Snowed in...or getting ready to be.

"Snow! Woo Hoo!! No school for two days!", my children were cheering as they galloped off to bed this evening. I was cheering too, it was a lot of fun to have them home all day today! 

That's right, no school today and they've already cancelled school for tomorrow. 

Wanna know why? Because, as I have heard, we are in for one of the biggest storms Kansas has had for quite a while. The entire state of Kansas is already in a state of emergency due to the snow, rain, and ice we've gotten today and are preparing to get tonight. Today wasn't so bad....as long as you weren't driving. I guess we maybe received an inch of snow but we had a snow/rain/ice mix for most of the day. But I guess the big stuff will be hitting us overnight and all day tomorrow. 

This is a weather shot I just took. The purple dot is family. Hi family!! So happy to see that you are safely tucked away in Indiana trees!! I wish I had trees to block the wind. And hills, yes, those tiny Indiana hills would sure come in handy today too! 

The red dot is me in the flat land; without trees and hills. We are tucked in warm in our house though with plenty of food, movies, games, art projects and library books to keep us busy and comfortable for quite a while. Right now I'm snuggling on the couch with.....nobody. That's right, except for the kids, I'm all alone. 

See the green dot? That's Hays, KS. It might not look too far away but it's a few hours from here and that's where DR is right now, hopefully, warm and snug in a hotel. He had a business trip he left for Monday night and was supposed to get back this evening. No can do. The roads are treacherous (salt people!!) and he opted to hole up in a hotel for another night or two. 

 The big yellow sort of oval shape is the storm that is supposed to hit us over night. And when I say hit, I mean HIT! I've heard that in the next 24 hours we could possibly receive over a foot of snow....and I just read on one weather site that the worst of it is supposed to pass right between the red dot and the green dot. Right between my husband and I. 

...great...

I should have known something bad was going to happen while he was away. Last year when he took this trip I only had three kids throwing up all over my carpet in the middle of the night. If it weren't for all the welcome moisture this storm is bringing I'd almost wish to have sick kids than be separated from DR for who knows how long. No telling when I'll see my husband again! As long as he's safe though he can stay at hotels and eat at restaurants every night and I promise I won't hold a grudge!! 

Would you mind saying a quick prayer for us though? I don't mind being home alone. I don't even mind being snowed in the house. I am a little worried about losing power though. We have a generator and plenty of space heaters and a gas stove so I'm sure we'll be just fine in case it does go out but I'd rather not have to battle a power failure. So far so good though. The only battle I've fought today was with the stubborn dog who refused to go in the garage to spend the night warm and dry. I couldn't even drag her in!! 

I'm expecting to have plenty of down time for the next day or two so hopefully I can share our Kansas storm with you all. (And to give grandmothers peace of mind that we are all fine!!) Hopefully I'll be posting tomorrow!  

Kansas readers! (or anyone in the path of this storm) if you wouldn't mind comment and let me know what the storm is bringing you! 

Daddy Magic

Oooh, now that's a nasty look Yahoo.  

Smile for me....

Not even just a little smile? 

I think I see something!! 

Thanks Daddy! I knew you could help her find that pretty smile! 

Not Wood Butchers!

These photos are from a few weeks ago but I know there are some grandparents, aunts and uncles that my find them interesting. 

Yip and Yap signed up for woodworking in 4H this year. I grew up knowing very little about woodworking. Not that I didn't help my dad build stuff growing up, I was the oldest of 7 on a farm after all, but my dad willingly confesses that he's a wood butcher. (oh, the joy of building those basement steps with you dad! *sarcasm*) 

Anyhoo...DR and the boys spent a warm Saturday morning building in the garage. 

Yip is working on a coffee table.....

....while Yap is working on a shelf. 

I was all excited about the new furniture I was going to get but DR informed me these are only practice and not good enough yet. Shoot, they sure looked good enough to me! But I was raised by a wood butcher so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. One things for sure I didn't marry a wood butcher and he's not raising any wood butchers. 

The Great Green Tomato War!

My garden is finally dead. We hard a hard freeze Thursday or Friday last week that finally killed of all my tomato plants though it warmed right back up by the weekend. Yesterday afternoon DR took the boys out to the garden, while I was putting Yahoo down for a nap, to clean up hoses and plants and such. When I came out of Yahoo's bedroom I heard all sorts of screaming, laughing and hollering coming from the garden. I stepped outside to tell the boys to quiet down, because Yahoo wasn't asleep yet, only to find this.....

DR was having a green tomato war with the boys! 

Honestly though they weren't picky about their ammunition. They were quite happy when they found a squishy red one! 

They soon learned that a large dead tomato plant would double as a bunker. 

But Dad still had awfully good aim! 

Ha! I hadn't seen DR have such a good time in a long time! 

