Christmas in the Rock

We all worked hard to get all the trees up and decorated even as Hattie thought it was a

new toy to climb.

No matter how hard we tried, she continued to climb.

We finally decorated the tree and hung our stockings by the chimney.

Hattie and Simon each found a little place to call their own.

Hattie continued to climb the tree not letting ornaments slow her down,

Simon preferred the soft blanket beneath the tree,

and Sebastian preferred to be completely away from all this mess.

Our Christmas was a simple one this year.

We elected to stay at home and celebrate rather

than travel.  I think the

kids enjoyed it much better.

Traveling is fun but there really is no

place like home!

I confess that this truly was one of our best Christmases!

My Little Trip To New York

I went to New York last week to help pack up Sarah's things.  She is moving back to Little Rock for a while to prepare for more Grad School.  For some reason the girl wants a PhD...go figure???  I am really proud of her but am most happy that she is back home with us for a while after her 2 year stint in Manhatten.  Anyway, I digress.

Back to the trip....My sister, Lynne, Sarah, Sarah's Grandmother Ratliff, and I set off on a little road trip to see some sights, take a break away from responsibilities, and pack up Sarah's stuff. 

These are just a few sights we captured on the way up.

Hershey, Pennsylvania

Aren't these streetlights so cute? They varied from chocolate to silver wrapped.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Isn't this so neat? Don't worry, we were very discreet with the camera and didn't directly photo anyone.

New Jersey

 

This was mounted on top of a car!

Can you guess what this picture is all about?  Is she throwing a fit? Collapsing? Asleep on the floor?

 

Well, it's a little of all three.  She collapsed in a hysterical, laughing fit that completely exhausted her.  We were all very tired and had just checked into a room.  We were attempting to collect all our luggage and enter the room.  Grandma Ratliff went first and apparently I wasn't quick enough to catch the door before it closed in our faces.  Grandma went through the room completely unaware that Sarah, Lynne, and I were waiting and laughing hysterically in the hallway.  We finally got her attention and she kindly opened the door for us.

I must confess that, luckily, we were able to get Sarah packed up without much fuss and even make it back to Little Rock just barely ahead of the big North East snow storm.

Organic.....Is It Worth It?

You would think with a title like this I would be talking about nice green, clean veggies and fruits......Guess again!

Yesterday my trusty Sherman the Tank (non eco-friendly big white Suburban because that is the biggest vehicle to fit all my family without driving a charter bus) needed a little oil added to his motor.  There is a gas station right up the street from my house, so I go there to buy a quart of oil that is completely overpriced ( a whole other story).  While I am standing in line, the girl in front of me is buying a pack or "organic" cigarettes!  Yes, you heard me!  Now, call me crazy, but isn't it kind of silly to be worried about your tobacco leaves being organic when you are about to assault your body with deadly smoke, nicotine, tar, etc.  Get my picture?  So, after the young lady leaves I ask the store clerk if I'm going crazy or if this girl just bought a pack of "organic" cigarettes.  The clerk laughed right along with me.  She was a smoker and even she got that a cigarette is a deadly stick and it probably makes little difference if the tobacco leaves are sprayed with a pesticide or not.  Maybe the "organic" cigarettes won't shorten your life span as quickly as the "non-organic".  Perhaps you can gain an extra 45 minutes by making this choice.  I wonder how much more expensive these are?????

So, to all you healthy smokers out there I ask, Organic...Is it worth it?

Halloween With The Bisbee's

I'm just a little late posting our Halloween pictures, but I had so many to sort through.

Here are our pumpkins all ready for carving.  They were picked out with great care!

Hattie wanted in on all the fun.  She inspected all the pumpkins and deemed them ready to be carved.

Bailey was a little put off by all the pumpkin "goop".  How can you maintain perfect cleanliness and carve pumpkins?  When someone has an answer could you please let us know?  By the way, she was Bella for Halloween.

Brenden wasn't able to carve pumpkins with us but he enjoyed all the pleasures of Halloween parties and trick or treating.  What a great Ninja!

Bryan thought he was a little too old for Halloween this year...you know, being 14 makes you practically and adult!  He did help carve a wicked, scary cat for us.

