The Whole Day...

It is currently 7:45 a.m. Saturday morning, January 24th. Todd left for work an hour ago and won't be home for another 24 hours. This is the third Saturday he has worked this month. Saturdays that Todd works stink. They stink because Saturdays are family days and without him our family is not complete. We don't usually have much to do on Saturdays because I do our 'chore' shopping during the week and our children are still too young for all the sports that usually fill Saturday schedules. So, right now, at this moment our day is wide open...

All three children have been playing in amazing harmony for over 30 minutes in Elias' room. They are building and rebuilding Geo train tracks. Todd and I agree GeoTrax are the best toy investment we have ever made! We began collecting GeoTrax when Traeton was three years old and now he is 7 1/2 and still loves them. Even Addison is a GeoTrax fan. Traeton is usually the engineer who designs and builds the track while Addison and Elias wait patiently or sometimes not so patiently to run the trains.

Traeton had a teacher-in-service day yesterday, Friday, so we headed down to the National Western Stock Show. BeBee, Great Grandma Schilling, the children and myself spent a large chunk of the day exploring the grounds. We didn't do a rodeo this year, we are on the 'every other year plan' for rodeo attendance. This is because by time we sit through 1.5-2 hours of the rodeo the kids are beat. We wanted to take our time this year to see all the sheep, pigs, cows, horses, mules and donkeys we could!! What a rich experience for them!

We also spent a fair share of our time shopping the booths. Trae and Add had their money burning in their hands for that super special stock show toy. Traeton chose a whole weaponry set complete with rifle, pistols, handcuffs, bandit mask, and much, much more. After we got him outfitted he was feelin' like he could take on any 'Bad Guy' who would dare come his way.







We love the National Western Stock Show. This is the last weekend in case you think you might want to visit!

Hello Friends...

I owe you all a new post. It has been way too long and lots has happened around here in the past week.

I did finish the silly Twilight series, what an experience that was. It has been over a week, Todd and I saw the movie and I have now moved on with life. Interesting affect that had on me but it is now part of my past, whew!

Eleven days ago my grandmother passed away. She was very special to me because she and my Grandpa were the family with whom we spent all our holidays. She has been on the decline for the past year at least so her passing is a good thing. I am not sad, I do not miss her, death is a good thing for those who know Jesus Christ as their savior. I will see her again when my time on this earth is finished.

I am sad for my Grandpa, however, as he is missing her greatly and is broken without her. They were married for 61 years and still best of friends. Last year, for their sixtieth anniversary, we had a huge family reunion. What a blessing to have that time with them to celebrate their lives, their marriage and their legacy. He truly didn't think he'd outlive her so this is an unexpected situation in which he finds himself. Our prayer is that time will dull the pain some and he will find himself a life worth living in his remaining years.

If you believe in prayer please pray for him when thoughts of him cross your mind.

ERB

Hiatus...

I truly cannot believe that we just sent out our Christmas letter notifying everyone of our family blog and asked you all to drop by and visit. Then a few days before New Years, completely unaware of what I was about to embark, I began reading the Twilight series.

It is now January 8th and I have read over 1000 pages of an amazing love story. I am completely hooked and cannot wait until the next chance I have to read. I have never experienced addiction but I imagine this is what it'd feel like on an psychological level. I will sit for hours at night after the kids are in bed and read. My eyes never get heavy. The latest I stayed up was 1:30 a.m. and the earliest I've turned off the light after reading was 10:45. I read no less than 2 hours every night and sneak it in during the day when I can. I think about the characters and the storyline all the time. My poor husband has been completely neglected.

So until I can plow through the rest of book three and all of book four I may not be back to post anything. There is plenty to write about though... Yesterday for instance when Elias ate who-knows-how-much toothpaste while I was preparing breakfast. Shortly after I discovered him he began vomiting toothpaste over and over. Then the diarrhea started...I thought he may have rota virus considering he had been exposed and how it presented itself. Next Elias took my brand new cell phone and sent it for a swim. It is completely toasted!!! Thank goodness the diarrhea did not continue today. Todd and I assume it was an ill reaction to the toothpaste snack.