A Few of My Favorite Things - 2009

I L*O*V*E Wedgits. This says not to let kids under 2 play with it, but Ella is not even two yet, and both my toddlers love them. Heck, I love them! They are geometric shapes that are very easy to stack. Ella really has trouble sticking to "building" anything, and she loves these! Open the box and any toddler is instantly successful. But even I enjoy looking at pix or cards and trying to copy the design. I want to build on the little set Gabe got for his bday. They can play with these until they die! I love saucers. Hannah made me this one in art class, and it is a fave. The reason I love saucers is because it helps me keep my food portions appropriate. If I can't my meal on a saucer, then I am eating too much. This has helped me maintain my 25# weight loss.
I love phone organizers! Michael and I went on a date a couple of weeks ago, and he wanted to go look at stuff. I thought, Best Buy? Frys Electronics? NOPE! He wanted to go to the Container Store to find a way to organize the cell phone chargers for our household. It was $39.99 so we walked out and tried Ikea. No dice. But at Walmart they had one just like it that was a little flimsier for $12.95. A power strip fits in the back, the phone charger cords are rolled up and I used a binder clips to keep each one isolated from the other cords. Then I used a binder clip to make sure we don't pull out the charger cords any more than they are. The binder clips are color coded for Hannah, Tara, and Michael. This makes me feel safer because the cords are blogged in next to the sink and the cords sometimes got knocked off the counter. I don't need a toddler grabbing the charger cord and putting it in his mouth. YIKES! I love this thing.

I love Vital Stim. This is Ella in feeding therapy with a home health speech pathologist. She attaches two electrodes on her neck and then used to use medical tape to old it in place, but since Ella drools alot while eating, she's started wrapping her head up to keep the electrodes in place. When she first turns it on, Ella is not a fan, but she eats and then plays langauge games, and in 30 minutes she is done. This has been remarkable for her swallowing skill improvement. Her aspiration is still present but improving. This is her second 9 week Vital Stim treatment, which she gets twice a week. Then we will go back for another swallow study and keep repeating until she is all better.
I love knitting. I mean, I have knitted every night from 9 pm until 2, 3, 4 am for the last month. Whew! I started off knitting scarves AND hats but yeah. Scarves take a while, so I nixed that idea. I need to knit a purse now for Hannah and Tara wants a scarf.

I really feel like I am getting the hang of it, improving enough that my teens want me to sell things on Etsy.com to help them raise money for their missions trip to Los Angeles this summer. It will be about $2,000 for the two of them to go ($1,000 each). They both work (babysit, clean) but $1,000 is a lot to raise for a 12 and 14 year old. We found out that Hannah can go on international missions trips each summer to places like Africa, Guatamala, etc. But they run $2,000 - $3,000 per two week trip. Maybe in 2011 she can do it, since she can start working a "real" part-time job when she is 15 next October. Its a thought!
I LOVE Nana's chocolate pie! Even when the crust looks wacked out, there is just nothing like it!
I love having a DSLR and macro lense. I use it alot to really study nature.

When I can enlarge on my computer and see the intricate design of a fall leaf, it does something to me spiritually. I truly feel closer to my Lord. I feel like its His way of smiling down on me. I have so many photos like this I'll never publish. They are just for me.

There are a lot of other things I love, things I appreciated more this year than ever before, thanked God for as I curled up in bed at night. I am VERY blessed. Still, most "things" I've enjoyed were not really things, just favorite memories.

Like these...


I love that my husband is so good to me and our family. At Thanksgiving, all of my mom's birth children except 1 (Micah) was able to come to her house. Micah was so disappointed not to be able to come from Florida to New Mexico. So what did Michael do? He told Micah to get a webcam and Skype, and the whole time we were in NM, Michael carried his laptop around the house so Micah and his wife Rachel moved from room to room with us, even outside! Micah and Rachel didn't miss anything. It just not would not have been the same without them. My hubby is AMAZING!
I'm so excited that my brother Cody and his wife Andrea moved 4 hours north of us a few months ago, because now I can see my "Best Friend Forever", Destiny more often. One of my fave things to do together with Destiny is to read books. If she still lived in Florida, it would probably be every 2-3 years in between our reads and playdough festivals. I've gotten to see her 3 times this year. Is that awesome or what?
I also get to see her little brother, Dominic's two-toned eyes...one is green and one is blue. He and Gabey get along great...Dominic is laid back and Gabe is ....NOT. LOL


I LOVE seeing my friends and family in a great marriage. Cody and Andrea and Michael and I have talked a lot about how we keep marriage the most important relationship in our house. To see Cody and Andrea so smitten with eachother after 8 years of marriage, for me to feel that way about my husband after 15 1/2 years, it is a blessing. Which is not to say it is LUCK. Its deliberate attention to making husband/wife first. Its dedication, not luck. And it blesses me.
I love going to my brother, Kevin's church in Lovington, NM, and seeing my big tough brother Shawnee Joe give the little ones drum lessons and let them strum his guitar while he does the chords. I wish we lived closer to family so my generation could teach my kids to play instruments.
I love that I grew up in a big family. And I LOVE that we are a bunch of weirdos and we are perpetually 12 years old when we get together. We don't always agree with one another, but we've learned to just not talk about stuff that is devisive. I am VERY blessed to have a very loving family, albeit super, super weird.
I mean we are REALLY weird. This is Kevin and Cody making weird faces with Micah through the webcam/laptop.
Here is who they are making faces at...Micah in Florida...who is entertaining us as he eats a Whopper. He is one of the funniest people I have ever met. And he's weird. Maybe that is my fault because although I am only 9 years older, I pretty much raised him.
Heck! I am weird! Like me or don't like me. I'm who I am.

My kids and neices and nephews are weird. That's MY 14 year old, who begged me to put some of Nana's sponge rollers in her hair. Man she has a lot of hair.

Even my adopted kids are weird, especially Ella. She is a HOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could just eat her up.

I LOVE that we can turn anything into a game when we're together. Like these foam puzzle pieces. When my mom bought these "for the grandbabies" at the dollar store, she was thinking of something she could put on the shelf under her TV to give them things other than DVDs to play with. But we can adulterate anything.

First, we were throwing them up on the kids heads. Then we started...

Then we ended up throwing them at eachother...Even Nana got hit in the face a few times even though she wasn't playing. I mean...probably only Cody and Michael and Kevin were decent shots. We laughed SOOOOOO HARD!!!!!!! The living room was packed with 3 generations of weirdos, and who wants to watch Cars when we can hit eachother in the face with stuff? It was awesome!

I could go on all day just thinking of memories from this year, but I will only go back to Thanksgiving. I'm very fortunate and blessed, and I am so thankful.
I love being in the middle of nowhere in West Texas or New Mexico at sunset. Even when it is cloudless, there is NOTHING like a desert sunset or sunrise.

How could I ask for more?