Logue's Life Lessons

FALL: a somewhat quick recap...

2009-11-14T00:07:00.000-08:00

Fall soccer: over... missed 2 games because of the flu. Here is a picture of a game where Briyanna played with the flu. My parents were coming to this game. I told her she had to play and not to tell her coach that she felt like poo-poo... meanwhile, she cried the entire way to Boise, but played a GREAT game with the chills (that would be why her warm up is on under her jersey).

Halloween costuming: over... thank goodness!!!!! I made it through fairly unscathed. I got a couple negatives, but as my government teacher always said, "You can make some of the people happy all of the time, you can make all of the people happy some of the time, but you can't make all of the people happy all of the time." It happens this time of year. With over 500 orders in one month, I'm bound to screw up a few times. For about a week, I was getting out 35-75 packages out a day. Here's a picture of the backseat full of packages on a late evening Boise post office run. It's a cell phone pic so forgive me for blurriness.

Halloween: over... (with a sigh of relief) I have no idea what my children are thinking when they come up w/ their halloween costume requests. As if I don't sew enough, they come up w/ insane ideas. Anyhow, Ethan was supposed to be Napoleon Dynamite.. he flaked on me, went as an injured boy (what the heck?), after I bought the darn kid moon boots... snot... Briyanna wanted to be a chef, so I had to make her a chef jacket, harder than I thought it would be but it turned out great. Her pants... I went to Goodwill, bought a pair of womens 2XL capri gingham pants, worked some magic on them, came out looking like they were made for her. YES! I am patting myself on the back for that one. Brenna was a nurse. I made everything from scratch for her. And I couldn't find a pattern I liked for the shirt so just made my own. Well, same for the pants too, but those weren't completely foreign to me. Berlyn was a pirate. So this is what I make every day, so I whipped her out fit out in a few minutes. Why can't everyone be a pirate?? And I had to wait til the day before halloween because, well, I like to procrastinate.

BSU vs. San Jose St. football game: also on Halloween... tons of fun. Went with my dad and Glenn Richter from church.

Sickness: not over. I want to die. Briyanna and Berlyn have had the flu twice. Ethan once, Brenna once, me once. That was loads of fun. So I'm not vomiting anymore, but now I've got Broncitis. Finally got antibiotics and an inhaler today. I fully expect to be 100% better by tomorrow. :) Actually, I just plan on sleeping tonight (as I blog at 1:42 am after taking codeine cough medicine).
Hunting: not over... (unfortunately, but don't tell anyone I said that) Ethan got his first deer. That was pretty exciting. We went hunting last weekend. Didn't see anything except 4 turkeys. But I took a good nap on some really bumpy back roads and got lots read in my book. Pictures of Ethan's deer and some scenery from our "drive."

And here are a few of my favorite pictures I took of the kids for my fall pictures. Most of these are downtown Nampa with the exception of the group picture. That on e is at the lake. You can see all of them on my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120428&id=713432962&l=88e7e761aa

My Life... RIGHT NOW!

2009-10-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

"In Seattle, you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running."-JEFF BEZOSFOUNDER, AMAZON.COM

I've been wondering... how much coffee is too much coffee? I've been drinking 1- 24 oz. strawberry hazelnut mochas and then at least 4 starbucks coffees.. Yeah.. I'm a little hyper. But my sewing machine is calling my name for about 18 hours every day. 1 more week, 1 more week, 1 more week...

Taco Stand Review....

2009-09-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, this blog is going to be COMPLETELY embarrassing. Only because I had originally planned on blogging about this, oh, 5 months ago? Anyways, can you say "SLACKER??" Yes, it is allowed just this once!
So, back in May, our bravest friends and us (I will gladly admit that I take on the role of the wimpiest of the 4 of us) decided that it was time to take on Canyon County and it's many taco stands. I feel like I need to insert a few tidbits here about the taco stands. They occasionally up and move. I will keep my speculation of why I think that this might happen to myself. Also, they are owned/ ran by individuals who speak little, if any, English. I'm never sure what we order when we go to one. My brother-in-law, a police officer here, often makes fun of us for hitting the taco stands. He can't believe we haven't got sick and died yet. We've been eating at them for maybe 5 years, so our immune system is pretty impressive, I'm sure. I won't tell you about the time Rob saw a mouse run across the counter of one of them.. and we still ate there. Anywho...
I think that we made it to 6 of those stands. There were a couple more, but they closed up and drove off before we could stop at them. The first one we stopped was... well, we really don't know the name of it. It's in the parking lot of Lance's lawn something. (WOW! I'm really on top of things, huh?) They have the BEST tortillas, the best meat, the best sauces. Ok, this was our favorite. AND they are only $1 a taco!! We (our family) frequents this place often (dinner last night, actually). They also have a plate of beans and rice for $1. And of course... the pictures:

Then we stopped at a place on the bad side of town called MiTiendita. This place was expensive and a little bit of a culture shock (I was shocked to find this place 5 miles from my house). I wasn't crazy about these. You other taco stand hoppers can throw in your 2 cents on this. Here, we were a spectacle. I wonder why...

#3 was definitely the most unique "stand" we went to. It was called Tacos Daisy. It was located in a bus, YES, A BUS! I had a great pineapple juice drink. This is the first time I had horchata (Mexican rice drink)... I LIKE! The tacos were $1.50 and not real good. But I liked the atmosphere. This was where the owners forced Menudo on us. AND HECK NO! I did not try it, but everyone else did. And I quote Rob, "It tastes like what your mouth tastes like after you vomit and it has the texture of a snotty booger." Since Menudo is cow intestines, I heard that it tasted like what you would imagine a cow intestine to taste like. Need I say more?

The stand in the parking lot of the Commercial Tire shop wasn't bad, but they didn't offer us any hot sauces.

El Charro, in the parking lot of Fred Meyer, was DISGUSTING! Celia ordered chicken, I ordered beef, I think they were both rotten. Rob ordered a beef taco, ate it and after we started making comments, he thinks his might have been rotten. So on and on we went about how bad these were... as the people who worked there were sitting by the open window we were sitting under. Yeah... embarrassing... my stomach still attempts to heave when I think about that place.

The last one we went to was in Caldwell. It was good, except for the chorizo taco. But ya'll need to check out Lewis at this one. The redneck came out of him here.

Umm... there's a little somthin' somethin' in your teeth.

And last but not least... dessert at Shari's. I had the lemon meringue pie and hot cocoa.
Yumm-o!

Long Time, No see, eh?

2009-09-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

Wow... I didn't realize I had been slacking off that badly, but alas... I have been. So, you know, it's been the regular stuff. School has started back up. FINALLY. All of my kids are officially in school now. (YAY!!) (Did I actually type that????) Berlyn started Kindergarten on August 25th. She's going to the dual language school here called New Horizons. Before you ask I will answer you. It's been 3 weeks so I'm not sure how it's going. She hates it. Not the school. She hates being away from me. This last week, she finally started going on her own. Here's her first day of school pic.

Berlyn- Kindergarten

Over Labor Day weekend, we went to Family Camp at Shiloh Bible Camp. Again, I had a sick kid. Last year it was Berlyn, this year, Ethan. Ethan was supposed to work as kitchen staff and couldn't because he was up and down w/ a fever and really weird stomach pains (more about all of that later). A few pics from Family Camp... mostly of ME!

CASCADE LAKE

Payette Lake in McCall

So we get home from camp and the next day is the first day of school for the older 3 kids. I stayed up late hemming pants, packing backpacks and hemming pants. Loads of fun. (And I'm still doing it for people- as of this afternoon even.) I have officially sent my kiddos to the most disorganized, chaotic school in the state of Idaho. I REALLY hope they iron out all the kinks soon, or ya'll will be hearin' all about that! BUT... the kids look great.

Ethan- 7th grade

Brenna- 3rd grade

Briyanna- 6th grade

First day of school went off w/ out a hitch. But the second day... that is another story. Ethan looked like he wasn't feeling well again. So as we walk out the door, after the girls are out, Ethan says to me, "I don't feel good cuz I can't pee." I kind of just stood there looking at him. So I finally said, "Uhhhh... let me go talk to your dad." Dad: "Duh... take him to the doctor." So you must realize, we don't go to the doctor for ANYTHING. 2 weeks is the rule because most things clear up in that time. But no pee... that may be a good reason for a doctor's visit. Tests come back that he has e-coli in his bladder. HUH?!?!? WHAT THE ...?!?!? Ummm, ok. I never suspected that! So he got on antibiotics and is doing much better. He even went on his first Boys Scouts camp out. I think he loved it. OH! and he is growing up. He got a letter from his camp girlfriend over the weekend. The outside had hearts on it!!! Shoot me now!

