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

For some reason I didn't take a ton of pictures on Thanksgiving Day like I do any other time that the family or friends get together. I guess I was having too good of a time eating and other stuff! So a few of these are mine and the rest my FIL (thanks JR) sent to me. I think the only people not in any photo are David and Sharon. The photographer never wants to be photographed duh!!! Anyway I am now trying to get into the holiday spirit for Christmas. Picked up some new ornaments and ribbon and some candy canes last night at Menards. Does that count? And we talked about the tree but it is still in the attic. Oh well. Bruce and Kyle will deer hunt this weekend so I will pretty much have free reign of my house during the daytime and plan on doing a little baking and ALL of my decorating. I usually spend at least a whole day baking but we just plain don't need all that yummy chocolate and stuff around here until February or better! So I am just doing some for the famil...

The Thanksgiving holiday is over, the working out hard to take care of all that I ate has begun, and now thinking of getting ready for Christmas. We have our Odneal family Christmas at our house on December 11th and it will come up fast. So I was sitting at my work desk today after the long four day weekend, and I looked up at my wall calendar as I do every morning to make sure of the date and realized what day this is. November 29th. My Momma's birthday. She would have been 74 today (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am off a year or something) were she still here with us. So I said a prayer and wished my Mom a "happy birthday" and went on with my day but thought of her often and looked at her picture on my desk many times. I hope she got a big piece of birthday cake and some ice cream up in heaven. Because if there truly is that wonderful place she would have definitely deserved to be there and is watching down on all of us. Hopefully with more smiles o...

May all of you and your family have a great Thanksgiving day with loved ones. I snapped a picture of one of my pumpkin pies with a fresh flower centerpiece that got delivered to me at work and I brought home. I will be bringing this to my beautiful SIL Sharon's house tomorrow rather she wants to put it on the table or not! I have many things to be thankful for this year as always. My kids and husband are my number one priority as usual. I love every minute that I get to spend with family. Especially every single memory made at the river all year long. How can anything be better than the time spent with family? I cherish every memory that we can make now, as I surely miss my parents all of the time. Make the most of your day with your family and friends, and eat that piece of pie that you think you shouldn't. We all only live once and should live every day as if it our last! So tomorrow I will be having that piece of pie with whipped cream, and a pumpkin bar. And n...

So very happy that it is a three day work week, but also more important the fact that Kyle decided to come home and spend his week with us. Well his roommates were leaving the house so he decided to stay at his "real home" with Mom, Dad and Ty. And we are very glad to have him. Even though he has to work each day. At least he will get Mom's home cooking for supper each night and gets to bond with all of us and the kitty's. See Gadget checking out his stuff he brought home in the photo. They (the cats) always have to check everything out that comes into this house. I think they think that they rule the roost or something. Who am I trying to kid? The cats definitely rule this roost! Now if I could only teach them how to clean their own litter box. Now that would be some kind of awesome. Then I might actually let them rule my roost!!!! Here's to a short work week for us and a long 4 day weekend. Hope you all get a short work week and long weekend too!  H...

Today Taylor turns 20. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday to a very special gal. And I apologize for Kyle that he didn't wrap your presents. I told him that I would have done that for him! But I know that you didn't really care about any of that. You are certainly pretty easy going and that is one of the things that we love about you. I hope your day is very special and fun, and I am so glad that you came over and we got to practice up on our winter Wii bowling skills. We will totally trash the boys this winter if we get a little more practice in. Look out suckers!!!!!!! We love you Taylor and hope that you have a great day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

I am so glad that these two still like to wrestle around the living room and beat each other up when Kyle gets the chance to be home on the weekend. Even though Kyle has some weight on Tyler, he seems to be able to hold his own pretty well. They always are laughing and having fun while beating each other up. As you can see in the background of the picture Bruce is cracking up on the couch. Even he will take a minute out of a football game on TV to watch his "boys" whooping ass on each other! Everyone have a great Friday and weekend!

Even those of us with husbands that are carpenter's/woodworker's sometimes have to buy items to fill our needs when our other half has absolutely no time to make what is needed. I have been piling up my scrapbooking stuff when not in use in a corner of the living room, or hauling it out onto the front porch every night when I'm done. Not fun. So Bruce was going to build me an armoire for all of my stuff to match the TV stand that he made me last year for the living room. Well lets just say that he finally admitted he just isn't going to have the time anytime soon to do that. We saw one in the Menards ad two Sundays ago that he said resembled what he was going to make and it was reasonable, so we went and after he approved  it I bought it. That was a week ago and I just got it filled up this last weekend. He still needs to adjust the doors that are out of wack a bit, and it isn't solid wood by any means (and was a pain in the arse to put together), but it wi...