Toward the end of their war the boys decided they needed camoflauge! 

Ugg!! I think I'm going to have to burn those clothes. Dead tomato plants smell disgusting!! 

A Happy Marriage, well, 7 years of 9 anyway.

Last week DR and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary! And what do you know, that husband of mine gave me the very best present! A stainless steel coffee pot, one that will never break! I must say, it's probably the very best present I've ever received. (I'm just a little addicted to my coffee!) 

As we were congratulating one another on our 9 years together DR asked if I'd been happy in our marriage. 

"Not always." I answered truthfully. "I've been happy for 7 of the 9." 

He raised his eyebrows questioningly and I went on to explain. Our first year of marriage wasn't happy, but at the time I was too stupid and inexperienced to realize I was miserable. I was a newlywed, pregnant with twins who just happened to spend six months of that first year separated from my husband. Of course our marriage wasn't tip top! My husband was in Delaware while I was in Indiana pretty much on my own. We barely even knew one another before we were married and that first year didn't provide the opportunities to get to know one another the way newlyweds should. 

A couple of years after our boys were born we lived in southern Indiana and although we were living very near DR's hometown we were miserable with one another. His job was extremely stressful with a lot of personnel conflict and long, long working hours. I was an isolated stay at home mother of twin toddlers far from any of my friends and family. DR and I barely saw one another and when we did we were usually grumpy. 

Luckily we only lived in Southern Indiana for one year (the second unhappy year) before we moved to Illinois for another job position for DR. Illinois offered a pay cut and a demotion in the company. DR's job was less stress, but also less money. Money was pretty tight. We were at least three hours from any of our family. Our house was old and drafty and out in the middle of nowhere. Illinois battered us with snow, snow drifts, ice and wind. I was still a stay at home mom but I was able to venture out into the world a bit. Sounds stressful doesn't it? Yet, for the three years we lived there it was easily some of the happiest years of our married life. 

Later DR mentioned to me that he never understood why I stayed with him after those hard years, especially the first. I didn't have an answer for him other than..."Because that's what you do when you are married." 

I didn't marry DR with the belief that life was always going to be peachy. I realized that everyone has their good days and bad days, though I hadn't anticipated entire bad years. DR isn't the happiest person to be around, neither am I. But we love each other; happy or grumpy, good or bad. I believe that DR and I have to work together and help cover each other's weak spots to make our marriage work. 

I feel extremely blessed to have met DR and married him when I did. I am thankful everyday that DR is the father of my children because he's very good at it. I'm ecstatic that DR loves me despite my oddities and weirdness. We've had 7 really great years of marriage. Yes, two of those years were lousy but honestly, I'm glad we endured them. The bad years have made us stronger and resilient. I think every couple needs some "bad years" because it makes those good years grand! 

Can you relate? 

Pickin' a Melon is serious business.

I get tickled by my husband. He's so serious! 

On our trip to the mountains last week we had to drive through Eastern Colorado which is kind of boring. Eastern Colorado is a lot like Western Kansas....flat, with a few more trees. 

What they do have quite a bit of though are family farm markets along the way selling melons!! 

What makes stopping at this particular farmer's market so funny is that DR grew up in southern Indiana growing melons. He even remembers bringing up trailers full of melons to the Indiana State Fair and building those pyramids of melons? Any of you Hoosiers remember those?? 

So yeah, melons are a serious business for DR! 

When we stopped he was searching for the perfect melon. 

I was just standing back taking pictures :) 

We ended up leaving with one watermelon, one cantaloupe and one jar of honey (with beeswax!!! my choice) and half a dozen peaches which took DR about 20 minutes to decide upon. 

With my untrained eye picking the melons we would have been in and out in three minutes!! He looked, turned, thumped, compared, smelled and who knows what else to find just. the. right. melons. 

I'm sure glad he was so diligent because my oh my those were some pretty good melons!! According to me anyway. 

According to DR they weren't anything compared to what he used to grow!! LOL

Who knew Colorado was melon country? 

4H Electricity

With the winter months here we've been slowly working on 4H projects. We've done some sewing and art projects but last weekend DR and the boys sat down to tackle their very first electric project. 

I've posted before on the differences between Indiana 4H and Kansas 4H. There are no guidelines about what is expected for their projects so we decided to do what is a first year project in Indiana; an circuit board. (Thanks Grandma for buying the kits for us!) 

See, I never took electricity but I always saw all these pretty little boards with batteries, wires and lit light bulbs and just assumed it couldn't be that hard right? Right? 

As it turns out it was hard and poor DR did most of the work. The boys helped where they could; measuring and cutting wires, and deciding where everything went but it was probably still too advanced for 7 year olds. There were just too many very small parts that was hard for the boys to manipulate and DR wouldn't even let them close to the soldering gun. 

