chochiyo_sama

Another day with no extraordinary accomplishments...

I put away more of the small doll accessories, mostly "food" and dishes and playthings for the children dolls. I also dressed a bunch of the dolls that I had stripped and washed because they had been peed on by cats. I think their cleansing did the trick. None of them smelled nasty today.

I put fresh pillow cases on the pillows and hauled a big black sack of garbage to the garbage can.

I folded a few clothes and pickd up a little clutter.

After that, I picked up the book Water for Elephants and took it into the family room, sat in the recliner, and started to read. It wasn't as funny as I expected it to be--Kari said she laughed out loud through the whole book. I found it more tragic than funny, but there was one spot were I did laugh out loud.

I suppose it was around 1 pm when I started reading it. I finished it at Jack and Kari's house at around 7 pm. It was a very quick read. I enjoyed it even though parts of it made me feel very sad.

Jack and Kari had us over for hamburgers on the grill tonight. We ate outside on their patio. It was cool and pleasant and there were not very many bugs.

Not too much else happened today. Stewie and I had a good cuddle tonight when I got home. He is the most adorable cat!

Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive for me. I have to get this stuff put away before mom blows a gasket. She's been pretty patient so far, but I feel it ain't gonna last much longer.

Current Mood: weary
Current Location: bedroom
Current Music: bugs outside screeching

My mom turned 73 on Saturday. We had a small family gathering to celebrate at Joni's house.

Those in attendance were:

my mom
my brother Jack, his wife, Kari, and their two children Caleb and Cora.
my sister, Kim, and her son, Lucas
my sister Tammy, her husband, Burt, and their daughter Sadie
my sister Joni, her husband, Jeff, and their children Kaylee and Erik. (Also her cute little Papillion, Jazzy, and her new Siamese kitten, Cricket.)
my uncle Jerry and my aunt Lily
me

I didn't take too many pictures as I had either a cat or a dog on me all the time.

\

My nephew Caleb plays with the Star Wars action figure I gave him. I've been cleaning out my stuff and getting rid of a lot of stuff.

In the background are my Uncle Jerry and my mother, the birthday girl.

This is Cricket, the adorable and cuddly Siamese kitten.

Here is my niece Cora swinging my cane around. She is fascinated by that cane.

This would have been such a good picture of my mom and my uncle if my niece had not ben swinging that dumb cat toy around....ah well....

We retook the picture, but as you can see, they are both wearing fake smiles now as opposed to the real smile they were smiling before.

*pout*

I just downloaded my pictures. So now I must inflict them on you.

Before I went to my mom's, I did a little baking. Not an intense amount--but I did bake a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and a batch of "cherry winks" which is a butter cookie with a maraschino cherry stuck in the middle. I also dipped pretzels in almond bark and sprinkled them festively with colored sprinkles. Jim and Swayze stopped in to get a big bag of chocolate chip cookies. Poor little Swayzers was worn out and didn't have a smile for his auntie Cheryl.

To the left, chocolate chips. To the right, dipped pretzels.

The lovely cookie tray I assembled at mom's house on Christmas morning.

Here is my mom's upstairs tree.

This is a lovely shot of my nephew Erik's butt. He walked in front of me just as I was snapping a picture of Lucas and Caleb. I can't believe how that worked out. So, there it is. Erik's butt. Immortalized.

Here are the two I was trying to take a picture of when Erik interjected his buttocks in my way. LOL.

The boys are enjoying their Christmas feast.

And here is Sadie Lou eating the non-meat portions of the meal.

My brother-in-law Jeffrey.

Mom and Cora at the table. I think Cora only ate a few morsels of ham.

Cora Lynn.

Matthew and Joni.

My sisters Kim and Tammy.

My plate--filled with good things--dressing, macoroni salad, meatballs, ham, turkey, "calico beans" and scalloped corn. I am not a fan of scalloped corn. I took some to be polite, but Ugh. I hate it. The macaroni salad and the dressing were especially good. I made the meatballs, but they got a little over cooked in the electric frying pan.

Under the table was a hopeful little begger.

"Oh, PLEASE, Momma, PLEASE!!! Just a morsel of turkey, a crumb of ham....PLEASE. My belly button is rubbing against my backbone!"

My mom with her grandchildren. Note that the Coconuttiest is in the background being held by his cousin Matthew. LOL. Caleb looks sweet and happy in this picture. Cora looks a little stressed.

They all look like they are being obediently on their Best Behavior in this picture...

In this one, not so much. LOL.

Here is Mom with her five kids, plus Cora, who rushed to be in the picture too. She's a little nut. And speaking of nuts...who is that in the background sniffling at wrapping paper?? LOL.

And here we all are again. The usual suspects...

Joni's family--Matt and Erik are both such handsome, intelligent boys. And fun and funny also. I adore them.

And here I am with the whole motley crew....I don't know what that face on Caleb is about....Perhaps he sat on a pin??

And here is a silly one. Unfortunately, whoever took the picture decapitated Matthew.

I am not sure what Erik is holding up there--probably ribbon? Intestines? Hard to say...

Kim's family. Kevin looks about twenty years older than he actually is...chain smoking and drinking will do that to a person, I guess.

The whole family looks pretty good in this shot. Kim is such a beautiful person inside and out. I wish her husband coud grasp that in his little pea brain.

Tammy's family.

Jack's family.

Cora and Grandma.

On Grandma's lap is the webkin I gave Cora for Christmas. It was a cute little doggie.

