~~ODNEAL FAMILY BLOG~~Port of Readlyn, Iowa

Christmas night in KC we could not find anything open to take everyone for dinner. The hotel suggested Sarpino's for delivery, but we decided to venture out and see if we could find anything open. The one we did find the kitchen was closed so we ended up at the place first considered. Let me just say that the pizza was excellent and Ty ordered 2 lbs. of hot wings and ate every bit of them. Well okay, Dad had one, Kyle had one, Kenny had one, but I think other than that Ty pretty much polished them off by himself. And they didn't even have wet naps, so luckily I seem to carry EVERYTHING you could possibly need in my satchel and I happened to have a couple leftover Red Lobster wet naps. Ty enjoyed the wings, and we all were so pumped for the game Sunday that we really just needed something in our tummies before giving up for the night. Oh yeah, I forgot there is a video of Cole "wrestling" himself in their hotel room on you tube. Apparently they went to bed mu...

We made it through Christmas and our weekend in Kansas City without any issues. Hope everyone had a great holiday and spent it with family and friends as we did. Once again our kids are spoiled and I have to say that Bruce loved his new shotgun that I bought him. We actually think he almost had a Jr. moment as tears definitely were trying to get the best of him when he opened it. I think he might have been a bit mad at me but only for a minute. But we all had a great time at the game and pretty much the whole weekend. Had great food and times. Trying to get a lot done around the house this week since I am off so probably will not post much. Pictures and stories will have to come later. I have to take advantage of every minute that I have this week to do all those things the work week just doesn't allow me to get done. The tree and every sign of Christmas have disappeared from my house (at least to the eye) so today was a good day. And Bruce finished trimming out my laund...

Here is a picture of our tree with most of the presents wrapped and under it. And Bruce told me to cut back this year because our KC trip is our Christmas. OOOPPSS! No really I think I did great at getting stuff the boys had on their lists and needed. I would have bought it for them anyway if they said they needed it. We didn't overdo I don't think. And even though I am usually a "ba humbug" kind of gal at Christmas, I truly love watching people open gifts that I put thought into for them. What fun! And I think our "charlie brown" tree looks especially beautiful this year. The money that I saved on a real tree was well spent towards gifts! Time is short this week trying to get everything done that I need to for the holiday but I am hoping to post. If not I hope everyone that stops by here has a great holiday!

They both like turtles. What can I say???? And yes I think they are dorks but I love them. Have a great Friday and weekend!

Here is Gizmo at our family Christmas last weekend at our house. She is in the middle of the living room under a pile of wrapping paper, boxes, garbage bags of paper, etc. I think she is very lucky she didn't get thrown away with all of the garbage. But now that I reflect on that thought I took all of the garbage out on Sunday afternoon, so I think her chances of making it out okay were pretty good! She always has to be the center of attention and she did herself proud last weekend. Can you believe Christmas is only 10 days away? I haven't done any shopping yet (well a couple small gifts) and will do it all this coming weekend like I always do. We have another snow storm hitting us in Iowa today (well 80% could mean snow or none, right?) so hoping we don't get too much more. Have a good Wednesday and stay warm! I'm sure Gizzy will find a warm place to watch the snow fall!

Here is a snapshot of all of my guys at our Odneal Christmas this weekend. Apparently my "boys" are all looking at me opening a gift and smiling, and Bruce is looking the opposite direction and laughing at something in the other room. I think everyone had a great time and we had plenty of good food. The weather was frightful to say the least, but everyone made it home safely despite the blizzard conditions. We always have such a good time and who can go wrong when people leave all kinds of food and beer at your house? Everyone have a good Monday and week. Stay warm!