AND... most importantly... BSU beat the Oregon Ducks!

On the bandwagon... off the bandwagon...

2009-08-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

I am officially back ON the bandwagon again. At the beginning of the year, I decided to get healthy... eat better, lose a little weight. So for the past week, I've been back to watching what I eat and walking. Not running anymore. I'm just not that into it. I realized that my eating was a major issue in my non-progress. I was eating every meal like it was going to be my last. I REALLY enjoy enjoying my food. ALOT. I enjoy tasting it. And then tasting it again when I liked it. So I had a problem. When I started writing down what I was eating, that is when I noticed a huge problem. So I don't eat like that anymore. And yes! I feel like I am indeed going to starve to death. I tried cutting out the soda completely. Yeah, not into that either. So I'm still drinking it, but I am drinking more water. I started walking pretty regularly too. I missed one day last week because we went out with friends. I figured, I already ruined myself with the food, why on earth exercise?? I started mapping my walks on mapmyrun.com to keep track ACCURATELY of how far I'm walking. My goal is 85 miles by August 31. I'm over 20 miles so far and have got to see Nampa from a different angle. AND... I've been taking pictures of my walks... lots of fun.

YESTERDAY'S BERRIES::

TODAY'S FOUNTAIN::

TODAY'S SCAREACROW::

TODAY'S LAKE PICTURE::

Update to post below:

2009-08-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Called mom and asked if she remembered telling this vicious lie that plagued me my entire (naive) childhood. The answer: of course not! Although she did laugh about it for several minutes and said it didn't surprise her. Tsk, tsk, tsk... the things parents do to their children.

If you say gullible really slow, it sounds like green beans...

2009-08-05T23:50:00.001-07:00

Tonight, we were sitting around and Rob decided he needed to go to Big Lots for some sort of tool. Well, of course, every kid pipes in they they want to go. "Of course you can't go! Children aren't allowed in public after 7 p.m." Brenna, my 8-year-old, replied to that, "WHAT? We've been out that late before!" Of course I don't keep my children locked in the house after 7 p.m. but it had me wondering if I had been.
For as long as I can remember, I had thought that. I remember my mom telling me that children weren't allowed in public after 7 p.m., all to keep me from asking to go out with them on their anniversary. So... after believing this for years, and when I was quite old, probably around 12, my parents took me out on a rare evening outing. My dad milked cows at night and we NEVER, ever left the house after 5:00 except to go to Awanas on Wednesday nights. So out we are, at Jade Garden in Nampa. And I can remember sitting there, scared out of my mind that I was going to be arrested for being in public after 7 p.m. I know, I know... gullible, naive, blonde... whatever you want to call it. And the really sad thing about this, I thought this til I was in high school when I started working and I realized people took their families out to eat in the evening.
When I told my kids about this tonight, we all got a good laugh out of it. But it made me wonder if my mom remembers telling me this. So guess who I'll be making a call to tomorrow morning?

5 WORDS...

2009-07-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS?????

Alright... you know I can't leave this at 5 words. I'm walking down a main aisle at Walmart and see these and I HAD to take a picture. What are these and who would really wear them?? I think that I've almost seen everything.

4th of July...

2009-07-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

The 4th of July seemed kind of dull this year. I'm not sure why. It just was. Everyone was gone somewhere. So we did our usual Middleton Parade. My parents and my Grandma Sager were there too. The Middleton First Baptist Church (the church we attended the first 3 years of my life) had a BBQ, a yard full of jumpers and a huge fishing tank. Before the parade, the kids fished for at least 20 minutes. Briyanna had a big one on but lost it right before she got it out of the water. We watched the parade. The kids did their usual "Drenching by Firemen" at the end of the parade. I still don't quite get this. But then, I HATE water. It was kind of fun watching a guy that had a cooler full of ice and water balloons throwing the balloons at unsuspecting paraders. Some of the looks of shock were priceless. After the parade, we did some more fishing. Briyanna finally caught a fish after about 30 minutes. Ethan's took about 45 minutes.

Then we went out to my mom and dad's house. My Aunt Joann, Uncle Larry and cousin Casey came to that. We had a BBQ and just hung out for the whole day, doing nothin'! We had a bunch of laughs. FOX!!!!!!!!!!! You'll have to ask me about that sometime. I might tell you if I'm not too embarrassed. Or ask my Aunt Joann. She tells the story best. My mom wanted her toe nails painted. So I gave her a pedicure. Eww... feet kinda bother me, but I thought I should be a good daughter. That made all the girls want their toe nails done too.

And Berlyn lost her very first tooth!! I didn't even know she had loose teeth! I had been gone all week at church camp and so on Saturday, she says her teeth hurt, they're looser than loose and the new teeth are already up behind it. So out it came.

If you know my kids, they all have really good imaginations. So Berlyn and Ethan were inside my parent's garage looking for the cat when they stumbled upon a pool of dried up blood. Okay, it was really from a can of paint that my dad dropped over a year ago. Berlyn knew right where the chalk was, laid down and Ethan traced her body for the body outline of a crime scene... bent leg and all. It was funny! We all laughed for a long time over that one.

Briyanna had to show off the monster bruise that she got up at church camp doing self defense skills class. It got much worse before it got better.

And of course...fireworks at Caldwell with my parents, my brother, Randy, and his family, his (Randy's) friend and family, Rob's parents and Rob's brother, Jeramy, and family- 23 of us in all on the side of the road. So there is a little story about this. Last year, their fireworks were GREAT! Like 30 minutes long and just really good. This year, no... They lasted 8 minutes. Seriously. Apparently, they started late and the guys doing them just wanted to be done. So they quit. It was very disappointing.

Then we finished off the night at Rob's parent's house. Jeramy had bought a bunch of fireworks to shoot off. And we had yummy homemade vanilla ice cream made with homemade vanilla and vodka. It was REALLY good.

A Week to Forget...

2009-07-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

My week really wasn't all that bad. I'm speaking specifically about June 28-July 4th. But if you talk to some of my other family members, it really was a bad week. I'll be selfish and talk about me first, mostly because it is boring! Kind of at the last minute (a few days ahead of time), we, Rob and I, decided to go up to church camp and work for the week. It was Jr. Camp (5th and 6th grade boys and girls). I went as a cabin leader, Rob as a night watchman and riflery (BB gun) instructor. I had 2 of my kids up there along with my nephew, Brenden, and Ethan's friend/ Briyanna's classmate, Cody. Honestly, it was fairly uneventful. My team won the week's competition, I went on a canoe ride (is it pathetic to admit that it was my first time?), and best of all, I didn't have to clean or make dinner. Oh, and a little boy threw a rock at me and then told me I couldn't catch him cuz I was an old lady. Well, I caught him and he never threw another rock at me, or called me an old lady, for that matter, for the rest of the week. Enough about me...

So, this is the fun stuff. My mom had called to ask me if we could come over and help burn the road and hillside. My dad had surgery about 2 years ago on his back and really hasn't been the same. He was out on a job about 4 weeks ago and fell in a corrugated row and tweaked his back up and can hardly walk. He is supposed to be on bed rest (something impossible for him) so he can be back to work soon. Well, we went out of town and I forgot about the burn so my mom asked my brother, who lives pretty much next door, to help with his boys. Randy, my brother, decides to burn next to his place first to keep it from getting out of hand and burning down his place. Long story short... that backfired. After they got done burning, what he had burned to keep his place from burning down flared up and caught the bushes next to the house on fire. The 20 ft high bushes. Randy only had a piddly little garden hose with barely a tickle of water coming out of it. A highway department truck that hauls water to wet down gravel roads happened to be driving by and pulled into the yard, turned on his water and put it out. Another 10 minutes and the house probably would have burned down. Get this... the fire department wouldn't send out a fire truck because my dad didn't know the address number of my brother's. How ridiculous. I told my dad he should have lied and gave them his own address since they're next door. They would have realized which place was up in flames. AND... I didn't hear about this from my parents. I got a voice mail from my friend saying she was driving by a house on Middleton Road and there was a woman outside that looked like my mom fighting a fire with a shovel. And then a second voice mail from her saying, yep, she's pretty sure it's my mom and that there are fire trucks arriving at the house at the bottom of the hill. I get the messages and wait about an hour. I figure if all hell is breaking loose, this isn't the time to bug them. Then I call. She doesn't say anything about it. So I ask, what's this I hear about firetrucks coming out to your place? I'm not sure she was going to tell me!!

