A twist on an annoying "tag"!

You know those horrid games that once a year some random person will play on you either via your email or Facebook, where you are "tagged" along with 25-or-so other people to list 25ish random things about yourself or answer a bunch of off-the-wall questions, then (of course) pass it on so you can torture tag 25 MORE people with the same "game"?

Yeah, well apparently it's that time of year again.  Normally if I'm tagged by someone who knows me pretty well, I'll either totally ignore the request or I'll (in a feeble attempt at consideration for THEIR time spent on such a monumental time-waster) list things that I know will make the other person laugh.  This time, though, well, the person who tagged me really doesn't know me all *that* well, and shoot ... I'm bored.  But this time, I'm switching things up a bit!  I'm taking the random out of it, and in a real, true effort to make the "real" me a little bit more obvious, I'm gonna do this MY way.  Hmm ... I guess that's Fact #1--I'm apparently a bit of a control freak?

Here's my take on it--I'm going to list not 25, not 30, but 37 things that make me happy.  Why 37?  Because that's how old I am this year.  Why things that make me happy?  Because THAT is how you understand what makes someone tick.  I'm not going to "tag" anyone else; I'm going to leave any participation in this little game completely voluntary--but you know what?  I'm actually, really, and truly interested in how people would answer this very same question!  If you want to, I'd love to have you play too!  So, if you make it through my list, feel free to comment with a link to your OWN list!  Okay?  Alrighty then--now here goes.

37 Things That Make Kris Happy ...
1. Devil's food cookies.  They're those little chocolate-covered circles of devil's food cake that have a thin layer of marshmallow under the chocolate coating.  I inherited my love for these little yummies from my Papaw (who I don't think ever told another soul that he had such an affinity for them) and I'm just so sad that I can't seem to find them anywhere anymore except in the low fat version (which we all know is NOT the real thing).
2. Big, fat, red roses.  Those big, deep-crimson blooms that fill up your entire hand.  Awesome.
3. Gardenia bushes.  My nose is tuned in to that scent every time I'm anywhere near them, and my memory immediately goes straight back to my Mamaw.
4. Waking up late on a Saturday morning with two or three little ones asleep between me and hubby--instant silent smiles shared across little blonde heads ... ahhh.
5. Having a cat curl up on my lap.
6. Freshly finished scrapbook pages.
7. Thin crust NY-style cheese pizza.  I have still yet to have a slice as yummy as the one we last had the night before our wedding, at New York Style Pizza in the shopping center at the corner of Jog and Lake Worth Roads.  One day ...
8. My hubby's homemade buttered popcorn.  He makes the BEST buttered popcorn.  Better than any movie theater!  I've watched him; I've done exactly the same things he does when I attempt to make it, but I can't recreate it.  I guess the secret ingredient really is love--and he's never hesitant or even huffy when I ask him to make up a batch.  Seriously--it can even make an Adam Sandler movie worth watching!
9. The beach.  Not sunbathing; not the skin-fest, but the actual sand-meets-ocean *beach*.  The sounds of the surf, the smells, the beauty in the horizon, the solitude even among the crowd, the sheer magnificence of God's creation.  Wow.
10. Snow-capped mountains.  More specifically, the Bavarian Alps.  I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to camp at their feet three times in my life.  Yet another grandiose display of the power found in the Master Artist's brush.
11. A baby's laughter.  Communication that needs no translation!
12. The smell of fresh-cut-grass.
13. Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars dipped in Jif creamy peanut butter.
14. Seeing my grandmother's, my great-grandmother's, and my great-grandfather's Bibles on my shelf.  It is a heritage of faith that I hope and pray continues through my children.
15. Cinnamon Spice tea from Barnes & Noble's Starbucks.
16. The sight and sounds of my children playing together peacefully.
17. Philly cheesesteaks.
18. A phone call from an old friend that lasts altogether too long but is altogether too short.
19. Newly-opened Crayola crayons.
20. Being at home with my children--few sacrifices in this life are as rewarding!
21. Mamaw's carrot cake.
22. Freshly washed cloth diapers drying on the clothesline. 
23. York Peppermint Patties!!!
24. Seeing soldiers in formation. 
25. The scent of Jergen's lotion--the "original" sweet cherry almond fragrance.
26. Carvel ice cream cake. Maybe one of these years, my family will take the hints I've been dropping?
27. Homeschooling.  Everything about it makes me happy.  This could be a list completely by itself--the box of books arriving at the door, the stacks of papers, supplies, and folders........the whole experience of being the one teaching my children how to learn and love learning; it's such an amazing blessing that I thank God for every day!
28. Having a crying toddler bring me a boo-boo to kiss.
29. Five-year-old enthusiasm because she's just figured out how to curl her tongue!
30. Bubble baths in those long, deep German bathtubs!  OH how I miss those tubs!!!
31. Seeing God "show off" by providing for our needs--usually with a major flourish!
32. Gibson's BBQ
33. Time spent in fellowship with other Christians.  There truly is no finer company!
34. Comfy jeans.
35. Clean, crisp sheets.
36. Homecomings.
37. This--having our whole family, including its new "extension", all together.  We're not a perfect family, we can't get everyone smiling at the camera at the same time, the camera makes at least one (in this case, two) of us look thirty pounds heavier, and one of us is inevitably wearing something as offbeat as Shelby's Elmo slippers, but I wouldn't trade this family for anything this side of heaven!

