Unknown

ozark christmas

we spent the weekend in branson, missouri with a group from church. i think we occupied all but 2 rooms at the old southern inn.

every year a group from church travels to branson to go to silver dollar city because of it's amazing christmas activities and decorations. i had never been to silver dollar city before this weekend.

i was surprised how many older people were at the park! it's not that easy to walk around in the park...there are huge hills to climb and wall to wall people! i guess they come for the shows. {i didn't get to see a show this year because none of my boys wanted to watch one. i may have to ditch them next year and go to a show on my own!}

my pictures don't even begin to capture the magic of the season there! the minute you enter the park there are christmas decorations EVERYWHERE! and christmas music is playing from the speakers all over the park.

this is the ginormous tree at the entrance. at night it lights up and is synchronized to music. amazing........

colby spent a lot of time on the ground. he doesn't like to stand and wait in lines! and there were lots of lines yesterday! wow!

photo of the day 11-7-09

the wildfire at sunset

daryl and spencer are in this car in this shot. they are three rows back! they are also in the picture above!

poor colby man didn't want to ride a roller coaster. after much discussion with dad, he decided he would ride even though he was scared. he didn't scream or laugh the whole time we were on thunderation. as soon as we were off, the tears started flowing because it scared him so bad. he said he's never riding a roller coaster again! i felt so terrible for him. poor little guy.

giant sock monkey!!!!!

christmas parade!

daryl and i were tired of standing in lines by the end of the night, so the boys finally figured out that it's not so bad riding together!

i wish the next picture wasn't so blurry because i actually got a shot of them getting along! oh well! i still like it!

what is an amusement park at night without a toy that glows?

the varmints and i were captivated by the giant, musical christmas tree. i could have stayed on that bench all night watching that magical display.

today we had lunch at this famous missouri restaurant called lambert's, 'home of the throwed roll.' it reminded me of cracker barrel only they throw rolls at you and the food is much better! i was trying to take a picture of daryl and spencer, but you see how cooperative they were!

i can always count on colby-man for a photo with mom!

photo of the day 11-8-09

these rolls are yummy!

this was painted on the floor as you walked out of lambert's. {giggle} it was the truth!!!

quote of the day: "Turn on the A/C or I'm gonna take my pants off!" ~ a voice on the church bus! apparently he was hot!