My parents have a little history with these hillside fires getting out of hand. This is the 4th time that the firetrucks have had to come out and take care of my dad's little fires. In my dad's defense, they really have not been his fault, except for one. It's just fun to tease him about them.

My babies

2009-06-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

I have the darn cutest kittens that I have already posted about. But... they bring so much laughter and joy into this house that I have to post more about them. I'm really hoping that when they are ready to go out into the world that Rob will let me keep them. The really bad thing is that no one really wants them, so I guess I'll just have to keep them. So here are the cuties...

MOM and BABIES

CAPPUCCINO

LUNA

CRYBABY

The garden...

2009-06-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

I will be the first to admit... I don't have a green thumb. It's not even lime-green or yellow. It's definitely brown. So this year, we started the garden and I think that I've been doing pretty well on keeping up on it, most importantly, watering it. Here's a couple of pictures of my progress...

The radishes are doing GREAT! And I can see parsnips coming up. The cucumber on the end.. only time will tell if that's going to make it or not. The lettuce... not so hot. It just might be because Ethan didn't plant it like I thought he had. I'll plant it tomorrow. And there is some kind of hot pepper in there. I thought that I had bought a bell pepper and that's not what it is. Oh well, I'm sure Rob will enjoy it anyway.

Here's "our" tomatoes, Cel! This picture was taken on Friday (the 19th). I have since staked them up and Rob is going to build me a cage for them in the next few weeks.

LOOK WHAT ROB DISCOVERED TODAY ON THE TOMATO PLANT!!!

And... we have corn up. I'm not sure that it will be "knee high by the fourth of July," as the old farmers (my dad and uncle) say. But then again, these are 2 men that, for fun, take lawn chairs about 10 rows into a field and listen to the corn grow. I won't be doing that. I am hoping I'll at least get some corn off them by the first frost.

Another shot of the garden... 2 zucchinis (one has a bloom), a tomato and another cucumber plant.

And last. Ethan found the biggest rolly polly (not sure how to spell that) I have ever seen while weeding the garden last night. It was so big, I had to get a shot of it! The baby kittens got a kick out of chasing it around on the deck. Til it fell through the crack.

This thing on my face...

2009-06-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

So I have a very keen sense of smell. Abnormal, you might call it. I can sniff out things that the average person can't smell... but really, it's not a gift. I've always been this way. What a blessing I grew up on a dairy farm... lots of lovely smells there! I wanted to vomit every time my dad came in for the night. The smell was atrocious! I would go into details, but... yeah, I won't. And then when I got pregnant with Ethan, my sense of smell intensified with a vengeance and has never gone back to normal.

At this point I have to fill you in on the worst smell ever.... liquefied green pepper. Probably the only smell that actually made me vomit! There are several smells that make me gag and heave, but this one actually made me run for the toilet.

So this weekend we had soccer tournaments. Briyanna was playing and spent the entire weekend at the other Brianna's house. No change of clothes or anything. After the game on Saturday, every girl on the team headed out to the other Brianna's house for a hot tub party and just having fun. I showed up a little late and got the grand tour of the house. Downstairs where the girls undressed smelled like a locker room.. yes, I heaved, but not bad. While I was there, I got called by 3 of the other girl's moms and was asked to bring them home. Yeah, sure, no problem. When it was time to go, I rounded them all up and and picked up the van a little and noticed an awful smell. The other Brianna had several dogs and I had been petting them, walking through the yard... I had dogs on the brain for some reason. At first I thought it smelled like dog food, and then I changed to dog poop. But I couldn't find it and left. We had to drive in that hot van that has one window that won't roll down for 15 miles with that smell!! It was nauseating. I dropped of one girl and at that point, the smell got so bad to me that I was heaving and weaving all over the road. I had to pull over and do a shoe check on everyone and still I couldn't find it. AWFUL!!! We made it home without wrecking, amazingly!

Last night, several hours after we got home, I had to wash my hands after I touched chicken. And in the laundry room I found... the smell.

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that I need to clarify something here. Briyanna didn't step in dog poop... her feet/ shoes/ socks smell like dog poop after playing soccer for 2 days. She thinks its pretty funny.

The new tattoo

2009-06-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

So I got a new tattoo 2 weeks ago. I think it really could be classified as 4 tattoos and as much as they hurt, I would like to think that. They are on the lower, right side of my back. The top one is an "E" that looks like a pitchfork, for Ethan. And then I have 3 bees. One for each of my "B's"- Briyanna, Brenna and Berlyn. Yep.. that "E" and the bottom bee hurt! BAD! Oh, well... it's done. Got them done at Imperial Body Art by Stephen.

Backyard Makeover

2009-06-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Make over might be pushing it... improvement tho, yes! So... it has been like forever since I blogged, and for good reason. I have been insanely busy. I will try to blog a few times in the next week to catch my life up. But for now, I will stick to the backyard and hopefully not stray from it too much. I'll start with the playground. It was SO bad that the kids haven't touched it much in over a year. It had really just become a glorified kitty litter box. Really, REALLY gross.

BEFORE PICTURE:

We cleaned out some of the bark, got rid of the weeds, leveled the ground a little, threw away broken toys, moved bikes, laid down weed block, and 3 yards of bark later....

AFTER PICTURE:

Yes... I am a very happy person now. And so are the kids... at least the 2 that have got to test it out so far are very happy!

PROJECT #2: My hostas... I love hostas!! Last year I made a hosta bed and it really has been the pride and joy of my backyard so far. I love, LOVE it! So today I cleaned it out... no big deal really. Just trimmed back some of the ivy. I will probably trim it back a little more in a few weeks, but I just love the green there. It is on the north side of my house so it does get hardly any sun. I call it my little piece of Oregon because it is so green.

Project #3: My bean planter. I got a wild hare this year... I had Rob build me a bean planter under my dining room bay window. So last night, that's what he did. We filled it with dirt, and the kids and I planted pole beans. In a few weeks when they sprout, I'm going to attach strings from the planter to the spot above the windows for the beans to trail up. Those windows face the west so in the evening when the sun is over there, our dining room and kitchen are so hot that it's uncomfortable to even walk through those 2 rooms. Unfortunately, they aren't going to grow fast enough for me! I'll keep you posted on how this works.

Project #4: My veggie garden: This project is far from done. The kids wanted a garden this year, and I just jumped on the band wagon. Ethan built the planter. The tire planters are from a few years ago and they seem to do really well, especially the tomatoes. This area was essentially a junk pile- an old van and boat. So Rob clean this out about a week ago and we were really debating what to do with it since. The kids decided that for us. We'll see who ends up weeding it. In the big planter, I planted a cucumber, courtesy of my mom, and also some lettuce, radishes and parsnips... and then there is something that Brenna got from church that you can supposedly (and hopefully, since I tried it yesterday.. thank God, I'm still alive) eat. We're also going to put in some peppers in a few days. We're seriously contemplating one more big planter. In the tire planters, there is another cucumber, a tomato and 2 zucchinis (all from my mom). I need to do one more tire planter for cherry tomatoes (the girl's and my personal favorites). Behind the tire planters is a little lot of sweet corn. This is the first time I've tried corn... nevermind I grew up on a corn/ dairy farm. I never was the one that planted/ took care of it. Anyhow.... if I'm honest, I don't have a green thumb, except for those hostas! So we will see how this whole garden thing goes. Wish me luck!

And last but not least... our adorable ittle backyard inhabitants... By the way, I will pay anyone who takes them $5 and a bag of food. :) I'm serious! They will be ready in about 4 weeks.

The Clubhouse...

2009-05-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

Before I get started here... I have to admit, this is a tad bit embarrassing. But oh well! I would tell any of you about this, so you might as well get the full effect from the pictures.

I have an interesting troop of children, to say the least. And they have an interesting set of friends. I have been hearing about them playing in the "common area." The common area is the little park in the middle of our subdivision. It's really an eye-sore... just some grass, big rocks and a pathetic looking tree. But the kids love it down there so... whatever. For the past several days, I've been hearing about this clubhouse, but I never bothered to check it out. So.... tonight I get dinner made and I yell out the door for the kids and after no response in a few minutes, I decide that I will have to pull up my panties and walk down to the common area to fetch them.

