And the length was.. .

When I got home from getting my hair cut, the first thing Eric asked was...did you dye it too.  No I didn't.  He then proceeded searching through my hair like a Reese monkey in search of gray hair.  He was disappointed to find I have none.  He has many.

So how much hair was it?  Four pony tails, two were 14 inches long 2 were 16 inches long.  A grand total length of 60 inches.  I am personally only 65 inches tall.  That would be 1.66 yards of hair.  Math is so much fun!  It can be, but really it's not all the time.

That makes Mom L. the winner with a guess of 16 inches, since I really was just looking for the length of a pony tail.  She requested her prize to be, taking the grand kids home with her, so I figure I'll wait until she gets here to see if that is the prize she still wants when it is time for her to go home.  Thank you for all your guesses and kind comments about my new do.

To the comments about me being brave in cutting so much off and unable to bring themselves to make such a cut, I know my hair will grow back.  And in a while, I'll get tired of trying to get a hair appointment and grow it all out again...and then, I'll get tired of it long and donate it again, a visicious cycle!  While to me it's just hair, hair I am blessed will grow back and currently has no gray hairs, I know to someone else who can't grow hair, it is precious.  I am not the brave one.  Those fighting for their life are the brave ones and deserve a head of hair.

I'm wondering if this means Urgent care won't recognize us the next time we visit.   Knock on wood, we won't start 2011 off at the ER like we did 2010, and while the day is young, hopefully we won't end it there either!

See ya next year!

The year is closing

Everywhere you look, you'll see the best of 2010, the worst of 2010, and lists of things we won't forget, or at least pop culture thinks we shouldn't forget.  Your family I'm sure has it's own.

We have had our roller coaster ride like anyone else.  We have had challenges that have terrified us, and at the same time built us up.  We have said too many very sad goodbyes, but also many more hellos and welcome to the worlds!

It is only by Grace that each day we awake with fresh possibilities, opportunities and a choice of how we paint our canvas.

This is a time of year that many consider resolutions of one sort or another.  I have participated in declaring a word to approach a new year...such has gratefulness, adventure, or inspiring. I have had fitness goals, healthy habit resolutions or vow to just read more books for me. My favorite one was the year I began a grateful journal, I only stuck to it for about six weeks, but it changed my life!

Most of the time for resolutions we will focus on an area of life that we have self declared...NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.  But consider this, maybe not all of us have to be master chefs, star athletes or precisely punctual, and maybe some magical number on the scale isn't truly what will bring us happiness.  Look at what you do daily in your life.  What inspires you? What lifts you up? What is something you easily loose track of time while doing?  These are your strengths and instead of improving on your perceived failures, focus on improving your strengths.

I challenge you to be the best YOU, and your God given talents that make you uniquely YOU!  Not all of us need to sing in the choir, someone needs to enjoy the talents of those in the choir.  Stop beating yourself up for things that you struggle to attain, and rejoice in where you are, what you have attained, and who you truly are.


So I share with you my resolutions.

To say YES to things that are enjoyable to me and to say no when it would bring me weariness.
To build upon my strengths and not to worry about not succeeding in other areas.
To know and trust that God has equipped me with exactly what I need to do the work I am called to do.

Have an adventurous and beautiful 2011!

Give away!

That's right, in honor of the season of giving I thought I would give something special this year.




Caution: the upcoming photos could be startling.

Can you guess how many inches I was able to donate?  Put your guess in the comments and of the correct answers I'll choose a winner to receive their own special give away!  **While I'm not sure exactly what the give away will be, and therefore I don't have a picture to entice you with, I can assure you, it is not a wig or any of my hair.  Locks of Love has my hair and now someone can have a new full head of hair!  Prize winner will be announced on Friday.

If you would like to participate in giving away your hair to Locks of Love, any Great Clips store will happily assist you!

Big day....

This little guy has just turned TWO!  AND he got his first hair cut.  (sniff sniff)

Let me tell you a bit about this guy...here he is driving his car...uh...no he corrected me, it is a bus.  He loves to tool around in here.  We took the kids to the park with their bikes to have more space to safely ride and took the car I mean bus along too.

See a nice paved path...an open road if you will.

Wait where are you going?

Off roading with a bus?  What are you?  A thrill seeking, need for speed boy?

Seriously, he took this thing backwards down a rock embankment as fast as he could.  When I asked him if he needed help getting the car unstuck, he simply replied; "BUS" and got out and walked away.  Once safely on the path...he proceeded to take it "off road" again out into the desert.

When he's not thrill seeking, you will find him in his room with his "choo choos".  Since Christmas, it has become obvious that we won't see him until he's 14 years old....at least I won't find him baking himself in my oven or poking another ant hill with a stick, right?!

Happy Birthday!

Adventure day

We took a day, and visited the

 It was larger than life

 Hands on

(The biggest kid along that day)

 Anyone recently bit your head off honey?

 To the far corners of the earth.

 Interactive

 The kids crawled through

 And walked under.

 Who you lookin' at?

 This just made me giggle!  Just a minute, I've got an itch!

 He roared at the lions

Sing with me, "Everybody's got a water buffalo, yours is fast and mine is slow"

 Scary lion

 We all had a good time.

No lion!

She fell in love with this cat, and just sat with her.

Goodies

We are surrounded by goodies....

 puppy chow

 mint chocolate chip & peanut butter cookies

 Cranberry, chocolate chip biscotti

 reindeer

Pumpkin chocolate chip

And these are just the ones I got pictures of.  The freezer is stocked, the neighbors have been treated, and our bellies are happy.  Visit, but bring a sweet tooth!

Christ is BORN!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Another one of our family traditions, to take our picture by the tree at church when we attend for the Christmas service.

