Early Birthday Celebration

Jared's 16th birthday is just around the corner (Friday to be exact). I was trying to come up with something to do with him that he would enjoy, so today we went to celebrate. The plan for the evening was going to a movie. Crystal got off work early so we met her at Mcd's for coffee. Then we went to see TinTin. It was a cute movie! I thought it was going to be kind of boring, but we ended up really enjoying it!Being the good cousin that I am, after the movie was over, Jared said he wasn't ready to go home. So we ended up at the library. We ended up by the comic section for quite a while... I tried to help him pick out ones to read, but apparently I'm not very good at "helping"...
So, Happy Early Birthday Jared!!

After Christmas Destruction

Yesterday, Rachel, Crystal, Reid and I went over to Emily and Matt's house to help them destroy their dining room in order to do some remodeling. :) We tarped off the rest of their house. Or attempted too. The duct tape didn't hold once we opened the windows.Matt ended up having to nail the plastic to the ceiling :/ They'd hoped to avoid having to puncture the ceiling, but it was the only way to keep the tarp up...
Ah yes, rockin' out the face masks.

First time I've ever gotten to destroy a wall. It was fun! The whole, um, hand caught between the hammer and prybar... That wasn't so fun, but getting to hit walls with hammers and get super filthy, that was fun!

On our lunchbreak, Rach went and stationed herself by Windsor the dog. I donated my sunglasses for Windsor to wear so that they could be "twins".

Good way to spend the day after Christmas!

Over The Last Week

The few weeks leading up to Christmas and into the new year are always the busiest of the whole winter for us here in Kalebaughville. We enjoy them immensely, but seriously, when there are 5 adults, and all of them doing their own things... We seem to barely be home :P It's fun though! I haven't taken many pictures lately, but here are just a few.

I chauffeured Aunt Amy and Jared in Rockford, their car wasn't working properly. We ended our day with some wonderful mexican food... And you can't beat good company.Another night we went Christmas caroling at some nursing homes, and afterwards congregated over at our house for pizza/games/coffee. Heh, we played one mean game of ghosts in the graveyard, but that ended abruptly with the neighbor screaming at us "to stop screaming because some people are trying to sleep..." Among a few other choice things :P
Me and my little creature out for a walk one sunny afternoon. If its pretty quiet around I'll let her offleash.

We've done a ton of other things too, but right now this is all I have pictures for.

Up next is from Christmas (but it might take a while to get those pictures,) annnd today Rach, Crystal, Reid and I went and got to help Emily and Matt demolish some of their dining room for remodeling! That was quite fun. So, stay tuned ;)

Happy Monday all.

Little Princess

Last Monday night was Devyn's Kindergarten Christmas program. It was Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade and they all sang Christmas as individual classes.

Devyn got to wear her new Christmas dress that Josh had bought her and "Daddy" enlisted the aunts to come along and do her hair, and lend a necklace and hair bow... Even some sparkly lip gloss :)She thought for sure that she would be the prettiest girl there with her beautiful ensemble. I agreed wholeheartedly :)

She was beautiful, the program was super cute, and there was even a little mishap. Miss Devyn tripped and fell backwards off the top of the stage/riser... She was perfectly unharmed, except for some injured pride. One things for sure, nobody will forget the kindergarten Christmas program any time soon.

Good Words.

Merry Christmas to all :) To prepare for Christmas, and not knowing if there were going to be people in my room or not, I did a deep clean/purging of my stuff. I ended up pulling all the books out from under my bed (they are there because I don't have a bookcase and that's the next best place for them in my room). Anyway, I found some lil' gems I had forgotten I had stashed under there. So on this beautiful evening I'm being a nerd and laying on my bed reading lyrics out of an old and really mildewy hymnal... My sinuses might hate me, but oh well, I'm enjoying myself! I read this hymn and just wanted to share it with you all. Sleep well my friends!

Go And Tell Jesus

Troubled art thou? Oh, be of good cheer;
Go and tell Jesus, he ever is near;
No anguish so deep, no trouble so dark,
But Jesus can bid it forever depart.

Tempted art thou? The Lord will provide a way of escape;
Keep close to his side; in watching and pray'r, by looking to him,
A crown of rejoicing, a vict'ry you'll win.

Doubting art thou? Examine thine heart,
Perhaps from the Savior you're prone to depart;
Your love growing cold, your faith getting weak,
Repair to your closet, with Jesus go speak.