Can you say... the Home Owners Association is gonna be all over me for this in a heartbeat?? My hooligans, I mean, dear children, had made a shanty that a bum wouldn't live in!!! I was a little angry at first, but then I thought, "What kind of mom am I if I don't take pictures of this??" So that's exactly what I did before I forced them to clean it up. Oh... and that nasty purple afghan that I'm worried that my mother or grandmother will dig out of my trash, clean up and USE if they see it, I'm grabbing it and Briyanna says, nonchalantly, "There's pee on that." Oh, golly... thanks for letting me know AFTER I TOUCHED IT!

I'm givin' myself a pat on the back!

2009-05-04T23:26:00.000-07:00

YAY! I made my first batch of strawberry freezer jam ever! And it turned out. Rob was sure I wouldn't do them and end up throwing them away, but I did it. I had a flat of strawberries (4 lbs.) and ended up with 22 pints. Here's a picture of them. It's from my phone so not the clearest. And the frig and stove are dirty so ignore them :).

Soccer tournaments and a nice injuury!

2009-05-02T22:30:00.000-07:00

Briyanna had her soccer tournaments today and tomorrow in Boise. We went in knowing we were going to pretty much get killed. The first game, we played the #1 U-11 team in Idaho. They're so good they play up to the U-12 level and still win all their games. So yeah, they beat us, 8-0. Briyanna had played the entire game up til the last 10 minutes... when her team mate collided with her. She went down. All of her team mates stopped to look and make sure she was fine and the other team went in and scored. Good job, ref, for not noticing the kid flat on her back! So she gets pulled off the field and I'm watching.. no blood and no wave from the coach indicating that I'm needed. So after the game I go over to get her, and the coach says, "I'm pretty sure it's broken." Yep, there's a nice lump on her nose. I take her to the hospital and of course there is nothing they can do, but I did find out that the cartilage separated from her bone and settled on the right side of her nose. Yeah, it made me throw up in my mouth a little too. Now, we have to wait for the swelling to go down and see if it goes back to normal.

On a funny note, as I was trying to get her into the van I was moving stuff around to put her bag down, I grabbed a mug that had broke in half and cut my finger open. I was gushing blood and could only find a dirty sock to stop the bleeding. So when we get to the hospital and go up to the registration desk, the nurse sees my hand and bloody sock and says to me, "Oh, my! What did you do?" I was kind of flustered and moved to the side so she could see Briyanna and said, "I'm fine. It's the kid with the ice pack on her face that needs help." We must have been quit the sight.

OH! And they told us she could play if she feels like it. Back to the games we go and get there just in time for their 2nd game. I told the coach, "Ehh, use her only if you need to." She played half the game... with a broken nose!! She played great, a little more timid than normal, but consistent as usual. Here's a picture taken after the second game. She will be thrilled if she sees I put this on here. It's not her best picture.

I am one heck of a confident mom!

2009-04-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

Well, today was Briyanna's school trackmeet. This is a big deal to those kids who are into that kind of thing. But then you have the kids who just aren't and do it because they have to. You know those kids. The boy who wears the combat boots to run in. The girl who wears necklaces and dangling earrings. My mother and I were Briyanna's personal cheering section. We were 2 of 6 spectators. Normally there are several (maybe 30) parents there but not this year. Briyanna first race was the 4x100 relay. She had a pretty good team, and she was running the anchor leg. The first 2 legs did well, leading the whole race. Then the third leg took over.... they were down to last place when Briyanna got the baton. She brought the team back to 3rd place but only the first team advances to the city meet. As the girls all came back to sit down, I heard the 3rd leg girl say, "I might have done better if I hadn't of worn high heels today." WHAT???? My mom and I turned and looked at each other with our mouths wide open. Yeah, that does explain it! I told my mom, "Briyanna has been planning her outfit for this for months!" That really is NO exaggeration. She planned her shoes: her Addidas indoor soccer shoes. Her pants/ shorts: Under Armour leggings and loose basketball shorts. Her shirt(s): WHITE Under Armour and the school T-shirt (so you could see where one ended and the other began). This is serious stuff in our house! She even begged me to come down early and do a quick (15 minutes) baton hand-off tutorial since I did relays in high school. Funny girl! Well, I took my camera which takes video and I was planning on videoing her races. We had to sit and watch the WHOLE meet. She ran in the very first race and the very last. She ran the 200 yd. dash after the relay and we knew that this wasn't her strongest race, so I didn't video it. She came in 2nd in the 200. Top 2 finishers go the the city meet, so she was in. So as we're watching, I notice this one girl named Hannah and, crap, was she fast! I even turned to my mom and said, "That girl is going to be a track star someday." Each kid can run 3 races and I'm noticing this girl has one race left and it comes down to the last race, also Briyanna's last race, the race I was going to video. I made a decision (that I REALLY regret!) to not video the race because I realize Speedy-Hannah was going to be racing her. Briyanna won this one last year pretty easily and she was VERY sick. Like, sick enough I almost kept her home. So this year, I thought she would kill it, but with Speedy-Hannah... I wasn't sure! Alright.... I admit it... I had NO confidence that she could beat this girl! So I pull Bri aside and tell her, "Lead her or stay within no less than 10 feet behind her and use your kick to overtake her at the end." And that's exactly what she did. Stayed with her to the last 100 yards, AND HANNAH STOPPED RUNNING! Briyanna ended up beating her and everyone else by over 50 feet!! And I didn't tape it because I thought she would get beat... I'm such a bad mom. I could have always deleted it! Anyways, she qualified for the city meet in that one too obviously. So I will DEFINITELY be taping that one at the city meet (and deleting it if she gets her butt whooped!).

A Horrible Revelation....

2009-04-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight we were out to eat at Applebees. It was kind of a slow night. The resturant was hopping. The service was not. But we were in no hurry so no worries. While sitting there, Rob and Brenna started arm wrestling and let me know Brenna was strong and that I needed to check it out for myself. Oh my.... I knew this would be a bad thing. I'm really quite a weakling. So I arm wrestled Brenna and won. Arm wrestled Ethan. I won. Arm wrestled Briyanna. I won. Then Briyanna had this brilliant idea... let's try left handed!! CRAP! was my first thought. And then, Maybe I can feign injury! No chance. My kids soon realized that their mother's weakness is her left arm! The look on Briyanna's face was priceless... like she had discovered the secret to life. It was a sad, sad day. So if anyone needs their spirits lifted by beating me, I'm here for ya!

Briyanna turns 11!

2009-04-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

Today Briyanna turned 11! She asked me what time of the day she was born. Hmmm.... I can't remember actually. I know she was a quick labor but none of my labors lasted over 4 hours. I just can't remember. This is what happens when you have more than 2 kids and you age. So we settled with sometime today. She was one of my littler babies... 8 lbs 10 oz. and 2 weeks early.

What a celebration we had today! I let her go to soccer practice! Woot woot! Her team sang to her and they dog piled her. YaY??? Coach Brian let her get a 3 second head start. 2 minutes into the chase they still hadn't caught her so she stopped and just let them get her. She hurt her ribs and said she would have kept running if she had known how bad it was going to hurt!

She did get to pick her birthday dinner. We all knew what she was going to pick before I asked, but formalities are needed in this area! German Pancakes w/ buttermilk syrup and sausage it was!

And then we had to pose for a lovely family picture. Wow.... we are a lively group tonight! I'm not sure what is wrong with any of us, but we normally look a little better than that, but only just a little!
What birthday is complete without a cake? Okay, I admit. We've had birthdays in this house that didn't get a cake, but I do try to get at least ice cream. But I saw the cake with the fruit and knew I had to have it. And I knew Briyanna, the fanatical fruit-eater, would LOVE it! I could hardly keep her fingers off the fruit!

Black Bean Recipe for Sillya

2009-04-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

1 Tbl veg oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 tsp ground cumin
1 can cof corn
3/4 cup Old El Paso Thick n Chunky medium salsa
1 can (15oz) Progresso black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (8oz)
10 corn tortillas (6")
1 can (10oz) Old El Paso enchilada sauce
*Chopped avaocado, black olives, sour cream and cilantro, if desired
Directions
heat oven to 350F. Spray 11x7" baking dish with cooking spray. in 10" skillet, heat oil over med heat. add onion and cumin; cook and stir 4-5 minutes or until onion is tender. stir in corn, salsa, beans and 1 cup of the cheese. remove from heat.
on microwavable plate, stack tortillas and cover with paper towel; microwave on high 1 min to soften. place 1/4 cup bean mixture along center of each tortilla. roll up tightly, and place seam sides down in baking dish; spoon remaining bean mixture on top. pour enchilada sauce over enchiladas, spreading to coat all tortillas. sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese.
bake covered 25-30 min or until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly around edges. garnish with remaining ingredients.

