Merry Christmas from The Manor!

Daryl and Carson showing off their guns! 

 We have finished two full days of family Christmas celebrations. We are all kind of worn out but it has been worth it. We started Christmas Eve in Holton. It was fun having all of the cousins together, we were so excited to see Ashtin! He has been working for Ohio State since around August. It was nice to have him back!

Henry and Alex playing store! 

Christmas day was spent at home with Mom and the Stiles' gang. They came from South Dakota and we loved having them. The boys loved all of their presents,

Santa brought Daryl a football and Alex a cash register like the one at the library. Santa did good this year! We got the boys a swing set, but once they opened it the weather turned bad. Who knows when we will get it set up for them! LOL

Since we didn't leave the house on Friday we did have some time for crafts and Uno! Lots of Uno was played. I also failed to win a game of chutes and ladders after playing all afternoon. I wasn't even letting them win!

Painting! 

Just in time for Christmas I finished my dress Lisa helped me make. She made on too but it's not done yet. Get on it Lisa, I want to be twins! Kelly was all sneaky and posted a picture of me trying it on for the first time on Facebook. Then he was just blown away that it got over 100 likes. He underestimated the powers of an awesome dress!

Asa took his project very seriously, it turned out really good! 

Today for Henry's birthday we went to the Trampoline park in Topeka. It has been open for awhile now but we haven't had the chance to check it out. It was a little pricey because you have to pay for each separate thing. But, for a special occasion it was a lot of fun. The pizza was also really good, and I don't even like pizza! We are going to check it out again on a Tuesday, they have specials on everything on Tuesday nights. We also got Orange Leaf afterwards to celebrate the birthday boy! Happy Sixth Birthday Henry, you are always out of town on your special day and you are a very good sport about it!

I hope you all had a Happy Holiday too, stay safe and warm everyone!

I turned this into a dress! 

I really did!

Trampoline park! $4 for 15 min, $2 on Tuesdays. 

Daryl and Alex shooting some dinosaurs! 

Happy Blogaversary!

It has been seven years since I started Meerpohl Manor with this post. A lot has changed including the boy in my first picture ever to the blog. He looks a little older and what do you know, I do too!

One thing hasn't changed I still get a lot of writing material from my little family and my crazy ideas. I'm happy to announce that Mega tree is still standing! We haven't had a good wind yet but hopefully it won't end up on our neighbor's car. 

Daryl had his first Christmas Concert yesterday, he did a really good job! He was so worried about his dance moves he forgot to sing some times, but he rocked his speaking part! With the help of Jolly Ranchers Alex did pretty good during the whole 30 minute performance! 

I didn't mention it in my first blog but today is also Kelly's birthday. I think he had a pretty good day today. I got him donuts after my morning run and the boys and I delivered him one with a candle in it. We sang to him and everything! He turned 37 today, so he only has 30 years that haven't been documented on the internet. I'm sure he is glad I took care of that. Maybe that was my present to him seven years ago, oversharing! 

Christmas Card 2015

So it was going to be impossible to top last year's Christmas Card. So early October I decided I wasn't even going to try. We sent a Birthday card this year! We never get those out and I always feel guilty about it. But we've already had two birthdays come and go since they went out and guess what, we are covered! I just think to myself, I hope they still have their Birthday card around.
All photo credit goes to Jaime again this year, she was really hoping we would go with the dozen pictures we had of Daryl frowning instead of the one he was smiling in! We have enough pictures of him frowning so we went with this one. :-)
The story behind the frown was Kelly snapped Daryl's chin when he put the birthday hat on. I'm not sure if we ever take a family picture without someone crying.

This weekend was crazy productive. We got all of our inside and outside Christmas decorations up! I love Christmas lights. Against all of Kelly's instincts we have been adding to our Christmas lights every year, and this year we added a MEGA tree! Like all my great ideas I had the vision and Kelly figured out how to make it. I only envisioned an 8 ft tall tree but the pipe we found was 10 ft tall so what the heck, we went for it! I thought the MEGA tree would be enough, our yard would not need anything else. But now that it is done I know next year we need to put a Santa by the tree and presents under it. :-) Don't tell Kelly!

