sherriknits

Ours was so different this year, but I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Tradionally, we get together with the store crew for breakfast Christmas Eve morning. My mom invites extended family and in the past we have gone to a restaurant, but this year we had the absolute privilege of going to the home of friends of ours who live in a wonderful 100 year old home. It was a long shot when I emailed and asked if they would be interested in cooking for us on Christmas Eve so you can imagine how thrilling it was to find out not only would they love to do it, but they invited us to their home. It was wonderful. I put together a short little video.

Then on Christmas Eve, all of our children were here! We had dinner together and gifts.

Not sure what the spots are on the picture but I really only took time to snap a few pictures.

The little girl was having a great time.

It was a fun evening. We went to church for candlelight service at 9. For once, no one in the family had duties. It was a wonderfully relaxing evening. At the end, we formed a circle around the sanctuary and lit candles in the darkened room. It was really beautiful. It was also short and sweet.

We were blessed greatly that the kids wanted to continue the evening so we went to Rhianna’s and Kyle’s. Rhianna had to miss the service because Mayah was “done” for the night so she was put to bed. We ate dessert and spent a little bit of time together before we all headed home.

We always get new jammies for Christmas so we came home and put ours on and headed to bed. At 8 the next morning, I couldn’t wait one more minute to give Tyler his gift so I woke him up, and woke him up, and woke him up! He was out cold. There was nothing on the agenda for the day so I figured he could get up and go back to bed if he needed to. (take a guess, do you think he did?)

I took video of him opening his one present, but it is way too long and I can’t figure out how to cut a section out. I did take a little snapshot out of the video though….

Yep, he got a 10 inch netbook and he is one happy boy. We have actually been chatting on google talk. Yesterday we went to Barnes and Noble and sat at the same table and chatted with each other. It’s a great tool for communication, helping him interact more.

And I have to take this opportunity to say that I was able to use $55 worth of swagbucks to get the netbook at Amazon. So…. Black Friday sale + Swagbucks = a good deal! (to date, $140 in Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks!)

Christmas day was quiet here as they kids all spent the morning with their spouses and then did Christmas dinner with their other families. We stayed in our jammies all day and had a very quite pleasant day. This year Kenny and I decided to do joint gifts so we got new bedding and a gps navigating system for the car and also a new TV which we’ve needed and finally used our income tax refund on. It’s nice to ha

Today at church, one of my sweet friends was home from New York for Christmas. She saw me digging in my purse and asked if there happened to be anything special in there…..

Yep, Ribbit had a great time visiting with Callie. I looked over at one point and Callie and Brittany were each holding one of his hands because he hasn’t learned to sit alone yet!

I do hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Tags: my life

The family is dealing with the pain. I’m thinking Christmas Eve when they all come here is going to be a little bittersweet and then New Years, which was Wiley’s birthday is inevitably going to be a hard day.

Ben came over last night while Brittany had a work party at their apartment. We spent hours laughing over crazy Wiley stories. When he was a puppy, he ran at every opportunity. He was a bullet when the door opened. He has seen the inside of Walmart by accident when he got out of our car. How embarrassing! Amazingly, his predecessor ran into Penney’s in the same way, is this common???

Once he got loose and Rhianna chased him, he took a quick turn and darted through a neighbor’s house, in the back door, out the front. As Rhianna tore through their house she said hi and bye to the people living there. I kind of remember them not being amused. You know the beautiful mansion across the street? Yep, he’s been in there, too. I will never forget the owner carrying him out after he skidded in on their beautiful hardwood floors! I didn’t think he’d ever outgrow that, eventually it got to not be so bad….altho even in the last 6 months, I know he got out and disappeared. The only way I could ever get him was to drive after him and make him get in the car. He always proudly sat on the seat, but was afraid to get out because he knew he was in trouble. lol These parts I will not miss, I do like to live in peace with the neighbors. Amazingly, the owners of the mansion really liked him and were not mad even though they have a fortune’s worth of treasures in the entry hall alone! ugh.

Yesterday at church, we had the most wonderful illustrated sermon. Afterwards, I came home and I have no idea how this came about, but Ben and Kenny saw Tyler walk in looking like this:

The costume was not used during the play, but evidently he went to the drama room when the costumes were being put away and had some assistance getting dressed.

I’m sad I missed it. Ben snapped the pics on his cell phone.

