Sublinda

I have a wonderful neighbor, Belinda. Sam calls her Sublinda. She is always willing to help out in so many ways. She's a busy mom of 4 going back to school full time for nursing and soon to be homeschooling her teenage daughter. She amazes me. She gives her friendship so easily even when I was really weird when we first moved here. I realized later that I probably seemed like a freak but I chalk it up to being off kilter from loosing the baby.

She had a birthday recently and so I made her this flower pot cake. I baked it in the clean, new pot. I poked holes in it after it was cooked and poured sweetened condensed milk mixed with a little evaporated milk over it. I put icing on the top and crushed oreos to look like dirt. I used fat straws and cut them to size and then put the real flowers into them so they wouldn't be in the actual cake. Sam put the gummi worms on.

Belinda is an avid gardener and has her own batch of mail order worms in her garage. Did I tell you she was cool? Well she is. How many people do you know who keep their composting mail order worms in their garage. She lets the boys peek in on them and will even give them a few from time to time. It's too cold to keep the outside here except in the summer.

Sweet little Sam

Sam is so fun to listen to when playing with his little friends. Today we had pre-school at our house. Sam was in heaven. Especially since his buddy Eli was back and he was no longer the only boy. He does love playing with the girls too but there's something to be said for that male bonding thing.

When all left but Emma, I was watching them play. They play SO well together. They are hilarious to listen to as well. I saw them kneel down together and pretend to pray. It was very sweet. Then Emma would go over to the fort chair and do something and sing and I realized she was playing the piano. She'd come back and say "otay dam its your turn" I love that she can't say her "s"very good. Makes me chuckle. Then Sam said "Oh, Okay, it's my turn to play the companio" I guess he got computer and piano mixed up. You'd think he'd know his instruments a bit better being the son of a musician. Just fun!

Sam usually says our lunch prayer and it's usually very short but today he said the sweetest prayer. It went something like this,

"Heavenly Father, thank you my Daddy doesn't die in Iraq, bless the kids there that don't have mom's or dad's or shoes or schools or only healthy foods and not junk" It was one of those moments when I feel a bit of pride because he can actually think of someone else besides himself. Good kid. We just bought a brand new pair of girls shoes size 6 1/2 for a whopping $3.75. I know it's busting the budget all to pieces but I couldn't help it as I noticed a box at church collecting shoes for Afghan children. I guess maybe this made a bit of an impact on my little Sam. He also knows that his Dad has played at a few orphanages over there and I had to explain what an orphanage was.

During this month of Thanks, it helps me to realize how much I am grateful for. So many little things that so many other people in the world do without. So many big things that come so easily too. We are all worried with the economy today but I can't help but feel like my world is okay. I'm grateful for that.

Follower

I have one follower ah ah ah aaah. (said like the count on Sesame ST.) I'm not too fancy with this here computer stuff but my wonderful sister in law must know a thing or two as she signed up as a follower, even if she is the only one I feel special. Thanks Tammy. :)

Sledding in October

Mike wanted to take the boys sledding before he left. So we drove about an hour away and came to this place (I can't remember now what it was called). Everything else in the towns we passed seemed to have closed down in Sept. so I guess the only thing left to do is sled.

We went a bit unprepared. I thought Mike had the kids pile up their stuff to load and he thought I had checked it. We got there and realized that Jack had no coat or snow pants. Jack was so tough though because he still wanted to play. I did have an extra change of clothes for everyone so I figured we'd be okay. He kept trying to dig snow tunnels.

If David's feet look large it's because he's wearing my boots. In our mix up we found that we didn't have boots for David. Ooops. He said his feet were fine in mine. I just stayed in the car and watched as I hate having cold feet. They were making snow chairs.

They hiked up this hill to sled down. I thought I'd get a chance when they got back and I could steal my boots back but I guess we were done by then. Next time.

My main man. I love him I do. I tried taking a few of us just sticking my arm out and snapping. This was the best one.