Murphy's Law.....ever heard of it....

I have!!

So....what is today? Oh yeah, Thanksgiving. Right? What happens on Thanksgiving?....you eat. How do you prepare much of the food you eat?.....the oven, right?

Yeah well, my assignment for dinner today is the ham. No problem. Except that there *IS* a problem!! I was baking some fish last night for dinner. At the end of the baking time, I turned my oven to Broil to get a nice golden crispy finish to my parmesean crusted cod. Two minutes later, I go to take the fish out and turn off the oven, and it will NOT turn off of broil. I cannot get the knob to BUDGE. What is going on!? So I take the outer knob off and try to turn the post that sticks out....nope, not moving. I move to pliers....still NOT moving. Well after several minutes of trying and trying, I finally got the broiler off, but the oven is still on and set for 500 degrees.....knob still not wanting to turn. I kept trying to turn it down....I kept at it until......well, you guessed it.....I BROKE IT!! Now the knob turns alright.....and turns and turns and turns and never stops......and the oven is still on and set for some unknown temperature. It is still WAY to hot to touch, so I go OUTSIDE and flip the breaker so that it will cool down and Lennie can pull it out and look at it. SIGH.

We have no oven. Lennie took it apart this morning, and I am thinking this oven is heading to the dump. Looks like I am going to go to my moms EXTRA early for dinner tonight because I have to bake the ham there. Which means I miss my nap....which I need because I work tonight. Ah Well.....I am thinking it will be a slow night at work anyhow - maybe I'll even get cancelled (dare I even think it???).

One funny thing that happen amid all this.....Sadie - the ever-positive-look-on-the-bright-side wonderful girl she is, said to me "Well, mom....now we can get a BLACK so that it matches the fridge and the dishwasher". LOL, such a girl to think about that hee hee....but you know......she is right!!!!

crAzY hAiR and PaJAma DaY!!....

Every day for over a week, I have heard the question "How many days until the day before Thanksgiving?" At first I was puzzled by this question, until I found out that today is Crazy Hair and Pajama Day at the kids' school. They could not wait!! I didn't even have any trouble getting them up and ready for school today....they WANTED to go, LOL!! I, of course, snapped some photos before they got too far! Fun. Sadie calls hers a "princess hat of hair", LOL (some of you may recognize this style from girls camp a couple years ago)!!

Everyone Loves a Parade!!!

For as long as I can remember, it has been an annual tradition in my family to be involved with the Watson Flower Shop float and a parade. The flower shop was opened by my Great Grandparents in 1927 (I think)...and is still owned and run by family. I worked there all through college.

Now, the tradtion has evolved over the years....it used to be the Mesa Days Parade in March....and now it is the Gilbert Days Parade in November. Decorating the float used to involve pinning colored stock (a flower) into styrofoam boards to cover the float....now it involves gluing petals and leaves to boards to cover the float.

But some things never change...each year, it is the 5 year olds in the family who get to ride. I rode when I was 5, as did my siblings, and all (or just about all) of my 52 (yes, I said FIFTY-TWO!) first cousins. Now it is our children who are riding. Each year, many of the rest of the family walks along side the float passing out stems of flowers to parade watchers. It is a fantastic tradition for our family, and one that regular parade attendees look forward to as well.

This year, Sadie was a float rider. She was SOOOOO looking forward to it, and had a blast smiling and waving as the float went down the parade route. Since she is our youngest, she is the last one in our family to ride. It seems strange to think that we are done with that. Here are some pics I took of her that day. Oh yeah, if you are thinking to yourself...."my, it looks a bit warm in the photos....even for AZ".....you'd be RIGHT!! 85 degrees is TOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOT for November!!

One of my fondest memories from my childhood is riding the float. I got to ride with my cousin Charlene. She and I were good friends. We were less than 2 months apart, and all the other cousins our age were boys (who we loved too, but there is something special about girl cousins!). She passed away when we were 11, and I cherish the memories I had with her. I called my uncle (who still owns the Flower Shop) and he sent me a photo of the year I rode the float!! You can see that alot has changed....and some stayed the same. Click on the photo for a better look.

I also have to give a HUGE thank you to two of the nurses I work with at Gateway. I did not know the dates of the parade had been changed this year, and I was scheduled to work Friday and Saturday nights. This would have made it very hard for me to be there and be awake, let alone have Sadie there and ready on time. Brandi and Sarah both went out of thier ways to make schedule changes with me so that I could be there, and I appreciated that SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!

Fun on Veteran's Day...

Since the kids had school off today, and I was not working, I wanted to do something fun with them. We decided that it would be fun to spend the day at Oak Flats. Man, was that a GOOD idea!! We invited Grandma and Zayah, as well as a friend of Jon's to come with us. A fantastic time was had by all!! The weather was perfect, the kids were SO well behaved, we visited the cave, we climbed trees and rocks and had lunch....and I was click, click, clicking away with my camera. I took about 80 shots...they were SO fun!

I bet you think that right about *HERE* there should be a slide show of all the fabulous fun we had today. Well there SHOULD be, but somehow, I managed to delete the WHOLE ENITRE CARD of pictures. So all we have to show for it are dirty faces, tired bodies, and memories. Guess we'll just have to go again, LOL!!

Flashback Friday....

I found this hiding in the files on my computer last night, and I was CRACKING up. Maybe it is just me, but looking at our little Sadie-bug (who was 3 years old at the time) singing this song from The Little Mermaid made me laugh and laugh (oh, and the BURP in the middle of the song helped too). Thanks to Mehana who caught this moment of cute-ness for us on her PHONE back in 2006, LOL!!

Lenard is on a ROLL.....

HONOR ROLL!! Way to go Lenard!! We are proud of you and we love you!

The Poodle, The Pirate, The Jedi....

Those were the costumes of choice this year. Lenard sort of made his costume up...he is his own kind of Jedi!! Jonathan's was a recycled costume from years past, and we made Sadie's after she saw it in October's Family Fun Magazine and fell in love with it. I thought they all looked Great! I was sad that I had to work, so I could not go out trick-or-treating with them, but I got them all dressed and took some fun pics. I am lucky to have kids that dont mind indulging me in some fun photo-ops!! Lennie took them to Aunt Shannon/Uncle Donalds house to trick-or-treat with the cousins in their neighborhood, then they stopped by the hospital so I could see them (and show them off, LOL). A fun night which resulted in WAY too much candy. ;0)

Oh yeah, since we are allowed minimal costumes at work, I decided to wear my nurses hat (from gruaduation 13+ years ago) and be the "old-timey" nurse. Everyone at work got a big kick out of that.