Happy Birthday Neil Diamond!!! I really do love you!!

Family pic

Thomas' attempt at using my new camera. THIS is why there are very few pictures of me with the kids (or me with anyone).

Robee has no neck. The focus is not at the subjects since there is way too much space above our heads.

In his defense, it is a new fangled camera that he's never used. Slight defense.

It's okay. He has other qualities. I'll forgive him this time.

New Baby in our Crib!

Here is our sweet New Baby Evan Matthes!! Born to Angie (my step d) and Steve on Dec 31, 2009.
Welcome to this chaotic family and may you have oodles and oodles of fun in the years to come!

My word - Where has the time gone??

Posting ......

.... I know I should write stuff down. It's therapeutic. It's inspirational. It's a good way for me to remember what happened yesterday. But crimminitly, it's hard to sit down and write. I'm up at 6 to get Felix ready and I don't sit down until 9 or so at night and by then I'm too pooped to even think about writing.


My house is torn apart as we are remodeling our laundry room and spare room to combine the two. There is an inch of construction dust all over everything (and not just my normal dusty house; this stuff is fine like flour) and every time I do clean it up, it re-appears within an hour. The floor feels awful.

Every door on the main floor (except our bedroom) is missing because we're getting new ones made - the old ones were cheap, hollow doors. So even if I WANTED to close off the dust, I can't because there is no door to close. Hopefully by next week, the new doors will be on.



I have five chickens in my garage living in dog crates because I'm waiting for enough money to buy the fencing to finish the run (however, I just noticed at this writing, there is a large rolled up fence on my porch so I'm going to be very busy this weekend).


I have five goats who are sporting the heaviest fleece in the country because by the time I got around to getting them sheared, it was too cold.


I have thirty pigeons who are just ....... pigeons. And who's coop is so full of poop that it's spilling out the door.


I have two dogs who get almost no attention anymore and worse still, we may be getting a new Golden from Porter's line in the next month.


I have only one cat left and Grace is the best in my animal life right now. She's actually quite pleased that Sam died since she never like any of the other cats anyway. If I didn't know better, I would bet that she knocked him off.


I have an appraisal coming up in two weeks and a yard that is winter looking with no hope of getting it cleaned up in time.


And that doesn't include my normal day to day activities; running kids to karate, school, babysitting, tutoring, etc.


And Thomas? His schedule is worse than mine.


Luckily, we did take a bit of time out for Robee and the Pinewood Derby. My first. His first. Thomas' ... have no idea.




Thomas told me that his mom took his block to some mechanic to overhaul and he ended up with a fancy powder blue speedster that looked like it came right out of the Indy 500. Ethel loved her child.


Thomas did propose that we do the same but I wanted some ethics in this race.

Did I let Robee cut out his car? Nope. I'm not about to let a 10 year old near a table saw. However, we found a great little sander and he did the sanding and the decals and helped with the wheels.

He was excited!



The moment of Truth: The Weigh-In. The secret?? Weights in the front. It cannot weigh more than 5 oz and if it does, they disqualify it right there and then.

The Two Best Looking Men in my Life!! Love you guys!

Second Place Overall!! He now gets to race in the District Wide Race sometime in February.

Ok. So. I posted. I'll see you sometime next week.