It has been so long since I've Xanga-ed, that Xanga didn't even recognize me anymore. It said, "What?! You are actually posting something? This is a red letter day!" Na, nothing special. Just a Wednesday evening, waiting for Daddy to come home for dinner and wanting to catch the rest of the blogging world up with what's been going on in the Stout house.

Christmas was a lovely and festive time here in our new house. "The New House" is still what Rachel calls it. We had both family Christmases here. My mom's side was the three of us, my parents, brother, Gran and Uncle Ken. My dad's side was about 20 more than that. But somehow we all fit. The dad of the Brummel Christmas was the Saturday it was 65 degrees. I shut the heat completely off and we even opened the slider a bit and some window. It was wonderful. Except for the mud part, but no one got stuck and the mud stayed outside.  I think minus dinnertime, the Wii was on the whole time. The highlight of the Brummel Wii Games was my Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike boxing each other. That was some funny stuff.

Rachel loved Christmas. It was a Thomas the Train filled Christmas for her. She got lots of tracks and some new engines and a Thomas pillow, Thomas DVD set, Thomas plate and cup set... Lots and lots and lots of Thomas. Forget the dolls! Thomas is her best friend! She loves building tracks with Daddy. She is really into reading books now too. Some times I find her on the couch with a pile of books just reading them to herself. And she doesn't whip through the pages at lightening speed like she used to. She will turn each page slowly and sometimes even say parts of the book out loud. We try and go to the library once every week or two. Our library has a nice kids play area which she loves and holy moly, there are a million kids books these days! I don't remember there being such a selection back in my day! But she always picks out the same ones- Thomas or Franklin the Turtle. We did branch out and get "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" though last week. Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum...

I enjoyed the Christmas break. You know, short work weeks, family coming over, cookies and goodies and general festivness. But boy, is it HARD to get back into the swing of a normal schedule. I think I'm finally there, but it sure took a while. I took all my Christmas stuff down yesterday minus the tree. I need Nathan's help with the tree and he's been gone every weekend for the past few. So it looks like next weekend.... It sure is nice to be in a place of our own. I know the housework will get old eventually, but still, I enjoy it. I enjoy doing laundry in my nice cheery laundry room and putting clothes away in a closet where there is acutally space to hang things. I enjoy vacuuming the new carpet and sweeping the floors that I know I can get clean. I don't really enjoy cleaning the toilets, but I like the fact that the toilet looks new and shiny when I get done, instead of our old grungy one that just looked plain gross. Same goes for our sinks and shower. I'm very thankful. God is good!

A couple weekends ago, my dad's Corvette was down at the Auto Show downtown. He wanted me to bring Rachel down so that he could show her off as well as the car. I had some assignments at the movie theater, so my parents met me downtown. I was getting off the highway off of I-196 and all of a sudden Rachel says, "Ooohhh!! Mommy look!" I said, "What? What am I looking at?" She said, "Look at all the castles, Mommy!" She was referring to the big buildings. I suppose, having never been downtown, the giant buildings looked very much like castles. I thought it was the most precious thing. We'll have to take her downtown this summer maybe so she can walk around and see the castles. Some other cute things she has said... I laid down with her on the couch while she was watching TV one morning and she said, "Go, mommy. Go do dishes now." Excuse me...  She also will say to me, "Mommy, I have a question for you." I say, "OK, what is your question?" She will reply, "My question is... Pizza!" Not quite a question.... When I am sweeping the floor she will say, "Oooh! Thank you, Mommy!" I say, "For what?" "Thank you for sweeping my floor!" At least I am appreciated for it, right?!

Well, that's pretty much the update. This weekend is Girl's Night. Nathan will be at the quiz meet and so I have invited the girls over for a fun-filled, stress free night to just hang out and do whatever. I'm SO excited! And next week is the last week of January which means that it will soon be February. Which means that it HAS to warm up! Right?!?!

Finding the Christmas Pig with Grandpa.

Don't take my picture while I'm bundled!


Messy face!


Ah ha! There is the child and the missing Apple Jacks!

Currently Listening Viva La Vida By Coldplay see related

Time for an update? What a busy couple of weeks. Let's see if I can recap... The first Saturday of October we took Rachel to the Apple Orchard. It was TONS of fun. It was a beautiful day, perfect for apple orchard activities. (You can view pics on my facebook.) We petted some animals, rode the "Enchanted Pumpkin Train" and let Rach play on the inflatable bouncy things. We got donuts and cider and then took the wagon ride around to pick our own apples. Rachel ate like 7 apples. Well, maybe not the whole apple each time, but she probably consumed 3 total that day. The thing that made the trip to the orchard even more... exciting, shall we say, was the fact that Pamela's wedding was that afternoon. We thought we had planned accordingly, but we mis-judged the time it took for the apple wagon to make it's entire round. The wedding was at 3:00. We planned to leave no later than 1:00. It was a 1/2 hour ride home, where we had to change, put Rachel down for a nap (my brother was watching her during the wedding) then drive the 15 minutes to church. Well, needless to say, we did not leave until 1:45. We hadn't eaten, so we ran through McDonalds to get Rachel some food. We literally got home, threw some decent clothes on, threw Rachel in bed and sped off to the wedding. I think we were the last ones they let in. We sat down and like 3 minutes later, Pamela was walking down the aisle. It was crazy. And in all the craziness, I put on dark blue socks with my black shoes. Oh well...