Weary art thou, press on in the way,
Strength shall be given to thee with the day;
The burdens of life, if patiently borne,
Give place unto rest at the break of the morn.

Go and tell Jesus, he ever is near;
Go and tell Jesus, have nothing to fear;
No anguish so deep, no trouble so dark,
But Jesus can bid it forever depart.

Cookies

Saturday, early morning, we left Emily's and had just enough time to come home, pour some coffee and leave again. Aunt Amy has been doing story time on Saturday mornings with the kids from Eldena, and this week instead of reading a story, we decorated cookies and then went and gave them out to families from Eldena. The week before, we had made ornaments so we put those in the boxes with the cookies.I was with the three oldest kids, and we set to work decorating pretzels. The hardest part of that job was keeping everyone from licking their hands! Its pretty much natural instinct to get chocolate off your hands by licking them...
Then we set out to traipse in the freshly fallen snow and deliver cookies to our neighbors.

Along the way I acquired some little buddies... I really don't know what I do but for some reason they like me! I'm okay with that ;)

Partyyyy

On Friday, Rachel's riding teacher hosted her first (but what I hear is going to become an annual) student Christmas party. Crystal invited herself and I (or me, whichever is the grammatically correct way of putting it) to go along and apparently "help". Well, I'm not sure how much help we actually were, but we certainly had fun ;) Here's Gabby the dog really wanting some Cheetos.
Notice there are a lot of pairs of boots :) It was a sleep-over/horse movie night party. And we woke up really feeling like Christmas had struck. It snowed overnight and it looked really pretty out there.

Of Shopping and Such

Last Thursday ended up being quite the successful shopping trip!

I managed to find all the things I was looking for except for 1, which I finally found yesterday, and it was also just a fun day getting to spend together with my family (cue sappy "awwwwws").

The last stop at the mall always ends up being Barnes and Noble so that we can all get our coffee's. :) It was a fun day!

Rainy Days.

The past few days it has been really
rainy. Even though it is nasty and muddy outside, I for one am grateful that it
is fairly warm (50) in the middle of December! In honor of the rain/mud and
nobody wants to be outside we have been playing games INSIDE. Clue has been our
game of choice most recently. And coffee breaks :) Always coffee breaks.Cameron and Devyn came home early from school
yesterday. In hopes that Rachel and Devyn would get the peace and quiet they
needed to finish Devyn's phonics homework, Cameron and I went to the living room
and built card houses. :) 12 year olds are awesome. Especially this one!Happy Wednesday everyone! Tomorrow is our
Christmas Shopping day with T, and Aunt Amy and Jared are joining us as well.
Wish us luck!

Sunday

This Sunday the Rogers Jr. family did the Advent reading and lighting of the Advent candles. :) I love this family so much!That afternoon Crystal, Rachel and I played Christmas music for the St. James church in Dixon. They don't have any young people there and always ask us to come do a little performance for them while they do their Christmas dinner.

That night, while Mom and Dad were out we had Jason and Alyssa over. It had been forever since they had been to our house. We originally intended that it was going to be a movie night, but had such a great time hanging out, playing games and just catching up that we never even got to the movie! We had coffee time, and doctored it up well! Ordinarily we just have the coffee "black" but that night we pulled out all the "decorations." Mmmmm, it was good!
Have I mentioned lately that I love all the festivities that come along with Christmas?? Well just in case I haven't, know for sure that I do!

Kalebaugh Christmas

This last Saturday was Kalebuagh Christmas! One of the best days in December! In our house at least... This year was the largest gathering in quite a few years. We started off by lighting candles in honor of the family members who had passed. Followed by an opening prayer. Then the party commenced :) We always do snacks, and then the ladies do a gift exchange. The "kids" pretty much 12 and under get goodie bags, and for the last couple of years, since the guys were feeling left out they have started doing gift exchanges. Their most common 'gift' is beef jerky... Gross! We ladies at least do chocolate! Most of the "little" cousins are really starting to grow up, but we still have a few left to hang with! Little Miss Emma came to join me for a while.

Now, you all know that our house if a good size. But once you get to a certain amount of people there just isn't much space for anything. The piles of coats everywhere just cracked me up, so I thought I'd share a picture for you here :) Of course sometime during the evening I ended up on the porch floor coloring with the kids...

:) What a better entertainment source than the piano!??

Good times were had by all! We really pegged the "happy houseful" :) Can't wait until next year.