Age is just a number!

Charlie and Auntie! 

As of today my new number is 33. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. Don't get me wrong I'm lucky to be getting older, I don't take that for granted. What I mean is 18 is when you get to vote, 21 you get to buy a beer, 25 your car insurance costs less, but what is 33?
So I did a little research on the number 33.

• Oregon was the 33rd state admitted to the union
• 33 is the direct dial country code for France
• A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually
• For all the baseball fans, 33 was the number of innings in the longest game of baseball ever played! Go ahead look it up, 1981 Rochester Red Wings vs the Pawtucket Red Sox.
• 33 is the retired number of Patrick Ewing. (It may seem odd that I included this BUT I actually liked the New York Knicks and Patrick Ewing growing up. If you think I'm lying ask my brother. I don't know why, I just did. I liked Duke too, It doesn't make sense because Patrick went to Georgetown. I was a strange, confused child in SW Kansas.)
• The strangest thing that came of my Google searching was this whole conspiracy about the 33rd parallel. This is a real thing. The following things have happened at or near the 33rd parallel, the start of the American civil war, the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the assassination of JFK, the first known test of the atomic bomb, both bombed Japanese cities in WWII were near the 33rd parallel and Roswell, NM is on the 33rd parallel. 

Strange!

I'm starting to get word that people are getting their Christmas cards! This makes me so happy, I love Christmas Card time! There always seems to be a story behind the picture and this year is no different but I will save that for a few days. I will release the Christmas Card picture that did not make the cut. Merry Christmas from the Blockheads! 

Don't look at it for too long, it will give you nightmares! 

Thanksgiving on the Tundra

South Dakota is considered the tundra, right? It was actually pretty sunny Wednesday through today but it was still way colder than what our family is used to. You have to be made of tougher stuff than I am to thrive in South Dakota. Hats off to my brother and sister in law who enjoy calling it home, Asa just likes that it doesn't get above 90 in the summer!
Thanksgiving was a great time with my siblings and nephews and niece. We ate some turkey, watched a Christmas parade and had a lot of nerf gun wars. The kids had a blast! The ladies also went shopping yesterday in downtown Watertown and enjoyed not dealing with the crowds. We ventured out after lunch and the madness had died down.
Can't wait for Dec. 1st and then I can finish the Christmas shopping. I've already spent the Nov. Christmas budget so I have to wait for the Dec. budget to purchase the rest. Ugh, the struggles of being a responsible adult. ;-)
Lots of good stories from this weekend but my favorite probably happened on the drive to Watertown. We picked up cousin Cedar in Topeka so he was riding in our car for the seven hour trip.
Cedar-Let's play rock paper scissors.
Daryl-Ok
Cedar- Rock, Paper Scissors, SHOOT!
Cedar-What is that?
Daryl- A Gun, Bang.

Oh my gosh those kids make me laugh!

Turkey Time

I'm not sure if Alex ate anything. LOL

Charles and Alex aka The Twins. 

Both the Boys were champs on the car rides. They do seven hours pretty good! 

Footy pajamas for everyone! 

While in SD I finished everything on my cardigan except the pockets. Then it needs a bath! 

I did finish Tiffany's hat in time to give it to her last weekend. She is so cute! 

Well I haven't lost a kid...yet!

It is not strange to people who know me that I loose stuff. A daily questions in my house are where are my keys, where are my shoes, where is my phone?
I don't really have to ask that last one too much these days. The entire month of November I think I've had a working phone for about 8 of them. My first phone I smashed the screen. I dropped it like I have several times before and when I picked it up the screen was shattered. That one was my fault.
Waited until my week calmed down to go get a new phone.
Had that phone for almost a week and it walked off. At first I thought I lost it but at this point I think someone had sticky fingers. I say that because it was called only two hours after being missing and it was shut off.
So, I'm not really counting that one as my fault but being as cheap as I am I'm not running out to buy a new one just yet. I think I'll wait till December. I just can't make myself buy another new phone in the same month. Ugh.
The cutest thing was when Alex was telling me about looking for my phone with Kelly.
Alex-Mommy we no find your phone.
Me- It's Ok honey, thanks for looking.
Alex-Your phone play hide and seek and we no find it.
Me-It's hiding really good.

