Our Marine on leave

Matt got 2 weeks of leave during the holidays before reporting for duty at Miramar near San Diego, CA. He spent the first week with us, and will spend the second week with his mom in Idaho. We were so glad to have him, though we didn't do much around here. Bill was sort of, kind of, but not really laid off from work so we felt we couldn't go do anything that cost money. That meant a lot of time at home playing games as a family. I enjoyed it because time at home is relaxing for me. Matt, being a young, adventurous Marine, was very gentlemanly about being bored stiff.
Matt is currently a Private-First Class, but should rank up to a Lance Corporal in January. Also, the scuttlebutt on base is that they will be deployed to Afghanistan in August!

I think he has grown quite handsome. He certainly draws plenty of attention in his uniform! All of the young people stare. Many of the older generations come up to him to shake his hand and thank him for his service. That makes me feel very proud of having such a son.

Will's room is ready

Here is Will's room all ready to move in. He has one dark navy wall and the rest are Ralph Lauren's Coastal Sand, all from the River Rock collection. It makes a really cool texture on the walls. The trim is high gloss to create a nice variation on textures in the room. The floor is bamboo. Sometime after the holidays the finish carpenter will come back and install doors on the closet. That will mean another big mess, but, oh well.

Pepper the drowned rat-kitty

We bathe all of the animals once a week (and the dogs frequently when it snows and/or rains) whether they like it or not. That is one of the ways I am able to live with cats in the house...I am allergic, after all! Here is a priceless photo of Pepper right after his bath in the laundry room sink.

Christmas, the rest of the story...

Okay, so, here is the rest of our Christmas. Bill very thoughtfully gave the puppies candy cane shaped doggy treats to keep them occupied so they wouldn't bother us during the present opening. Helena got a digital camera, as you already know from a previous post. Will got a street hockey set and Matt got a gift card to Game Stop so he could stock up on whatever games he didn't have yet. The kids had a good time and so did we. We went visiting after that. That pretty much sums up our Christmas day!

Family Photos!

We decided to ask my brother-in-law to come over and take some photos for us while Matt is in town. I downloaded them to my computer and played around a bit in Picasa to create a collage of our family. So, here we are! The outside photo is our yard today, and the inside photos are in front of our fireplace.

Helena's room finished!

This is a photo of Helena moved into her room. Bill is going to build a low platform for her mattress since she decided she no longer wants her traditional bed frame.

Painting Helena's room

Here is a photo gallery of the painting process for Helena's bedroom wall. She wanted 3 white walls and one red one. I then suggested that I paint white graphic flowers onto the red wall that would reverse to red flowers on the white wall adjacent. Hard to put in words, but easy to understand in photo!

Here is the layout of the flowers in painter's tape...

...and me in the middle of the whole process...

...and the finished red wall!

Surprise photos of Helena

Sometimes I sync my camera to the computer and find fun photos of Helena. She will steal my camera and have an impromptu photo shoot. This one is taken in our back yard in late November, early December.

This will probably be one of the last gems I find on my camera, however,...she got a digital camera of her own for Christmas.

Christmas!

On Christmas Eve we spent most of the day working hard on getting the basement ready for the following day. We finished the trim painting in the bathroom, the painting of Will's room, and moved Will and Helena down to their new rooms. Then I cleaned up Will's old room and readied it for Matt, who was struggling to travel across the country to reach us and spend the holidays with us! He left North Carolina at 5:30 am and didn't arrive in SLC until 10:00 pm! We are so glad he made it, though!





On the topic of Matt, he finished his training in North Carolina! After his 14 day leave, he has to report to Miramar, CA (the "Top Gun" base in San Diego) as his permanent duty station. Rough life!!! I am glad, though. It means we can plan trips to go see him without shelling out a ton of $.

Will was very excited to have his brother come for Christmas. He was counting days until Matt came, not until Christmas day.

Here is a photo of Matt torturing Will. Isn't brotherly love wonderful?

And a video if still images are not enough to enjoy!

Christmas has been wonderfully snowy this year!!! Christmas is the only time I love snow. After New Year it can all melt for all I care.

I have to go take the troops on a shopping spree now...more to come later!

the kids' school photos

I have to confess now, that I am rather hot/cold with this technology thing. I go for stretches of plugged in modern me, followed by stretches of old fashioned, don't look at a computer for weeks at a time, me. I get particularly unplugged when I am on break from school. Sorry!

So, here are Helena's and Will's school mug shots!

Cats and dogs, and Dogs and cats

Everyone is friends now! The kitten, Pepper, absolutely rules the roost. When food is put down for the cats, Tigger will wait while Pepper eats. I have come across the cats sleeping and grooming together. I have also come across the kitten sitting in the dogs' bed with them and wrestling with them. He loves to attack their tails.

Bill will feed the kitten anything off his plate! When the kitten got sick and puked, Bill grumbled about having to clean it up. I just smiled at him and thanked him for doing it. I didn't really feel the need to point out that the kitten was probably puking up whatever funky people food he ate off of Bill's plate.

Yesterday, Bill was finishing off a plate of beans, cheese, and salsa. I should note that Bill likes his salsa ON FIRE! as it were. That hot salsa was a bit too much for the kitty, but Pepper was VERY interested in Bill's egg nog. So...Bill poured some egg nog onto the left over salsa on his empty plate and put it down for Pepper. After a moment's hesitation, Pepper licked the plate clean!

Then, I sat down to eat with my plate of food.

(I should note that we don't currently have a dining room table due to the remodel, so we eat on the couches in the living room.)

Pepper came over eagerly to find out what I was having and to share it with me. Now, I DO NOT share my food with animals! I hissed at Pepper and he backed off at once. Will thought that was the most funny thing. It seemed to work, though. Terrible that I have to remind a little snip of a thing who's boss in this house. He thinks we are all there to entertain him.

Getting a Christmas tree

We bought our Christmas tree yesterday. We decided that since the whole house is in disarray; we would get a little tree and put it in the basement family room. Little is right! This is the smallest tree we have ever had! It is only 5' tall. Helena spent the evening decorating the empty room, then the kids decorated the tree this morning. I think it is beautiful even if it is small!