Well, winter is here, and I am trying to get in to the Christmas spirit now that Thanksgiving is over...and it was a great and quiet Thanksgiving.  We spent it with a few of the family at the ranch along with Booda and our Skipper friend.  Skipper's son was there and he is Oak's age, and they really hit it off.  They were all over the ranch, and had a nice shooting session in the afternoon with their Dad's.  It was a great day, with Cliven and Carol, Duane and Ivona, and a few others.  I love Thanksgiving a ton.
     Anyway.... back into our daily routine after our nice break.  There has been a problem as of late with some of our cattle in Bunkerville.  They have been moseying around in people's yards, eating their landscaping, and they have even made an appearance on the elementary school lawn, looking all dumb and out of place.  Ryan set a trap, just right outside our house here at Mikkelsen's and for a few nights we caught multiple head every night.  One morning we caught some, and Ryan loaded them up in the horse trailer late at night so that he could drop them off at the ranch in the morning.  I was unaware of all of this, and where does he park the trailer?  Yep, right outside our bedroom window.  In the middle of the night I hear some loud banging noises.  I woke up, and was positive that some of the kids were trying to move the piano down the stairs.  I woke Ryan up, and asked him if he could hear all of the furniture being moved.  He groggily explained that it was just the cows stomping around in the trailer...makes sense.  It makes way more sense than the kids moving the piano at 4 am, but with my kids, ya never know.
     Ryan got a new calling on Sunday that is going to keep him busy as all get out...he is the new Elder's Quorum President in our ward.  He will do such a marvelous job, I just know it.  My husband has one of the best hearts of anyone that I know.  I am excited for him...excited and a little nervous...he is way busy already.  One of the things that the Stake President blessed him and told him was to be wrong about people on the side of mercy.  He has called counselors, one of them being an uncle of his that I don't know very well, and they are excited to serve the people in the ward.
     Mo was his usual squirmy and disruptive self in shrsh last week.  He wallered all over my lap, which wasn't good because my dress only came to my knees...with all of the wallering, I had to stop him and readjust my dress over and over.  He then came up with a plan to place his nose on mine for the entire meeting.  This was way uncomfortable, to have him breathing heavily in my face and his eyes and face on mine all close up.  He would not quit doing it either.  I finally got desperate and asked Jazz to take him out for a drink of water in hopes that he would be distracted from his nose on nose obsession.  It did work...wallering without all of the face to face contact commenced.
     This week we have had a series of odd messes.  I bought a package of toilet paper the other day, and made the mistake of leaving it on the counter so that it could be put away.  Mo and Dill took an entire roll, while I was upstairs and had a hayday with it.  Of course, I try to be economical and buy huge rolls and so yep, the mess was large and deep.  To top it off, Mo had gotten into some homemade rolls and had tried to eat one with a pair of tweezers...this left a crummy mess amongst all of the toilet paper.  I was just trying to make myself appear presentable in my room for a short time because Wames had a performance at a basketball half-time.  It never pays off to step out of the picture for a moment, that is for sure!  Dill has also become obsessed with Ryan's collection of bullets.  She loves the neat and tight packages they come in, and she loves to dump and scatter them all over the floor.  Especially the .22 bullets.  She will play and play with a set of those...pulling them out of their little spots one by one.  I will clean them up, and she will scatter them over and over again.  Sweet Little Dill!  My house would be way cleaner without your help!  Just to give my little Mo some praise, he is a champ at cleaning the bullets up and sticking them in their nice spots...Mo really should get more credit.  I need to praise him for the good, because he does do plenty of it.
     Last night Wames had a performance and so I was trying to get dinner going so that I could leave the family happy while I was gone...I started steaming some butternut squash, and I fried up some yummy venison steaks.  I ran upstairs for a short time to get ready, and yeah, the kids sat around and let the squersh sit there and fry without water....I mean, it smelled awful, and smoke going everywhere.  It was my fault for not checking it sooner, but they were right there reading, and doing homework as smoke and stinky burned smell poured off of the stove.  Sooo, I had to clean up that mess, and go to the game probably smelling strongly of burnt squash.  I tried to sit in my own section, and I wore a coat with perfume, in the hopes that the burnt squash smell would contain itself somehow.  Luckily no one seemed to notice...or they were nice enough not to say anything.  Wames and her team danced beautifully...I was super proud of them.  Rooshkie went with me, but ended up with a crowd of her giggling secret friends.  Rooshkie has been struggling getting her kick line down, and so Wamzerz is going to help her with that tonight...that is what I love, when my kids help each other!