a little update

On saturday was Derek and my 2 month dating anniversary and he bought me these pretty roses for the occasion. We didn't get to spend the evening together, since I had to babysit the Rudolphs, but he did take me out to Olive Garden for lunch.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving vacation and a few days of rest from school stuff. I can't wait to have the whole family together to hang out, relax and have fun. Although I am being put into the kids room for sleeping arrangements at the mountains, I am still looking forward to the time to spend with everyone.

Just thought we'd show you all Frank's big buck he shot behind the mountain house last night. You're looking at the good side - the antlers on the other side are mostly broken off. It should have been a 10+ pointer but ended up a 7.

And you thought "Grandmom" was bad!

This morning Grandmom Jordan called me and Joey asked me who was on the phone. I told him and explained to him who it was - of course, relating her to "Great-grandpop Chief". He said "Oh, that's who you were talking too?" And I told him I talked to her not him, so he asked if he was at work. So then I went onto explain that Grandpop doesn't go to work (not really) because he is older and has Parkinson's, and tried to explain what that means. He responded with "oh, is that what disease Mr. Ren has?" Ren is a guy in our church that has down syndrome. So then I told him no, tried to explain what down syndrome is, and said, that actually my grandmom, who I was talking to, actually had a sister who did have down syndrome like Mr. Ren and that she was my Great-Aunt Elizabeth. I explained a little more and then Joey looked at me and said "Oh, I thought you meant Aunt Sharon."

The moral of the story (for Sharon): Don't complain when my kids call you "Grandmom" or call mom "Aunt Sharon" - it could be worse!

"How big is Joshua? . . . "

". . . SOOOOOOOOO Big!!!" Well, I bought a new bathroom scale - now, wait, don't get excited yet, that's not the real news! According to my scale, Joshua is about 12 1/2 lbs. at 5 weeks old. So I guess he's trying to keep up with his brother - Joey was over 14 lbs. at 2 months and over 16 lbs. at 4 months. And for those of you who can't believe he's already growing out of the umbrella stroller, don't be alarmed! Joe just thought it would be funny to put him in Madie's doll stroller - which makes him look even more huge!

Can you guess who we are?

Batman's a pretty easy guess, just don't call him "catman" or "fatman" . . . he gets a little testy! The rest of the crew are FBI Agent Taylor, Eagles' Cheerleader and Alice in Wonderland.