These are the finished product of the cut out cookies Taylor & Ashley made for me last Saturday when we did Christmas baking. Tyler helped me frost some of them Sunday night. And here is just a glimpse of all of them. I think I counted 74 or so. We didn't get fancy with the decorating but they definitely taste awesome. Thank you Taylor for a new great recipe. And guess who told me Monday night that he needed frosted sugar cookies for school on Friday? Yep of course it was Tyler. I don't think college kids bring "treats" to class, do they? So I baked one more batch of these but just made them round and frosted them for him to take to school. They weren't near as pretty but I wasn't going to give up the cut out ones to a bunch of high school kids that would just devour them without even noticing! We have our Odneal Christmas at our house tomorrow and I am hoping the weather is kind to us. Everyone have a great weekend! Stay warm.

When I was getting out the Christmas decorations from the attic I came across a box of vases from our oldest son's graduation party. My friend had etched some design and our last name on them for table decorations. So I grabbed the big one and decided to make an easy table decoration for something different this year. I had some old bulbs that weren't being used on the tree, and some new small ones that I bought this year. I just filled it up and put a doily under it on the table. It looks pretty awesome. Ty did knock it over one of the first nights and broke a couple of the bulbs on the tile, but luckily I have plenty more where they came from. I'm not very creative so I always enjoy it when I can find something around the house and turn it into a nice decoration. Maybe I should just walk through my attic more often. I do still need to decorate the extra bedroom even though Kyle is the only one that stays there and we can't really call him a guest since it ...

I really think even my SIL Sharon might be impressed with the photo on the left of this collage. I took these through my dirty window in my kitchen. I was a little impressed with how they came out. I wish I could tell the squirrels apart because they are so fun to watch. This last weekend one about did a face plant on the ground but caught himself on the railing of the deck. I get so much joy out of watching the birds and squirrels. Even last night I had to fill the feeders and put a new cob up for whatever squirrel buddy decided to show up. I have our family Christmas at our house Saturday so may not post anything else until after that. So much to do and so little time! Everyone have a great week.

Yep it takes alot of stuff and work to get ready to go deer hunting. But I think Bruce and Kyle had a good time together hunting all weekend. There were four in their group and they filled two tags and that is all that they got. The good news is they didn't leave for the whole weekend and spend money on a hotel room, and really didn't spend anything more than their licenses and some food to bring costs. Actually I picked up the food for them so it kind of was a very cheap weekend of fun for them! I got our tree up and the house half ass decorated for our Odneal Christmas this coming Saturday. I think everyone is happy from the weekend, although I know my "boys" would have liked to have shot a couple of big bucks for the wall. Well, there is already one up on the office wall upstairs and I am pretty sure there wouldn't be room for anymore anyway! I'm just glad that they had fun and everyone made it home safe and sound. There were 6 Iowa shooting injurie...

This picture is from last year but this is kind of what it looked like out my work window this morning. The sky was more pink however. I took a couple of pictures with my cell phone but for some reason couldn't get them to save. Looks like we will finally be getting some of that white stuff. I think we are in the 4-7 inch range according to the news. So either we will get a foot or hardly any! Kyle & Bruce are deer hunting this weekend so I plan on doing some Christmas baking and getting my tree up and decorated. Yep, the "charlie brown" tree will be back again. It looks like nice all decorated and much easier than a real one. So hoping everyone has a great weekend. And if you are where the snow hits I hope that you have someone to shovel and/or snowblow for you. I'm not sure when Bruce will fit that in with deer hunting. Oh well. I don't need to leave the house for anything so it will wait I guess. Have a great Friday!

***I apologize ahead of the time for the length of this post.  It is long and you have been warned!****  So last night I decided I had not printed ANY of the 3,000,000 1500 pictures that I have taken all year long.  Yes, I said ALL YEAR LONG !  Well at least I haven't ordered any since almost the beginning of the year.  So when I sat down on the couch to relax and watch some TV I decided to upload them to Shutterfly so I can at least then log on and go through them all when I have time and get them ordered for scrap booking this winter.  You see I have no excuse for not ordering pictures like every month because I always do a prepaid plan to get the best price.  And I usually always have a free shipping code.  There really is no excuse.  I just plain upload from my camera almost every week and leave them sit on the laptop.  And it is not because I don't have time or can't make the time because obviously I upload pictures all of the ti...