By the way, we've decided L is CrAzY!!! Hope he has fun with his running! You might find me running my stairs but I stay away from the hills!

Sunday Dinner

2009-04-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

I have been STRUGGLING to find new things to try for dinner. So after searching high and low for something new, easy and good, I found a new recipe that everyone in my family liked. So for those of us who will actually eat black beans, here is my black bean enchiladas. Wow! They were GREAT! I'm sitting here at 12:45 am and eating another plate of them!

A complete stranger just made my day!

2009-04-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

So I ordered one of these tonight at Outback Steakhouse:

A Mai Tai for the non-drinkers... and I got carded!!! Oh that made my day! Mmmmmm, it was yummy! And I ran into a really good friend that I was a children's leader with at BSF. I hadn't seen her since I left so that was very nice. Then we went to the movies and watched this:

I liked it. Rob thought the acting was bad. Who cares? Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck were in it. :) I saw previews for a movie called PUBLIC ENEMIES starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale about John Dillinger that I want to see. It comes out in July I think. I'm putting it here, so I don't forget! I'll need to blog again later. Lots to tell, but I'm tired.

Taxes are done... now what??

2009-04-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

I've have worked on my taxes for hours. When I say hours, I mean like 50 hours! It was insane. So I finally finished today, 45 minutes before April 15. Officially they were done before the due date, right? Here's the deal. We kind of had big plans for our return. Last year, we got back like $6000 for federal and owed like $400 to state. I file this year. My income is way up, BUT my expenses are way down. I'm wondering if I did some figures wrong. I'm going to go through my receipts and notebooks and see if I missed something somewhere. Not tomorrow. Probably not in the next week even. But sometime. So for the first time EVER, we owe federal taxes. $684 to be exact. But we're getting a state refund- $692. Woohoo.. we made $8. Score. I think I'll go buy... hmmm... not much I can buy with $8. To make things a little worse, I file with Turbo Tax and because of the type of business I have and my write offs, I have to use their business program. And something about filing my state taxes cost me extra... so just to file cost me about $140. Since I wasn't planning on owing (Why do I just assume things anymore? It never works out!), it was a shock to my system that I had to come up with roughly $830 in 45 minutes. Fun times. Thank goodness I had the good sense not go on a huge shopping spree this morning.

Now that my taxes are done, I can actually breathe again. I have been consumed by them for weeks, if not months. I haven't cleaned like I should have. My laundry has fallen to the wayside. It's clean, not folded! I will have to take a picture of dryer vomit and post in a few days. Unless I actually get it folded and put away now that I have my evenings free. Kind of... but that's another post! Now that I have a little extra time, the kids and I are going to spend a little time in the evening reading. We like to go through book series. We did The Little House on the Prairie books last winter. We aren't going to do a series this time. I tried the Narnia books, but.... oh man, I hate to admit this... I really don't like C.S. Lewis books. Maybe I just haven't gotten into them, but I can't do it! I've tried and if I get enough hate mail, maybe I'll try one more time. I thought they were brutal. This time we are reading STOUT-HEARTED SEVEN by Neta Lohnes Frazier. It is about the 7 Sager children that were orphaned on their way out west on the Oregon in 1844 and were later involved in the Whitman Massacre in Washington. These kids were my Grandfather's 2nd cousins. My mother was a Sager and our family cherishes their heritage so I was told it was time to pass it down to my kids. So we'll be reading the book and maybe I'll take the kids to the Whitman Mission this summer to visit.

I'm feeling the need....

2009-04-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

The need to share an Easter story. Before I share it, I want to say that I have become very annoyed by Easter only because of how it has been exploited, misused and over-all misrepresented since I can remember. I'm not one to push my religion on anyone and I won't do it often, but it's Easter and I'm feeling a bit fiesty! So I'm on Facebook and a girl I was raised with in a baptist church writes for her status.... "I just love the Easter bunny and all the wonderful magic it brings on this day!!!!" Is that for real??? Seriously! Did we not grow up in the same church?? Now, this is coming from me, a person who has never spoke the words, "When the easter bunny comes.... " or "What do you want from Santa..." I've never pushed any of that on my kids nor have any of them ever remotely believed in either. We have Christmas stockings and easter baskets (normally, but not this year). I'm okay with people doing either/ both... I just don't because I can not bring myself to do it. What is Easter? Here is my Easter Egg Story that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it::

It's a true story, courtesy of Ida Mae Kempel. Jeremy was 12 years old but he was only in the second grade, seemingly unable to learn. His body was twisted... his mind was slow... and his teacher, Doris Miller, often became exasperated with his squirming and his grunting noises. But at other times, he spoke pretty clearly and distinctly, as if a spot of light had penetrated the darkness in his brain. No one could have guessed that Jeremy would end up teaching his whole class -- and his teacher.

Doris Miller finally became so exasperated with Jeremy that she asked his parents to come to St. Theresa's for a consultation. When she explained that it would be better for Jeremy and the other students if he were in a special school, his mother begged for Jeremy to stay where he felt safe.

After they left, the teacher struggled with what to do. She wanted to sympathize with the parents -- after all, their only child had a terminal illness. But what about the other students? Well, God did something in her heart that day. She ended up praying for the patience to be what Jeremy needed. From that day on, she tried to ignore his noises and blank stares.

As Easter approached, Doris told her students the story of Jesus, and she emphasized the idea of new life. Then she gave each child a large plastic egg and assigned them to bring it back the next day with something inside the egg that showed new life. The children were all excited -- except for Jeremy. Doris saw no signs that he understood. She was going to call his parents that night to explain the assignment -- she forgot.

The next morning, 19 children came to school, laughing and talking as they placed their eggs in this large wicker basket on Miss Miller's desk. Then came the time to open their eggs. One had a flower in her egg, another a plastic butterfly, still another had a rock with moss on it - all symbols of new life. When Doris opened the fourth egg, she just quietly gasped. The egg was empty! It must be Jeremy's. She was going to quickly set it aside when Jeremy suddenly spoke up. "Miss Miller, aren't you going to talk about my egg?" Doris said, "But your egg is empty, Jeremy!" He looked into her eyes and said softly, "Yes, but Jesus' tomb was empty, too! Jesus was killed, but His Father raised Him up!" The recess bell rang... the children ran out to play... and a teacher cried.

Three months later, Jeremy died. Those who paid their respects at the funeral home were surprised by what they saw there. On top of Jeremy's casket, there were 19 eggs - all of them empty.

The tomb is empty. He is not here. If only we have the courage to walk the way of his cross, then we will rise with him.

Just call me Nancy!

2009-04-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Who knew I would grow up to be just like my childhood hero, Nancy Drew?? Yesterday, I was discussing with a dear friend of mine how my cool pens and pencils would disappear into thin air. You would really think that rule of "DON'T TOUCH IT IF IT IS ON MY DESK, WORK AREA, BASKET, IRONING BOARD OR IF IT EVEN LOOKS LIKE IT MIGHT BELONG TO MOM!!!" would be effective. It is NOT! Yesterday morning, I found myself, once again, without any pens which are kind of needed for me to mark my fabric. So I made the dreaded trek to Walmart for pens and also missing masking tape. I also was getting low on ever-sharp pencils but I knew I had one left so decided not to buy anymore of those. I found some cool pens... the ones that SCREAM at my children, "Steal me! Sneak me off this desk. She'll never know!!" They come five to a packet- a green, a blue, a red, a black and a purple. And I picked up 2 rolls of tape. I left for a while last night and didn't do a whole lot of checking up on my desk when I got home. But this morning, I realized all but the green pen is missing and one roll of tape!! After I got the girls to school... and with my fabulous morning coffee in hand... I decided to do some sleuthing. The obvious suspects... do I really need to tell you?? Don't let those innocent faces fool you! Let me introduce you starting at the bottom left and going clockwise: I don't know, Not me, It was Berlyn, and LIAR!
And then there is my oblivious suspect. He's holding a fish to throw you off!

