Yummy, yum, yum!

The search is over.  The perfect sugar cookie has been found.  

Christmas.....Act 3

The Reason for the Season
Move over Hulk.. Aly's coming your way!
Guess dishes took too long for Connor so he decided to just take a nap.

Score, Grandma came through!
Yes, Cale it is a video rocker.  He was quick to ask me if this was just the box or if it really was the chair.
Typically the Dunlap Christmas on Christmas Day would finish off our holiday season but this year we have one more Act to go.  Stay tuned for Act 4 with my Mom on Sunday!  

Christmas.. Act 2

Santa came to town..........
Christmas morning ran like clockwork this year thanks to Miss Breckyn.  She had everything planned and scheduled perfectly.  We even had assigned seating!  It is great to know that no matter how big your children get, Christmas is magical.  

Old MacBryan Had a Farm

E..I..E..O  and on this farm he had a cow???This is the first time my husband has been this close to a cow( that hasn't been on his fork) in his entire life.  My dad has a feedlot and apparently this critter use to be someone's pet.  He said she has a hard time joining in with the herd and will hang out by the fence waiting for him.  Move over Gracie, I think Mabel maybe coming to stay!  LOL

Christmas.. Act 1

Happy Birthday David!Grandma Linda made me promise not to do Dad's shopping this year so he headed to the nearest diamond store.  What girl doesn't like a little bling?  Good job Dad!
Grandpa is ready to brave the elements to do chores.   
The grandkids settled down long enough for a picture but they didn't know which camera to look at.
Christmas Eve would not be the same without a trip to the farm.  My dad and stepmom now live in my grandparents house so it brings back many childhood memories for my sister and I.  It only seems like yesterday my cousins and I were begging our parents to hurry up with dishes so we could open up presents just as my niece was today.

Sweetie Cake

And this is one of the reasons why I teach Kindergarten!  What other job has scenery this beautiful?

As Far as the Eye Can See...

We added a little culture into our trip to Kansas City when our friend Brian, a high school history teacher, took us to the World War 1 Museum.  It was interesting and I must admit, I did learn a thing or two even though like back in high school, I fell asleep during the videos.  Oops!!  As a bonus we got an awesome view of KC from the top of the tower.  

Children at Work

Happy Camper
Not So Happy CamperAnd this my friends is one reason why we had children.... to shovel the driveway after a snowfall!  Ha, ha, ha!   As you can see from the photos above Connor found humor in the task while Breck did not.  I was quick to point out that they weren't the only teenagers forced to tackle this job as I motioned to one of Connor's classmates shoveling her drive up the street.

Standing Room Only

The Abilene Middle School music department held the annual vocal and band concert yesterday afternoon at the high school auditorium.  As you can see by the first photo the house was packed and many fans had to listen in the hall.  Bryan and I were lucky enough to find seats to watch our nephew Cale and Breckyn but Bryan's brother Brad and wife Jan didn't fair so well.

Purple Invasion on KC

Last Thursday, Bryan and I headed off to Kansas City with a few family friends for a relaxing long weekend.  The fun began with the K-State basketball game at the Sprint Center.  After the game, we headed off to a piano bar called "Howl at the Moon.  I must admit, I haven't had that grand of a time in quite a while.  Thanks Roth's, Willey's, and Witthhuns's!

Purse Swap - Month 1

Tonight was the first round of our "Purse Swap".  The ladies and I had a great time drinking margaritas, cleaning out our purses, and passing them to their new owners for the month of December.  I am so excited to tote around the sassy giraffe print purse. It amazed me how attached some of my friends had gotten to their bags in a months time.  Not me though, I just look at all of those bags and dream of them hanging from my arm!  The best part of the night was when Denise brought her purse still in the store bag... she hadn't even used it during the month of November!  Beccy got the thrill of opening the gift to reveal the "surprise" purse.  Now the key will be to see if Denise will actually use the various purses each month or if she will just carefully place them in a closet until our next outing.  

Black Friday

I must admit, I am one of those crazy people who set their alarm for the wee hours of the morning to catch a good deal or two.  I just love the "trill of the hunt".  Deb, Brandi, and I started the day at 5:00 am and didn't stop until 2:30 pm.  Our sprits were high, our carts were over loaded, and we can add yet another story or two to our "shopping memoirs".   