Well at least I still have knitting. I'm about to pack up to take some 4-H'ers to a youth leadership conference. I kind of enjoy this weekend every year because it is a lot of quality knitting time. I hope to post some pictures Sunday of all my finished projects. I'm taking Tiffany's baby hat, My handspun cardigan and a Christmas stocking that I should have finished last year! I hope to get at least one of the two stockings done in Nov. and hopefully the other before the big day in December. I promise Abby I have not forgotten! 

Do you know about smencils?

A couple of months ago I could not have told you what a smencil is. Now I can educate you about smencils. A smencil is a smelly pencil, see what they did there?
The PTO sells them a few times a year and they are $1 a piece.
Now this is the tricky part, smencils are not just a fundraiser for the kids, they hold many many lessons in their little plastic cases.

First, there is the investigate before you buy. The first time they were smelling them Daryl took one dollar to school. He picked Juicy Lime and when he got to class he realized he didn't want Juicy Lime he wanted Grape! We had a long talk that night about smelling all the pencils before you lay your money down. This is called being an informed consumer!

Second, we need to learn to control ourselves. According to Daryl they sell 10 different smencils at the same time. So he figured this week when they went on sale he would just take all 10 of the dollars in his wallet. Ummmmm, I vetoed that plan. I told him last time there were two or three smencils that he definitely didn't like. So I asked him WHY would he want one of each. Also, I explained we will never own everything that we want. True happiness is wanting what we have not having what we want. With Christmas around the corner we are still working on this one. But he did agree with smencils if he could get four he would be happy with that.

Lastly, smencils taught mom you are only 7 once. As crazy as I think the smencil thing is, you should see these kids rush the school door with their dollar in hand, I love that he gets excited about a special pencil. I used to get excited about little ceramic cats. My brother would not even come in my room because all of the cats freaked him out. Daryl is growing up so fast, it makes me sad sometimes, but then smencil week comes along and he gets really happy. And that makes me really happy!
PS-Rootbeer is my favorite smencil
PPS-I collected ceramic cats from ages 7-20, then I got a cat, I'm allergic. Go figure!

Trick or Treat

We had a wonderful Halloween at The Manor and are starting November off pretty good too! Kelly took the boys trick or treating last year so it was my turn this year. I was not excited at all because it is well documented I dislike the cold. Turns out, the weather was awesome! I totally lucked out on my year!
The boys didn't do any trunk or treats this year so we did the old fashioned walk the neighborhood. We went all up and down our street then they went to Ron and Claudia's and trick or treated there too. They both had a bag full of candy after that so they were happy. We were completely done by 7!
Alex was so cute this year, he really knew what was going on so every house he would run up to the door so he could be the first to knock. Him and Daryl would say, "Trick-or-Treat" in unison and then every single time Alex would say "Can I have some of your candy?" It was adorable.
Then in the middle of our adventure he said his signature line and the woman who came to the door said, "I'm sorry all I have is fruit snacks." Alex replied, "FRUIT SNACKS ARE MY FAVORITE, THANK YOU!" He screamed it just like that. Alex and the woman were both smiling ear to ear. It was pretty awesome.
I hope you all had a great Halloween too!
PS-On Halloween Kelly finally got Alex to put the pumpkin outside. :-) 

