Milk and Cookies 2020

For sure 2020 has been one for the books! It seemed like every month brought something new to learn how to deal with, but we have made it to the end and are here to tell about it. Check out the annual Milk and Cookies letter to see how we kept our glass over half full this year. We certainly hope you and your family find yourself the same. 

Milk and Cookies 2015

Well here we are with me writing this blog after Christmas again! I thought about just changing to sending a generic card for 'all' of the holiday season, but I am afraid my procrastination would be even worse and we would end up with Christmas in July like last year every year. But as long as I get Mark to sit down and be in one family picture each year than I have accomplished something.

Mark He continues to grow the dairy farm by keeping us all busy painting the barn [in the colors of white and chocolate milk]  and having close to 30 calves to feed this summer. All the girls took turns combining with daddy this fall and the bigger girls said they got to drive for one pass of the field.  He gave the girls some more animals to love when he said it was okay for me to give two kittens a new home on the farm this fall.  He is still on the hunt for that big buck he caught on the trail cam this fall as he decided to save his buck tag for late muzzleloader season with the new muzzleloader he picked up as an early Christmas/Birthday present. We continued our annual get away to Country on the River where Dierks Bentley was the show that rocked the stage this summer and we took a trip down our country music concert memory lane with Alabama on the first night.

Melissa I am on my second year as Reading Specialist at AHS. With construction to the high school mostly finished, I was able to move to my own room this fall. I have really enjoyed arranging and making my room student friendly for all the kiddos who come through my doors. I wrote and received grants from Wal-Mart and Dollar General to add some fun seating in my room with exercise ball chairs and hokki stools - sometimes I even get random kids in to check out the chairs which makes it fun for me to meet more students than the ones in my reading program. My co-workers continues to amaze me with the work we are doing to help our students achieve their goals after high school and had a boost to this work as we bonded together this fall to win our school $100,000 from State Farm in their Celebrate My Drive contest. Outside of school I keep myself busy reading, crafting, and ‘just’ being a mom and farmer’s wife.

Gracyn Even though she wouldn’t touch the crayfish in Science she was able to pass 3rd grade and started 4th grade this fall. We are very proud of her for getting above the fluency mark in reading! She learned that mommy might know a little something about teaching reading as when she listened to her and read aloud more at home her scores went up ;) She is taking 2 dances classes this year with 3 types of dance so is learning how to tell the difference in steps for tap, jazz, and hip hop plus she made her up own dance routine at home after being inspired by the song “Better When I’m Dancing” She is also trying out 4H this year for the sewing, crafts, and cooking so we look forward to that adventure this summer at the county fair. And she is continuing her 3rd year in Girl Scouts so be ready for cookie sales in February again.

Gretchyn 2nd grade continues to grow her skills in learning. She loves to read and learn about new ways to do math. Our little farm girl continues to learn more about helping her dad on the farm. She can even tip a bucket over to stand on in the parlor and milk her favorite cow #605. She even tried out hunting by spending some time in the blind with daddy this December, but even though there was a doe close enough to shoot she worked on her patience skills by not shooting it because daddy said it was too small. Daddy found her a pink BB gun for Christmas so she is excited to practice some more shooting with it. She is busy learning new moves in hip hop and tap and decided to try out Girl Scouts this year too. She is quite the sales girl so it will be interesting to see how she does selling cookies the same time as her sister in February.

Gwyn Our sassy youngest gives her spunky middle sister a run for her money. She is not afraid to let you know what she wants and sometimes finds herself in time out as she continues to learn the best way to express her feelings. But her excitement and giggle are contagious and if you ever need a laugh she is the one to go to as she can always find the best thing to say. She loves to read before bed and has Pajama Time memorized to read with mommy every night! No chair or blanket is safe in our house as she can turn them over and cover them up in no time to make a house to play in. It is so fun to listen to her imagination work overtime as she plays and grows.

What has been the best part of time with your family this year?

Milk and Cookies from the funny farm

I hope your card found you in happy spirits for this wonderful season and you were able to find the blog okay. It was quite a road getting them to you, but well worth the journey! (See the story below letter)

I have decided to go digital with my annual milk and cookies update. So I hope all of you have been able to take a minute and find the link on or in your Christmas card. Please enjoy our yearly update as much as I enjoy writing it. I hope it finds your family happy and full of holiday cheer :)

 

More pictures from what we have seen in 2013

This photo album created with Smilebox

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My Christmas Card Creation Catastrophe...

 It all started when I sat down to make the card on Snapfish when they had a 60% off sale and my pictures were too large to fit in their boxes and shrinking them did little but lose quality. After a sorry but there is nothing we can do chat with Snapfish I opened Picaboo to try out their cards. At first I was having the same problem, but their online chat was much more helpful and I was off creating what I wanted. They happened to be running a buy 40 get 20 free promotion so I jumped on it after checking with online chat to make sure the promotion meant if I ordered 40 I would get an additional 20 so 60 cards in total. An hour after I submitted the order I remembered I forgot to put the web address for the blog on the card so I again hopped on to online chat where I was very kindly told you only have 30 minutes to cancel and change orders. No problem, it was my fault for being forgetful. I then waited 10 days for my cards to arrive and get them ready to send. But when I opened the package I had only 40 cards.... I promptly called Picaboo support the next morning to see what happened. The nice customer service rep explained to me the discount was applied and I received 20 cards free, but misunderstood the 20 additional cards statement from my online chat, even though it made perfect sense to him because he worked there... I am still unaware how I misunderstood 20 additional cards, but I guess I do not work at Picaboo... So in panic mode I tried to figure out how I was going to get additional cards in time to send for Christmas when one hour photo from Wal-Mart popped in my head. I went searchimg to see if cards were available in one hour and YES they are. So I went to work creating a card to order, but the pictures would not upload. After trying different browsers, restarting my computer with some choice words I emailed Wal-Mart and found out you can email pics and they will upload. Problem solved, right? An hour and a half before I needed to take girls to sitter for Christmas presents I was finally creating. Once again I ran into the size issue (as Wal-Mart and Snapfish are identical sites) but I found a layout that would work and I very quickly pasted in picture and our names with one hour to when they would be ready and I was dropping girls off. Problem solved, right? I waited 10 minutes in line and Wal-Mart photo counter and watched employee 'search' for my cards. He finally found them in the drawer he started with and I was on my way. When I opened the cards at home, I noticed in my hurry to get them made, I did not see the pre entered names of the people in the store-made example card....So my card had our names and 5 additional names....Well since I forgot to put web address on cards, I decided to put stickers on these cards with web address and create small cards to put in Picaboo cards. I was in business and the girls were stuffing, licking, and labeling (until their attention switched to something else) We were all stuffed and ready when I realized I had like 20+ extra cards and some of my addresses were missing, so I went to work checking off who I did and did not have. I am not sure what happened during export of addresses, but it seems middle column was deleted... I managed to figure it all out and was ready to finish the stuff, stamp, label, and send! And as I sit here and type this I have 20 extra cards because I guess I got excited when I ordered and added 20 extra cards to the number I needed. So we will see what kind of craft project I can experiment with.