And since my Christmas card hasn't reached you yet, here is a sneak peak.  For some, this may be the only one you get.  Life is a balance and making 168 Christmas cards this year was not within that balance this year.

Advent is drawing to a close

Our waiting is nearly over.

The excitement is building.

Soon we will be celebrating all that is the miracle of Jesus' birth.

The books have been read. The stories have been told.  The countdowns completed and special movies have been watched.

Lighting the candles, they are so bright in the darkness.

We do not fear.

Our hearts are filled with Joy.

We'll tell it from the mountain tops and sing with the world.

Remember to enjoy all that is, today, tomorrow and every day.  Our blessings surround us, look and you'll see them.


***************
I would like to add a personal note. This year we are very blessed to have Eric home for Christmas.  When he is not home, our Advent and Christmas traditions still happen, and actually are what make getting through this time of year without him, not only manageable, but still with the Christmas Spirit.  I know many who struggle either because someone is deployed, has passed, or maybe has to work the holiday schedule.  The Spirit of Christmas doesn't happen because of celebrations on a specific date on the calendar with specific people, but because it lives in our hearts, all year long. Make some special traditions of your own that can happen no matter what else is going on in your life, ones that help you keep your focus on the reason for the season.  Make sure they are not burdensome traditions, keeping them simple is key to being able to continue them no matter what else is going on during this time. If you have children, include them in the tradition making, they will look forward to them each year, and be a part of their coping skills too.

Buddy

Not everyone gets to watch Elf, WITH Buddy the Elf.

The Nutcracker remix

Tis the season when The Nutcracker ballet seems to be popular.  For your viewing, and listening pleasure,

Advent crafts

A couple of growing Advent traditions are craft type of projects.

 Waiting for the green light.

 The snow has fallen.

 Ginger house building this year was a project with Daddy.

 Which means, he had grand ideas.

And a snow fort in the back yard.

Anything you can do.....

Family members around here seem to be a bit . . . .  shall we say competitive?

The boys have to show off their gymnastic skills as well.  And Kjetil, in the kitchen of course.

He was actually showing and challenging CJ to hand stand push ups

However, I think we also do goofy pretty well too. . . .

and you can see where THAT talent comes from!

When your day begins. . . . .

When before 8 AM you find this going on in your Kitchen. . . .  .

 He was so immersed in what he was doing, he didn't even notice me taking pictures

And when he did see me, he told me, "hot!"

Before you get too concerned...it was NOT hot.  I am not known for cooking breakfast.  However you will note he did take the precautionary measure of wearing a hot mitt in case it was hot.  Also. I don't typically spread my oven racks over the floor while I bake.  I'm not sure how this is helping me or mimicking behavior.  Of course when he took scoops and scoops of flour and put them directly into the oven with persimmons sitting on the racks, I did not find him particularly helpful that day either.  Although I'm sure he thought he was baking.

Open door of oven is not a step stool Mommy approves of either.

The oven lock, is now securing the door.

When the day begins like this, it's going to be a busy, challenging one.

Tuck and Scrambler and Google

Our turtles, Tuck and Scrambler are both females.

They are Mississippi Mud Red Ear Slider Turtles.

One likes to escape, has twice, we assume it was Tuck going on adventures, but I never verified before returning her home. (Let me pause and tell you that Tuck is the turtle from the Wonder Pets, a cute little cartoon, where three classroom pets rescue other animals all over the world after the students go home. Lenny I think is a hamster and Ming Ming is a baby duck.)
Eric made a chicken wire lid that will allow their special lighting to shine through unfiltered and not be able to escape. Thank you Eric.

Last weekend I noticed a few white spots on each of them.  I then did what every internet accessing American does these days, I GOOGLED the spots.

Could be one of two things.  The shell growing/molting or shell rot.  
Not wanting to raise alarms with the kids around I waited to discuss with Eric. Which means I forgot.  For about 2 days, then when he noticed the white spots, I noticed then that the spots had gotten worse and more had shown up.  He then Googled and found home remedies to help clear up shell rot. 

The next day, they stopped swimming.  We noticed their eyes were either very freaky looking while sleeping or covered in puss.  The following day, they didn't eat a thing.  Their eyes, we were pretty sure just freaky looking while sleeping, but signs of improvement were not showing.

Not a great picture of sleeping eyes

So on Friday we took the turtles to the vet.  When we got them, I never intended on taking them to the vet.  How absurd taking turtles to the vet!  However, when they are giving signs of potentially rotting and slowly dying in front of your eyes and you have three young children also watching, some sort of action needs to be taken.  Shell rot, can be treated very easily.

I stayed in the van with the kids while Eric took the turtles in.  Here is the news we got.

They look and appear to be very HEALTHY.

They are HAPPY.

And they are trying to HIBERNATE.

They are growing new shells, causing the discoloration.  They like to eat dog food --which is good because Kjetil likes to feed them dog food.  If we warm their water up a bit they will become more active, however, overall we're doing great raising these turtles, fifty bucks please.

They must be hibernating because this is Scrambler. She got her name for being so skidish and quickly scrambling a way if someone even walked by their tank. Yet she let me take several pictures of her, tap on the tank and the only sign of movement was her lowering her back leg that she had had up in the air.  If she was awake, you'd also see the red marking and her eyes, instead you just see a couple of gray bumps where they eyes are.

So now you know a little more about turtles.  Even if kept indoors year round, they will hibernate.

Sweet Things

We stopped by a local cupcake shoppe for a sweet treat.

 She said her strawberry one was, and I quote, "like heaven"

 Just the frosting please!

 Could eat about anything in one bite if allowed to.

"sprinkles please"