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Ever since Mark and Zach went hunting, Dylan and Alisa have been playing the ‘Kitty’ game. Which consists of them crawling around meowing all day, and loudly at that. (It is a step above the ‘Bird’ game, I guarantee it! And no homemade nests lying around waiting to be tripped over. And definitely better than the ‘Moose’ game, where Dylan hoped to catch a moose in his homemade moose trap (his bed surrounded by pillows. Though he did have fun when Gabby fell in!)

So, imagine our surprise when we heard real meowing on our front porch, and opened it up to see a gorgeous, light orange cat with big yellow eyes. It looks to be somewhere between a kitten and an adult, and a little on the skinny side. It is friendly, and cautiously wants in the house (but I am afraid of worms, diseases, potty time, rabies, etc.) so out it stays. With some pleading to Mark we fed it, and it stuck around until morning. It disappeared while we were at church, and we had some upset kids. But he (and we know it’s a he because Mark checked (much to his embarrassed disclosure, when the kids and I (I didn’t grow up on a farm, and the Dirty Jobs show only teaches you so much!) asked “How do you know?” Yes, 35 year old men DO still blush! came back that night, and a friend gave us some cat food to tide us over. We asked her what she does for her cats, because they stay outside all winter too. She builds a box house and puts a warming pad in it. We hope he stays. We don’t have a lot of money for Christmas, so this would make a very nice present (in addition to a finished basement, bathroom, and school room. Which may seem lame to some of you reading, but the kids are more then thrilled with that!) Of course, some family may be missing him right now, and if that is the case we hope he makes his way back again!

And of course, I am finally getting the pictures of the concert and weight chart up. (I ended up taking a screen capture of my Word document rather than figure out tables.) I will also try to embed a youtube video of one song from each of the concerts. The low quality makes it sound much less wonderful than it truly was! I am not sure if I can embed videos with this software though, so I’ll edit it sometime if it doesn’t work out.

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Before I had children, I was convinced that I didn’t want daughters. I was afraid they’d all look just like me, and hey I hated the way I looked as a girl/teen so why put them through that trauma? And then I found out I was pregnant with a girl and for a while thought about her being everything I wasn’t and how jealous I’d be and wondered if I would resent that. And then I gave birth and I was filled with hope. I desperately wanted her to be the most beautiful creature on earth, more intelligent, more funny, more everything. Until I put Gabby into piano. She has been taking lessons since around mid-April, and is BLOWING ME OUT OF THE WATER. And it’s not fair! WAAAHHHH! She can now play a church hymn that has been my nemesis…”Called to Serve”. She is WAY better with dynamics and theory than I am. She has the raw talent that I never possessed and I am a little jealous! I guess I will just have to work harder and catch up, because NO WAY is she going to be better than me on this!

The hunting trip went fine. There aren’t many deer where they hunt, so they saw one on Saturday (along with some grouse and red squirrels) and none on Sunday (though they did see a wolf.) Of course on the drive home they saw 10 deer, LOL! Figures! I’m just happy to have them back, safe and sound! They came home smelling like a hunting shack (ew) but Mark came home with that post hunting stubble that I like so very much, so you win some, you lose some!

Zach’s band concert was last night. He did an excellent job. The band is much smaller than in Glencoe, and not as developed (they don’t have a marching band, for example.) I will post pictures of him and Gabby on Friday (she has her choir concert on Thursday, so I will dedicate a post to them then. I also made the chart showing the kids weights at various ages, but haven’t figured out how to make a table on this program yet, so I will do that on Friday’s post as well! Oh, and some pictures of Reese playing outside in the snow too. Until then!

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My first thought is: how on earth did Al Franken get THAT close? The fact that there are 6,000 votes in MPLS alone that were rejected by optical machines but could count with a hand re-count is a bit daunting. No offense to the pro-Al visitors, of course. By the same token, just because I’m a bit weird this way, how on earth did Michelle Bachman get re-elected? This is one lady that scares me in the opposite way that Franken scares me. I suppose I really am moderate, above all else. On the other hand, listening to Rush, Hannity, Coulter, and Savage have to choke on ‘Senator Franken’ would be funny, and make an excellent SNL skit!

I enjoyed John McCain’s concession speech very much. This was the man that I was highly interested 8 years ago! I am disappointed in the boos from the audience. And Obama’s speech: WOW. Perhaps I am highly effected having just finished a month long unity study with the children on the Civil War. But as I sat on my couch with my children gathered around me, and listened as the commentators call the election, we couldn’t help smile a bit. Was this the candidate of choice for me? No, but to have gone from a time where black people were ‘things’, lower than work animals on the plantation totem pole, and hell-bound with no chance for salvation, to having an African American president (or half, as I have come to discover there are bitter people out there who think he’s not really black because he’s half white. Huh? Remember a time in history that if it was common knowledge that you had even a drop of blood you were ‘less than’?) And his speech brought me to tears like McCain’s did. BUT, okay, history was made. And now we move on. He is just a man, coming into a really bad economy and other troubling issues. Race should no longer be an issue, in my opinion. Next time let’s make it a woman, a true barrier to be broken! (But NOT Sarah Palin. The info coming out today about behind the scenes and the wardrobe choices and her ‘rogue-ness’ are a wee bit scary.)

