Whew!

Just in time!  I finally got my Christmas background up and working.  Don't you just love Santa flying across on his sleigh?  I just love this time of year.  All the shopping, the lights, the trees, the snow, and lets not forget the eating!  So far, my favorite new thing this year is to see "little man" point to the Christmas lights and say "Whoa!"  He does it every time and I giggle every time.

This Saturday is the annual Thurber Christmas party and I am pretty much totally giddy to go!  I have loved these parties ever since I was a little girl.  It was so much fun to be with all of my cousins, opening presents, and chatting it up with Santa.  The best part was when we would huddle at the bottom of the stairs to hear what the adults were getting this year.  The adults always made us stay downstairs when they were opening their presents....years later I discovered it was because of my aunts!  (You know who you are "Dirty Aunt Sharlene")  They always had inappropriate, but oh so funny, gifts for the adults.  No "My Little Pony" for them!  This year, though, we are just getting together to eat and have fun, all the cousins have grown up and most of us are married and have kids of our own, and the adults still don't really want us around when they open their funny and inappropriate gifts.

Do you think if I asked Santa he would tell the adults to finally let us "little" cousins join in the reindeer games?  Merry Christmas!

 

Anyone else?

So I have tried to go to the "cutest blog on the block" to change my blog background and blogger won't let me....I'm on their new interface and just having a heck of a time.  Is anyone else having this problem?  Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated!!!!  HELP!!!!

Don't judge

Yeah I know I haven't changed my blog to my Christmas/Winter Wonderland background yet, but cut a girl some slack....Finals have been to visit my house.  I promise that in the not too distant future, say Wednesday, that I will have officially updated this blog with some new and fun information. 

In the meantime, Ottis, who has been taking some puppy training classes from my cousin Julie (she is fantastic!!!!) has finally learned to "wait" for his food and "away" when I'm cooking in the kitchen.  Bless the cuz and her talent for helping us with our shetland pony.   She is a wonderful trainer!

P.S. This picture of our puppy was taken when he was three months old, yep he is about three times this size now.  But he was, oh so cute!

Beautiful World

I drove to the barn today, Sage Creek Equestrian, after being away for the last two weeks, missing my mare Trillium aka "Tess" and looking forward to my ride.  I wondered if I would even be able to ride due to the nasty cold/cough that has bothering me for the last week and a half.  I started feeling so bummed out, that I might not be able ride, that the closer I got the bummier I got.  Well, this is NO WAY to go to the barn!  So, I decided to turn on NPR and listen to something new, something to distract me from my blues.  

NPR has a great feature called "Talk of the Nation" that I like.  Anyway, they were interviewing a woman named Emily Rapp, a writer/teacher and mother.  It was her role as mother that began to strike a chord with me.  Emily, has a son named Ronan, a beautiful son, one that smiles, coos, cuddles, cries, and giggles.  However, Ronan has a disease called Tay-Sachs and will not live past his fourth birthday.

 As this woman, this mother, Emily Rapp discussed what it is like to parent a 18 month old terminally ill child, tears started streaming down my face.  All I could picture was how active little 18 month old boys are, running, rolling, giggling, tickling, exploring, studying and learning about how their world works, all I could see is how this little boy must be missing out.  But then Emily Rapp, his mother, said the thing that made this radio feature so much more personal for me than just your average interview. 
 "And, you know, I just want him to be surrounded by love for his whole life and he might be unique in the sense that he will only have ever experienced unconditional love his entire - for the whole span of his life. So I often think about that when the days are hard" - Emily Rapp.
I almost stopped the car.  "Unconditional love for the whole span of his life"  what would that look like? Feel like?  Be like?  To give that?  Here I drove to Heber City, feeling sorry for this mother and her baby boy only to discover that in a small way I envied them?????
Is that right?  Doesn't quite make sense--- now don't get me wrong, I don't want anything like that for my "little man" but I wonder what type of life that would be to live, one of unconditional love, and if you could offer that type of love to someone what type of person would that make you?  Does that make sense?  I hope so.  It makes me stop and think, Am I truly giving all my love, compassion, empathy, understanding, kindness and hope to all of those that I love?
The answer, sadly probably is no, but I can hope and strive that one day the answer to that question will be yes.
While I strive to be a better person and to hopefully learn from Emily Rapp's example I will enjoy the little things that Cole gives us everyday.  Such as this delightful photo shoot that was in prom-to during dinner tonight.  "Little Man" delighted in giving me his best silly grin every time I said "smile!"  I love that little guy, I love the little life that he gave me, I love being an important part of his beautiful world.

 

Check Please?

Today, my dear sweet hubs sent me off to the Doctor to make sure that I don't have Bronchitis (thankfully, I don't) and he declared that he will be in charge of dinner tonight!  Now least that we all forget the interesting dinner the hubs made the last time he declared that he would "cook" here is a little  reminder of what my husband is capable of "cooking".  Eck!

Thankfully, this time my husband was really making his world famous sweet n' sour chicken, my favorite!  As luck would have it, though, it appeared to be my turn to take what should be a delicious meal into something that was....well...not.

What is this?  If you guessed a fly, you would be correct.  Why would this icky insect ruin our meal?

Well, before heading home I stopped at Harmon's to pick up some salad for dinner.  The hubs, put some salad on his plate and was almost FINISHED when he saw it!  THE FLY!!!! It was just lying there in all of its insect glory, dead.  Gross!!!

On the plus side, the hubs actually finished the salad, despite the fly.  Let's face it, it can't be that different from an Army meal in the chow hall.  

ummmmm.........check please?

Moral of this story:  Apparently even Harmon's can mess up their produce.... and when you find a fly in your newly bought salad, throw the whole batch out.

Do You Like It?

So, here it is.  My new blog, this background will only last, of course, until December 1st.  After that, game on!  It is Christmas!  However, for now this is what I have come up with.  Let me know what you think.  Any suggestions?  Would love some! 

I Need Your Help!

Hello Family and Friends!

I am sure many of you have already seen this on my Facebook page and have already posted, which I appreciate. However, my team is still down by 56 votes! If any of you could pass this link on to your friends I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!!! Here is the link again.....

http://bit.ly/u9vo5h