Are you getting ready for Christmas? I am sure I am missing something but this year we have seriously cut down on everything. it is amazing how nice it is to have a peaceful time leading up to Christmas day. Our parties all fell at the beginning of the month, which is so good that we had this last week to deal with the heartache and not have to be somewhere.

Several friends asked if we could drop gift giving and for that I am so grateful. Last year I was so embarrassed to be months late with one friend’s birthday and Christmas gift (birthday was in Oct., I think I gave her both gifts in February!) I sent off the one thing I had to mail today and wrapped up some simple things and got them under the tree. I have one thing I have not figured out yet but Kenny and I are going to go to Olympia tomorrow night so I have all day to think about it and all afternoon to run errands when Tyler is with Rhianna.

Rebecca and I have been talking about blogging. Both of us love it, both of us have been very lax at it. She has the sweetest blog and I am hoping she gets going again. When she does, maybe I’ll link her here.

For years, I was a closet blogger and had another one that I wrote just for people I knew, much less on it than here. I am wondering why. I don’t think I bear my soul here more than there, but hmmm.

Anyway, enough rambling, I should try to find something constructive to do, Tyler and I just got the dishes done and I like being lazy in the morning.

Hope you’re all getting a chance to enjoy a little bit of the season!

Tags: my life

Ok, I was the one who always said I just tolerated him. I am finding different this week.

We had to have our dog, Wiley, put to sleep today. He would have been 11 on New Years. He was a good dog and the pain of losing him is really evident in our family today. Rhianna brought him home and she loved him and took good care of him. When she moved out, he kind of became Ben’s dog. He slept with Ben every night, much to my dismay. We were never surprised to hear a big thunk on the floor when Wiley fell out of bed. One of Tyler’s favorite things to do was to come home and check the couches for a warm spot and an obvious indentation where he had been sleeping when we weren’t home. We rarely ever caught him at it, but he always looked guilty as ever.

I asked Kenny not to put Junior Mints in my stocking this year. The last several years (you’d think I’d learn), when we were gone, Wiley would eat them, box and all. One year, Kenny replaced them twice and I never did get to eat any. Some of the times, they were put up in a place you’d never think he could get them. And yes, he had seizures a few times from getting in to my chocolate~scared the living daylights out of us. He was resourceful and intent on getting it, though. I even saw Kenny give him CPR once.

We noticed this week that he was having problems and knew he needed to be seen. We heard the inevitable. After many, many tears yesterday and a bad night last night, we knew it was time. The kids came to say good-bye. We all wept. One by one, we said our final goodbyes and left the house. Kenny couldn’t bring himself to go back to work so he spent the day doing things he’s loved doing with him. They went for a ride and they went to a park. I wish they would have had one more time at the beach, but I don’t think Wiley could have done it. Kenny said Wiley had a little bit of a burst of energy while they spent their time together but he said it was rough afterwards.

He brought Tyler to me at my shop so he could take Wiley in. Tyler and I ended up coming home and tried to get some things out of here before Kenny came home. You can only imagine his heartbreak when he called to tell me he was on his way home and what they did today.

We left early on our date and took Tyler. I texted the kids to say we were on our way out of town, the only way I could tell them it was over. Within seconds, I got 3 texts in return….wanting to know if we were ok. Ben and I texted our whole drive to Olympia. He really touched me. He said how much he was going to miss Wiley and that Wiley would be the dog all future dogs he may have would be compared to. He teased me and said they all know he loved me a lot. He reminded me he loved me ever since I saved him from the starlings…so much he wanted to see me so bad he’d climb on the neighbor’s roof.

When he was somewhat of a puppy we had a very bad year with starlings, they sat on the neighbor’s house. At that time I think we must have fed Wiley on the deck. However, those starlings took to taunting and diving at Wiley and he was terrified. The kids all remember me moving everything inside and watching out for him when he went outside. lol

The roof thing was hilarious. I was sitting and doing bookkeeping on my computer when suddenly in the reflection on the monitor, I see Wiley looking in the window behind me. I slowly turned and lo and behold, he was on our neighbor’s carport roof! How he got up there I don’t think we ever quite understood, it was quite a climb! The embarrassing part was, their were workers on the roof of the house and Wiley got really freaked out and started running the length of the roof, skidding to a stop at the edge. I was so freaked out, I started screaming for poor Ben to come help….which he did time and time again whenever Wiley pulled his shenanigans!

