My little one is one!

The day has almost come and gone already, but Justin is officially one now. He's a walking, talking (well, jabbering), mischief-making little monster, but I love him anyway. It's amazing to think that just 1 year ago, he was this itty bitty, completely helpless thing. I love watching his personality emerge, and I have a feeling he is going to be quite the character.


He loves to dance to Loren's truck that plays Cotton-Eyed Joe. One of these days I'm so going to have to get a video of it. He also likes "helping" me with the dishwasher by climbing on top of the open dishwasher door and pulling all the dishes out (clean or dirty). He adores his big brother but doesn't always appreciate Loren's method of "helping discipline" him.


Happy Birthday, Justin!! I love you!!

A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as his legs increase. ~Author Unknown

What??

Those people that are closest to me, and know me well, have probably noticed, or know, that I have a mild hearing loss. It is hereditary. From the time I was diagnosed just before kindergarten, all through high school, my charts barely changed. I have never worn hearing aids. My parents were discouraged from it when I was diagnosed because it wasn't too severe. The doctor thought I would cope well without as long as I made appropriate accommodations (ie. sitting at the front of the class). I did quite well, IMO. I learned how to play the violin, taught myself how to play the piano, and for the most part got good grades in school (bad grades were never because of my hearing!).

Fast forward 7 years out of high school. It's been probably at least 8 years since I was last tested. I noticed about a year ago that I was starting to have more difficulty hearing. I can't clearly hear my 4-year-old talking to me from the back seat of the car. I can't hear exactly what is going on on the tv from another room 6 feet away. I have a hard time holding a normal conversation on the phone and with my husband. I got a phone call on Monday from one of the local hearing centers here in town and they were offering a free hearing test. I figured I would go ahead and do it just to find out if I really was starting to get worse.

Not only has my right ear changed and gotten worse (it was always the "bad" one), my left ear has started to catch up. I'm going to need hearing aids soon. It doesn't bother me that I need hearing aids at 25-years-old, what bothers me is that when I'm 70, will I be completely deaf? I am a musician (although I don't play much), and I do love music. I love hearing children's laughter... will I be able to hear my great-grandkids laughing? Will I be able to hear the rain falling, or a thunderstorm, or a horse whinnying? I realize that I probably don't hear things with very much clarity now, but I do enjoy listening to those things that I can hear. Wow, I wasn't expecting to kind of rant and feel a little sorry for myself, but I guess I have to go through a little bit of the grieving process in order to cope with this reality. I know many people that have far more difficulties in life than just a minor hearing loss. I should be grateful for what I do have. And I am. It will just take some getting used to- especially once I actually have to start explaining to people why I'm all of a sudden wearing hearing aids.

If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want. ~Elbert Hubbard

A time when one head is really better than three...

I really wanted to make roasted garlic mashed potatoes the other night. My intention was to make the mashed potatoes into potato soup for dinner. The recipe I'd found had called for roasting 3 heads of garlic in the oven for 30 minutes, and adding them to like 4 cups of mashed potatoes.

I don't think the 30 minutes was long enough, because only like 2 of the cloves out of 3 whole heads of garlic came out smooshy like oven roasted garlic is "supposed to." I made the mashed potatoes with all 3 heads of not-quite-cooked garlic anyway (because I was in a hurry), and the garlic was VERY strong. Luckily someone brought dinner for us to judo that night and I didn't have to finish making the potato soup then.

I'm running out of stuff to make for dinner, so finishing the potato soup was all I could come up with in a pinch. I ended up making more potatoes and adding those to the mashed potatoes from the other night, fishing out a bunch of pieces of still-whole garlic cloves, adding a bunch of cheese, milk, bacon bits, and chives to help mask the garlic flavor. It turned out okay, but it's been nearly 4 hours since dinner, I've eaten some cookies and drank a bunch of water, and I'm still tasting the garlic! Hopefully brushing my teeth will help, 'cause this is going to be a nasty taste in my mouth in the morning!

A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat. ~Old New York Proverb

It is autumn, and autumn means...

fair time!

Monday was the start of the annual Eastern New Mexico State Fair. After a frantic scramble to the finish, I had 13 photos and 2 cakes entered. I also helped little Loren enter 3 of his photos that I thought were good. I managed to get the two cakes in with literally minutes to spare after an exhausting night trying to get the wedding cake to look how I wanted it to.Monday morning the boys and I met their grandma at the parade route to watch the parade. Loren (hubby) was supposed to be riding his motorcycle in the parade with his job, but called me about halfway through and said his motorcycle was overheating and he wouldn't be in the parade. Little Loren was upset at first that Daddy wouldn't be in the parade, but he enjoyed the rest of it, and I think he got over it pretty quickly. Justin enjoyed the fire trucks going by at the beginning, and then fell asleep. When he woke up (with like 5 floats to go to the end), he thought the parade was pretty cool and was pretty enthralled with the floats.
We didn't make it out to the fairgrounds until Tuesday night. I was pretty anxious to see what little Loren and I had won, especially for my cakes since I'm still what you would call a novice at them. I was very excited to see that I had won blue ribbons for both of my cakes, and I also won ribbons for 12 out of 13 of my photos. I won 2 blue ribbons (1st place), 6 red ribbons (2nd place), 3 white ribbons (3rd place), and one honorable mention for my photos. I was pretty excited, even though I still can't quite figure out their judging criteria.

BUT... I was even more excited for little Loren. He got 1 blue ribbon and 2 red ribbons for his photo entries. A clean sweep! He seemed excited, but I'm still not quite sure if he completely understands the whole thing. We'll pick our entries up on Monday, and hopefully he'll figure it out a little more by then. I am so proud of him!

After we checked out our entries, and got yummy (NOT!) fair food, we decided to go ahead and let the boys ride a couple of the carnival rides. Little Loren rode the motorcycle one (he did last year too), and then we figured out that Justin was tall enough to go on the construction tractor ride with Loren. Justin thought it was hysterical, and I wish I had had a video camera. The video recorder on my camera just wouldn't have cut it. After we got them off of that ride, Justin was still very excited. Then little Loren and his daddy went on the big airplane ride (that little Loren went on with his Gamma Gamma last year) and Justin thought it was funny watching them. We tried to find another ride that Justin was big enough for without an adult with them, but he was only big enough for the construction one, so we let them go on that one again. He loved it just as much the second time, and I think he wanted to go back on it. Those dang carnival rides are expensive though!
We are supposed to go again on Sunday with my parents if they are able to come down. I can't wait to take the boys again! If not Sunday, then next year! And next year, you can bet we'll have more entries, and hoping for more ribbons as well!

"The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly
changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools."
- Henry Beston, Northern Farm