I think Caleb might have had the most fun carving this year.  Could it be because he only had to pick out the template and then cheer his Mom and Dad on while they carved his "Freak Spider"?  He was so proud of himself for picking out yummy cookies to enjoy while all the festivities were going on.  Don't you think he makes a good "Scary Skeleton"?

Kristen really enjoyed carving her pumpkin.  Nothing about it bothered her.  She is far too daring to use a template.  She just carved what she felt and it turned out great.  She enjoyed being Alice from the Twilight Series.

We were so happy to have Sarah home with us this year, Manhatten has had her for far too long!  She carved a great Edward profile from the Twilight Series.  Bailey was ready to fight for the template but Sarah won out.

Here are the finished products!  Aren't they great?  It's too bad that we didn't have a single trick or treater darken our doorstep this year.  I guess these guys were just a little too scary for them.

Nana enjoyed the warmth of the fire while everyone created.  Aunt Earline had just gotten home from the hospital earlier that day so we didn't want to stress her too much by taking pictures or moving the hooplah around her.  She enjoyed the nice fire all comfy in her special chair.

Cecil was kind enough to take the kids trick or treating this year since it was right in the middle of a great Razorback football game.  Lynne and I got to stay at my house and "Woo Pig Sooieee".  We then enjoyed the fruits/candy of the kids labor!

A Purpose And A Plan

     I was talking to a friend tonight and observed her crocheting a scarf.  I asked about the pattern and who she was making it for.  The answer gave me a new purpose! 
     This friend works with adults that suffer from mental illness. Tragically, most of the people she works with are also homeless.  She is making scarves and hats for them to protect them from the cold.

     I am an accomplished knitter, so I have decided to put my skills to work for those who are less fortunate than I.  Here is a scarf pattern I picked out.

     I want the scarves to be pretty and functional.  I think this pattern will work great.  I was also thinking I might use this pattern for a hat.

     And I think I want to make these mittens...

     Hopefully these will be functional (very warm) and pretty.

     I might even find some simple, beginner crochet patterns and get Kristen to help me make some things.  She loves to crochet.   I love to knit with a purpose!

It's Good To Be Me!

Today was a good day to be me! I woke up to a little girl snuggling me and anxious to be on our way to General Conference. This is a semi annual meeting where we are able to hear from the General Authorities of our church for two days. It was so wonderful to be able to listen to the two sessions today and come away feeling spiritually fed. There were so many wonderful things to take in but a few really caught my ear.

From Elder Richard G. Scott: The Lord will not force you to learn; you must exercise your free agency...

Sister Vicki F. Matsumori: One reason we are encouraged to read the scriptures and pray daily is to allow a time to invite the spirit into our lives.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: The first step in walking in righteousness is to try it.

I think this last one is my favorite of the day.

During the break, Kristen and I went to the local Wal Mart to buy some yarn for her. She is learning to crochet and wants to make an afghan for someone special to her. We picked out colors and tomorrow morning she will go through some patterns. I am letting her crochet during conference sessions. I was a little worried that she would not take in anything from conference because she was concentrating on practicing her stitches. I couldn't have been more wrong. Tonight while we were lying down she told me that she had listened to a talk from Elder David A. Bednar (she didn't mention his name, I'm just filling in for her) that really touched her. She wanted to make sure that I knew how much she loved me. My heart melted. She told me that she wanted to do as Elder Bednar counseled and tell me how much she loves me more often.

See? It's good to be me!

And the cap for the good day? The Razorbacks kicked butt tonight! Yeah!

Little Rock to New York to Madrid

I'm blogging just a little late but here are the adventures thus far.

In the security line at the Little Rock airport we are behind an elderly lady in a wheelchair begging the security personnel to let her keep her full can of hairspray. No can do. So she pulls off the cap, starts spraying almost the entire can on her hair and the rest of us poor souls in line behind her. She primps her hair and tosses the can in the trash. Meanwhile, the security guard and I are trying to find oxygen to breath and hold in laughter at the same time. I was not successful! Wouldn't you know it? She ended up on the same flight with us.