They do understand the concept of the path of electricity which is the point. 

And we've talked a lot about electrical safety, conductors and insulators. 

They sure were proud of their circuit boards that actually lit up.

I loved 4H and I'll be more than happy to help my kids out with any project they have in mind but man, I never realized that being the 4H parent is a whole different ballgame than being the 4H kid. It's a lot of work! But thank goodness for DR because if I had to have helped with a circuit board we STILL wouldn't be done! 

Guest Post by DR; The Perils of the Mom Purse!

My husband DR kindly offered to write a guest post for my blog. Being the loving wife I humored his odd choice of subject..my purse. *sigh* I still love him, even after this post.


Purses! In my lifetime I have see my fair share of women's purses/assault weapons/accessories/dressers away from home. But all purses pale in comparison to the "Mom Purse"!


The requirement for a purse being designated a MOM PURSE are;
1. The purse must be carried by a mother of young children.
2. The purse has to be BIG enough to cover all occasions (i.e. makeup needs, banking needs, fallout shelter for a nuclear attack needs)
3. The purse has to be stylishly fashionable and match the person carrying it in all occasions.


A few months ago my wife, Prairie Mother, finally graduated from a normal size purse to a MOM PURSE. Let's examine this purse shall we?


1. It's black, so it goes well with anything.
2. It's BIG! Some examples of how big this purse is;
a) I can fit my head, arms and shoulders into this bag.
b) Small children can use it as a hiding place.
c) Goblins have started to move in. (Yes goblins! Since the Potter movies are done they had to find a new place to live.)

Yes, Yahoo is IN the purse! 

I know a lot of you are thinking I might be kind of critical. But what other things can we compare this purse to.


1. Black holes
2. Outer Space
3....Do I really need to go on?


So, the next time you are looking for a new purse, don't think about how it looks or makes you feel. Just think, "Can I fit my makeup inside? My assault weapons? A refugee camp of goblins?"


Observations offered up by DR

The Bacon Battle

We love bacon. We plow through bacon. We usually eat a pound of bacon every Sunday morning. 

As much as we love bacon, the Bacon Battle rages every Sunday morning and Christmas morning was no exception....

......because DR doesn't know how to cook it the right way!! 

It's gotten so bad that I have to cook my bacon separate from DR's. 

Mine is on the left, brown and crispy...utterly perfect. 

DR's is on the right, pale and practically raw....what a disgrace! 

Normally this wouldn't be an issue but DR has brainwashed our children into thinking "bendy" bacon is the proper way to cook such a wonderful delicacy. 

Curses! How am I to get them back on the side of good and noble and CRISP bacon?  

*sigh*

Bacon. It's become one of the great battles of my life! 

(So, how do you cook bacon? The right way I hope!)

Vote on my Christmas Card Magnet!

DR and I started a Christmas tradition when our boys were only toddlers. We send a wallet sized family photo on a business card size magnet along with our Christmas cards. It's been pretty popular with family! I've been to a few people's houses where our growing magnet collection is on their fridge! And of course once we started Grandma expects it every year and I can't disappoint Grandma! 

For months I have been trying to get a good family photo for our magnet! Yip and Yap seem to think normal smiles are over rated...gggrrr. 

Finally, Sunday morning before church I dragged everyone outside for a photo. Bbbbrrrr, it was in the 40's and cold and I was in no mood for any funny business. We were going to do this quick! I had seen this idea from a professional photographer, posing a family reading books. Since we are big readers I thought it would be cute! Well, we rushed it and couldn't get a photo of Yap with his eyes open but I did manage to narrow down our options to these two photos. 

Option #1 

Option #2

Yap's eyes are closed and this is Yip's version of a smile.

*sigh* ...at least they are natural I suppose. 

So, help me out. 

Tell me in the comments below which photo we should send with Christmas cards! 

Visiting Mountain Man and TREES!!!!

Over the weekend we traveled 5 hours to southern Oklahoma to visit my brother Mountain Man who moved there over the summer.



What a wonderful view he has from his back door!! 
His landlord runs cattle on a 100 acres behind the house. 

I have missed trees so much that being in Southern Oklahoma reminded DR and I a lot of Southern Indiana. Although Indiana trees are bigger than Oklahoma trees. 

There was a big fallen down tree in the pasture that Yip and Yap spent A LOT of time playing on! You wouldn't believe how filthy they got playing on it! I loved it! I love when my kids get so dirty playing; I honestly believe it's healthy for kids. 

"What's this Uncle Mountain Man?"

"That's raccoon poop boy!" 

Ah, a wilderness education! 

I've heard people call Oklahoma "God's Country" and it sure seemed that wonderful this weekend. 

I have to admit I'm pretty jealous that Mountain Man gets to live in such a beautiful place but I'm sure happy he's my brother so I can come visit him!