I have decided that I LOVE snow.  Or, more accurately, I love seasons.  It is so awesome.  Here's Abby doing some snow angels in our backyard- this is after she had told me she "didn't want to go outside".  Then she goes and had a ton of fun. Last year I liked the snow- but this year I love it.  Seriously, I don't ever want to live in a place that doesn't snow. 

I also love Benji.  Emily, you rock for giving us this cat.  I love him. Ironically, Rod is his absolute favorite. He loves Rod.  Must be a guy thing. I'm #2, and I'm pretty sure Lizzie is #3. He sleeps on our beds each night.  First he was just sleeping on our bed, but now he sort of does this self-rotation where he goes back and forth between Abby and Lizzie's beds, and squeezes in the occasional Caitlin's and our's bed.

He is the best cat ever (no offense, Zoogie, Jimmer, and Rosie).  He brought us a quail today. He's gotten a mouse, a sparrow, and now this quail.  The mouse and sparrow were a month or two ago.  And I am surprised he got a quail- they are fast and kinda big for Benji (or so I thought).  I think the quail are beautiful and I love the dozens that run in our yard- but I was proud of Benjie!

The quail is already dead- he had just brought it up to the sliding glass door to show off, then rolled around and played with it for awhile.  I rewarded him with bits of ham. I don't want to encourage him to kill quail....but he was so proud of himself! And I trust that he won't be able to get too many quail...they have got to be hard for him to get.

Aren't quail beautiful?

So any thoughts on what I should do with the quail? He's done playing with it and it's sitting on our deck.  Do I throw it away- or will Benjie be like "Where's my stinkin' quail that I worked so hard to get?" He ate the mouse and kind of dismantled/ate the sparrow...so there wasn't much left of those two.  But the quail's kinda big...what do I do?

And yes, I realized I just wrote, like, four paragraphs on my cat.  When other people rave about their pets, I would think, man, you need a kid.  But I have four kids.  So now I can rave about my cat.

Baby Brooks is Here!

                                Mr. Brooks Dennis Blodgett has arrived!  3:00 am Nov. 21, 2013
                                 7 lb. 4 oz.  He's a cutie.  We are so happy for Brett and Em!

goodbye black beauty!

Not sure if everyone has heard that dad sold black beauty?!?!

crazy right?! 

we put a for sale sign on it and parked it by our house. Tons of people stopped and took pictures of if and wrote down dads number.

A guy called a couple days later, who happened to be a bee keeper, so dad thought the guy was awesome already, and he basically wanted to give him the truck. 

But Brett and I reminded him how in-valuable black beauty is and how durable she is! 

(even if her front grill is held on with zip ties...)

So, the guy bought it and the good news is he lives right around the corner from us so Parker and I get to see it sometimes on our walks!

I'm thinking if I ever want to go for a trip down memory lane, I'll just run over and ask the guy if I can take it for a spin! :)

Dad got a new truck a few months ago, from a guy at work, and it was a great deal so he got this red ford 250. (this isn't his, I just found this one online, but this is what dad's looks like)

so black beauty has been replaced with... Big Red?! 

Travis thinks dads truck is pretty awesome, as well as Parker, heck even as well as Brett. :)

Em's shirt

                                                Cute shirt Emily made for Halloween.
                                                Kate, I didn't help at ALL !

Halloween

                    The Pace Halloween party group and Conga line.   They had the party at our
                    church this year because their bldg. was getting worked done.  Everyone had fun!

BatDad

These "BatDad" videos crack up Rod & I....there's a couple different ones on YouTube, they're all funny!