Maggie Speaks! She's 1 today!

Laud (Eli's friend) always comes in the house, and if he doesn't immediately see Maggie, asks, "Where's Uh-Oh?" Wonder why??

Some pics

Every once in a while, I manage to get a picture of Israel.


Levi is trying to grow the front of his hair out to look like the young Indiana Jones of the 3rd movie.


This picture is just to make Charity jealous.


Oh no. Marguerite decided to play with her carrots instead of eating them.



The cleaner version.

The Republican Party Locally

I've gotten involved in politics. At the lowest level. In March, Colorado held caucuses, and Steve and I attended ours. I was prepared to "run" for precinct leader in our area. AND I WON. Okay, okay. So, four of us showed up at our caucus meeting. Only two of us wanted the position, and...there are actually two precinct leaders in each precinct. So I felt pretty good about my chances even before we voted.

At this same meeting, I also became one of 2 delegates to the county convention. That worked pretty much the same way. Then I got invited to the meeting where we picked our state assembly delegates. This meeting taught me that we need more sane/intelligent people going to Republican meetings.

After opening the meeting, we immediately began the nomination process. People could nominate themselves or others. After about 5 people had been nominated I decided to ask...so where is the state assembly, when is the state assembly, how long does it last, what is done there? And, no, there hadn't been a memo sent out that I missed.

After the nominating process was over, we were told to pick 5 of the nine people to attend the state assembly. So, everyone begins feverishly writing on a peice of paper. After about 30 seconds I decided to ask...how am I supposed to decide who to vote for when I don't know any of you, and I don't know which candidates you are supporting? The leader of the meeting looked a little embarrassed and then asked everyone to speak for 1-2 minutes about why they wanted to go to the state assembly. The first woman gave me a life summary, grandchild count, and how many times she'd gone to the assembly before. The second woman told me about how she and her husband always go and how it's a great weekend getaway. The third...no I won't go on telling you. Each of them spoke directly to me, not the whole room, and most of them had to be prompted to tell me about which candidates they were supporting. And, no, these people did not all just know each other except me...I asked later.

Then we voted. There were lots of ties, so we voted again. Then we voted again. Very exciting.

Then lather. Rinse. Repeat. We got to do it for the state assembly alternates. This time I threw my name into the mix. No one asked me who I was, who I supported, why I wanted to go to the assembly. I could have easily been a democratic infiltrator! So I became a state assembly alternate. And no one even asked how many grandkids I had. Go figure.

And on and on it went.

Possible confusion??

So, I realized that my last post may have lead some people to believe that I am actually the proud owner of a new goat.

Don't I wish.

Actually, the goat belongs to a coworker of Steve. We went over and visited her goats, horsies, and pigs.

In my excitment, I may have made it sound like the goat was mine. ALL MINE.

Oops.

Mea culpa.

Me and My Goat!!!!!!!

You'd think I'd get pictures of my children playing with the goat....but no. Just me. Only me. MY GOAT!

The Girls

Blast from the past: This is Cecelia. I can't believe how much Marguerite looks like Cecelia did at about the same age. It seems like every time we look at old pictures, she looks like someone different. (It also reminds me that I need to get out this sweater. I love it, and it should fit Maggie now.)

Francesca loves pistachios. Seems weird for a little girl, but she does. Unfortunately, she can't open them by herself and has to have me do it.

Little Buddha baby Marguerite. I love when they are so cute and chubby. She is really happy and fun right now except for at night when she wakes up every 2 hours or less. Poor kid, it seems to be my children's typical stomach issues.

Steve, Elijah, and Israel went skiiing yesterday since it was Boy Scout day and there were discount tickets. They had a great time, although apparently Elijah just likes to lie in the snow and not get up. Israel loved it. I'm not sure if Eli wants to ever go again, but I hope so....

The boys

This is my blast from the past. Isn't my little bitty Israel a sweetheart? I can't believe he used to be so tiny.

Here's Elijah how we usually see him. Computer in hand. He looks so happy, doesn't he? He has adopted Steve's laptop, I think he thinks it's his now. It's better than a dog. (But not as good as a bunny.)

And Levi....all my boys are Star Trek geeks. I started them watching Star Trek Next Generation when I realized that they had never watched a TV series before. I thought it would be fun for them to have something with a continuing storyline. After they finished with that they wanted to watch Voyager, then Deep Space Nine, and now that they are almost through with that they've starting watching the original series that streams on Netflix...I think that things might have gone too far.


Christmas time has been good so far this year. We got our tree, we put up decorations, we watched the Christmas devotional, and we've been listening to Christmas music. Although one word of warning. We have apparently had 2 different things from Amazon stolen from off our front porch. One just never seemed to show up, and the other we found the empty packaging just lying around.

So watch out. (Luckily Amazon is being very good about replacing the things that we did not receive.)

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!!!!!!