The Great Outdoors (hint hint)

Okay, I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you, but it is one of the scariest things of all time! Two times now in my life I have had flying animals or rodents in my house and it makes my heart race and makes me scream like a little girl. You are probably wondering what in the heck I am talking about....well...let me tell you the story. Tonight I lived 'The Great Outdoors'.

I was sitting at my dining room table working on dreaded taxes, when thankfully (in retrospect) Judd started to cry and wanted to be rocked to sleep. So I got up and went to take care of him. Not but a few minutes had passed while I sat on the couch with him when my daycare kid exclaimed "You have a bird in your house!" I was confused at first because I thought she was talking to the t.v. But I happened to look up just as something came hurling towards me and my baby. I screamed bloody murder and covered us with a couch pillow, while Tony screamed and jumped off the couch onto the floor. He then yelled, "is that a bird or a bat?" I screamed back terrified "I don't know!!!" Then the thing came flying at us again and was now swarming around the dining room/living room area and Tony yelled again "That's definitely a bat!!!!!" So as the bat darted around the house Tony and I screaming our heads off, me covering myself with a couch cushion and Tony swatting at it with Judd's bouncy chair (pause for image). I was yelling for Tony to open the front door (which is in the dining room) and prop open the screen door so he could try and get it to fly out. Well, that is what he was trying to do, but if you've ever experienced it you know what I am talking about...it is terrifying to have something flying at you like that.

Finally there was a break in the excitement when the bat flew into the kitchen and landed on the window ledge under the curtain. The curtains are sheer so Tony could see it all the time. At this point I am cowered on the floor, Judd crying in my arms, with a couch cushion at the ready. Tony is standing in the kitchen doorway contemplating what to do next to try and catch it or kill it, and Owen and Raymond are coming down from their beds from upstairs yelling "What is it??" I told them Batman was in the house. They wanted to see it ,but I sent them back upstairs. During all the panic I remember my five year old daycare kid, Bethany, sitting on the couch all by herself completely calm. She wasn't cowered down or anything. Brave girl...but hate to say it...she was on her own! Every one for themselves. I probably would have left Judd in his chair too if he had been there in the first place! What a terrible mom I am!

Anyways...on with the story. So we left off with me on the floor with Judd and my pillow, Tony in the kitchen doorway and the bat in the kitchen window. Tony darted around trying to find something he could hit it with, not to smash it but to stun it or something so he could get it out of the house. He finally found the old plastic high chair tray cover that we don't use anymore and went into the kitchen. I braced myself....5-10 minutes passed and I kept asking, "What's happening?" Finally I heard a loud thud and Tony exclaimed "It's definitely dead, I hit it". Now I was worried that blood and guts were everywhere, but they weren't. Tony said he stood there counting to three about twenty times before he got enough courage to actually hit it. He was afraid that it would start flying again and he was really close this time. For all I know he only stunned it and it is now stuck in a garbage bag in the garbage can in the garage in the basement!

He picked it up with the bag and I took a picture of him with it and he threw it out. He wanted me to take a picture of him with the real bat and not just the bag, but I didn't want to get that close, and I was afraid it was not dead. I could just picture it waking up while Tony had a hold of it in a bag and then freaking out and dropping it so it started flying all over again.

I hope no one ever experiences having a bird or a bat in their house. I felt like I was in the movie the Great Outdoors. Only one other time in my life did I have this experience and that was in Gillette, when I was home alone and a bird was in the house. I don't know why it is so terrifying, but Tony and I are now coming down from an adrenaline high and we were both shaking and freaked out. It had been right where I had been sitting at the dining room table!!!! Thanks to Judd, I was saved the risk of being even closer to it than I had to be.

Below is the picture of Tony with his prize in the bag and his weapon of choice.

Can you believe it????

So I was sitting here thinking today that my baby, little Judd-Bug, will soon be a one year old big boy. In six weeks he will not be considered a "baby" anymore, and I just can't believe how time has flown.

Something funny that Judd has learned how to do, is to stand up when he is strapped into his chair and it ends up on his back and he looks like a turtle. It's pretty funny. That's when I know he wants to get out and play!

It seems like yesterday he was just snuggled in my arms as a new born, and I know each parent reminisces like this, but it IS crazy how time flies. Now he is giving high fives, has six teeth and working on at least three more. He eats table food, can almost walk, and loves to play chase where he crawls around the room chasing us and growling at us, while we crawl away laughing and pretending that he is catching us. He thinks that is hilarious. I do too!

It's been awhile since I've posted any new pictures, so I thought I'd update my Judd pics. Soon I will update my Owen pics and Raymond pics. Also - I was thinking today that in four months, my oldest son is going to be five years old!!! I almost cry everytime I think of that because it makes me soooooooo sad that my babies are growing up.

History in the Making

Today at 11:00 I watched the newest president be sworn into office and it was an amazing feeling. I am the first to admit that I did NOT vote for Obama, but that doesn't make me any less emotional and inspired by the fact that I witnessed history today in a momentous event. I am still astounded that the first African American President is finally in office. It seems like it would never happen, no matter how much progress we made in society.

