Friday, October 31, 2008

The Cow and the Ghost


Our church group did a "trunk or treat" for all of the kids this evening, so we figured it was a great time to dress up our dogs and let them meet everybody. Our poor dogs. To be honest, I always made fun of people who dress up their dogs. I mean really, it's pretty goofy. But they just looked so good. Auggie went as a cow, as you can see, which we thought was appropriate. Penny was a ghost. Auggie was definitely the star. We were mugged by little kids who didn't care about getting candy, they were so interested in Auggie. Of course, Auggie was cool with the attention. I think he dug the costume, too. We probably would've done something other than a cow, but your XXL dog costumes are a somewhat limited selection.

We also always carve a few pumpkins, so this was this year's version. We found a really cool website, www.pumpkinlady.com, where we downloaded several templates. It is sort of a shame that this much work only lasts a few hours, but it was fun nevertheless. I recommend clicking on the picture, it looks better bigger. The one on the left is a witch and an apple. The one on the right is a skeleton climbing out of the pumpkin.

Sharon survived the first round of tooth extraction, if only barely. We're definitely not looking forward to getting the other two pulled on Monday, because now she knows exactly what to expect. All I have to say is, thank goodness for vicodin. For her, not me.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Braces!


Sharon got her braces yesterday, she's thrilled as you can imagine. We figured we'd better snap a picture now because she goes to get teeth pulled this afternoon and Monday, so she's not going to be feeling so hot. Once she has healed up from that they'll put the wire on the braces. Unfortunately all of this has occurred just in time for her to not be able to eat Snickers for Halloween. Now that is pretty sad. But I think she's mourning the loss of Doritos the most.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Steeples and Halloween Cookies


I mentioned in a previous post that a new chapel is being built right down the street from our house. They just put the steeple on this past week, so we're pretty excited about that. They also put shingles on the roof, so it's actually really starting to look like a church instead of just a big building. We drive past it regularly so we can see the progress and dream of the day when It will only take 3 minutes to get to church instead of 20. Of course we are grateful we only have to drive 20 minutes. But still, when we have to go back to the 9 a.m. to noon schedule those extra few minutes of sleep will be wonderful!

Once a month the Cub Scout committee meets over at our house, and a lot of the committee members have little kids that they can't leave at home. So Sharon, who is a saint and will go directly to heaven after this life is over, watches the kiddos while we meet in the sunroom. This week she got to entertain Bella Williams, Brady McKesson, and Aiden, Abbott, Anna, and Adeline Patterson! All of these kids are completely cute, and Sharon teaches Bella, Brady and Anna in the nursery. So those three were very excited to get to come see Sister Gosney! The oldest two were fairly content to just sit back and watch Night at the Museum. Of course when you come over to the Gosney's you have to have a treat, so we made Halloween cookies from our super-famous Cookie Monster Cookie Dough. There is no greater recepie for cookie dough than Cookie Monster Cookie Dough. I orginally came across it when I was a little kid. It was in a Sesame Street book I had when I was little. So, if you are so inclined, here is the famous Cookie Monster Cookie Dough recepie, complete with Cookie Monster's instructions. We use some very cool ghost, black cat, pumpkin, and bat cookie cutters and some black, orange or white frosting to top 'em off. But that isn't absolutely necessary. :-)


Cookie Monster Cookie Dough


Ingredients:
3/4 c. softened butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp salt

Directions:
Put the butter into a bowl; measure and pour sugar over the butter. Squish the butter and sugar together with a fork or pastry blender until totally blended. Gently break open each egg, and pour each into mixture in bowl. Measure and add vanilla; blend mixture with fork again. Measure and add flour to the mixture in bowl. Measure and add baking powder and salt, and springkle each over the top of the flour in the bowl. Mix it allllll together with the fork, or with very clean hands! Chill the dough for at least an hour. On floured surface, roll dough 1/4" thick and cut into shapes. Ordinary-sized cookies bake at 400 degrees F for 6-8 minutes.