My Ninja Turtle and Football player

Daryl walking in the Halloween parade at school

Oh my Blerch

This is a running post. So if that doesn't interest you, feel free to leave knowing you won't miss a kid story. ;-)
I told you last week about my cold that took me out of commission for awhile. While no one sent flowers, I do know that you were all very sad for me. A side effect of feeling yucky and not being able to breath was running sounded about as fun as mosquito bites on your bra line. Trust me dudes, those suck.
So my weekly running totals went down, way down.
Oct. Week 1- 21.10 miles
        Week 2- 10.40 miles
        Week 3- 3.55 miles (This one run was pure he** and only done b/c I didn't want a goose egg week.)
         Week 4- 5.35 miles
         Week 5- TBD, but I'm feeling good about it.
Now I wasn't feeling terrible in Week 4. Something else was keeping me in bed, the Blerch. If you don't know about him you can read about him here. The Blerch is a creation of the adult cartoonist The Oatmeal. He is that little voice in your head that tells you to sleep in and have more cake.
I was blerching hard last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week. Mostly, I've been telling myself it is too cold. But that was a lie because I did run this morning and I was WAY overdressed in my tights, long sleeve shirt and hat. I got up, had a nice morning run, and have felt great today! I need to sign up for a new race so I can start another race plan. Those keep me motivated. What keeps you motivated?
Another thing I like to do is set a yearly mileage goal. My goal for this year was 720 miles. I've already run 775.6 miles in 2015! I need to set my goal higher for next year. :-)

Pumpkin LOVE

Sorry for the lack of blog. I'm not a very good nurse and I'm also not a good sick person. I had a cold starting Sunday the 11th and have been out of commission until the middle of this week. I can breathe again so I guess I can blog again!

On the 11th we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends the Grays. It has been too long since we have all hung out! Their girls are ADORABLE, and they are fun play mates for the boys and I get to enjoy some pink and purple for a change!

So we went to the patch and started looking for the perfect pumpkins, it was really windy and dusty so I was happy when Alex found his pumpkin right away. It was probably the first one he could pick up and he wouldn't put it down.

Alex and the Perfect Pumpkin

Daryl took longer because he wanted a "weird" one. We finally found a weird one that wasn't leaking anything and we were set to go. We did the hay bale maze, drank some apple cider slushies and played on the playground equipment. It was a fun afternoon and everyone, except Kelly, slept the whole way home.

Soooooooo we haven't got to put Alex's pumpkin on the porch yet. This is because he insists on SLEEPING with it! He loves his little pumpkin so much it doesn't get to leave his room. Kelly makes him put it at the foot of the bed, but it has to be in his bed. He LOVES his pumpkin. This was a picture I took this morning before I woke him up. And yes it does look like he has taken a bite out of it, I will research that further tonight.

I hope we can convince him to move it outside before it starts to rot! Hope everyone has a happy Halloween, I hope to get a post up of the boys costumes. They are already purchased and ready to go. God Bless Amazon!

A Note From School

How could this boy cause any trouble? (sarcasm)

In the era that we live in my communication with Daryl's teacher happens in the form of notes in his planner. I say era because I imagine the 1950's when you picked your kids up from school and could talk to your child's teacher everyday. Teachers might actually be happy that they don't have to deal with 21 parents everyday at quitting time! 

So let me tell you how this works. If Daryl has no note he had a good day if he has a note that means he had several warnings about a behavior and his teacher needs to let me know what went down that day. 

On Monday, Daryl had the dreaded note! He was talking and being silly in class when he was supposed to be getting his work done. Daryl told Kelly about it and he was really sad but he was even sadder when we told him another note this week would mean no allowance. I don't have the follow through to ground anyone but taking away a kid's five bucks on Friday is effective punishment around here. 

When we told Daryl the consequence of another note he got really sad, there was pouting and tears. That's good because that means he shouldn't get another note. But, I know my son and I needed to warn the teacher. Thank God for e-mail. 

My first e-mail to teacher:

I got your note about Daryl talking in class yesterday. We talked to him about it and told him if he got a note again this week there would be a consequence. I'm only telling you this because if he is acting up and you write the note he will probably cry. Please don't let that stop you from telling us if he is misbehaving.
He is sensitive but I think school is helping him work on being able to take some criticism without it devastating him.
Anyway, long story to say if he is being a pain in class we want to know about it at home. Thanks!