Sew Thankful

It turned out that Thanksgiving was Breckyn's lucky holiday this year.  As she sat at my mom's and rattled off her Christmas list, items kept appearing.  She has been wanting a sewing machine for a couple of years so she was in a state of shock when Grandma Mary brought a used sewing machine upstairs for her after dinner.  The next item on her x-mas list happened to be cloth to sew with and what to her wondering eyes did appear but a box of material.  This girl was on a roll.  She tried a third and final wish of $50.00 but her luck had run out.  When Bryan, Connor and I left, Breckyn and Rachel were busy creating an apron.  I can't wait to see how it turned out.  I wonder if Grandma Mary got any sleep last night?

Thanksgiving

Isn't it sad that it takes so long to prepare Thanksgiving dinner and in a matter of minutes it's over?  We spent the holiday at Bryan's brother and sister in law's house.  Jan prepared a wonderful meal and the kids had a great time together.  We got to meet a lot of Jan's family as they let the Dunlap's crash their Thanksgiving this year.  On Friday, we headed to my mom's house for a traditional Kramer feast with all fixings.  I don't know what I'll do when it is my turn to take over the cooking!  yikes

Friday Night "HIGH"lights

Who said shopping for a new mattress and hanging out with your parents on a Friday night wasn't fun?  Connor and Bryan found a lot to laugh about at Sams Club.  I am sure the other customers where looking at us wondering what was going on but we sure had good time!  And who knew there were so many decisions to make when buying mattress?  

Cactus Love

Warning:  Not For "Normal" Human Consumption

My husband has a unique ability to find the most unusual foods when we go to the grocery store.  For instance, last year he decided that he needed to try Vegemite, you know from "The land down under".  It looked like tar in a jar.  I am not sure why the Aussie's indulge in that!  His newest discovery was cactus in a jar .  Last night happened to be cactus tasting night. The directions said to drain and serve in salads, soups or side dishes.  So, of course we decided to drain and eat it plain.. it had onions chunks in it and it looked like green beans.  Needless to say after Bryan's reaction to the first bite only Renae and Mark were brave enough to give cactus a try.  Oh, what will the man bring home next?  Stay tuned!

And It's Complete

It is hard to believe that in just 7 days the lot has gone from weeds and dirt to a completely brand new house and yard.  Today marked the completion of the Extreme Home Makeover Chapman Edition.  Tune in on Sunday, January 25th to watch the show.  I am excited to see how many familiar faces we will see and I know my box of Kleenexes will be close at hand.  I hope they caught that handsome police officer that was securing the site Friday on film or the fabulous church youth (Breckyn) that participated in the Brave Heart March on Saturday.  Breckyn was excited that she got to see at least 1 star, Paige on Friday.

Blue Shirts & Tarps

I must admit, I have tried very hard to get my hands on one of those fabulous "Blue Shirts".   My friends, Brandi, Deb, Renae and I all signed up to be volunteers for the Extreme Makeover Chapman Edition but somehow we all came up short in the drawing pool because not one of us got "the call" to volunteer.  Boy, did they miss out!  Well, it is a good thing for them that we all know the definition of PERSEVERANCE because we found a way to help ... note the blue tarp.  Yes, we came to the rescue one rainy night when the K-State engineering students were hard at work in the park working on the stone path that represents the path of the June 11th tornado.  Work was going to have to be stalled because they did not have any tarps to cover up the sand and stone work.  Thanks to Deb and Brandi's K-State jackets we happened to make a new friend, Will, who mentioned this slight problem.  Brandi had just volunteered to drive back to Abilene to get her tarps when Deb noticed the lights on in the house across the street from the park.  She knew the family and said that they probably had some tarps due to the roof damage their house received.  So away we went on our pursuit of Extreme Home Makeover history.  As with any superhero tale, the heros came through and saved the day!  We didn't get our blue shirts out of the deal but we can say we helped out in a small way.

Extreme Home Makeover

Wow! Words can not express the amount of emotion and awe that I have felt over the past few days watching the Extreme Home Makeover crew and volunteers work their magic in Chapman.  The city of Chapman has truly been blessed by the great people of Kansas and their generous hearts to make this project a reality.  As I sat in church yesterday and listened to Doug Thompson, Chapman city attorney and member of Emmanuel Church, explain that our church has been the point church from the beginning of this project and how things have progressed in such a short amount of time, my favorite bible verse kept popping into my mind:  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Philippians 4:13  The people of Chapman have and will continue to prevail through His strength.