I just call to say.......

It's been a very long time. I visit your blogs often...I love them!

A few thoughts to share:

• Baxter and Steve are going out to Utah this month. Baxter is going to tour some campuses out there. I can't even explain how this makes me feel. I never thought my oldest would grow up and leave me soooo soon. I feel like he is robbing me by graduating a year early. Yes, I am pleased that he knows what he wants to do and is going after it--I just wished it hadn't happened in the blink of an eye. Yesterday I was holding him for the first time--he was an adorable baby that wrapped around my heart instantly and has never let go.
• I celebrated my 42nd birthday yesterday. I ended up staying home from school with three sick kids. Baxter is having muscle spasms in his back from football. Ceci is recovering from spending the weekend at a friend's house in North Carolina. We didn't realize that they were smokers or that they had a cat. Consequence: asthma and big time allergies. Noah, I believe, is catching my wonderful cold that I am just getting rid of, pour thing is coughing his head off. Happily though, I did get my pork chops, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies and strawberry shortcake for dessert (I love mixed veggies and the rest of the family abhors them so they really were for me) all made be my hunk, Steve.
  
• We had said strawberry shortcake for two reasons: 1st, Noah decided a few weeks ago that we needed pumpkin pie (two weeks early since we always have the first pumpkin pie of the season on my b-day) He wanted it so bad that he even made the crust himself. G-ma gave him a hint to only roll out once for a flaky crust. He listened and had the funniest crust I ever saw, but it was delicious and so flaky. The pies were WONDERFUL! 2nd, I bought strawberries for Steve's b-day because he loves angel food cake for his b-day. Well I ran out of time so we had store bought apple pie. Hence my birthday treat, Grandma Young's yellow cake with strawberries and whipped cream. Delicious:)
  
• Eating Grandma's yellow cake brought back memories of going into her kitchen lifting the lid of her cake pan and snitching a piece. Yum, Yum, Yum!
• My cinquain that I wrote in class as an example this week:

Pumpkin
Round, Orange
Thinking, Designing, Cutting
Slimy Strings and Seeds
Jack-O-Lantern

• The poem was inspired by Noah's party. G and G, the Stevens, and ourselves got together and carved pumpkins and ate soup and breadsticks. Noah received his much wanted i-pod touch. Grandpa played with it a little last night. He was telling the kids that it was just an electronic form of the games he used to play as a child, a plastic box with a maze and a small steel ball. He told them he really liked it when the said box had a lever to make the ball spring forth. So Steve being Steve quickly downloaded a pinball application. Not sure if G-pa ever got to play it though. Amazing how much this little world has changed in such a short period of time.
• Other good news: Steve started the pellet stove yesterday. I woke up this morning and didn't feel like any of my appendages were going to fall off!!! He also said that the hopper that G-pa designed and mostly built worked like a dream. He opened the little door, filled up his bucket, closed the door and wha-laa heat in the house. Yipee!!!