The End of a Decade

I'm reading all these 2009 wrap up posts on blogs, so why not, let's review 2009!

We played in the sprinklers in January
I ranted from my soapbox about HENRYs in February
We acquired and then processed and stored a small flock of meat birds in March
Sedona got a UTI (and a 105 fever) in April
We had a delicious meal made entirely with our own food in May
We had a big long drought in June
Sedona stopped all activity at the local Chick-Fil-A and got rushed to the ER in July
We took a FABULOUS 3 week family road trip in August
Sierra started Kindergarten in September (okay, it was really August 31, but I blogged about it in September)
Both girls had an unusually rough time with the flu, while Josh was on the other side of the country for a job interview, in October
We made the tough decisions to accept a job offer in Montana and get a puppy in November
And, we continued the tradition of decorating homemade gingerbread houses in December

It's been a busy year! Between graduations and moving and getting started with homeschooling, 2010 promises to be an exciting year as well!

And so this is Christmas

Christmas has come and gone (mostly) for the Hill household! On Wednesday, we had a high of 73, by Thursday afternoon the wind chill was 22 and there were snow flurries. Even if you only look at actual temperature, we had a 40 degree shift in temperatures over a 36 hour period. Craziness.

We ended up celebrating here at home with my family. We're "presents on Christmas Eve" people because we're just too impatient to wait. So after a Texas dinner of brisket, beans, potato salad and cornbread, we all watched the kids dig into their presents and then opened our own. Lots of great gifts this year! The girls were worn out and anxious about Santa, so they started asking to go to bed early. They slept in a little this morning (got up just after 7---late for them) and after stockings from Santa, another short visit with the grandparents and playing with their new toys, they both crashed at naptime. It's hard work visiting with all those people!!

I think it's safe to say Sierra's favorite present was her scooter (which she's been riding all around the house) and Sedona's was the plasma car I won from Mommy23Monkeys, which surprised me, I didn't think she'd quite understand it, but she loves it!



(She's been riding by herself, but she was letting daddy have some fun too)

Carly's latest adventure

Last night we were all ready to go to bed when Josh discovered Carly had chewed up a pair of his underwear (yum, right?). I just laughed and said I was glad it wasn't mine, so of course karma had to come back and get me. We walk back to our room to find she had also dug one of my bras out of the dirty laundry and eaten it. I'm not exaggerating. An entire strap gone. Most of the back (including the hooks) gone. And it can't be a cheapie, right? No, it's gotta be the expensive one I wear with nice shirts, because, you know, a pup's gotta have taste.

I worked as a vet tech for several years and I admit my knowledge is fairly outdated, but I was pretty sure what she had eaten was too big to pass without a problem. I also have vivid memories of the surgery required to fix such a situation (an a specific little dachshund and all the random stuff we surgically removed from his stomach). It was already midnight, so we decided to take her out in the yard and make her give back what she had eaten. The best at home option for that is plain ol' hydrogen peroxide by mouth (stay away from ipecac, if they don't throw up, you then have to pump their stomach to get it out because it's toxic). In the vet clinic, we always gave fluids also so they wouldn't be dehydrated, but we weren't dealing with a toxicity problem or anything, just needed one good heave to mostly clear her stomach, so I figured she'd be fine. Sure enough, she vomited it all up and turns out (as I suspected) she didn't even have the decency to chew it into smaller pieces, everything was pretty much whole. She looked at us like, "why'd you go and do that?!?", drank some water and is a-okay today. Adventures in puppy hood! I must say, in the 6 weeks we've had her, that's the only thing she's destroyed aside from a few pair of underwear, so I think she's doing pretty good!

The good news is I made cinnamon rolls (it's a fabulous America's Test Kitchen recipe that pretty closely mimics cinnabon rolls) and I'm pretty sure we're just going to eat them for dinner

Nightmares, nightmares

I've always had lots of nightmares. My mom (well, my great-granny, really) will say that's because I eat too many sweets before bed. I seriously don't remember ever having a happy dream until I was at least a teenager. One nightmare in particular even ended up being not scary because I kept having the exact same nightmare, only each time, more was added on to the end. It got to the point where I was excited at the beginning to see what was going to happen next and understood in the dream that it was a dream. The other big reoccurring theme is I cannot scream in a dream. I try and try and it's like a whisper, then I wake myself up because in real life I'm being pretty loud. Unfortunately, Sierra seems to be the same way--she recounts horrible, horrible dreams about all sorts of awful things. Sedona has recently started waking up crying as well.