Pamela and Todd's wedding was great fun. We went back and picked up Rachel so she could go to the reception with us. She was, as usual, not cooperative, but oh well. This phase too shall pass. However, when it was time for the dancing... Oh. My. Goodness. My child is a Dancing Queen. She could not wait to get out and "dance dance." I had to distract her during the bride/groom and father/daughter dance because she kept trying to run out there. Finally, it was time and I could not believe it. She went out and danced the night away. When it was time to leave, we had to drag her, kicking and screaming from the dance floor. Poor girl! She kept saying, "I need to dance dance!!!!!" So I know what her favorite part of wedding is going to be. That and the cake...

Our Giant Group started last week. Actually, it's small group, but ours is giant, so I will henceforth call it "Giant Group." We have 14 people in our group. Hopefully we will be much more comfortable in the new house (more on that later) because right now, we are a bit tight. Not only do we have 14 adults, we have 3 children (Rach, Brant and Kadence) and Melody comes to watch them. So that's, yeah, 18 people in my house. But we are a fun group and the anticipation is growing to be in the new house!!

Speaking of which, the flooring BETTER be going in today. It was supposed to go in last week, but there was a delay. I hate delays. But this is the week, or so I am told. Last week I did some major shopping for new house sort of stuff and woo hoo! I am amazed at my deal finding abilities! Target is my friend. Target is my amazing deal buddy. I got these awesome stacking storage cube things that I am so excited about. My mom and I went out one night to get lights and fans and I'm really excited to see the fan we picked out for the family room once it gets installed. I also found a great deal on barstools for the snack bar and a comforter set for Rachel's new room. In a couple weeks... we should be in!

I have more to say, but I'll save it. Goodness, I've said enough for a couple days. Or...let's just be honest and say that I probably won't post for at least a week.

Right.

Headline of the day: Blind activists plan protest of movie 'Blindness'

Seriously? Why do they care? They aren't going to see the movie?

Sheesh...

Old Friends, Girl's Night and Great Songs

I have been loading a bunch of music on my iTunes and rediscovered so many artists and songs that I totally forgot about. The great thing about iTunes is you can pick and choose what songs you want to add, so you don't have to mess around with skipping the not so great songs like you would on a CD. There are a lot of CDs I don't listen to as much anymore because I only like a few of the songs. But with iTunes you can choose your faves and make fun playlists and whatnot... Anyway, I was loading songs and rediscovered the fun that is All Star United. They really have fun songs. It made me think of Jon Schindler... I also uploaded my favorite Garth Brooks songs, which totally takes me back a few years. I own all his CDs and forgot about so many of the awesome songs he had. Somewhere in the midst of all my uploading, I got to the Something Worth Leaving Behind CD by Leann Womack. While the CD in itself is not my fave, that song is incredible. Here are some lyrics: "I´ll probably never hold a brush that paints a masterpiece. Probably never find a pen that writes a symphony. But if I will love then I will find that I have touched another life, and that´s something, something worth leaving behind."

Think about it friends- We're not all going to be Da Vinci or Mozart and have great masterpieces as our legacy. But if we love others, that right there is something worth leaving behind. That's good stuff.

I also want to share these lyrics from Come Together by The Beatles...
"He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football. He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola. He say 'I know you, you know me.' One thing I can tell you is you got to be free. Come together right now over me." Anyone who wants to take a stab at what that means, feel free. I'm sure it has everything to do with drugs...

Girl's Night.... Well, actually it was Pamela's Bachelorette party, a Pajama Extravaganza! It was so much fun and, girls, we TOTALLY need to do that more often. Next Girl's Night at my house after Pamela's wedding. I'm not even kidding. And I think every time we get together we need to have fun photo shoots. If anyone cares to see pictures from the evening, check out my facebook. Lindsey is the only good sport who doesn't mind the posting of pictures.  But we had a great time eating, chatting, opening gifts, playing a couple games and taking pictures. We laughed A LOT. Mindy commented at one point, "My cheeks hurt!" Which, hmm... sounds funny when you think about it...

Lastly, I wanted to share my reconnecting with Janet, who used to give me riding lessons like, oh my goodness... 15 years ago. She was amazingly fun and was a great teacher. I had a couple dreams about her and finally decided that I needed to try to find her. Internet, you are a wonderful thing (sometimes) and came through for me once again. In my first dream I dreamed that I was talking with her and said, "Do you still live in Howard City?" And she said, "No, I live in Big Rapids now." In real life, the last I knew she lived in Howard City. But, and this is a bit crazy, I did a MSN people search for her and guess where she lives... Big Rapids. Dreams are scary... Anyway, I got a hold of her yesterday and we talked for a while. She is probably about 10 years older than I am and last I knew she had gotten divorced from her first husband and was totally against marriage. However, she got remarried 3 years ago to a guy who lost his first wife and has 5 kids. FIVE!!! She lives on 40 acres up in Big Rapids and has 7 horses and is doing well. I hope that she is able to stop by and visit next time she is in town. It was just so nice to talk to her again after all these years. <sigh> I do miss the old days... 

Be sure to check out facebook later in the week for updated house pictures!