Enjoy!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Back from OKC

We just got back from a quick trip to OKC for our monthly trip to the temple and to visit family. Twice a year the members of our church here in NW Arkansas all take a day off of work and go to the temple, and that was what happened last Friday. It's actually really fun to just spend all day there, very peaceful and fun to see everybody that you know. So we really enjoyed that. If you aren't Mormon we really recommend taking a look at www.mormon.org It's a nice website that answers a lot of questions about our faith, so that it won't seem "quite" so odd that we go to the temple once a month!

We also got a chance to see my niece Rachel, her husband Jason, and their three kids. As you can see from the slide show, they are all adorable. Sharon is particularly fond of Journey, the little girl. She is a cutie! And yeah, we sorta like this slideshow program better than the other one. Highly recommended. www.slide.com


Hope everyone is well!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Slideshow of our house

Braces and Dumplings

The first big news of the week is that Sharon is getting braces on her teeth! She is currently enjoying the fun that is having spacers in her mouth. She can't chew on anything harder than Cream of Wheat right now, so she's having a pretty miserable time. She is at least to the point that they don't hurt all the time, but she'll be glad when the spacers are out and the braces are on. We're looking at two solid years, and she'll have to have four teeth extracted as we go along. But it won't hurt for her to bite down when this is all over, and that is the ultimate goal. Thank goodness for insurance!

We had some friends from work over for dinner last night, the Barkers. They're always a lot of fun and their two kids, Destiny and Rylynn, are just as cute as anything. In the picture Rylynn is the one with the big huge cheesey grin and Destiny is trying to hide behind her spoon. When they left Destiny suggested that maybe one day we could have breakfast or lunch together. We thought that was a pretty good idea! They were quite pleased with just looking at our big dogs through the safety of a sliding glass door, but every few minutes we'd have to get up from the table so they could say hi to them. They have the best manners, always saying yes sir, no sir and yes ma'am no ma'am. A pretty good parenting job by their parents, because those two are full of energy. We did chicken and dumplings on the hope that Sharon would be able to eat at least some of it. She could eat everything but the carrots, so I figured that was a success. And yes, in case you are curious, that is Nehi Peach soda that Sharon and I are drinking. Hey, when in Arkansas ...

I'm going to attempt to put in a slide-show that shows different pictures of our house. We've had some requests to see what it looks like. Sharon bought the house a year before we got married and painted the entire enterior. It was kind of a battleship gray beforehand, and that wasn't going to work. Sharon recommends making sure windows are open if your'e going to repaint your entire house, as the fumes can do funny things to your head. Over the course of the two years we've been married we've repainted the master bedroom, both guest bedrooms, and both bathrooms. We both love the gold in the hallway and that deep pretty red in the kitchen that spills over just a bit into the living room. It's a great location, with a brand new elementary school on the same street as us, just about a mile down the road. In between us and the new school our church is building a new chapel. So from a location standpoint, we're doing pretty good! If you examine the pictures too closely you'll notice the ocassional damage to a wall or a door jam caused by a Mastiff going through a puppy/chewing phase. Luckily now the only phase he is going through is a laying around and doing nothing phase, which should last him for the rest of his life. We much prefer this phase. And yes, you may notice that there are covers on our sofa that are never there when people come over. Let's just say that a Mastiff produces a lot of drool, and nasty things tend to hide in his jowls and fall out whenever he lays down for any leangth of time. I found I had to shampoo the furniture a lot less once we adopted a "total coverage system" for the furniture when the dogs are hanging out with us. And it assures you, gentle reader, that you won't be sitting in dog drool when you come to visit the Gosneys. Everybody wins.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Horses

Just a real quick note. Stacey Morrison works in the nursery with Sharon at church and she invited us out to her horse barn this evening to see her barn and help brush out her horses. Oh my, it was amazing. Stacey is a dressage instructor and owns and boards several beautiful horses. Take a look at her website, she's got a gallery with some beautiful photos of her barn.

http://www.equusmanorfarm.com/index.htm