Good-bye 2008

Well, 2008 is almost over ... only a few more hours and it'll be long gone and part of our history. Do you wonder if any of it will make it into your kids' kids' kids' history books? Was there anything memorable? Well, here on sagebrush hill (that's what one of my friends calls my house because that's all you see ... and she's from Florida so it's acceptable) there has been lots of memorable stuff, it might not make it into the history books but it's our history so it matters to us.

I'll sum it up in some photo's for you all ...

~ Jason took Jenna, Nathan, Molly and I half way across this continent to buy his spray foam machine and thus ending his 14 year career with Fremont Motor Company.

The kids and Molly standing on the edge of Wisconsin (at a rest stop for Molly)

Jasons' truck and trailer with the business logo ...

This is a photo of a building with foam insulation in it that Phat Foam (Jason's business) did.

~ Ms. Payton was born in March. As you might have figured out, she's a precious part of our lives and holds a special part of each one of our hearts. She's not one of our kids, she belongs to one of our friends but we still love her just the same. So here is a baby picture of her ...

and a picture 9 months later ... Don't you just want to kiss that face?

~ Jenna and Nathan played baseball/softball. Jenna was #23 and Nathan was #7

Nathan

Jenna

~ Jason played basketball ... believe me, it was memorable. He played against a group that (I can't remember the name of them) but they were like a knock off of the Globetrotters. They were good and funny and yes they did do some humilating things to the players ... I'll never forget the dance that my poor husband had to do in front of our small little town!

Jenna & Nathan with one of those players.

~ Nathan's little dog Lizzy came up missing in February. In late August we found him another little dog (not so little anymore) but her name is Ivy. She's a black lab and it is very true that dogs act (they say look, but in this case it is act) like their owners ... if you know Nathan, you know what I'm talking about.

~ Nathan, Jenna, Debbie, Tecia and I all passed Hunter's Safety!!

Where's Nathan in this photo? He's not there ... us girls were not cool enough for him and he hung out with some cooler people (they were just boys)

Here he is target shooting with a handgun.

~ Jenna adopted a cat from the Casper Humane Society. His name is Hercules.

~ 2 weeks later we adopted another cat named Si from the same place.

A few things that I don't have any photos of are:

~ New baby is on the way! Tecia and Ben are expecting in May and you can bet you will find pictures here!

~ 2 new engagements! Theresa announced her engagement to Jason and that is set for June and Charlie announced his engagement to Jennifer and that is set to happen in August.

~ I have some sad things that happened this year but I don't think I want to remember them too much so I am not posting them here.

I'm truly thankful for everything that happened this year, good and bad, sad and happy, weak and strong. It has made me a stronger person and our family a stronger family unit. So my last picture is a family picture of my family - there are several of them. We were at Sweetwater the day after the 4th of July. And as you can tell, Molly was in every single picture but not where she was supposed to be. So hope you find it as comical as we did.

Finally ... a photo without that dang dog!

So my next post will be from 2009 and so we'll see you then! Goodbye 2008 ...

Molly fetching a dummy out of the water.

Hello 2009 ...

The Longest Post EVER ...

**Before you watch the videos scan down to the bottom of the page and pause the music and then come back up and watch the videos. That way you can get the FULL effect. **

The above video is proof of cheating going on between Charlie and Nathan on Christmas Eve.

The next video is the kids and Jason playing the Wii. They have not let that thing rest at all since Christmas Day.

Charlie and Monte making Christmas Eve dinner of PIZZA!
Shanay and Jenna waiting patiently to open presents and waiting for THE PL (pickle licker) to show up! (That would be Jason W.)So we played a game of 31. I didn't win. I can't remember who won. I think it might have been Jenna. and this is what Nathan did ... And this is our family of "grandkids". Every year we do this and this photo keeps getting bigger and bigger. Left to right would be Benjamin (sitting)-he belongs to Tecia, Jason - he belongs to Theresa, Charlie and Nathan, Shanay and Jenna, Tecia & Theresa.Ben and Tecia with the baby gift. Jenna and the hat that her Aunt Barbara knit. She's wore it almost every day to the skating rink now.

Barbara and Joy having a holly jolly time.

Jason getting a tattoo from Nathan.And this is what Santa left for Nathan. A full sized drum set.
And Jenna got her own camera.

**I do have actual footage of Nathan playing his drum set but when he is home he only wears half of his clothing and it is just not appropriate material for the internets ***

Continuing on with my 1000 gifts from above ...

~ This morning I woke up to singing. Not like when I was younger and I woke up to my mom singing to the AM radio station. No, this was not really in tune. Not really quiet either. But Nathan was belting out roasting chestnuts on an open fire and then added some drumming and a cymbal noise (with his voice, not actual drums or cymbals). He is really talented in his own way. He makes up his own music and then adds words that someone else has already wrote. He later told me that it was hard to make up your own songs, you just gotta listen to the music and let it get inside your head and then you make up the words, they just kinda come to you. That's pretty genius if you ask me for a 2nd grader wouldn't you say? So, even though the music wasn't what I was used to I'm sure it was glorious music to Jesus' ears and it was a gift to wake up to early in the morning.