Definition of "tired":

"Tired" is when you hop in the tub at 11pm on a Saturday night after everyone else has gone to bed because you just realized you haven't shaved your legs in WAY too long and you don't really want to look like Sasquatch in a skirt at church the following morning...........

.........and not finding out until 9:30pm SUNDAY night that you somehow managed to forget one whole leg!

I am in LOVE with these pictures!

So....my son is engaged to a wonderfully well-rounded young lady who just so happens to be a pretty talented photographer! First, I was just thrilled she was raised in the church; then I was beside myself with glee over the fact that she has wanted to be a stay-at-home mom her entire life and was "just waiting for the right guy to come along"; then it tickled me pink to learn that she pretty much homeschooled herself her senior year and now wants to homeschool whatever children God blesses them with (they're wanting six boys--hey, did I mention she's a glutton for punishment? LOL). I'm a very happy mother-in-law-to-be, and Chelsey and I do get along really well. GREAT! And then this.....
The girl has an artist's eye, and it's (as she'd put it) UBER talented, already at the tender age of 19! She set up this shot, handed the camera to Jon, and then popped her nose (and glasses) in the pic below:

Have I mentioned how much I just LOVE those pictures??? I've got them in black and white on my walls already.

Sigh....

It's all about the accessories!

When Shelby first found this little purse, we thought it was sort of funny how she had to "wear" it around the house. Then she did it again when she got up the next day. And the next. And then Pete told me that I really should be taking pictures of her doing this...I'm sure when I get settled and get my scrap stuff out again, these pics are going to make an adorable scrapbook page highlighting her affinity for her little red purse. A girl's just gotta have a good bag!!! Stealing Daddy's coffee mug and snitching the last few drops...Ooh.....a new accessory--gotta be just like big sis and have a cell phone!I've forgotten...what is it that BOYS carry around???

The strange things you find on your digital camera...

This almost qualifies for Wordless Wednesday....how about Headscratch Tuesday? I guess this is what happens when you set two GUYS loose in a museum full of chrome with a camera...

Plaid overload, anyone?

Bring on the silliness!

Shelby is, as of yesterday, four months old. She celebrated her "birthday" by breaking out in a side-splitting full-bodied giggle that had us all nearly in tears. I'm not really sure what makes babies laugh (perhaps just seeing her big sister act like a total goof?), but it's well worth the wait, and it's one of the milestones we look forward to the most! There is just nothing quite like a baby-laugh. Well....I take that back.....there is something oddly satisfying about catching Daddy behaving like a raving lunatic in the name of trying to get said laugh...observe (you may have to turn up the volume a bit to hear Pete's babbling):

And "they" say that moms lose brain cells with each pregnancy?

What a difference a year makes.

One year ago (well, almost...it was the 13th of last year), I did this little query and here is my result. I hadn't done much blogging back then, which can probably account for why, after a bunch of silliness, this year I dropped a couple of IQ levels and:

How about you? How "smart" is your blog? Shhhh...nobody tell Kelsey, but I just checked her blog, and it rated hers as "College/postgrad". THAT is sooooo not funny. I'm sensing a conspiracy.

Thankful for....a new toy?

A month ago, the bassinette that Grandma bought for Shelby was recalled. Bummer, it was a really NICE bassinette...but since she was already nearly 13 pounds, we both figured a slightly *different* replacement was in order. Shelby's new Rain Forest Jumperoo was delivered yesterday (a day earlier than expected, yay!) and she is loving it! She was fussing as I put it together with one hand (and Morgan's, Jamie's, and Dani's 'help'), but it was an instant fuss-stopper once I plunked her chunky bum in the seat! The look on her face said "Hey, I'm upright, and nobody's holding me! Ooh, look, bright things!" It was perfect timing for this new gadget to be delivered, that's for sure! Thank you, Grandma! Oh, will you take a look at those chunky little legs? She's still a short little squirt, but WOW does she make up for it in girth! No ankles at all!
In my head, I had mapped out a long, well-laid-out post on thankfulness and gratitude, but I think in the name of simplicity (and a hugemongous lack of time), I'll stick to the short and sweet. Hmm....Pete (along with three other men) is doing a mini-sermon on Sunday and his assigned topic is 'thankfulness for spouse and children', maybe I'll cheat a bit and just post a transcript? We're going to be BUSY this weekend, but all for wonderful reasons. Pete convinced his dad that we actually want them to stay more than 18 hours, so we'll have company through Saturday!