I am disappointed in some reactions. To those who are now ‘moving out of the country’, enjoy your trip. I am guessing Socialist Europe is not where you are headed (as opposed to a democratic republic that utilizes social programs). Please don’t hang around and complain, just make good on your promise and go. To those who feel that Obama “is not, and never will be MY president, and I will never, ever support him” I hope you take the time to get active in the political process and find a candidate that will win the confidence of the people next time. But, yes, he IS your president. (And welcome to how Democrats have felt the last 4-8 years.) I’m confident that if nothing else, you will be more compassionate to the feelings of ‘the other side.’

To those who feel Obama is evil, a hypocrite, a liar, a Muslim only claiming to be Christian, a man who has “nothing, not one good thing” about him, a terrorist, and anti-American, and a Marxist communist, who knows we may find out you are right. Let’s base it on his performance in office instead of on the smears of the campaign. To those involved in the discussion I read about ‘is it appropriate to assassinate a president that is dragging the country down’ you are SICK. (And please don’t bring up ‘better that one man perish than a nation dwindle…” because we are the USA. We can lawfully take care of any situation without murder. Please pray that our president have a soft-heart, an open mind, and honest intentions based on the Constitution.

To any Democrats (and I haven’t run into any, but the accusations are running around amok) that think this means greater handouts, free childcare and welfare and health care, please don’t abuse these things. These are programs that are there for the truly needy. They need to be overhauled BIG TIME. If you can, in any capacity, work please do so. Support your self and your children with good old work ethic. Don’t lie about numbers, don’t ’steal’ from people’s hard earned money. Don’t have more children to get better welfare, don’t stay in school for 10 years, etc. etc. etc. Prove the ones who doubt you wrong. Show them you can fulfill the American dream. You can be anything and do anything you want.

Off my soap box! Enjoy your day!

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I am amazed at how positive this campaign has been. No negative ads, no lies, no smears, no distractions or peripheral issues! Oh wait, maybe it simply pays to NOT HAVE TV! Other than the occasional tuning in by adjusting the rabbit ears (I know, what is this, the 80’s?)

Mark and I went to vote at 8:00 this morning. We cast ballots number 161 and 162. I had a variety on my ticket, Democrat, Republican, and 3rd Party. I’m glad I took the time to study the judges’ platform, there were about 25 of them on there, most uncontested.

I think it’s been about 3 weeks since I last wrote. I am so bad about keeping up on this. Alisa had another eye appointment, and she went down to wearing her patch 2 hours a day for 3 days a week, for 3 months. Then after a month of no patch, we go back to see if it gets worse again. Apparently it does in about 15% of cases, and this test allows them to weed out the ones who can stop. Zach is almost halfway done with his Mara appliance (that moves the jaw forward for overbites.) No more than a year remaining for braces. Then we can look toward Gabby, I am sure!

Zach’s Court of Honor went well. He is now 1 month into his Life Scout. 5 months to Eagle. He has 12 weeks of physical fitness testing on one merit badge, and about 3 items on another and then he is done. All that will remain is his Eagle project. Yay!

We had a nice Halloween. Went to Grandma’s house to get dressed up, and then visited the Great-grandmas and Mark’s aunt Nancy, and then down 1 street to give the kids a little taste of ‘real’ trick-or-treating. It was a glorious night, and we are grateful for that. Here are some pictures: Halloween Pictures 2008

Zach and Gabby have concerts next week. Zach’s is on Tuesday, so he gets to race home from hunting for that. Gabby’s choir concert is on Thursday. I am cautiously nervous about the hunting thing. Zach is a font of information about safety thanks to his class. And I always find myself at odds at not wanting them to get a poor, sweet, defenseless animal, and proving them selves ‘real men’ (Tim the ToolMan grunt inserted here.)

Today Reese had her 15 month appointment (Yeah, at 16.5 months!) She was 32.5 inches and 23.5 pounds. At some point in a future post I will post what the other kids were at this age. She took her shots well, was cute for the doctor (and painfully shy, but at least she talked. The child has a vocabulary of over 50 words, can repeat most words, and talks in 2 word sentences but you’d never know it around so-called ’strangers’.

And lastly, we spent some time taking pictures with Mark’s SLR camera (film, not digital, *sigh*) Here are the results. I am definitely not happy with the group pictures. It is HARD to get ‘perfect’, LOL. But I think some of the singles could be used as 8X10’s on the wall instead of using a studio this year. Fall Portraits 2008

Now everyone pray for my men this weekend, and for me dealing with the others alone!

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