Ketchup :)

OK not Ketchup but Catch up. I have been doing nothing but looking for my camera, so I have not blogged about anything and I have a lot to share. I got my new camera last night. I am soooo Happy to have a camera again. I bought the camera from a guy off of craigslist. I took the camera to the Camera Company to have them look it over before I bought it. Well the guy is a professional photographer and he does a lot of business at the camera co. So I didn't have to pay for them to inspect it, Which was nice. Also I got a better camera then I had before. I now have the latest Canon model. The Xsi. It is not a whole lot different then mine. I don't think I would have bought this camera brand new. You are only paying extra for two more mega pixels and the fact that it is the newer model. It is just nice to have a camera again. I also got two lenses and a battery grip(Which I have been wanting.) and the magic lantern DVD and manual. The two lenses are nice. I had a 400 dollar lens on my camera so I now have the same lens back. The other lens is just the one that normally comes with the camera. I doubt I will ever use it but it is nice to have as a back up. Anyway after a lot of negotiating I got him down to 650. He had it listed for quite sometime so I knew he wanted to get rid of it. Lucky me! So now the camera drama is over....

I dressed Charlotte up in her Halloween costume and took some pictures. I want to take some outside but it is so darn cold here right now. It was 14 degrees this morning. We will see what happens this afternoon and if it warms up some I will take her out and get a few shots off. She was so cute on Halloween. We went to Dave and Monya's ,Steve's , My dad's, Jim's mom's, and then the camera drama started. She had a good time I think. She liked playing with her tail. It was a lot of fun for Jim and I

The next thing on the list is family portraits. We had our family portraits done for the church. We don't really go to church but we are still considered members so the offer to take our pictures for the church directory. We end up getting a pretty good discount on the portraits so I said what the heck. Jim didn't want to do it but I thought we needed a picture of the three of us. I am not a huge fan of the professional boring portraits but until I find a good photographer that has a little creativity and isn't afraid to be artistic this will have to do. They turned out nice. Boring but nice. There is a lady in Madison that does really nice portraits and I am thinking in the spring we will see how well she really does. I really wish the lady that took Charlotte's seven month pictures hadn't moved to Washington. I would love her to be our permanent photographer. She is coming back in December to visit her mom and she want to do a session with Charlotte. I am so happy about that. I love her pictures. I will have to get her something cute to wear.

The family soup dinner is another thing I haven't wrote about. It was a success. It was really nice to have Faith stay with us. I think we have become closer then we ever were. We had a lot of people in my small little house. We made four soups between Faith and myself and then Pete brought two soups which were awesome, and Charlie brought some really good homemade chicken noodle soup, and fresh homemade bread. Everyone else brought a little bit of everything. Our cousin Lynn brought taco dip that was gone before I even got to see it so it must have been good. Aunt Shirley brought this really good fruit and whip cream dish. ( I still need to get that recipe.) I am not sure who else brought what but we had a ton of goodies. We got a lot of pictures and everyone was able to look at the Allen book (Which Dennis Kluge has been so kind as to let me copy) and the Porter book. Then on Monday we went out to our Uncle Rick's and we got a bunch of copies of our grandpa's stuff and we got a ton of old slides and 8mm movies. Faith and our Uncle Bob and Aunt Shirley have both helped to pay for the tools to transfer these on to DVD and to copy the slides onto the computer so I can make copies for everyone. I have been working nonstop scanning pictures, coping books and I am waiting for the film unit to get here so I can start on that. It has been so much fun. I really can't wait to get it all done so I can start doing some research on the family. That is what I really want to do. We have a great start but there is so much more to do. I know that now we will be able to date our family back farther and we will be able to get more information then even the two books have to offer. So I better get busy.

Charlotte has taken her first few steps on her own. The great part about it is both Jim and I were there to see it. I honestly can't believe how fast she is growing. Everyone says they grow fast but I guess you really don't understand until it is happening to you. Two months from now she will be a year old. It is crazy to think about.She has also gotten her top two teeth in. She was really cranky there for awhile. She wasn't very cranky with the first two, but these two were a nightmare. Now everyone keeps asking when we are going to have another one. Well my answer is....... Not anytime soon. I am having a great time just enjoying Charlotte. I also need to figure out what I am going to do with the store. I am just barely breaking even and even some months the money is coming out of our pocket. I don't know if we can keep this up. I really wish I would have waited to try and do this until Charlotte was older and the economy was better. Oh well, you only regret the things you haven't done. That is what I keep telling myself. OK I think that is it for now. I am all caught up.

Finders Keepers.....