Caleb snuggled up in the chair. In the background you can see the large nativity set that my mom painted. It is her pride and joy.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas day, I finished sewing up all the rest of my frog fabric doll clothes. They are sooo cute.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: bed
Current Music: nothing

Here is my niece Cora Lynn with her stuffed cat "Fraidy Cat." She is feeding him (her?) with a straw.

Here is a "family" shot of my brother Jack, his wife Kari, and their kids, Caleb and Cora. In the first picture, Caleb looks adorable. In the second, he looks like he snuck a couple shots of tequila. LOL. Everyone else looks better in the second picture, so I put both of them up. Kari looks especially pretty in the second picture. (Not that she doesn't NORMALLY look pretty--she does. This picture just seems to catch her with an especially sunny look on her face.

I really like Caleb's new shirt. He does Rock. LOL.

This is my sister Tammy with her husband Bert, her daughter Sadie, and her very adorable and sweet dog, Coconut. Poor Sadie was the victim of a prank by my brother in law Jeffrey. He had Erik call her, pretending to be someone from Target telling her that her cell phone number had been drawn in a contest and she had won an IPOD. Poor Sadie. She was so excited for a few minutes before she figured out that it was Jeffrey being a big dork.

This is my sister Kim with her "husband" Kevin and their two boys, Lucas (the shorter one) and Kyle (the taller one). I put "husband" in quotation marks not because they are not legally married, they are, but because he is a pathetic loser of a husband who doesn't deserve anyone as sweet, hard working, and lovable as my sister.

Here are my adorable nephews, Kyle Johnson and Erik Borchert. Kyle graduated from high school last year and Erik is a senior this year. When they little guys, about 3 and 2 years old, whenever there was any kind of family gathering, they would run towards each other, little arms outstretched, crying out excitedly, "My fwend! My fwend!" Then they would embrace and sometimes kiss before running off to play. They were so damned adorable that it brings tears to my eyes to remember it.

Here's a good shot of my little sister Tammy with her goofy, loving little Coconut. He is the sweetest thing. He'd sell his soul for a piece of turkey.

Here is Kim with her two boys. This shot is taken in my mom's basement.

Here is Caleb surrounded by his Christmas loot. I gave him money. My knee hurts too much to go shopping, and their Christmas "want" lists changed hourly. Money is easier. The tree behind him is my mom's "angel tree." all of the ornaments are angels that she has collected or that people have given her. There are some golden balls and golden garland on it too. It is very pretty.

Here is Cora inspecting her Christmas loot. She got a cute little dalmation toy dog that barks and growls. I gave her a Webkinz dachshund, but she had decided the night before that she had enough Webkinz and didn't need any more, so she gave it to Grandma. LOL. She gobbled up the Lindor milk chocolate truffles I had put in the gift for her though. Mom told me she LOVED those "chocolate balls," so I gave her a bag. The other kids all got bags of M&Ms or Nestle's Crunch bells or peanut butter cups with their money. It makes it more interesting if they have a package to open too.

My brother in law Kevin is sitting in the front. Joni, my middle sister is standing in the back by the counter. The leg and arm belong to my other brother-in-law Bert. Bert is a great guy.

My nephew Matthew, the first born nephew, is in the fuzzy background. I am in the recliner having just opened my blanket. I've needed a nice warm blanket for a while. My brother in law Jeff is standing between me and Bert. Jeff is commenting on the fact that I got an electric can opener for Christmas while my siblings all got manual ones. I told him, I am special. LOL. Niece Sadie is sitting on the floor, recovering from the information that her uncle Jeff had pranked her.

I wanted a picture of myself with all my nieces and nephews. Behind me are Matthew and Lucas. To my left is Kyle. Playing with my cane is Caleb. In front of him, Sadie. Between my feet, Cora. To my right, Erik. The only one missing is Kaylee, my niece, who has been in the hospital for 3 and a half months with very bad pneumonia. She almost died and is slowly, slowly recovering.

Another shot. Matthew has a less demonic look on his face in this one.

And all hell breaks loose as Caleb decides to throttle Kyle.

Here is my sister Joni with her husband Jeff, and her sons, Erik (the younger and taller) and Matthew (the older and slightly shorter). Kaylee belongs in this group, but as I mentioned earlier, she is in the hospital.

All of these pictures are from my mom's camera. I don't have my own camera cord with me, so I will post my pictures tomorrow when I get home. Or eventually.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Mom's basement
Current Music: House marathon.

Here is my niece Cora with "Sledder" who is a "real dog"! He has his own little blanket and pillow, and his head must be laid on the pillow and he must be tucked in with his head sticking out from under the blanket each night. Sledder also has a shoe box which is his "litter box," and he must use it before bed and immediately upon rising each morning.

Cora and my mom adore each other. She is the first of my nieces and nephews who really have no connection to me. She won't kiss me or sit on my lap and doesn't even want to touch me. LOL. She is an odd child.

As you can see, she has no problem kissing grandma!

Caleb and Jack are deeply engrossed in destroying the rebel forces in their Star Wars game. Caleb is in the process of devouring a pilgrim hat.

There you can see the storm trooper destroying the rebel forces. The location here is my mo's living room.

Caleb wanted me to take his picture pumping his fist in victory after slaughtering a massive amount of rebels.

Cora and Sledder getting into the action of the video game.

My brother Jack with his children Caleb and Cora. He could never deny paternity of either of them--they both look like him.

My foolhardy sister Tammy gave Caleb a slingshot. I shudder to think of the objects he will shoot at Cora with that thing. Here he was showing off a power pose, released the sling and smacked his own ear, poor little guy!