E-Mail back from Teacher Today:
Ugh, I had warned him a couple of times today to stop talking/acting silly.  I always give several warnings before writing a note.  Today we played Math games. I knew there wouldn't be enough time to play all of the games, but he and his partner had only done one side of the very first game (5 addition problems each).  He was so upset and I told him I needed to see his planner (and his partner's).  He started crying and BEGGED me not to write in it.  Then he told me he was getting a spanking and no allowance.  "Please don't write in it!  Please don't write in it!"  Normally I can deal with tears, but after your email, that. was. hard.  We talked about it and I told him, "You're a good boy, Daryl.  You just made a bad choice.  Everyone does, and we learn from them.  Tomorrow is a new day!  I still love you both and know you can do better!"    I wanted to say, "Hey...I get one from my son's teacher 1-2 times a week, this is nothin'!"  But I refrained... ;)

Oh lord, why my child! E-Mail back to teacher today:You did good! PS-He was telling the truth on the allowance (he gets part of it for good behavior) but we don't spank him for notes from school. He was pulling your leg on that one.
I'm glad you stuck to your guns, I know he really is sad, but he can't use crying to get out of trouble.
I look forward to our conference.

I'm not really sure if I am looking forward to our parent teacher conference. That is set for next week! 

Upgrade!

It has been a long time since I've posted about budgeting and being cheap. In February, after we paid off all of our debt, except the mortgage, we started saving for our 3-6 month emergency fund. Once we had that we have just been saving, not too exciting. Yesterday, we spent some of our money and got Kelly a new car.

New to him! He has been driving his 2003 Nissan truck since I was pregnant with Daryl. When we started our journey to be debt free the truck was our nice car for a long time. The truck was not so nice anymore and Kelly was ready to upgrade. His new car is a 2008 Expedition, it is the third car we have bought with cash and it is undoubtedly the nicest! It was the only one of the three cash cars that was over one thousand dollars. :-)

Buying a car with cash is a much more pleasant experience than having to talk to the, "financing" person. We had been looking online for a couple of months so we knew how much we could trade the truck for and what a really good deal would be on the new car. I got the deal so it was fun! We also had a woman sales lady for the first time and she wasn't pushy or "salesy" at all. That was nice too!

Kelly drove his car to tailgating this morning and he really likes it. He was looking for a new truck at first but then decided he would rather have the extra room to drive the family around. I guess we are getting old! He did make sure it had a hitch to tow so the next thing we will be on the lookout for is a small trailer. For a good deal of course!

A Weekend Spin

Because of some unexpected rain The Manor got to host Grandma Rosie! She had a golf tournament on Friday and because it rained in Southwest Kansas she got to stay until Sunday. It is always fun to have her around. Kelly likes it because they like the same restaurants. :-|
Sunday evening I finally got around to plying my "Is this a weed?" fiber. It was my last fiber from Tour De Fleece. The tour ended months ago but I'm glad to finally have my pile of fiber done. Now I need to spin the last of my "Bristling" fiber because I was knitting my sweater and ran out of yarn with one sleeve left to go. Boo! I hope 3.2 ounces is enough to get a whole sleeve worth of yarn. We shall see!

Pile o Fiber in June

Is it a Weed? Colorway in 3 ply

Pile o Yarn in October!

PS-The boys' birthday/Christmas hand-knit sweaters are also looking like the maybe next year/never sweaters. My sons are going to be so disappointed!

PPS- I got Halloween decorations up tonight! We totally missed last year so I'm pretty darn proud of myself!