I hope everyone has a wonderfully peaceful and blessed Thanksgiving and that the turkey comas don't last too long.

Is gluttony still a sin this week? LOL

Outtakes and Teasers (HI MOM!)

I had a suspicion, but not any real confirmation until just a few days ago that my mom is a 'regular' reader on my blog. Seems I write too much for her to keep up with! LOL

Anyhoo....she and Pete's mom know about part of their Christmas presents this year--a *nice* picture of all of us and some pretty pics of the oldest two grandkids who either run or make a ridiculous face every time a camera is brought out. Well, we DO have good pics. We took them a few weekends ago. She doesn't know what they look like, because I'm not sharing till Christmas morning...HOWEVER....I will share some teasers (as in NOT the print-worthy pics) and a couple of funnies that ended up on the camera during that self-made photo shoot.

Snot shot!

This is what you end up with when you check camera settings between shots:

Too bright for ya, eh, Mo?

Fall in!!!
Um...one bright face, one shadowed face. Nice.

Sorry, Mom, that's all you're getting till Christmas!

I don't do this very often, but it's worth it!

You simply MUST go read this. I had to try very hard to keep from spewing coffee all over our brand-new monitor whilst reading this. It is HILARIOUS--especially to those of us who can identify!
How to Hide a Front Butt by Cindy Beall
Go read it. DO IT!!!!

The eyes have it!

I must hear fifteen times a week how much our girls look like their dad. It's a bit odd, considering how much they really don't look alike, to all somehow look the same. Well, it's their eyes. They all have Daddy's eyes. They've all got that really pronounced "Harker brow", and deep-set eyes, just like Dad (and Opa). All except Jamie. Poor Jamie got her eye-genes from MY side, and try as she might, she just canNOT do the "mean face" that the rest of the kids can do. Wanna see? Oh, and even though I don't have a picture, when Kelsey does this, her eyes nearly disappear!

Here's the original, in close competition with Mr. Potato Head's "angry eyes":
Morgan's interpretation of "mean face":
And Danica's:
And now, Jamie's....she just can't do it no matter how hard she tries, bless her little heart! She's too cute to look mean!

Why the fascination?

I don't get it, truly. I struggle to find just ONE outfit to wear every day, why on earth would Dani revel so in the neverending delights of dresser-diving for a new fashion every fifteen minutes? SERIOUSLY, kid......I wonder sometimes why I even put clothes away when all Dani is going to do is take the dresser's entire contents out, turn them all inside-out, and put EVERYTHING on. WHY??????

We already relocated the girls' dresser downstairs into the laundry room so Dani didn't disappear into silent rummaging upstairs where I couldn't at least have a chance at intercepting...plus it makes it easier for me to clean up after her fashion experiments. But so far today, she's put on four different shirts, two pairs of [Morgan's] shorts, a sundress, and three of Jamie's pajama tops. All before lunch. What's next, locking the dresser up? Of course we'd also have to lock up the diaper closet where all the dozens of cloth diapers "live", because her second favorite fascination is dressing her dolls (and everyone else's) in hers and Shelby's diapers. No WONDER my diaper laundry has doubled, yet the diapers seem to be so clean!

If this wasn't so funny, I think I'd be a basket case.

A crabby crustacean

It was nineteen years ago. Pete and I were on day 2 of our honeymoon in Hutchinson Island, Florida, and even though we were both beach bums, we knew better than to brave the waves that were pounding the sand. Hurricane Hugo was ravaging the South Carolina coast several hundred miles north, but the surf was churned up all over the East Coast of the US! We opted out of swimming in favor of the more "safe" choice--walking along the beach. We were enjoying our leisurely stroll, walking hand-in-hand and dreaming out loud together about the life we were going to live together (funny how absolutely NONE of those dreams ever left that beach!), you know, just doing that newlywed thing. The romance was squelched in a hurry, however, when Pete decided to investigate a small piece of fleshy-looking "something" just under the surface of the sand that we'd come across. With a hurricane brewing off the coastline, we native Floridians knew that *anything* could be washed ashore, so we really had no idea what to expect. It resembled what we knew shark flesh to look like but was far too small to be a buried shark. Pete reached down to "poke" it (why do men always do this? it never ends well...)........and........

IT REACHED BACK!!!

Eight inches of very angry blue crab leg came hurling itself out of the sand at Pete, followed by a body and another eight-inch-long leg. Pete jumped higher than I'd ever seen him jump (or have seen him jump since), and somehow avoided getting his pinky TOO caught in the crab's claw. The crab went skittering off toward the water, displaying his claws for the whole world to see as he dashed away from his would-be-poker, and Pete ran behind, muttering something about not letting the crab get away.

