411 The Walters Bunch

Wow. Have we been busy the past three weeks. First things first, we celebrated L's bday with family. She wanted a baby themed party and to go swimming. We took all the kids and their cousins to our gym to swim and play for a couple of hours and then came back for pizza and cake. L loves to cook and always makes her own cakes. This year she made an Oreo cake and dyed the layers blue and pink, in keeping with the baby theme. We played diaper the baby blind folded, which was actually quite funny, and try to figure out what baby food we were eating, most of that was just gross. We had a good time and best of all L was very happy with her party. T had his pine car derby for boy scouts. This was our first experience with turning a hunk of wood into an actual race car. He got the turtle award, which means his car was the slowest of all the cars to complete all four runs. Yes, we actually had to EARN the slowest car.  A few kids were disqualified, bless their little hearts. However, we ...

My 22 yr old cat sleeping....old age makes you weird. Lately, we have kept busy by taking advantage of the great weather to get some things done around the house. We are thinking about selling next year in order to move out to the country so we are tackling a list of honey do's that has accumulated over the last decade and a half. You never realize what you collect over the years until you think about whether it is really worth packing up and unpacking again.   My hubby worked very hard the past 4 days making me a new dining table. It turned out great and he his turning into quite the wood worker. He has thought about doing this after his retirement in 12 years, but I plan on traveling with him for at least 3 years after he retires so that will have to wait! There is something to say about making something by hand. It feels good to be able to do it yourself. He will get a break from manual labor next weekend while we celebrate our youngest daughter's birthday then hopefully...

Ok, if you are reading this anywhere other than the mid southern states, you are probably wondering what is so fabulous about this winter. While the majority of the U.S. has had very cold bitter weather with tons of snow, about 5 mid southern states have enjoyed spring like weather pretty much all winter. I feel bad for everyone, but the weather is so great out that I really don't think too much about it.      We went to the Dallas Zoo last week and not only was the weather great, but the zoo was not very crowded. The Dallas Zoo is our favorite. We use to favor the Ft Worth Zoo, but Dallas has worked hard over the years to make their habitats more natural and interactive. They have done a great job and now it is our favorite. We had as great time watching the keeper talks and looking at all the animals who were out and about enjoying this wonderful weather.     We have also been able to get a lot of yard work done. Every year the kids play "the pokey game". ...

Okay. It has been really hard for us to get use to regular school days after such a great Christmas break.  The kids have started a homeschool PE class, which the two youngest really love, but that A has decided she doesn't really care for, though I can't really blame her.....if I kept getting pegged in the face during dodge ball I probably wouldn't like it either. However, if she doesn't participate in the class she gets to go jogging with me and apparently dodge ball is the lesser of two evils.             I received a fit bit for Christmas and I have to say it is way harder to get my 10000 steps than I thought. We walk the dog almost a mile and a half everyday and unless it happens to be my jogging days I am still doing laps around my house trying to get that stupid thing to buzz that I have reached that elusive number for that day. The dog has decided I am crazy and no longer follows me through my random laps through the house.  It annoys me ...

We took the camper over to my in laws for a couple of nights so we could celebrate Christmas and also my nephew's birthday. It is nice because they have a large slab with hook ups for both our camper and their fifth wheel. It is also covered which really helps in inclement weather.  The dog is still learning her manners while we camp, but maybe one day when she's older she will behave better. You never know what you get with shelter dogs, but for the most part she is really good.....at least with us and with no other animals around. We finally got her DNA results back. Wow, we were all WAY off on guessing her lineage. We had thought pit bull, grey hound, Rhodesian ridgeback, with maybe a little maltese thrown in, given her love of freaking out over little white fluffy dogs.Oh, no! She is from a pure breed cattle dog line on one side and the other side has a wonderfully long lineage of mutt, mostly chow. I'm thinking the gate was left open and ooops. This may explain her fix...

Wow. Have we been busy this past two weeks. I am really big on making a gift for family for Christmas. We also buy store bought things, but I like to make at least one thing that shows I thought about them for awhile. This year my eldest daughter also thought of something she could make too. I won't ruin the surprise by saying what we made since we have not celebrated with everyone yet, but know we thought of you and I really put my back into it. Seriously, I killed my back, but I think they turned out nice and hopefully everyone likes them! After we finished making our gifts,  we went to Grand Prairie to see the lights. Since we were by the national cemetery for DFW, we went to visit Papaw and put some flowers on his grave. Almost a year later, it was still very emotional.  We had fun at the lights festival. Because of all the flooding this year about 25% was literally underwater.  We still enjoyed the lights and the rides. This is no joke the fastest carasel I have ev...

It is finally here....Christmas break. I am so ready for a break...umm I mean the kids are so ready for their break.  We have big plans on doing all sorts of Christmas fun.  We have already been to see ICE at the Gaylord and watched the LIVE play, which was the WIZ this year, and decided not to go to Bethlehem Revisited. Well, we really wanted to go to Bethlehem Revisited, which is a really neat live reenactment of what life was really like in Bethlehem the night the baby Jesus was born. They set up the entire town complete with housing, stables, and market to look exactly like it should have over 2000 years ago. You even see Caesar's guards on patrol. We just couldn't bring ourselves to drive the 3 hr round trip drive so soon after we just got back from such a long trip, but we will definitely try to go next year. It was really neat last time we went and we would love to go again. We plan on enjoying building our gingerbread houses, watching lots of Christmas movies, and look...