Thankful

I am thankful for my children, even when they drive me crazy.
I am thankful for my husband because he's always there to support me.
I am thankful for my friends, near and far.
I am thankful for my house, it's not much, but it keeps us warm and the oven works.
I am thankful for my family, we're not demonstrative, but we all know we love each other.


I don't really know what to post this week, but wanted to list a few things I am thankful for.
This list is certainly not complete, but it covers the most important things.


Happy Thanksgiving
from the House of Redheads.

Christmas Shopping

It's that time of year again. Christmas shopping time.
Since we home school, it's hard to get out and shop for the kids without them. Our answer this year is to do most of our shopping online. With the help of Ebates.com, I get rebates on my online purchases with their participating stores. Stores such as Sears, Target, NFL Shop, and JCPenney.

I have shopped with Ebates since 2003 and have gotten back more than $300. I don't get emails from anyone but Ebates and those are about my rebates being credited to my account and special offers that I might want to take advantage of.

I'm so sad

Mac the Elephant dies of viral illness.

I haven't told Hubby or the kids yet. I just found out. Poor baby elephant.

I was tagged

Ok, The Crazy Lady tagged me... Now I have to figure out who I'm supposed to tag *sigh*

The RULES (LOL):

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about yourself.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Hmmm 6 random things about me....

1. I drive a minivan and LOVE it.

2. While I love to cook, I'm a horrible housekeeper.

3. It's way past time for me to go visit my hairdresser, and I don't know that I really have time to do it.

4. The computer is the only "modern convenience" that I missed when the power was out.

5. I just took an email survey that compared me to Charlie Brown.

6. I forgot to put my wedding ring back on after making meatloaf last night.

I'll be tagging Meredith, Rach, LeighAnne, Laura, Becca and maybe Dakota...

Random Pictures

Sign fail...
you'd think someone would have caught this before it got put up 10 times around the zoo.

Water Lily and Minute Maid Park (aka, Juice Box)
I just thought it was cool to get the flower and the ballpark in the same shot.

They weren't happy that I wouldn't let them put bunny ears on each other...
I'm very tired of bunny ears in all my pics

How do you make it through the zoo with 5 children?
By lining them up and threatening not to take them to the park, lol.

Mac's Birthday

I took 5 boys to the zoo yesterday. They all had a ton of fun, and because of Mac's birthday party, they got free cookies!!

This is Mac. He's a 2 year old, Asian elephant. He also LOVES people and knew that everyone was at the zoo yesterday to visit him for his birthday party.
See the steel cables surrounding his enclosure? Those are to keep the silly elephant from escaping to visit with the people. They used to be a heavy rope and he would sneak through them to get the attention of his keepers. Unfortunately, all my pics of Mac as a little (he was never VERY little) elephant are on a broken computer.

Halloween Party

Cold? Did I say it was cold on Wednesday? blah... it's up to 80 degrees in the afternoons now...
Halloween was a blast. We had my friend and her family over and the little girl across the street.
My friend made a macaroni and cheese and I made a lasagna. We also had salad, Rice Krispie treats and mummy dogs (mini sausages wrapped in strips of crescent roll dough, then baked).

The youngest child first wanted to be a mummy, but decided that the wrapping was uncomfortable. We dug into the Halloween tub and found an old Harry Potter costume, painted a scar on his forehead and were good to go. The middle child wore a white dress shirt, a black necktie and a lab coat. He was supposed to be a mad scientist, but we didn't quite get the "mad" part of it down. The oldest was a football fanatic (not much of a stretch for that one, lol) in his Texans jersey and face paint.
My friend's boys were Mario and Luigi from Super Mario Brothers.