Thanksgiving 08

Dalayna & Wade's house. Hillsboro is about 40 mi NW of Fargo. To me, Fargo feels like it ought to be at the far North of ND, but I see by the map it's really only about 1/3 the way through it!


The reason we went.... (Sorry Dalayna, couldn't resist!)


The best part about the turkey...The smell, how it looks right out of the oven, and the crispy golden skin!




Thanksgiving dinner. Jon & Sarah came over to join us!



We went to a get together Thurs. night. The "kids" had a great time at a school gym, then we had a yummy huge meal, in a lovely house (see how huge it is??!) Fun to meet a few more ND friends.




Going to Fargo Friday morning to.....SHHH! shop. O.K. No one in their right minds would go shopping on Friday after Thanksgiving! The ONLY reason we went, was to buy paint for Jessi's room, so Papa could paint it while we were there. I went into Kohls to check to see if they had a couple things, so I could pick them up later if they did, but NEVER would I have waited in those lines. On both sides of the store, the check-out lines stretched back the length of the store. Went to the fabric store to look also, and the line for cutting fabric was just as bad there.

We went to "Pout baby boutique" and NO lines!! Had fun browsing that cute store & buying Jessi a huge flower for her headband!
She also got a new puzzle.
We ate lunch at Johnny Carinos; Yummy!!



Jessi's newly painted room. SO pretty!! Dalayna matched the colors in the afghan that Laura had made for Jessi for a baby gift, & it went great with the dark brown carpet. The rest of the bunch watched the Huskers/CO game while Leon painted, except Dalayna was so excited to get it painted, she kept coming upstairs to help a bit! I didn't have to watch the game...I could tell what was going on by the noise that was coming up from downstairs!! (but then I could care less for football anyway......!)


Sleeping beauty.... What a sweetie! I took dozens of pictures of her :*)





There was a little girl, who had a little curl..... Seriously, I can't imagine what she did to have to stand in the corner! Good thing I didn't see it, I'm sure I would have scooped her up and took her home with me right then!! Look at those red eyes! What mean parents she has!! LOL!
Looks like she didn't suffer for too long tho, next time I noticed, the tears were gone & the smiles were back.

"Maxine is....."

So I "succumbed" to Facebook. One of those things..."everyone else was doing". Well, that's not really the reason, I'm not terribly into doing things just because everyone else is doing it, but when that's the only way to see pictures that your friends post, and you want to keep tabs on what your kids are posting, then what's a person to do? I enjoy seeing a line or two from my "friends" and it's nice being able to keep up with people a bit that way since not everyone blogs, or posts comments there either. I have to admit, I've "ignored" a few "friends" requests; kids that go to school with my kids, kids that know my kids, people that I don't know, people whom I know, but really never even visit with if I do see them. Quite frankly I don't get the point of having a "billion" people on there that I don't even care about talking to. I don't play games on there either (except for "lil green patch") Nothing against the others, but I decided one was enough, and I don't need to spend the time. I don't spend very much time on facebook in the first place, generally only if I get a message, or want to post something. I much prefer blogging.
That brings me to the point of todays title. If you're familiar with facebook, that's the first thing you see when you go visit someone's profile. Hmmm! Often gives me a chuckle. Maybe sympathy. Today my list for "Maxine is..." is quite long.
We are leaving Tues. after school is out to go up to ND to Dalayna & Wade's for Thanksgiving.
Relyssa is going with Mark out to his parents where Lynisha & Jim will also be.
Last night I took 5 kids shopping for winter clothes & shoes. Everyone's grown out of everything all at once, and the school clothes they started out the year with are summer! Pretty soon I'm going to get a call from the teachers complaining about how their dressed if I don't get some warmer ones for them (of course, I have to put away the summer ones, or they'll continue to wear them anyway. I'm not sure they really care!)
SO...

• I'm baking the pumpkins that were our halloween decorations. Meshayla wants to bake pie, and they all want me to roast pumpkin seeds.
• I've got about 6 loads of laundry to do before I can finish packing clothes
• I have to take 5 kids shopping again tonight, because although Walmart & Target have a good selection for 7 & 9 yr. old girls, & shirts for boys, we didn't find anything for 14 & 17 yr girls, or jeans & shoes for 12 yr. boy.
• 17 yr. old has to have fabric for school clothing class project.
• I need ingredients for granola to make for SIL, because my kids ate the other, and I have to send it out to him with Mark & Relyssa when they go.
• I need to make said granola
• I have 3 tubs of sewing things/material that have to be gone thru & re-packed up & stored because they can't stay in my living room.
• I have to pay bills so we have some untilitles on when we get back home!!
• I have to pack 4 kids clothes plus 2 adults, because my kids do not have a clue (and yes, I've tried. It's more stress than it's worth. Someday they'll figure it out)
• Sleeping bags & pillows
• Turkey & corn from the freezer to take along
  
• Water my plants so they don't die before we get home
• Remember all the other "left behind" items I need to send with Relyssa to Lynisha
• Hmmm, Try to remember all the other 99 things that need done, that I haven't wrote down yet.
• YIPEE....Gas is down to $1.62 here. Hopefully we'll have similar prices along the way. It will make the trip much more affordable! I can take Jessi shopping :*)
  

So, Thank goodness it's only Monday :*) You all have a great day!

Morgen's birthday party

So we had another birthday party here! Yes, that's all we do is party......! LOL
Morgen wanted to forgo our traditional big extended family bash that we generally do for birthdays, so he had his 3 cousins & friend Nathan K here only. Leon took them out for lunch, then to bowling alley play center, then they spent several hours at the park with their scateboards, then came home for cake & ice-cream bars. Wow, no stress party for this mom!
Except the cake of course, which was fun, but kind of flopped. I need more practice, but don't really like to eat cake too much....It was good, but mostly because of the yummy vanilla cheesecake filling that I put in it!!
Happy Birthday Morgen, have a great year being 12!!
By the way, thank you in advance for NOT asking what the cake is!! LOL! Morgen knew right away, even tho I hadn't told him what I was doing, & he was happy with it & it was yummy, so that's all that matters, right?!



Nathan L, Weston K, Morgen, Nathan K & Landon K

Happy Veterans day!

The kids got to "dress-up" for school today...camo or red/white/blue.
Of course the camo was more fun.

Happy Birthday to Morgen!

Today is Morgen's 12th birthday, but I didn't get his pictures posted. Friday morning I left to take Kyrie back to Sidney, taking Morgen & Meshayla with me for the weekend.
Friday night and Saturday Lynisha and I and Jeanne went to a scrapbooking get-together.
Morgen hung out with Jim & Meshayla ended up watching Kyrie & Trey, as their other grammy couldn't come and get them for the weekend due to bad weather/roads. We had a great time scrapbooking, eating and gabbing. Today we went out to lunch for Jim & Morgen's birthday, and then left to come home late afternoon. It's always nice heading out west, "gaining" an hour, but a downer getting home and "losing" an hour.
Tomorrow I hope to get Morgen's birthday post up, & we'll probably have a party later in the week.

A post for Lori! OH...wait a minute, Did I say that? I mean "Fall evenings"

I was trying to get my Halloween/party pictures to save and upload, but it was giving me fits tonight. Must be all the static from the election stuff or something..... So in the mean-time since my dear S I L is giving me such a hard time about not posting for S O O O LONG!!! I'll post some pictures I took last evening. Tonight I took the one of the moon behind the trees that I put on the header. I didn't have a good spot to put my camera steady, the wind was blowing a bit, and I really haven't done any photos in the dark before, so it was experimenting. Doesn't look near as cool as the *real* thing! It looked so "halloweenish"!