After a late start we make it to Atlanta, cause ya know, you can't get to NYC going northeast....apparently you must go southeast by northeast to sneak up on the city. They must have caught onto us because we had to circle New Jersey for an hour before we could set down in La Guardia's hallowed runways. As we are exiting the plane, my sister grabs her carryon from the baggage stowage and we proceed up the breezeway to the airport. We get almost all the way up the breezeway when we hear someone behind us trotting and yelling "Ma'am, Ma'am". He finally passes us and stops in front of us. He points to my sister's carryon and says "Ma'am, I think that's my bag. There is another on the plane that is probably yours." We laugh and mumble about how we are not theives, etc......and then we walk back onto the plane. The flight crew is looking at us a little funny but they let us go on, we retrieve the bag, and Voila! we are on our way to Manhatten to Sarah's apartment.

We spend a leisurely day shopping and running errands before it is time for us to get on the plane to Madrid. Have you ever traveled to JFK on a Friday afternoon? We made it to the airport just in time for them to tell us the flight is delayed due to weather. After sitting on the runway for an hour we are off to London. The flight is very uneventful but late. We, of course, miss our connecting flight to Madrid. This is not a problem for us. We are so used to things not going smoothly on our many trips. We finally get rebooked on another airline and head off to Spain without our luggage.

This is us looking sad because our luggage is not with us.

It is no problem. We grab a taxi to our hotel and set off on this marvelous journey in a country that speaks spanish.....did I mention that none of us speak spanish? We do very well. The wonderful Conceirge at the hotel helps us out.

For instance, he tells us to go to our room and when we are ready for dinner just come back and he will give us a good place to go. So, we go to our rooms to .clean up as best we can without our personal things. There is just one problem. We can't turn on the lights in our room. We hit all the light switches....I even found the main breaker and flip it a couple of times...no lights. Finally Sarah sticks our key into some contraption just inside the door and we have lights. Now, my brain is running on very little sleep and when the lights go off about 5 minutes later I want to cry. I cannot believe we are going to have to get up every five minutes just to turn the lights back on. Boy, am I glad Sarah had more sleep than me. She puts the key in the slot and leaves it there......and guess what? The lights stay on! After this trying ordeal we go back to our friend at the front desk to get directions for dinner. It is about 5:30 or 6:00 pm at this time. We ask him where to go for dinner and he says "Now?". We go through the whole thing about how tired we are and how hungry we are, etc. He tells us that the restaurants won't be serving dinner until 8:30pm but no one goes before 10 or 11 pm on a weekend. Sarah asks him what old people do because they eat dinner at 4:30 and go home and go to bed by 8:00. I think the majority of the sentence was lost to him because he told us "you are in Spain, now you get to think like the spanish and do like the spanish." He did find us a restaurant to go to and we managed to order dinner by pointing at pictures on the menu and doing a little miming action. All in all we do pretty good our first day. I even get my luggage delivered the next day around noon. Sarah's and Lynne's still haven't come. Lucky me!

4 Kids...Spring Break...Boredom

My kids have been on Spring Break this past week, and yes I am still alive, barely! We had a few rainy days that they had to really work at to pass the boredom. Their cousin, Boo Boo, was over for several days and the girls thought this would be the perfect opportunity to create. Unfortunately, they used Boo Boo as their canvas. Boo Boo is an adorable 4 year old boy. They thought it would be cute to create a buxom woman out of him. This is the result:

One day he is going to be big enough for payback. They need to be looking over their shoulders.

Me, Three, and History

It is on days like this that I am so grateful for the simple teachings of my grandmother, Lessie. Throughout my life I listened to her tell me that in God's eyes there is no color. She taught me to be colorblind and status blind when viewing people. It has served me well in this life.

Today I was able to share a marvelous day with my children and pass these same teachings to them. We now have a new President and I am happy to say that the only issue I have about his appointment is that we belong to different political parties. I, along with my children, will do all we can to support this man and will keep him in our prayers.

It was a glorious day to snuggle up with my kiddos on our couch and watch the inauguration of President Obama. It was wonderful for them to see history in the making and another testament that their really are no limits to what they can do in this life. His presidency will show that the barriers are down and, yes, it is possible! I am glad I had this day, and I am glad I shared it with my children. So, world, embrace the change and support this man!