Wiley was the reason Tyler wandered away from home when he was 8. He used to bolt out the door whenever it was left open and one nice day, Tyler accidentally let him out. Within minutes, we all realized he was gone. We spread out over the neighborhood and Kenny got in the car and started driving. He came across so many houses with people working in their yards who said they’d seen him go that way. To this day, it makes no sense to me. Tyler was barefoot and obviously should not have been out alone. Wiley was ahead and Tyler was on the run. I was talking to Kenny on the cell phone and asked if we should call the police. Kenny said he just saw a policeman and circled the block to flag him down. He did and when he hollered and asked if he’d seen a boy and a dog, the policeman turned and said, “Have I seen a boy and a dog?” and Kenny hears this proud little, “Yes!” Kenny yells in to the phone, “He’s got him!” and threw the open phone on the seat as I’m nearly hysterically screaming where, what, how!!! lol After that, we had a period where Tyler took the dog looking for a policman!!!!! Not a fun time. This is when I started knitting again.

As Kenny said today, Wiley never raised his voice at Tyler. He tolerated a lot from him and was always kind. They were buddies.

Tyler doesn’t really understand, this is his first experience with anything like this. When Kenny held him and told him, Tyler looked grief-stricken but he has not said a word. He knows the story of Marley and Me and we are hoping this will help him understand.

All in all, we know it was for the best, but that never makes it easy. I’m going to leave you with a short video I took today. I couldn’t bear to get any more when Ben came in right afterwards and he and Rhianna grieved together.

Thanks for listening~we’re now walking out the future with all the changes that have come our way and this is one more.

Tags: my life

Yesterday we had our annual ladies luncheon, it was so much fun! I co-hosted a table with a dear friend. I was fortunate to have both of my daughters at my table, I do wish Brittany could have been there, too, but she was at work. It falls at a hard time of the year for her to miss a day, but maybe one of these years!

This is a picture-heavy post, but I like to be able to go back to remember.

This was our table.

For favors, I found these cute charms that were “prayer boxes” ~ they have 3 little angels that can be taken out, representing faith, hope, and love” What was cool about that to me is that my friend Beth had found a beautiful rock that said “faith, hope, and love” on it but of course I don’t have a close-up of it.

You can kind of see it there, though.

the food was delicious!

This was in the entry way, the girl who set this up just grabs stuff and throws it in a box and puts it together when she arrives. So cute.

This was her table.

From the other side.

When she was setting up, she dropped an angel statue and broke it’s poor head off. Then after I left she broke a beautiful dish. Bad day.

Here’s another look close up.

Another table.

Loved this centerpiece idea.

back to ours…

the food

we have incredible cooks!

loved the chocolate!

They forgot to get someone to run sound so Rhianna and her friend Allison jumped in to help. Allison is on the phone with Kenny trying to figure out what was wrong, major problems. Both these girls are very capable of running sound but something was drastically wrong. As Allison said, she wondered how I caught a picture of them looking so calm because they sure didn’t feel that way. Allison led us in worship, so sweet. She’s like a daughter to us and has been one of Rhianna’s best friends since fifth grade.

Somehow I didn’t get all of my pictures uploaded but you get an idea how wonderful it all was…the best part was all the laughing. There were gifts galore and tons of fun while the drawing for gifts was taking place. We had young girls sing for us and a ballet dance that made people cry. The message was about friendships and relationships. It was a great day!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I can’t quit laughing over last night. I must have been really tired! I fell asleep while wondering where I had put my glasses right before I was ready to sleep. I started looking and was so confused why I would have lost them without going anywhere and couldn’t even remember taking them off. Sometime in the night, Kenny got up and when he came back, I was standing up digging through the bed trying to find my glasses. I finally found them laying on the table next to the bed. Sometime later in the night, he woke up again to see me back up and digging through the covers looking for a pop can I lost. eh??????!!!!!!!?????

lol

The only thing I can figure is we had one explode in our car the other day when it was so cold out. I have been laughing all day about it, Kenny said I was barely back in bed and was out cold. This is not normal behavior for me at all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For 3 or 4 days, Ribbit was missing! It is ALWAYS in my purse. I have looked everywhere and have been so perplexed over where he went. I was at Rhianna’s last night while she was trying to help me recover the videos I lost trying to upload them to my mac. Mayah was super cranky and when I was digging in my purse looking for something, she walked over with such expectation on her face because when I do that, Ribbit always appears. Well, he didn’t and she was not happy. Last night right before bed, I found him in the room Tyler watches tv in. He has no interest in Ribbit, but all I can figure is he took him in there. ??? No idea.