Monday Again

This Monday, burgers were on the menu. I made both regular and jalapeno burgers! Rachel baked sliced potatoes with some garlic and a few other spices and they were absolutely wonderful! And since we had a plethora of eggs, she also had made us deviled eggs. This lil' girly had been gone all of last week at her Mom's house, so we stayed pretty close to each other that night...
And after dinner I helped this someone with his Science homework. It was pretty cute, he came in and told me that he "knew I was good at schoolwork, so he wanted to do his stuff at our house... Could I come sit with him and see if he was doing it right??"

Another Monday Night. Success!

No Pictures This Time...

Well, here I thought I'd have this cute little blog post with pictures to share. But alas, not so. I got caught up in the moment(s) and never even took one picture. :( Oh well, I'll just have to tell you instead of show you.
Yesterday Rachel and I went into town and tried to make some crafts with Aunt T's second youngest granddaughter. We needed her hand as a model for some Christmas ornaments. Well, 1 yr. olds have their own ideas of how to make ornaments. So the ornaments don't quite look like they're from a magazine or anything, but they are cute still!
Later that night Crystal and I went to Hiram Z's preschool Christmas program. SO CUTE! All the 3 and 4 yr. olds "singing." The whole program lasted all of 15 minutes, so we went and had ice cream with a friend afterwards. Good way to finish off the evening!

Today, Josh and I went Christmas shopping to get all the gifts he was searching for for his kids. :) That was a lot of fun too! He had some great ideas (and is surprisingly good at picking out clothes). And we met up with Crystal for lunch. (Great sibling time!) But we missed Rachel...
So me trying to earn good sister points, brought all the gifts home with me and wrapped them all. And our house looks happy with all the gifts in it until he comes to pick them up tomorrow.

Well, I hope I didn't just bore you to tears.
Hopefully the next time I'll have a few pictures for you.
Have a great weekend everyone!

Surprise! :D

So, for quite a while now.... i've wanted to dye my hair :) i've never dyed it before.... so thought it would be a cool change... i finally found the perfect color, so decided to try it out!

I just wanted the color kind of streaky through the front, so i pulled it all um in random ways so it would be uneven (but hopefully amazing)

And, might I add, everyone needs a good twin to help them...

I LOVE the end result! a little purple-ish in the front... :D :D :D


Party in the back people!!! PURPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

yep, so that weirdo walking around with purple hair is me :)

.R.

Good Thursday

Today was our first official Thursday with Pegasus being over. Last week didn't really count because it was Thanksgiving. So anyway, I started off my morning by watching the Pegasus video/slideshow that Wayne had put together for the Pegasus ball/fundraiser. Then later Rachel and I went to the campground and helped Jess and Sue decorate for Christmas! :) Here's the big tree.And here's the skinny one!
After dropping Rach off in Dixon with Mom this was my view on the way home. Sooo beautiful!

Then tonight we went and had supper with our friends the Happs. As the "big girls" started getting tired of "lets hide the stuffed animal somewhere in the house and then go find it" Mrs. Happ had the great idea of Candy Land. Rachel and I were overjoyed, because we LOVE Candy Land!

:) Great way to finish off our evening.

Now here I am blogging away. It's been a good Thursday.

Not Monday.

My week was so messed up. Instead of doing Mondaysupper on Monday, we did it on Tuesday... So then for some reason, Wednesday felt like Monday, and all of today I keep thinking that it is Friday. Hmmmm. Oh well. Here's our supper. I made taco pizza and we had a salsa dip. Yep, family favorite meal! Somehow during our meal we got talking on the topic of fairy tales. Devyn got quiet, and then she piped up, "hey, we can be Snow White and the seven *doors*" we didn't have the heart to try and explain that it was dwarfs. It was too cute! Plus she had the counting thing down right because there we 8 of us at the table. That left her to be Snow White, and the rest of us to be the "doors".

Cameron was Sneezy.
We unanimously voted Rachel to be Happy.

Mom was Bashful.

Dad got to be Doc because he had glasses. Sorry that he's sideways!

Hehehe, Josh made a face at Devyn earlier that night and we told him he looked like Dopey the dwarf, so we voted him to be Dopey :) In all love of course.

Crystal was sleepy.

They made me be Grumpy. (only I can't do grumpy on command and kept laughing as they would go to take the picture. This is the only one that turned out) And Devyn of course, was Snow White.Then, while I was in the shower, *dearest* Aunt Rachel decided it was music time with the kids... So I came out and was serenaded by a harmonica and a recorder. Redneck Eldena-ites we are.

We had a good 'not Monday' night :)