After going through the 2 kid's bedrooms and Rob's desk (mostly the girl's room), this is what I came up with:

I came up with 2 of my new pens and one of my new tapes. The other is still missing but I did find the other roll that went MIA a few days ago. I also found 1 dice (or die, if you want me to be correct), both of my staplers, fingernail polish, a package of bellybutton studs, a pair of fingernail clippers, 4 pairs of sewing scissors (thread trimmers), 3 Sharpies (Oh, happy day! Permanent markers and nothing horrible happened this time!), my scrapbooking pen, 6 safety pens, lead for my missing pencils (and I did find 2 more of those in my purse, but 7 are still missing!), my yellow highlighter, my eraser, 10 misc. pencils, 21 pens, 1 orange marker, my sewing machine screw driver and one of my seam rippers.... That's right! A seam ripper! What does a small child want with a seam ripper?? That's actually kind of freightening.

Another gross blog...

2009-04-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry people... it's all I have!!! So Ethan, my dear 12 year-old son, stepped on a nail at my mom's house during spring break. He had to choose the most disgusting nail on the farm to step on. It was from an old (50 year +) cow barn... therefore rust, manure and general boy germs. I took him in last Sunday and he got his tetnus shot and it was at a raging infection point so he was prescribed cipro... the drug for Anthrax. He complains of a stomach ache everytime he takes the stuff, and today, he showed up at home at his regular time... meaning he skipped track again... cuz his stomach was hurting. I kind of got on him about this. I really thought he was faking it. I'm sitting here sewing, he's watching Curious George on the couch and this UNHUMAN sound comes from his direction. You know those sound effect CDs you can buy with gross sounds? Specifically fart noises! This was WORSE than those. Non-stop for 1 1/2 hours! At first it was kind of funny, but then it just got gross. I finally looked at Rob for some direction here. He was looking at Ethan with his mouth wide open and finally said... "I'm not sure if I should be mad or impressed."

Yep...I had lost the battle.

I have my work cut out for me today....

2009-04-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

This is what I woke up to in my kitchen this morning. I spent all day long yesterday out in the sun watching/ coaching soccer. I ended up with a sunburn and an AWFUL headache that I still have this morning... most likely due to not drinking anything other than a rootbeer on the way to Briyanna's game.
I'm going to use this moment to do a soccer game update. Brenna's team won, by alot. We don't really take score (I don't at least) but it had to be like 20-0. It was alot. Brenna made the first 2 goals and the coach pulled her out. I had told the kids anyone who makes a goal earns $1. So when she made her first goal in the first 30 seconds of the game... I was a little scared. But she ended up w/ only the 2 goals. Ethan's game was next. His team is the team I coach (unwillingly) this spring. I'm glad I picked GREAT goalies! They were getting drilled and only one goal made it past. The other team had good forwards, I had great defenders! I finally moved Ethan up to a midfielder and he made the first goal of the game. We ended up winning 2-1. We need LOTS of work. Briyanna had the last game. We played the #1 team in the state, fully expecting to loose, and expecting to loose by ALOT. But we only lost 5-0 so really, that wasn't a bad game for us. The team that beat us on Wednesday 8-2 got beat by this team 6-0. So, I guess we just played really bad on Wednesday?? Yesterday's game was actually the best I've ever seen them play.
So my kitchen... I slept all evening and Rob made dinner. I woke up long enough to eat and catch a few SNL skits. And this is what I get to do today!

My kid says the darndest things... in public!

2009-04-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

My daughter is a silly, silly girl. And embarrassing! We go to Applebee's every Wednesday night for kid's night. So here we sit, eating, drinking, being merry, and Berlyn pipes up and says something. Now, I wasn't sure what she said, and I thought that maybe what she said was mildly inappropriate, but I wasn't sure so I asked to repeat herself. No, I heard her right the first time, or so I thought. So I repeated the phrase back to her. And she replies in a VERY loud voice that I'm pretty sure the entire resturant heard, "NO!!! HOT, ROUND BUTTOCKS!!!!" I was informed this is off of Shrek. The shows I let my kids watch. Anyhow, I did laugh entirely too loud at the 'hot, round buttocks' phrase. I just have no idea where the heck it came from. What is going through a 5 year-old's mind when they say something like that?

Another odd confession...

2009-03-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

So tonight, I'm a little bored... no one to chat with, nothin' on TV. So I hit youtube. I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love youtube! I kind of get into a theme and stick with it and tonight, as with many other nights, I found myself completely absorbed in watching Guitar Hero videos. I know!! Weird! Literally for a couple hours I can watch these. And just so you know, I've only played once and not remotely well. I got to where I could finish "Paint It Black" but my score was pathetic and I got killed by an 8 year old! So why the fascination??? I have no idea. I just sit and stare at those little lights going off, I jump when they miss the note, I get excited when they get a good score and wonder... is it really humanly possible to move your fingers that fast??? I am truly a nerd. There, I said it.

My Mustard Conspiracy Theory...

2009-03-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm almost positive that there is a conspiracy going on in this house to make my life 10 times harder than it really should be. For the past week, everytime I go into the kitchen, I come out of there with mustard on me!! I know... absolutely ridiculous! But when I go in there to get a drink of water and then come out, not knowing, with mustard on me and then I pick up my white fabric... see where I'm going??? It's pretty frustrating when I have to scrub mustard out of white fabric cuz we all know how easily mustard comes out! So yesterday, I took about 20 minutes looking for the rogue mustard and found NOTHING!! And I still happened to encounter it this morning!! What the.... and I looked again, and of course, found nothing! I'm thinking of outlawing mustard in this house. You can eat it, squirt it, bath in it, for all I care---- OUTSIDE! I like my mustard but I don't like smelling like it.

And as long as I'm on the subject of mustard and cats (I wasn't talking about cats?? oh well...), next time I have a yellow cat, I'm going to name him Col. Mustard.

It is a little known fact that...

2009-03-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

I'm having fun today! Spring cleaning the living room (see below post)... and I really am I having fun, when my body doesn't hurt or I'm not so tired I can't keep my eyes open. After my nap, I rearranged my living room, always fun. And then I decided to tackle my closet in here. I was please to open the door and find that I really I hadn't opened that door since I last cleaned it. I've been known to stuff "stuff" in there when I knew someone was coming over. So I had to take a picture of a very small fraction of my fabric collection. It is much more impressive in person....

Alrighty... on to more embarrassing things. I think that it's pretty established that I can sew, right? But, it's a little known fact that I can quilt... but I can't make a quilt. How can this be?? I feel... inadequate in a way! Ridiculous! Anyhow, my mom forced some of her family members to take a quilting class with her, me being one of them. Then I was stuck with all these quilt blocks and nothing to do with them. So 2 Christmases ago, Rob made me barn board frames for them... thank goodness! I thought I was going to have to throw them away.

I really love my quilt blocks. They have a very special meaning for me. They are Underground Railroad Quilt blocks. Each block represented a different quilt used to guide the slaves to freedom. And since the Civil War Era is my favorite period in history I loved, loved making them. When we lived in Virginia, I would load up the kids in the car while Rob was at class and tour all of the somewhat close historical areas (I was very pregnant so I didn't dare venture too far). I had the Civil War fire ignited in me when I was a kid... 4th or 5th grade. I loved the tv series NORTH AND SOUTH. I've heard that you can get these at the library, but I think that person was lying to me since I have yet to find them. And I've tried to rent them on Netflix and Blockbuster.com and neither one has the first ones. Anyhow... I've blabbed enough for today.

While My Carpet Dries...

2009-03-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I mentioned a smell in my living room and today, it just sent me over the edge. It's really weird. I don't smell it for weeks and then all of a sudden IT'S IN YOUR FACE! And it moves... weird. Anyhow, this morning even Ethan who is so plugged he can't smell his own feet could smell it and gagged. So Rob and the girls went to church and Ethan is sick so he and I launched "Spring Clean the Living Room Day... or 2." Fun times moving everything out of the living room. At first I had thought the deck, but checked the weather report and decided against it. Good thing, cuz it rained when we went to pick up the carpet cleaner... sorry Cel, we were desparate! It looks AND SMELLS 100% better. And for the moment feels like we're in a new house:

As I washed down the walls, windows and doors, I realized I am in desprate need of a paint job in the living room (not to mention every other room, except Ethan's). I cleaned the door which was disgusting. I don't think that anyone in this house knows how to open a door without touching the door or kicking the bottom. I am a firm believer in the Magic Erasers. Those things rock. I would LOVE to know what is in it (if anyone out there knows, but I think it's a mystery) that cleans so well. I love them, but my hands feel like crap afterwards so I figure I'm killing myself slowly by using them. Here's my nearly new door... IGNORE the bookcase thing. Each kid owns a cubby and puts whatever they want in there... preferably homework, tomorrows clothes, soccer stuff, AWANA and church stuff. Normally it has candy wrappers and old school papers that should have been tossed weeks ago.