I tried to make the boys understand the gravity of this event, but they were like 'who cares'. I want them to be able to someday say that they remember when...and recount where they were or what they were doing.

I am an emotional person by nature, but today watching Obama speak I felt teary eyed, and I can't explain it but to think that this is a huge huge change. It is monumental and it is an occasion to celebrate. I can only imagine what he was feeling today and I hope that he lives up to everything that he sets out to do and can fix many of our problems. Just cause I didn't vote for him, since he won, I don't want to see him fail because that wouldn't benefit me any! I want him to succeed, so I pray that he does.

So I celebrate our final shift into a new era, where hopefully we can all be equal someday...we are on our way.

Pictures of the Season!

I have temporarily downloaded pictures from my camera onto my Mother in Laws computer that we are borrowing because my camera card was finally full. So these pictures range from November 8 - January 3 (but I will only posting "Holiday" pictures in this post and doing other posts with pictures). They encompass Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. I apologize for the large amount of them, but I wanted to share as many as I could as soon as possible! Happy Looking! :)

Merry Christmas To All!!! (In review)

So, a lot has happened in the last few weeks since I posted last. Let me try and start from the beginning and I apologize for two things in advance. First, that there is still no pictures to gander at and second, if this post finds you jumping all over the place while I try to remember what we have been up to!!

Let's start at the last post. Owen got over not being able to go to his Preschool Christmas party for all of you that shed a tear for him. He ended up having a lot of fun at our daycare party that same day.

Sunday the 21st both Owen and Raymond were to sing in the Church's Christmas concert for preschool, since they attend the church's preschool. Here is how that went down...All day Saturday Owen told me that he was too scared to sing in the concert and he refused to do it, even though he did it two times last year. I kept trying to talk to him about it until right before bed out of the blue he said he'd sing. So we got up Sunday morning got ready for church and I took them both upstairs to their preschool room where both proceeded to get very "shy" and not let go of my legs. Both of their teachers pulled them off of me while they screamed and I ran for the exit. Raymond got over his anxiety and sang and danced the whole concert, while Owen pouted the whole concert and proceeded to make a mad face the whole time. He got up there with his class, but he was obviously NOT happy. Oh well, he recovered.

I was only open Mon-Wed. the week of Christmas and closed early on Christmas Eve. That night we headed over to Holly's house for the traditional Coffey Christmas Eve pancake dinner. MMMMMMM, delicious. We then opened all of our presents from Holly, JB and Amanda, and Great Grandma Ginny and Great Grandpa Bill. We then rushed home in time for my parents to arrive at our house. We all went to bed after "Santa" had to visit of course and woke up about 6am to open presents. The boys were very excited and Judd loved playing with the wrapping paper and bows and other garbage. We rushed that along and Tony made our traditional Sears omlette Christmas breakfast while I hurried and packed all of our suitcases and other stuff to take on our trip with us, which I was too exhausted to pack the night before. We cleaned up breakfast, dressed the boys, loaded the car and drove off for Cheyenne, WY where my oldest sister lives now. My parents were on their way too.

Our car ride there was ridiculous! The trip without kids is about 7 hours. It took us 9 hours to get there, which wouldn't be unreasonable but we had to stop it seemed about 20 times for the boys to pee, then Raymond fell asleep and had a potty accident in the car so we had to stop to change his clothes. Then Owen has a cold and runny nose with a cough and he started coughing so hard that he gagged, choked and puked all over himself, so we had to stop and change his clothes too. We finally got there and had chili for dinner and hung out for awhile.

In Cheyenne, we mostly hung out at Kimberly's apartment. Mom and Kimberly cooked up a huge Christmas dinner on Friday after we had opened presents that morning. Owen was having constipation issues and tuckered himself out so much he slept from 6pm to 7am and missed out on dinner. Saturday he felt much better. We drank some wine, ate too much, and played games. Saturday my sister, Tony, me and the boys drove over to Laramie, where we hadn't been in 3 1/2 years since we left WY and we were very excited to be back. I WISH I could be back in Laramie for good. I love Omaha, but desperatly miss WY.

We drove home on Sunday (which only took us 7.5 hours) so we made awesome time! We both worked Mon-Wednesday. JB and Amanda were still in town so they came over for hamburgers Monday night and then we all went out to dinner with Holly and Verlyn Tuesday night for some awesome fajitas, then everyone came over to our house last night for New Years Eve, and then we all went over to Holly's today for the Nebraska football bowl game and to say goodbye to JB and Amanda. Tomorrow night we are taking the boys to Sesame Street Live because Santa to them tickets. Phew! This weekend we get to get back to a normal schedule and back to real life I guess.

I know that I didn't go into much detail about anything in this post, it was mostly to get caught up. I will do more detailed individual posts over the weekend.

I hope everyone had a great Holiday and safe travels.

P.S. funny quote of the holidays, dad said on christmas morning to mom "What day is it today, Christmas?" this was after all the presents had been open and we were about to leave for WY. Hmmmm....