Thankful Day!

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15

FUN WEEKEND!

Grandma, Aunt Trish, and Mia came for a visit!

 We celebrated Grandma's birthday!

The birthday banner gets a lot of use this time of the year!

Then we got out the mustaches and the fun continued!

Doesn't everybody have a supply of mustaches?

Somebody was a little bummed that the kitty 

wouldn't play with her,

But the rest of us had a lot of fun!

Some thought they didn't need another mustache 

and needed threatening convincing.

Some of us were camera shy creative!

So cute, I think we can cross 

the engagement photo off the list!

We all had a great time (well, maybe not the kitty), and we are so grateful that they put up with the rain, traffic, and less than great sleeping conditions to come and spend time with us.

 We missed you, Patty.  See you next time!

Happy Birthday Michael!

We had the privilege of celebrating Michael's birthday with him, this year!

So, with the help of a, "Mandy Original", shark cake,

plenty of willing helpers,

some good eats,

and plenty of laughs,

 we celebrated our newest family member.

Welcome aboard, Michael! We love you!

New Birds in Town

As far as I can tell, Swans are not mentioned in the Bible. Eagles, on the other hand, managed to poke their heads in there quite often. I'm not sure why. Swans are beautiful, graceful, calm, and they don't eat people's pets.  Eagles, on the other hand think nothing about swooping down and scarfing up any innocent creature in their line of vision  (I'm not bitter)! Why does the Eagle get all the glory? Sometimes that's the way it is. The loud, pushy, vain, self absorbed creatures crave the spotlight, while the quiet, humble, hardworking creatures are content to be behind the scenes.

We were recently honored with a visit from

 four of the beautiful, shy birds.

The Canadian geese, lined up in the 

background, were NOT happy to see them.

The geese made lots of noise!

The Swans decided they weren't welcome.

I'm not sure where they went, 

but I hope they come back, geese or not.

Darn geese, can't even get their "V" straight!

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
                                                                  Matthew 5:5

GET IT OUT!!

I HATE rodents (other than Guinea Pigs)! I don't like them inside or outside. They are NOT cute, no matter what some people, who will remain nameless, think.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to find this note when I opened the bedroom door this morning!

 And then there were numerous copies of this note in strategic 

locations throughout the house.

Apparently, after Doug and I had gone to bed, and Mandy had gone down to Grandma's to dog sit,  David had a mouse run into his room and back out.  So David enlisted the help of Alex, Tyler, Evonne and Alanna.

They gathered their mouse catching arsenal
 (aka, weapons of mouse destruction),

 and they spent the next three hours overturning, looking under, and behind every item of furniture downstairs.  At 1:00am they called Mandy to come and help.  Eventually they gave up, wrote the notes and went to bed.



 This morning Doug and Alanna did another thorough search and after reportedly finding no evidence, decided that the vermin little visitor, "has left the building".

How the mouse got into the house remains a mystery. We do have a suspect but he will remain nameless until we have enough evidence to charge him with the crime.

UPDATE 11/5/12: The rodent actually had NOT, "left the building"!  The noises I heard in the Christmas boxes in the den were NOT my imagination, as some people led me to believe. At my request, Alex and Tyler completely tore apart the den, and with Rickey's help, they found the box the pest was in and took it outside to open it. He immediately scurried out of the Christmas mug he was hiding in and hasn't been seen since. Now, he really has, "LEFT THE BUILDING"! Now all I have to do is clean up the MESS!
The perpetrator has still not fessed up, but since he helped find the rodent we'll give him a break.