Well my camera is still missing and I am missing my camera. I have looked everywhere. I have walked the ditches along the road. I posted flyer's in town and I have tore the house apart four times! Nothing. Jim called our insurance agent and he has worked it out so it will be covered under our homeowners insurance. I had to fill out a police report but it is worth it to get a new camera. They estimated my loss at 1300 dollars but I have to pay the deductible which is 250 dollars and then they depreciate the value by a year which is 200 dollars but if I spend the 1300 dollars and send them receipts they send me the 200 dollars back. So I am pretty happy I will get a new camera. I didn't know what I would have done otherwise. The camera lens alone was close to 400 dollars. We have been missing weird stuff from our house. I don't think someone would come in steal this stuff, but it is all missing. I had a bag I got in London from Harrods that I put a bunch of Charlotte toys in to take to Monya's and I can't find the bag or the toys anywhere. The part that really upsets me is Cherie sent Charlotte a little West Ham Bear named Billy and it was in the bag. The search continues...... Charlotte has got her top two teeth in. She has been cranky and restless so I am glad they are finally through. She also took her first few steps on her own. The best part was Jim and I were both there to see it. It won't be long and she will be walking. It is crazy how fast she has grown. She is almost a year old. Last year at this time I was miserable and extremely uncomfortable. Everyone keeps asking when we are going to have another. Charlotte isn't even a year old and everyone want me to do it again. Can I please have a little break??? I want to have another baby but not yet. I am enjoying Charlotte and as much as I miss being pregnant I still don't want to be pregnant again anytime soon. Every time I get a little sick or I am not feeling well the first thing out of everyone's mouth is "Are you Pregnant?" No I am not pregnant and do not plan on being pregnant anytime soon. So stop asking:)

Panic!!

OK I have taken this last week off from everything to get my house and to get Charlotte back into a routine because daylight savings time has thrown her schedule way out of whack! Well today I decided to get back into the swing of things. I wanted to get started on pictures again and to upload the pictures I took of Charlotte in her Halloween costume. Well my camera has disappeared. I am freaking out. I love my camera and I always have it close by, so this is completely out of character for me. That is the one thing I have never ever misplaced. I am literally sick to my stomach. I love that camera! I have tore the house apart, look in the yard, even out by the road in the ditch. The last time I had it was on Halloween. I took pictures of Charlotte, then we went to Dave and Monya's, after that we went to Jim's mom house, and then back home. I had it when we came back from Dave and Monya's and I know I didn't take it to Jim's mom's house. So I am just sick about it! I really hope it is here somewhere

We are Family

I am hosting a family get together on Sunday, and it is looking like it is going to work out pretty good. I was worried that we weren't going to have enough room but I think we should be OK. I have to clean out the garage tomorrow, which I am not looking forward to. Thank God Monya is going to watch Charlotte for a couple of hours so I will actually be able to get something done. I really don't know what we would do without Dave and Monya. They are sent straight from heaven. Faith is coming on Saturday and we are going to the Farmers Market in Madison and then we are going to bake cookies. I am really looking forward to talking with everyone and getting information about our family. I really hope everyone bring pictures and anything else they may have. It should be a good time.

Snake in the Grass

OK today was pretty crazy. Jim has been hauling sweet corn and my brother Charlie wanted Jim to bring him a bunch home. So Jim brought it home and I was suppose to take it to my dad's house so Charlie could pick it up. Well I went over to my dad's before I went to the store. I opened my trunk to get the corn out and it is gone. Jim had taken it out and left it in our garage. So I am really running late now. I get back home and I start loading the corn in the car and all of a sudden the dogs start barking. I am thinking it is a frog or a gopher. I yell at them to stop acting like idiots, but they keep on. So I walk over expecting to pick up a frog or whatever and move it so the they knock it off. To my surprise and horror there is a rather large snake that is standing up straight rattling and it a freaking hood like a cobra. I am freaking out at this point. What the hell would a cobra be doing in Wisconsin?? Was I crazy?? I go and look again and sure enough this thing has a hood. I am panicking because it is heading for the house. I try calling Dave and Monya but they aren't home. Then I called Steve our other neighbor and tell him " Steve I think I have a freaking Cobra snake in my front yard". Well of course he think I am exaggerating. I am sure he thought it was a garden snake and I was overreacting. I stressed to him that I know what a garden snake looks like and this isn't it. I tell him it has a hood and it is rattling. I am thinking maybe it was a pet and someone got sick of taking care of it. So Steve sends one of him buddies over to get it in a bucket. In the mean time I have put a laundry basket over it with rocks on the top. Brett finally gets here as the damn snake is trying to get out of the basket. He almost made it too. To make a long story short it was a Bull Snake. I guess we have them around here. I have never in my life seen a snake with a hood around here. It technically isn't a hood they just puff up and rattle like a rattle snake. Even Brett said it looked like it had a hood. Well he got it in a bucket and took it to Steve's. He is going to take it to one of the wetlands and let it go. It was about 2 1/2 feet long. Once it was in the bucket it looked smaller but it was still a big snake for around here. Snakes are the one thing I can't stand. I can handle bugs and mice but snakes are a deal breaker. So that was my drama for the day. I didn't get a picture of the actual snake but here is a picture of what it looked like.

Charlotte Crawling Part 2... Back to the leap frog table!!!

This is a really long video so you may get bored but I tried to get these videos to work every way possible so I have a "few" videos of her crawling so I thought I would share. My advice would be to let it download then go back and watch it. that way it won't stop and start and drive you crazy! ENJOY!

Charlotte Crawling..... Thank God for YouTube