~ Sunday night, Nathan and Jenna spent the night at their grandparents house (Jason's family). Nathan took his phone with him. At 11:00 PM our phone rings. Jason flies out of bed because we are sure that it is an emergency (isn't it always when it is at that time of night?). It's Nathan making sure that he told us goodnight. He remembered us, even though it was probably pretty chaotic there with 9 people staying the night in that house. Yes, it was an emergency, but it was a different kind of emergency, one that was a total gift of love.

~ Cats. Have I ever said how much our cats make us laugh? We have a HUGE cat and a normal sized cat and then a kitten (6 months old). Hercules chases our middle sized cat (Pumpkin) around the house because he likes to torment her. When he gets done tormenting her our kitten (Si) will crouch real low to the ground and then sneak up on him and pounce on him and grab him by the neck and try to wrestle him to the ground. A lot of the times, Hercules will just get up and start walking off, and Si will just be hanging on and biting at his neck and eventually fall off. Imagine a 2nd grader attacking a professional football player and the football player could just walk off with the 2nd grader hanging on for dear life continuing the fight. That's kind of how this scene is played out and it happens often. This is something that can make even the saddest person crack up. We find laughter in our house a huge gift from God.

~ This year Jenna made a gift at school. We always get the gifts of pottery or whatever else and this year (on her own doing) she has decided to give it to someone else who is more deserving of it apparently. It is a gift of God that she has continued to have a heart of giving.

I have many more and I really should write them down as the day goes on but I always forget. Old age ... is that a gift? I can't remember.

Si ...

As in Siamese ...

This is our other cat, Si. She's about 6 months old and very hyper. She hoards this ball all the time ...

And Hercules. He's quite a bit bigger (OBVIOUSLY) but he has lost weight. Now he is only 10 pounds!And Payton ... no explanation needed.

Clarinet Player ...

1st band concert and it went well. She did awesome!

Exciting happenings at the Redman's...

Jenna finished her science fair project last week (or so). This is her right before her presentation in front of the judges.

Nathan has his lips sticking out ... this was last night at the singing concert.

This is half of the kids that were there. You can't really see Nathan.

I don't know what he was doing here but it is a good picture.

Payton and her uncle Jason. She's moving around so much (crawling) and now has TWO teeth!

And this is a rooster pheasant in my car. Today while I was driving I saw 3 rooster pheasants in the middle of the road all standing around something. As I got closer they scattered and I was able to see this guy. A car had hit him and kept going. He was still alive and was trying to walk. His whole left wing was ripped off and bone was showing. You can kind of see how the wing is gone. He had kind of flipped over and was frozen (by the blood he was losing) to the ground. He let me pick him up and put him in the car and he had no problems at all with being in my car. Anyway he got a ride up to the Game and Fish Office and from there I don't know what happened to him. He was gorgeous. I hate it when people hit something like this and then speed off. They could look in the rear view mirror and see it flopping around. Plus it was HUGE. As you can see it took up a good share of the front seat floor. Jerks.

So that has been our last couple of weeks. We've only got 2 more days of school and then we get 2 weeks off ... that could be good or bad, depending.

More Hercules

I think he finally likes us. He has always liked Jenna but he finally has decided that we are okay.

And a picture of Payton. You can kind of see her first tooth in this picture. In this picture she has crawled/scooted (she does this thing where she is on her hands and knees and goes forward just to kind of crumple to her tummy and then back up on her hands and knees again and so on and so on) and she's done this until she got under the printer table. Now comes the fun part, since she is mobile.

Meet Hercules ...

This is Jenna's cat Hercules. He is a 13 pound cat from the Humane Society in Casper. He is a Siamese, they say he is a ragdoll and he does have some characteristics, like big boned. He doesn't necessarily flop around when you pick him up but I think he would if he wasn't so chubby, I think it hurts him to be picked up.

He is very shy, moody and we have seen him for approximately 4 minutes all day today.

Here he is on the bean bag.

He got lost earlier today and it took us 2 hours to find him. How do you lose a 13 pound cat?

He loves his belly rubbed. He drools when you do this.

He hates to have his paws touched at all. He will swat at you if you touch a paw. I'm not sure if he had a bad experience with a groomer or what.

His paws are huge. He's huge. He's afraid of our other cat and she is a third of his size. At first she was all hunkered down but now she doesn't even care where he is. He is having a little bit of a hard time getting used to the noises of our house but our black cat takes off and finds a quiet spot when there is a lot of racket too.

So he just hangs out and sneaks around and when he runs, he doesn't run like a normal cat. He runs with his front paws first and then his back paws catch up. So he kind of hops instead of runs and he looks like he is a polar bear, his hair moves like that when he hops around.