We had snow this morning! We’ve had a cold snap all week, never getting to single digits that I know of, but I know we saw 10 degrees. (hence the exploded pop can). They’ve been telling us rain was on the way and to expect snow during the convergence. it lasted about 30 minutes. Tyler was not quite up to par last night so we let him sleep in and he and I stayed home from church. He went outside and stood in it for about 3 minutes, it really perked him up.

Tags: my life

As I said last night, I have been looking forward to December 8 for a long time. We’re having this cold, cold weather so Kenny offered to go get me my new dvd…..look what he brought me!

Peppermint mocha and my movie. I’m planning to spend the morning snuggled under my little down blanket, mocha in hand and if I can figure out how to make the dvd player work, I’ll watch my movie. lol. Otherwise, I’ll put Tyler on the job and hopefully my mocha is still hot by the time the movie starts.

Tags: my life

We had Tyler’s annual assessment this morning….3 hours! He gets some services through the developmental disability division of our state and while we really appreciate the help we get, it’s a little bit difficult. It is the one day of the year we are forced to look at life with Tyler in a negative light. We have to prove need. There are things our insurance will not cover and then we get respite and care hours. I really fought it all in the beginning, but it has proven to be extremely helpful and he got in at just the right time and is in an ideal place during these difficult economic times. He has a waiver that puts him in a secure situation. I guess it’s very difficult to get a waiver any more.

I absolutely love our case manager. She makes the assessment easier, as have most of the case managers we’ve had. This is the first year we had to do an extra assessment because of his age and now we have to do it every 3 years….it was horrible. All I can say is, I’m glad I don’t have to do that one again for 3 years!

Now we can go back to enjoying our little boy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Amanda Knox trial and verdict. I honestly do not have an opinion as to whether she was guilty or not, but I got pulled in to it all this last few weeks as the trial was coming to an end. It’s all that’s been on our news. I don’t know if the rest of the country followed much of it, but she’s a 22 year old student who was studying abroad in Italy through Univ. of Washington. She was arrested for the murder of her roommate. I watched the verdict announced live and I have to say, I was just crushed. As a mother, how in the world do you leave your precious daughter in another country in prison? I don’t care if she was guilty or not , how do you do it? There will be an appeals process and many feel she has a chance then of being acquitted. It’s just a very difficult as a parent. When it all happened, she was the same age as Rebecca, now she is Ben’s age. I can’t even imagine. I’ve sure been praying for them all!

We’re having freezing freezing cold temperatures. Today, I’m not sure it even got to freezing. We’re not used to this. Tonight it will drop into the teens. Brrrrrr

I feel quite accomplished tonight. lol I finally took time to learn how to do a screen shot on my mac. Gosh, do you ever wonder why it takes you so long to figure out something? It took about 2 minutes. I had to try it out so I took a picture of the corner of my farm on FB.

Ok, pretty silly, I know.   

I am so excited. I am not sure if I’ve shared about the old time radio show I have really enjoyed listening to. I had 146 episodes on my iPod and listen to it to fall asleep. Last night as I was going upstairs, I was laughing right out loud and Kenny was asking what was so funny. Sometimes I stick one of my buds in his ear and we laugh together. The episodes are about 15 min. and I set my timer for 32 min. and frequently am asleep before it finishes. Wellllllll………..imagine my joy when I found a site that has over 600 episodes! The show ran in ”57-60 and it’s just good clean fun. The series is called “The Couple Next Door” starring Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce. Margaret Hamilton (the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz is Aunt Effie). If this is something you enjoy, you can find it here: http://otrarchive.blogspot.com/2009/08/couple-next-door.html I’m in listening heaven!

And now I am headed to bed because tomorrow is a BIG DAY for me! I am going to go buy the Julie and Julia dvd. You may remember the disaster we experienced trying to see it in the theater. When I found out the dvd release date, I practically marked it on my calendar and I hope to go before Kenny goes to work. woohooooooo!!!!!

And to end on a positive note, life feels pretty good right now. The dark days don’t come that often and all it is for me is a reality check….but really, the reality is that we are very blessed and we know it!

