Are you a King, a Queen or just a Full?

Several years ago I somehow learned the neat trick, that putting two twin size mattresses together would make a king size bed. Being in the Missouri "show me" state I naturally had to check this out and put some together, measure and see for myself that this indeed worked and it did. A person always thinks the grass is greener on the other side and I have for years looked with green slimy envy on anyone who was lucky enough to have a wonderfully huge king size bed, not to mention the gigantic room needed for such a wonderful bed!!! Several years ago we measured our master bedroom and came to the conclusion that a queen bed with a small wardrobe cabinet on each side would be all our room would hold. Although some nights with my head buried under a mountain of pillows for a sound barrier while fighting for blankets I would think "WHY didn't we get queen size WARDROBE cabinet with a TWIN size bed on each side!!" LOL!

Well, several weeks ago I thought I had it made. I decided that our bedroom wasn't ever going to be dry walled and finished as long as we were still in there. So I took it upon myself to help encourage my wonderful husband to finish our room by moving all our stuff upstairs to one of the kids' small rooms. The only problem was there was no way to get our bed up the stairs, SOOOOO I grabbed a few extra twin beds we had around and shoved them together and topped them off with a king size sheet. Tada!!! A king size bed!!! In a small room! Who needs wardrobe cabinets anyway!! :-)

Weeeellll, there was one thing about this neat trick that I had failed to remember. The twin mattresses needed for this were the standard flat ones, and a thick king size padded bed cover was a major part of making the bed comfortable. So, you know where this is leading! We have the rounded edged puffy topped mattresses that formed a grand canyon when pushed together and did NOT make one comfortable large bed for "us" but made a "his and her" bed instead. He slept on his side and I slept on mine, the only plus to this situation was that we each had our own blankets! Ha! Somehow though, those where the coldest nights!!

Well, once again we have flip flopped rooms and are now sleeping on our "wonderful" queen size mattresses, topped with my favorite soft green sheets. So now when I feel a chill I just roll over and snuggle up to Michael. I mean, I might as well since we are going to be fighting over the blankets anyway!! :-)

I want to say thank you to so many of you for thinking and praying for us during this time of waiting to see what would happen with Michael's job. Well, the news is...he has accepted the job offer to move with the Cargill Corp. and we are now launching into a full blown mission of dragging our junk to Kansas! He is very happy with the new position and is looking forward to the new job, we are all excited for such a new adventure. A touch of sadness lurks around us as we know we are leaving a huge group of great family, friends and neighbors. We have a ton of things to do before everything is final such as finishing the house, getting it sold, packing, moving, finding a new home large enough for our crew and getting settled is just few! :-) We have lived here since the day we were married and I'm up to my nose in junk!! I can't believe we have SO much stuff!! LOL! Well, tomorrow is another big packing day so I'm headed to bed! :-) Goodnight ya'll!!!

Photo of Baby J, sleeping on our bed when he was just a couple days old. ;-)

Did Daddy take it?

Miss Priss is 3!!! Happy Birthday! Her last two birthdays have been pretty simple, a cute homemade cake after dinner and a small gift or two to round out the evening...AND of course the pictures taken for the photo album. We can't have all pictures of the older kiddos ya know! :-)

We invited a few friends and neighbors, Grandma and Grandpa and some cousins and had a good time. Even though this was her first "big" party, she seemed to know just what was supposed to happen! When we all went to town last week we got ready for the party by stopping at the local Dollar Tree, she had a blast picking out a few purple plates and some balloons. She just had a fascination with the little punch cups and kept them tucked under her arm, I HAD to let her have them too! We found a cute set of Winnie the Pooh character toys for the cake and some other Winnie the Pooh themed toys... jump rope, silly putty, coloring books and crayons...all for a $1 each! :-) We had to be creative when it came to keeping these things out of her sight but she was so focused on the plates and balloons she didn't really notice what all her sister's and brother's were carrying around! LOL! She was the one who spotted the Winnie the Pooh Christmas wrapping paper for 50 cents, so we added that to our cart. For the main gift we started at the Dollar General store in hopes of finding a baby doll on sale, she had been asking for one for days, but we lucked out. So we met Daddy over at the Wal-mart store and tried again, here we hit the jack pot! As soon as we hit the clearance isle, she spotted the baby doll of her dreams! A cute little baby that screams it's head off if it loses it's pacifier!! Isn't that neat!! (at least it doesn't wet it's pants!!) Well, this time it wasn't so easy to get the large box off the shelf and hidden without her knowledge but we finally thought we had her fooled and off we went to browse the sale racks. Soon we were at the check out where Daddy grabbed the doll box and headed through the cashier first, all the big kiddos were behind him to block Miss Priss's view, but I couldn't believe it! She realized we were ready to check out and she leaned way over and looked on the bottom of the cart!, "Where's my baby!" She said! How did she know!?! These kids are getting smart! I rambled for a moment or two about how we couldn't get a baby today but maybe for her birthday but all the while she was looking in the cart, around the cart, at each kid and finally the check out isle. Thankfully the lady had already hidden it behind the counter, so as soon as Michael had paid he grabbed it and made a dash for the truck. The kiddos and I followed and paid for a few things we had picked up for a baby gift for our neighbor, but still she was asking and looking for that baby doll! The lady cashier commented on her persistence! "She gets it from her Dad :-) ". Finally we were headed out the door and again we were telling Miss Priss that we didn't have a baby doll but maybe she would get one for her birthday. How did she get sooo smart!?! The older kids were so much easier to trick at that age! "Where's Daddy?" she asked. "Waiting in the truck, so we can go home.", I answered.

...."Did Daddy take it?" (that's her) "MOOOaaaaann" (that's me)....." Is this lying?" (that's big sis)...."SIGH" (that's me again) :-)

Photos of the next evening at her party, as you can tell we made it home with the Baby and had a great time. Nothing says Birthday better than Frito chili pie, chocolate cake, balloons and a house full of friends and family!!!

He prayed...and he got it! :-)

....Just don't blame me!!! :-)

"MOM! It's SNOW'N", Wild Man yelled from the front door as Bubba walked in with wood for the stove. He jumped up and stood for what seemed an hour at the door watching the wonderful white fluff float down. Soon the flakes began to get smaller and were coming down faster and faster making the land seem foggy in the fading sunset. Daddy's truck lights turning down the drive broke the moment and as the other kiddo's crowded the window trying to catch a glimpse of Dad and waving with all their might, Wild Man made his way over to me in the dining room with the biggest grin and day dreamy eyes of blue still sparkling with excitement. "MOoooom!, I prayed to God for this snow!", He giggled softly in awe of the moment, "It's go'n to be a BIG one!". I smiled and glanced out the window, unsure if I should explain that we haven't had a "big" snow in awhile and that the weather man had only predicted ice and sleet. My heart ached for any disappointment he might feel if this wasn't his "snow man" snow after all, "We might not get very much snow, maybe only ice. That would be ok, wouldn't it?", I answered him hesitantly. Confidence lit up in his eyes, a smile even bigger than before graced his face and he jumped up and down, "Nope, it's go'n be a big one!", he sang joyfully then with a sudden flash he was off to tell Dad the good news! I stepped over to the window and watched the snow fall as if through the eyes of a 4 yr old boy, "Thank you, thank you Father! For the faith of a child and for all the smiles you bring to our family!", I softly whispered to the Maker of the Snow.

Photo of one of the little snow...people the kiddos made. :-)

I do want to say that my heart and prayers go out to the many people who lost loved ones, were injured or lost power during last weeks ice and snow storm.