Here is my pile of orders that I need to finish all piled onto my ironing board that hasn't seen an iron in YEARS! Maybe not that long, but it's been awhile! And the table underneath isn't normally there either... just had to get it out of the way.

So now my dining room looks like my living room threw up in it. Maybe, when I have both rooms put back together, I will post new pictures of them. For now, I have boxes of fabric and pictures that I have put off going thru. And the magazines!! Where on earth did 100 magazines come from? And I have an antique table I'm actually going to throw away before it collapse on a small child or animal. Here is what living room vomit looks like:

And I don't think that I'll add pictures of my work area. It's pretty bad right now. It looks like a disaster, but I know where everything is, except a money order that I misplaced awhile back.

Spring forward...

2009-03-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

I'm only blogging because it has been like 2 weeks since I've last blogged. It's not like nothing has happened... just too busy to write about any of it. So I'll fill you all in on all the fabulously exciting details of my life. We have had TONS AND TONS of orders so of course.. that plays a huge role in my absence. The other reason why I'm not blogging is because spring soccer is in full swing again. We've had 2 games already and our first league game was today. We won and it was actually quite surprising. We moved from C bracket to A bracket. C bracket is mediocre/ beginners and A is the good teams. Our move was unintentional, but that's another story... So since we made such a big jump, we are really expecting to loose most games, just hopefully not by a land slide. So this game we won: 1 to 0. We'll take that. Oh! And while we are sitting there, this guy walks up behind us and asks what field we're on. So we all turn around and the first thing I thought was "celebrity" but it didn't take long for it to switch to "politician." He was too polished and put together for that. Anyhow, it was Walt Minnick. So I had to snap a picture of him walking away because I wasn't quick enough to get his face... and I probably wouldn't have taken a picture of his face even if I had time. Walt walking away into the mountains... and yes, there was some snow and LOTS of goose crap on the ground!

Last weekend was insane. We had that lovely 4 day weekend with the kids which included 3 parent teacher conferences, spread out all over the place. Briyanna decided to she needed to have a friend spend the night. Rob and Ethan went to CJ Strike and caught their first sturgeon. Then on Saturday we had our AWANA games at Meridian High School. We had to go to both Sparks and TnT games so we were there ALL DAY LONG (okay 7 hours!). Brenna actually played on both teams since the older group was short a few kids. All of the teams took first place which was pretty cool. I'm posting 2 videos from the games. They're both about 30 seconds each. And my kids are on the yellow team. I didn't get any of Brenna. Briyanna is wearing the red pants and Ethan, well, he's the skinny one playing tug-of-war with Bob Raymond's middle son, Caige. That video is actually impressive... if you can ignore me screaming!

Later that night, if you can believe this, I actually went out with a friend for dinner and a piercing. We ate at Red Robin and I got my tragus pierced. No pain at all then. I'm having a little more of a problem now when it comes to moving it and cleaning. But sleeping on it is okay too. I was really expecting way more pain with the actual piercing. I cried, told the guy that I thought that I'd rather be having a baby, cried a little more. And then it was over and I realized what a wimp I had been!

So for my last order of business... for now... I will leave you with the time change coming up tonight- an hour and 20 minutes from right now. Anyhow, I have this clock in my living room. I NEVER actually use it to tell time. It is purely for looks. But I think that other people that actually come into my house actually do use it to tell time and it's kind of funny to watch them freak out when they think they've been here and hour longer than they really have, all because I'm too lazy to change the time on my clock when there is a time change. I almost do it, but then I realize, we're like 3 weeks away from a time change... why bother? And if you know me really well, you know that for the most part, I'm not a lazy person... I just have better things to do than change the time on my clocks. So in a a little over an hour, the clock in my living room with have the right time on it... til October.

Another Berlyn-funny!

2009-02-22T23:04:00.000-08:00

That kid just cracks me up sometimes. I think that it must be because she is such a tiny little person with such a growing mind that is emerging. So last night we were sitting at the dining room table for dinner and a discussion that we have quite often comes up. The girls like to go to bed in the clothes that the wore all day. Maybe I'm just the most disgusting person in the entire world, but I just don't think that it is as big a deal as Rob does, but whateva... So the subject comes up and it is very obvious we have had this conversation before. Rob starts in on how at night we sweat, blah, blah, blah (we don't need all the details)and ends with, "and do you know what is in sweat?"
Berlyn's hand shoots up excitedly like she's in school and says, "I know, I know! Pick me, Daddy."
So Rob 'called on her' and she shyly answered, "pee..."
Stinkin' cute... even tho it's kinda gross.

My big girl:

Old Memories and Bosnians

2009-02-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

I was pretty sure that I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I can't seem to find it... so maybe I didn't. My memory is so poor! Oh! I remembered! I wrote about it on facebook under my wedding pictures. Anyhow, here is the story. I shopped high and low for Rob's wedding ring before our wedding. Well, within a week of our wedding, we went on our first honey moon. We backpacked up into the mountains... it was like 6 miles... uphill... both ways. Alright, just on the way in, but it was hard! I even got lost on our little venture and was just about to enter complete freak-out mode when I found the trail again. He got tired of waiting for me so I told him to go ahead of me and set up camp... surely I can follow a trail, right? Not when it ends! Anyhow, he did get there way ahead of me. By the time I arrived, he had already lost his wedding ring... somewhere. We searched everywhere, but never found it. Here is a picture of our first rings:

Jump ahead 6 years, I bought Rob another wedding ring when he was leaving for Bosnia. He wouldn't wear the thing tho, something about getting it caught on helicopter parts and electric currents. So he put his ring on his watch band. (I also need to add at this point that I mailed him a camera to use in Bosnia... I'll come back to this in a little bit) Well, one fateful morning, Rob opened his watch and the ring fell off into a boardwalk type thing. Several Bosnians that worked on the base came along and ripped up the boards and never found the ring. Rob took pictures of them ripping up the boards and looking for the rings.... these are the only pictures he took the entire 8 months he was there.

So... here is the question. Is the third time the charm? Should I really fork out money for ring number 3 when it will probably be lost in less than a month? I will add that I have had my share of problems w/ my ring. I think that it was cheaply made to begin with... my opinion. I have had to replace several prongs and I actually lost the big diamond once... right after I got the prongs redone. Somewhere in Nampa, there is a diamond floating around! I also lost it for a few months. I thought it fell down the drain but I found it eventually.

Hey, I just remembered it my anniversary!

2009-02-14T20:41:00.001-08:00

Not my marriage anniversary, but Valentine's Day marks the date that I realized I was not invinsible. On Valentine's Day 2005, I went on a bike ride w/ Ethan and got hit by a car while I was in the cross walk. It was at Lake Lowell and Midland. I wasn't hurt all that bad, even tho I should have been. I landed 10 feet from my bike, face and wrists first on the asphalt. My leg got smashed between the bike and car. I'm just thankful that it was me that was hit and not Ethan. For him, it could have been a fatal hit since it would have hit his body. She just got my leg really. BUT!!! I did hit the hood of her car before I went flying and I left a dent! I think the worst part was pulling the chunks of asphalt out of my face. That was extremely painful. The pictures are from right after the accident, before I went to the hospital and before I got swollen and bruised. I ended up looking pretty bad. And my right ankle still is puffy and if I've been up on my feet alot it looks like this again.

THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!!

2009-02-14T16:32:00.000-08:00

Okay it's not shocking! But I completely forgot to add my Guns n' Roses pictures to my blog last nigth so now I will!! I know, I'm a nerd!

A little G'n'R for ya...

2009-02-13T22:07:00.000-08:00

I love the classic (old) Guns n' Roses. You know, back when Axel Rose was young and hot. Did I really just type that? Yes, I did! Anyhow, I have 3 favorite GnR songs: Sweet Child 'O Mine, Patience and Welcome to the Jungle. I have repeatedly subjected my family to the torture of listening to these songs, sometimes over and over and over again. Anyhow, every single person in my family can sing most of all of them by heart. So a few days ago, Berlyn, who turned 5 in December, was singing Welcome to the Jungle while she was coloring on the floor. It kinda warmed my heart. So I stopped working to really listen to her and this is her interpretation of the song (real words in parenthesis) only at the chorus:

Watch it bring it to your Shun,n,n,n,n,n,n,n,n,n,n,na knees, knees, (those are right)
I wanna watch you sneeze (I wanna watch you bleed)

I wanna hear you sneeze (scream)

I haven't a good laugh in a long time and that one did it! It was hilarious. She hears something so different than me. We were talking about it tonight and she is insistant that those are the right words. And quite frankly, they aren't great lyrics and I would much rather watch (or hear) someone sneeze than bleed or scream! I will never, ever listen to Welcome to the Jungle the same.