This week's been particularly not fun (perhaps Granny was on to something...lots of Christmas sweets around). Sunday night I dreamed I was being held captive by Osama bin Laden. Just at the point where I was going to try escaping, Josh shook my shoulder to wake me up for the morning. In my dream, I thought Osama had me and I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack. Had palpitations and everything. Last night was enough to make me less than eager to ever sleep again though. I dreamed Sierra, Sedona and I were on a set of stairs and Sedona managed to climb through the railing. I had ahold of one of her arms, then all of a sudden, it was like she split in two---one Sedona next to me and the other holding on to the rail, dangling in mid-air and screaming that high pitched, "I'm terrified" scream. Of course she's too little to hold her body weight and she immediately fell--two stories to a tile floor. I heard the thud, I saw her down there, the second Sedona that had been next to me was gone. I was so so so thankful when I tried to scream and no sound came out. I knew then that it was only a dream. Of course I was then wide awake and had to make sure my babies were okay. They were both snoozing peacefully. Sedona's diaper had leaked and her side of the bed and her pillow were soaked--she had scooted over and was snuggled up with her big sister. Unfortunately, momma's having a bit of a panic attack at the thought of sleeping again at all, much less sleeping an overwhelming 20 feet away from her.

Gingerbread Houses

Today was gingerbread house day in our house! Momma spent the morning baking and building while the kiddos spent the day asking, "can we decorate NOW?!?". Word to the wise--don't eat any of the candy off Sedona's house. She licked almost every single piece before sticking it on.

School Days

As my mom pointed out yesterday, Angel and I are the only ones not in school now. Carly started puppy class and will spend the next 7 Sundays learning a little about being a good dog.

We're taking her to the classes at our local Petsmart. When you google online, there are pretty mixed reviews of the Petsmart classes, but honestly, it all depends on the trainer, right? At our local store, there is only one trainer, and I've kind of watched her with her dogs when we've been in there and I'm impressed with how she handles them. Plus, it's an affordable class and we're talking puppy class, not agility training anyway, so I figured we'd give it a go. Since we want Sierra taking ownership, she is attending the class and Josh is going with her. He says it sounds like the class is going to be well worth our time and money. It sounds like there was plenty of information covered, but the main skill this week was "watch me". They are working with clickers and treats and the goal is to be able to walk into class next week and give the "watch me" command and have the dog focus only on you for 10 seconds. Sierra's been working with Carly and she's already doing quite good at it.

And last night, we created a video message from Santa for Sierra at this site. Check it out, it's really neat!

Crafty Kids

My girls LOVE to do crafts. I don't love it. I hate cleaning and doing crafts with kids is the surest way to create more housework. I'm convinced a five year old, armed with nothing more than a pair of scissors, can break the law of conservation of matter and turn one measly piece of construction paper into roughly two tons of itty bitty construction paper scraps.

I exaggerate. Slightly.

But, the kids joyously draw and cut and glue and sprinkle glitter and in the midst of their mess they see only a masterpiece. So, I grit my teeth, pick up another errant scrap of paper, vacuum up the glitter, and buy more glue. But even a mom has her limits and I have no intention of starting craft projects 30 minutes before bedtime. So when I caught Sedona picking through the craft drawer


I rolled my eyes and prepared myself for the "no! no crafts right now!" battle. Then she turned around with a glue stick and gleefully asked me, "glue?!" and while I said, "no glue", I did lighten up a little. She earnestly turned back to her drawer and turned back around with small dispenser in her hand, "tape?!". Then she had me chuckling, but I still said, "no tape". Undeterred, she finally settled on "color?!"


And who could turn down a child's request to color?

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We spend yesterday at our town's Holiday Parade. It was a little cold and a little rainy, but Sierra's been asking about it for months, so there was no way we were gonna miss it. The parade was shorter than last year and there weren't nearly as many spectators, but the kids had a blast anyway. This morning on the way to school, we drove part of the parade route and Sierra said, "Hey Momma! Remember that parade was here yesterday? That was SOOO much fun!"



Sierra dancing, 'cause that what Sierra does:

Everyone catching the first glimpse of Santa Claus:


And I do believe Angel has taken on the role of "momma dog" with Carly, which is good...they're not fighting, but Angel is putting her in her place and teaching her manners with regards to biting/jumping and since Angel obviously "speaks dog" better than us humans do, I think she's doing a better job of it than we can at this age.