For the Birds

Last Friday the Best Leadership Topeka class ever got a behind the scenes tour at the Topeka Zoo. The Manor has a membership to the zoo and we spend many afternoons there. This behind the scenes look still blew me out of the water. Getting to ask questions to Zoo administration and talk to the Zoo Keepers was an educational experience. For instance, I've often thought it was cruel that we only have one Gorilla at our zoo. I asked the question why they don't get her a friend. The answer was she doesn't like other gorillas. She was hand raised, a practice zoos don't do anymore and she thinks she is a people. She likes Julie Andrews movies and her favorite is Mary Poppins. They have tried to breed her unsuccessfully because she just wants nothing to do with other gorillas. Good To Know! 

Another thing we got to do was feed Lorikeet birds. Any zoo goer can do this and it is worth the price of the food! You just hold your little cup of juice and they land all over you and fight each other for some of the good stuff. It was a great experience. Almost a year after my first Leadership Topeka Class I still enjoy this group of people so much! 

After the Zoo Kelly and I took all of the boys to Fritz's in Shawnee for a fun dinning experience. At this restaurant you order your food by using a phone at your table and then it is delivered by train! Needless to say Alex LOVED it, Zach and Daryl both thought it was cool too. The older two especially liked the Oreo milkshakes! For being a gimmick type place to eat the food was actually good. I had the crispy chicken sandwich and crinkle cut fries. Yum!!

It's only 8:30 but I might still go to bed. I've been taking advantage of the lovely morning weather and have run the last three mornings. Waking up at 5:30 requires an early bedtime! 

A Funny Me Story

Usually, I write funny Daryl or Alex stories but every once in awhile I can be funny too. I was telling my co worker Kim about something that happened during my race and she said it was hilarious and needed to go on the blog. So here it is.

I was pretty nervous about my race when I got up Sunday morning. I made sure I had my watch, my food, my change of clothes and was nervously talking with my friend Becca and Kelly all the way up to the start.

Once we got to running on this beautiful trail I started to calm down. My legs felt good and it was drizzling rain which actually was keeping the temperature very nice. I found my happy pace and was enjoying the tall trees and river we were running beside. Then a little after the three mile marker faster runners were coming back. I'm used to seeing faster people turn around before me and I cheer them on BUT they should not be doing that when I'm only at 3 miles.

My mind started going crazy, I never saw a course map for this race, it just simply stated that it was a flat out and back course. Well if it was out and back there was no way those faster people had already run 13 miles and were already coming back. I started to panic, Beat The  Blerch is a funny race. Most of the things that go along with it are making fun of running. Even at the start instead of the National Anthem they played a song from the Lion King. What If This Whole Thing Was A Joke?! We all signed up for a Marathon but maybe we were only doing a 10k??!! I was breathing faster now but only because I couldn't bear the thought of having flown across the country, training for this race since May, telling all my running friends I was going to run a Marathon, just to be a part of a huge JOKE!!!

So I sped up until I was running with another lady. She had headphones in but I looked over at her, with crazy eyes I'm sure, and said "Hey, do you know if this is a real marathon?" This of course made her pull out her headphones and say, "What." I explained to her about the runners already coming back and while she thought that was strange too she assured me it was a "Real Marathon."

That really didn't make me feel better so I sped up a little more and repeated my question to the next fastest runner. She said the course was an out and back but we had to do this little seven mile bit first because the out and back course wasn't 26 miles long. Oh, OK that made me feel better. My heart slowed again and I realized how silly I was being. When I got to the first turn around I went ahead and laughed at myself. At the end of the race I laughed again thinking a fake marathon might not have been so bad after all! LOL

Becca and I at the first Starbucks. This is a good addition to our collection of Starbucks pictures!

Daryl thought the fish market was cool!

International fountain at the Space Needle

Mom is not really five feet tall!

Daryl getting a bite taken out of him at the Oregon Zoo

We did it!

Daryl rode on a plane! I ran a marathon! Kelly drove in Seattle! Mom golfed two more states! I knit half a sleeve! Becca ran a half marathon! We all did all the things. Yay us! More words next time. :-)

Daryl on a plane!

Smiled all day after I finished my Marathon!

We can do this!

My lovely sweater model!