We ate at Red Lobster that night. What did we order? Crab legs, of course! Pete wanted his revenge for having the you-know-what scared out of him!

Our little fashion diva

This was just one teensy little facet of girlhood that completely eluded me. This particular tomboy couldn't have cared less about playing dress-up, but I've somehow been gifted with four (five? We shall see...) girls who live for experimenting with clothing, shoes, hats, etc.

Poor Dani. Seems she's inherited Daddy's ability to coordinate. Sigh.

Siamese chickens?

This must rate right up there with one of my oddest topics to blog about...


I've found several eggs that contained double yolks, but never one that the twins shared a yolk sac! I'm not sure whether this intrigued me or just plain grossed me out. Didn't affect the taste of my fried chicken, tho!

Oh where, oh where, has my camera cable gone?

Oh where, oh where could it be?????

This could be a problem VERY soon. Not only is our computer still perched atop a box in a remote corner of our bedroom, UPSTAIRS, because that's the only room with a dedicated internet cable connection (we simply MUST get that fixed, the purdy new computer desk looks rather lonely downstairs in the "hobby" room), meaning that any access to a scanner is not quite possible, BUT......the digital camera is FULL. The memory card is full, its internal hard drive is full. And it's the only way we have of sharing pictures of our new life here in Alabama! EEK!

My blog is now officially boring. No pictures anywhere to be found except that silly little (teeny) self-portrait in my profile. Ick. PETE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whaddaya doin???????

Why oh WHY is my hubby playing around on a full-sized locomotive engine today? Why? Does he not realize the sheer gravity of the situation here? Does he not understand that if this baby is born with no way to take or share pictures, the earth will simply fall off of its axis????? HOW ON EARTH SHALL I SCRAPBOOK?????

My heart cannot take it. I'm becoming faint.

And I've apparently been around my drama-queen daughter far too much lately, she's rubbing off!

Icky, sticky, summer day

That pretty much sums it up for the day.

Yeah, RIGHT.

Seriously, though, it's 87 degrees in the shade, the breeze has totally died, the humidity is up to 73%, and there is NO AIR CONDITIONING in this country!!! I actually took the girls to the commissary today to hang out for a few minutes in what used to be our ice cream freezer. It's empty now, because the commissary is downsizing along with the rest of the base. But hey, it's still cold, which is more than I can say for the rest of Germany today!

On the upside, today I have a very shiny dining room floor! Go figure, pregnant bodies seem to be made to be on the floor scrubbing! Not so much the bending and mopping, but the being ON the floor. And it's interesting how well Mop & Glo mixes with sweat to make a really pretty finish on the floor!

Ah, yes, and Jon made a big step forward in his budding military career today; he passed a number of common task tests that his recruiter was to assess him on, and he will enter the Army next week (WOAH NELLY!!!) with real rank on his shoulder--a PV2 instead of a plain old Private! How quickly (or not) one forgets just how valuable those early promotions are!

Seniors......

See, now THIS is what happens when you tell your 18-year-old that you need at least ONE decent head shot of him to include with his graduation announcements. Silly me, thought for once the boy would take it seriously. HA!

My computer has allergies!

No, not a virus. It has allergies. I'm convinced the computer is allergic to ME!

I have tried to send pictures via email (which oddly enough, takes three days), I've tried to upload pictures to this blog, I've tried all sorts of things to make it at least appear that I've not fallen off the face of cyberspace into oblivion. I can't. Why? Well, the computer either hiccups, sneezes, coughs, or has a total cardiac arrest every time I try to do anything other than type.

And yes, it IS just me. Jon doesn't have a problem. Kelsey has no issues whatsoever. Pete can get on and do whatever he needs to do, no glitches. ME???? Well, just for experiment's sake, I took over Pete's chair yesterday and spent five minutes checking email before he left to work on his car. No problem. But literally no sooner had his little white convertible disappeared around the corner.........POOF! Blue screen of death. I waited ten minutes and rebooted. It ran....and as soon as I connected to the internet, all you-know-what broke loose and 80-some-odd pages of Internet Explorer invaded my screen. I don't even USE Internet Explorer! I gave up and turned the stinkin' thing off.

Pete came home, turned it back on, and went about his business with no problems. It shows no viruses, nothing "weird". But like I told him, virus software can't check for allergies!

User friendly? NOT!!!!!!

I have over two dozen really cute pictures from Jamie's birthday party that I can't load. I can't play Wordless Wednesday. I can't even look up some of the blogs on my own page.....because my silly computer is allergic to me.

A flattering photo?

Hey, whaddaya know? This picture doesn't add any weight, doesn't show any wrinkles or saggy, baggy age marks, and there's no bad hair! I think I finally found my "good side"!

On the other hand, poor Pete. Those are some UGLY feet, sweetie!