oops...

carrie nailed me. so here i am. it's not that i don't want to blog, i just don't always have the time and energy...bad kristen, no biscuit.

there is a lot i want to blog - but i need to head to bed early. i'm subbing tomorrow and thursday and it's snowing and dangme cold. i'm subbing for 2nd graders. i've made a word search puzzle for them that i think is easy enough - hopefully not too easy.

today was a brownie meeting. i have a new co-leader. i think we're going to get together for coffee on friday - at least that's my hope. today seemed like less fun than it should have been. i need to work on that. hopefully beth and i can figure out some fun things.

jolie and the kids were up for ken's b-day - i started a post for that and didn't finish it. crap. anyway, we got to see them at dinner and traded some gifties for the advent stockings and a few other things. someday we'll get to sit and talk and have a real discussion for more than 3 minutes *smile*

jolie and karly (karly turned 2 on the 9th)

jake, jolie, and karly

jake and jolie

all these pictures were taken by rhys

we had a wonderful thanksgiving. my SIL, Connie and her 16 year old, alana were here here with their 2 dogs (styx and tabby - both border collies). Ken came for football and dinner also. it was a primarily organic and/or grassfed dinner which made everyone happy. i was delighted with our turkey from wild oats - i was very concerned about cooking it correctly - i was quite pleased that it was cooked quite well and was still juicy - yea! connie and alana brought apple pie (alana's favorite), yams, stuffing (bread), red wine, and i'm sure i'm forgetting something...OH! ham for the next morning and the green beans). ken brought some lovely french white wine, and i made pumpkin pie, stuffing (oatmeal), the turkey, salad, green beans, and rob made yummy dinner rolls as well as cinnamon rolls for the next morning. i'd hoped to have dinner ready at 3....well, we ate at 4. not so bad. we had some yummy appetizers, so everyone survived.

the kids' table.

the big kids' table

on saturday, rob, connie, and alana went geocache-ing. connie has a 4 wheel drive f250 (it's biodiesal - cool, huh?) so they were able to easily get where rob wanted to go. they found something insane like SIX caches. they also had a lot of fun.

alana on a cold hill

here she might be signing the log - there's connie's truck behind her
it may look like dancing, but there is a string that alana is holding - it was part of the cache. connie is in red watching the dance. *smile*
rob with 12 angry men. the dvd, not actual people shrunken down to surprisingly small size

on saturday and sunday rob also put up the outside lights - outside of our house looks great! inside, not so much, but at some point it will be christmasized.

and, just b/c, here is a picture of irene
and, i just want to say that i love my daughters sense of style. it always puts a smile on my face. under the purple sweater she has another sweater that also has stripes of various colors.

and now, i need to think about bed b/c it's going to be icy and scary driving tomorrow to get way across town.

and thanks again to carrie - everyone should go and give her some love b/c she helps to keep me blogging :)