Tags: my life

We’ve hit the Christmas season running. This week was the most intense of the season and it’s kind of nice to have it behind us now. We’ve had a lot of fun, but I’d rather have it all start hitting earlier in the month so we can have our own time later in the month.

I’ve been forgetting to get my camera out lately but when I plugged my camera into my mac, I found a few things we’ve been up to.

It seems like weeks ago, but we had a new member’s class at church that we had to be at. The little girlie had to be there too and I amused myself taking pictures of her….

That’s the sweater I made her for her birthday.

She’s learning to whistle.

I’ll have to catch her winking so I can show you.

Don’t get me wrong, the lunch was fun. I did take Tyler home after we ate. With our new life of not having siblings at home, he has had to sit through his share of events and I won’t ask the others to take him any more than I’ve already been doing, they need their Sunday family times. I won’t make him do too many things that are very boring to him.

Oh gosh, that reminds me of the latest Tyler escapade. Kenny often gives him the job of putting his guitars away after church. He takes them to Kenny’s office. Kenny had given him a key last week but forgot to tell him to use the key next to it to open the main office door.

I was visiting with some friends and one of the kids who works at the church came to tell me what he’d caught Tyler doing. Evidently, he couldn’t get the main door open and he was on a mission….his dad asked him to do something and do it he would.

When Adam came around the corner, he saw 2 feet sticking out of the reception window! Somehow that kid had climbed up (picture a doctor’s office window…) and had started climbing through but when he was quit a way in, he realized it wasn’t a great idea. I’m convinced Tyler would have fallen off the desk head first onto the floor and it’s still giving me a bit of a nightmare! Adam pulled him back through and unlocked the door for him. I’m trying not to wonder who else had to have seen that and did nothing, that was quite a bit of maneuvering to get that far! lol

For Thanksgiving, we did a big breakfast with our extended family. I did not get one decent picture, but I’ll show you some anyway.

She had on a little bubble skirt and ballet-wrap sweater….it was so cute and something tells me she knew it.

She loves to give her new little baby loves.

Yep, we’re not too far off from having two little sweet peas!

Friday we had the most fun Christmas dinner to go to. The church staff and council had a wonderful feast at our pastor’s house. I wish I’d gotten pictures. They had tables set up in 3 rooms, can you imagine having enough dishes to feed a crowd and they all match? We sat in the room with french doors overlooking the water. It was dark out but you could occasionally see reflections off the water….so peaceful.

We played that crazy white elephant game and laughed more than I can remember ever doing at one of those gatherings. Kenny and I both got very decent gifts. I got a Food Network cookbook, a food chopper and some yummy chocolate. Kenny got some really pretty Christmas mugs. I’m kind of picky about things like that and I like them. They had the button-hole edge painted on them and Merry Christmas each in one of 4 different languages. I rarely like words on a mug so it’s pretty fun to get something I like. Others were fortunate to get things like gold lame’ leggings, an underwear repair kit (hysterical) and giant remote control for elderly hard-of-seeing people.

Today at church we had a potluck and each person was asked to bring an ornament to express themselves….or something we liked. I got a really cute vintage Christmas tree for mine, but I really wanted it for myself so I stayed up late last night finishing one so I could keep the one I bought!

Super cute and easy pattern….it has a pipe-cleaner in the hat.

It’s made to sit on a shelf or something, but I put a hanger on it. I’d make one for Mayah but would definitely leave out the pipe cleaner.

We’ll see, though. I haven’t been having a lot of knitting time.

It happens to be sitting on Tyler’s Christmas gift. I have NEVER put out gifts early because he’s been guilty of opening them in the past, whether they are his or not. It’s fun that he gets it now and he doesn’t even pick it up, although he has slid it out a little bit and moved it back and forth. I feel like his gift is more a gift to me, but he’s going to love it!

This coming weekend, we’re having our annual Christmas luncheon and I’m co-hosting one of the tables. Most tables hold 6 but we’ll have 7 at ours. I’m excited because both of my girls will be sitting with us.

I will definitely bring my camera to that!

I really am trying to get back to blogging but I’ve been busy and tired and somewhat bored. (you know how those busy times are where you feel like you just need to be pointed in the direction you need to go and you just go?….that’s how I’ve felt!)

Hope to see you soon!

Tags: my life