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Two pictures down, only 50 more to go! I used a remote on this picture, so it was hard to know when I had a good picture.... Thus this strange look he has on his face. I told him to give a little smile and this is what we got.

What a Weirdo

And no, I am not referring to my husband.

Bwaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa

Sorry, let me recover from that for a second.

I am actually referring to our wonderful, loving, caring........ ....... dog, Koda. This is how he sleeps about every night.

He lays in this little cabinet nook in the mud room. He always gets himself into these strange positions. If he isn't laying here he is usually laying next to the door, feet against the door pointed straight in the air. And if that's not weird enough while he is laying like that with his feet in the air then he begins to dream. And we all know what dogs do when they dream... they get their feet moving like they are running. So here he is, completely asleep, some strange position, running upside down. Then he starts scratching the door while he is running in his sleep.

I am starting to wonder if it is contagious. Just tonight my middle boy wanted to sleep UNDER his brothers bed.... in a little nook, with no room, with his feet in the air..... sleep running. Well, he really did want to sleep under his brothers bed.

Think on that when you turn in for the night tonight!

Drat that wind!

These next pictures were taken on New Years Day. Uhggg, New Years Eve was SO windy, I wrote about that already. Anyway, we awoke with not much damage and I was quite surprised. This is the roof of the garage, not too bad really. If ripped off several and then there were the shingles just pulled up. Lineman used about 500 gallons of tar on it and all the shingles seem to be holding now.

Ahhhh, my log swing! The wind picked up the swing, threw it against the house, then threw it against the fence.

It broke one of the legs so now the swing is in it's final resting place, at the dump. Too bad we don't have a fire place or we could have cremated it.

Yesterday our house had it's first showing. I was pretty excited but that buyer isn't going to work out. I got an e-mail from our real estate agent and here is an excerpt from it:

Talked to the agent that came out yesterday and they loved your home and the agent said to compliment you because your home showed beautifully, but he said as windy as it was it made the buyers decide they did not want to live rural, not much we can do about that. Keep in mind when they start looking in town and realize the disadvantages of it they might decide the wind is not so bad.

A little disappointing for sure. Funny thing is that the wind had slowed down quite a bit during the showing. Lineman said don't get too disappointed because if we knew what we know now we may not have chose to live at this location. But really it is windy everywhere around here, just worse at our house. Bummer to that. We do have a lot of positives to our house, the incredible view is one of them, sure hope the view will really help to sell the place.

Still crossing fingers here.

Crossing my fingers

Our house is "officially" listed as of today.

It's on the MLS and the sign went up today. Only 15 minutes after they guy put the sign up I had to leave the house for a showing.

And get this........ the wind has been blowing so hard today, probably gusts of 65 or so. When I left the house the wind had died down considerably, probably only gusting to 40. Now that the showing is over the wind has picked back up.....

Hmmmmmm........

Crossing my fingers here!

Don't they know it's cold outside?

The kids were outside playing the other day. It was pretty cold but it never stops them for very long. It doesn't look cold by the pictures, we have such a lack of snow, but trust me, it's cold. However, the day I took these pictures I think it was in the low 30's. I was originally trying to take a picture of Koda, our dog. He was just sitting there so contently watching the horses, cows and antelope in the valley below. Then I noticed my oldest son. Is it just me or does he look like Lewis & Clark? And what was their dogs name?

The neighbor girl has been coming over a lot. She is a few years older than our oldest but it hasn't stopped them all from becoming great friends. Now that she comes over my kids seem to have found their trampoline again. I wonder if they forgot it was there. Now they are on it constantly. It is so much fun to watch them play outside. Days like this one are hard to pass up for outdoor play. Mostly the kids are indoors due to the cold or the wind. Or both.

Thankfully on this day it was outdoor play.

Does anyone remember Lewis & Clark's dog's name? They did have a dog, didn't they?

Too Creative!

Last year for Christmas I received this beautiful handmade scrapbook from my dad and my stepmom. The pictures were from a trip we had all made to California the previous year. I was so thrilled to get the scrapbook and I spent forever going through each page and re-living the memories.

As I was going through it I realized that some of the background paper was personalized by them as well. I first noticed it in the page above, showing my brothers family walking on the beach. I thought that was just the coolest thing ever! I leave this neat and special scrapbook out year round and I find myself looking through it often.

This year I got.... Okay, my name wasn't actually on the gift. My boys' names were on the gift, but I like to pretend it was a gift to me. So we, I mean, they got this box above. When they opened it up they saw this...

Inside they found handmade dominoes. Spiderman dominoes, just what every mom wants. Fine, just what every boy wants. The dominoes are store bought and then they go through a detailed process of changing each domino to their new look. My brothers family got Packer football dominos and now my mom has put in an order as well.

Here's another look at the dominoes. I can't say enough about these, they are truly one of a kind. I love the blue shimmery top accented by the red sides.

The bottom is all original so we play lots and lots of dominoes. The other night we played Chicken Foot, to which my middle son mistakenly calls "Chicken Fingers". Chicken Foot or Chicken Fingers, it doesn't really matter, we all love playing dominoes.

They also sent me about a dozen or more handmade cards. What a great gift idea!

Also, if you are interested they do this for a business. They sell supplies, make scrapbook elements, pages, or whole entire books for people! They make cards, paper, memory boxes and so much more. I think they are only limited by their imagination, and I think the sky's the limit with their imagination. You can check out their website here.

Life in a bag

Life is a bag, when your stuck in a bag. We have had our Little Man sleep in a bag sleeper (blanket sleeper) since we brought him home from the hospital. I absolutely love these things because it's impossible to get him to keep a blanket on for more than 3 seconds. The hospital he was born at gave us one but I also had two others from my other boys. They are GREAT! If you are looking for a good baby gift here is an idea for you (one is never enough for a mother).

But, what happens when you wake up and you are still wearing your sleeper blanket? What happens if your parents don't take it off? Do you think you could walk in it?

The first time I saw him walk in it I about died laughing. You would think he'd be tripping over it but he can just go and go. He has almost outgrown this one, another sign the boys are growing up.

Speaking of growing up we have a boy turning 5 this month, I absolutely can't believe it!

A happy bag to you.... I mean a happy day to you.

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Happy New Year!

It's the beginning of my year long project: "52 Weeks". I'll be in a picture every week with one, two, three kids or my entire family. It's just so often that as a mom I am always behind the camera and not in front of it. Not for 2009. So often as a mom we seem to always be behind the lens and rarely in front of it. Our children will look back at pictures when they are grown and we will hardly be in a single picture. If you would like to join me in this year long project I would really enjoy that. But more importantly your family will absolutely love it. Even if you don't have kids you can still do this, set up the timer on your camera and take a picture with you and your spouse, friend, dog, or just you out on a hike. Let's just make a point of getting in front of the camera more frequently.

Let me know if you decide to take on "52 Weeks" so I can visit your blog. Even if you don't join in, I hope that you will at least find yourself in the picture more often.

A -Okay

It looks like we may have faired pretty well outside considering the winds we had. Lineman just left for the hardware store to pick up supplies. The garage roof was the hardest hit, but it isn't as bad as I had feared.

So all in all we are doing okay here. 2008 sure roared it's way out, no doubt about it!