NO!

2009-02-13T00:39:00.000-08:00

No... I still do not have a new driver's license. Do you realize that I have to do my hair for that? And since I'm thinking of getting a hair cut, shouldn't I wait til then? Ethan asked me a few days ago what I would do if I got pulled over. So I unleashed the drama queen in me and told him. He was quite impressed. For a few minutes, I was actually hoping I would get a chance to try it out for reals... then I changed my mind. Hopefully by the end of the month. I just really like my picture right now. I look so... young.

I need to brag on my kiddos!

2009-02-11T21:11:00.000-08:00

I have 4 of the best kids ever and I'm not sure where they got these rare traits that I'm going to discuss. Rob does not possess these AT ALL. I may have been this way had I been allowed. These traits actually only belong to 2 of the kids but they help spread the trait around. So for the past several months, I will be down here in my living room working or watching tv and all of a sudden, it will dawn on me that I'm all alone. All 4 of the kids (including my youngest) have made their way up to their bedrooms, and they are either sleeping, reading and playing quietly! How amazing is that?? In fact, last night around 7:30, I asked where Ethan was, and Bri let me know that has was already showered and in bed. I didn't ask him to do either. And since the beginning of the school year, I have only once had to wake up Ethan and once for the girls (I actually missed that one!). Ethan wakes up at 6:30, dresses and leaves for school by 6:53. He comes in and lets me know he's off. At 7:00, Briyanna's alarm clock goes off. She is absolutely anal about being to school by 8:30. Why she thinks it takes an hour and a half to get ready, I'll never know. Anyhow, I hear her wake up and then I hear the drill sergeant in her come out as she yells Brenna out of her bed. Brenna really could stay in bed til 7:30 but Briyanna won't allow it! Now so you don't think I'm a horribly irresponsible parent, my alarm clock goes off at 6:35 and 7:30 and then 8:00. I wake up the first 2 times long enough to hear movement and know they're up and getting ready. When I roll out of bed at 8:00, the girls are completely ready to go except for their hair. I get dressed, do my hair, brush my teeth and throw on a little make up and we're off. I have it so easy. Hope it lasts another 13 years!

My Passsion has been Reignited!

2009-02-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

I am positively the biggest reality TV geek out there... and I'm not at all ashamed to admit it! I'm irritated 'cuz I'm gonna have to buy a TV converter box for this awful addiction I have! Seriously, the only TV I watch is reality TV, except for Life and Law and Order. I love the Biggest Loser, Survivor (watch for me, I will be on there someday. I waiting to look hot in a bikini :D ), American Idol, Amazing Race (that would be awesome too), The Mole, The Apprentice, Invervention, Hell's Kitchen.... the list could go on and on! I absolutely loved Fear Factor, so sad it's not on any more. So I was browsing HULU.com yesterday and found another reality TV show on there that I've never even heard of! And let me tell you... I am hooked!! It's a little bit of everything I like all wrapped into one. It's called SOLITARY! You must check it out! The concept is absolutely INSANE. You're looked in a room all alone for who knows how long and a 'computer' controls every move you make. And you loose your name and go by the number in your room. It has a little bit of Fear Factor in it but it's just crazy. I could NEVER, EVER do it though... I would come out a complete basket case! Here is a picture of what their rooms look like.

Trouble seems to follow me... or in this case, I follow it!

2009-02-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

Every other Friday night at 7:20, it is my job to go and pick my son and my niece from a church camp meeting across town. (This is going to be easier for my in-town friends to get than my out-of-towners!) Briyanna chose to go with me. I leave my subdivision on Iowa and turn south (or right for you direction impaired) on Midland, up to Greenhurst, turn east (left) and drive for about 5 miles. That's it. Well, last Friday night, I took a small detour. As soon as I turned onto Midland, I realized that I was behind a drunk driver. It took us 2 minutes to go half a mile from Iowa to Greenhurst. So I call Rob, tell him I'm behind a drunk driver, and should I call the cops. Uhh... YES! he tells me. I begged him to call, but I guess it does make more sense that I call since I am the one tailgating the guy! I call the cops and follow this guy 7 1/2 miles w/ my gas tank nearly on E! I have to take you through the turns we made and the close calls this guy nearly had. From Midland, we turn on Dooley. Most of Dooley, this guy is half over the center lane and it's a fairly hilly road. We come to a stop at highway 45 and turn south (right). We drive up to Locust, turn east (Left). At this point I'm wondering why the didn't just go all the way out Midland til it turned into Locust, but... I thought that about several of his future turns too. We continue on Locust. At Powerline, the fish hatchery intersection, the guy COMPLETELY runs a stop sign... I mean, flies through the thing! And there was a huge truck that barely missed him. As soon as he crosses the intersection, he slows back down to his usual 20 mph. When we get to Southside, he turns south (left) again, this time stopping but still managing to pull right in front of a SUV, barely not getting hit again. This whole time, Briyanna is hoping to witness a high-speed chase. We follow him some more til he turns east (left) on Lewis lane. He turns south (right) on Happy Valley Road. At this point, the dispatcher I'm talking to asks if I see the deputy as he flies past me. He flips around, passes me and follows my drunk driver for about 1/2 miles and then decided that, yes, indeed, he is pull-overable. The dispatcher tells me to stop about 50 feet behind him and wait. He comes back and lets me know that my drunk driver isn't drunk.... he's diabetic and has low blood sugar.... nice! He had to call someone to pick him up and be retested to see if he was good enough to drive. The entire time, I'm praying, please don't ask to see my license, please don't ask to see my license. You see, my license is expired (a week over) and I just haven't felt like going to renew it. I told Briyanna, if he asks to see my license, you just might get your high-speed chase. He didn't ask to see it and I will be going in on Monday to get it renewed. This whole thing, took us 25 minutes and we were 15 minutes late picking up Ethan and Hannah. But it was fun!

AWANA Grand Prix Night

2009-02-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

If you live in my house, and chances are you don't, you know that my least favorite time of the year is the day before and the day of Awana Grand Prix night. Those two days for this year happened to be yesterday and today. I am a self-proclaimed procrastinator! I admit it and am not ashamed because I just so happen to do my best work under pressure. Every year we have to come up w/ some crazy design for a pinewood derby car and I normally have to shape it w/ a knife. Then I take it to Rob and he cleans it up! Some of out past designs include a police car w/ a Christmas tree on top, a celery stick w/ peanut butter and a (real) peanut w/ goggly eyes taking a ride(used this one twice), 2 peanuts riding in a shell, a stick of butter, and a pink pearl eraser (used that one twice also). Well this year was no exception for originality. You would think that the idea bank would run dry, but it hasn't yet. In fact, I already have one in mind for one of next year's car.
This year, Ethan went with a pickle... or cucumber. Depended on how you wanted to see it! I can design... I can't make them roll worth a hoot! Rob actually shaped this one and I sanded and painted it and hot glued the wheels in... that right there might be the problem :). Anyhow, his actually crossed the finish line every race and that is all we're going for!

Poor Briyanna! She has had the worst luck the last 2 years and I can't help but think some of it is my fault. This year she had a stick of dynamite. Now the idea behind this is great because the group that they are in is called TNT for Truth and Training. I was hopin' for brownie points, but no one got it! Sheesh... Anyhow, I should have put one of my gold pom-poms on the end of the fuse to make it appear to be ignited, but I didn't. I actually did run out of time. AND... this is embarrassing, but it only crossed the finish line one time. So all in all... I failed her!

Brenna had a Flower Power car. I paper pieced (scrapbooked) over 150 itty-bitty flowers and then glued them onto that car. It took my 3 hours to do her car. Thankfully no shaping of the car was involved! Just a coat of paint and those stinkin' flowers! Her car was awesome this year! I'm not sure what I did wrong but she came in 2nd in all of her races (definitely not near the fastest tho) AND got a 3rd place trophy for design! I'd like to think that I, er, she really earned it!

Super Bowl 2009

2009-02-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

I am a football fan. I actually knew who was going to be playing in the Super Bowl before the game, unlike others living in my house! Anyhow, every year we normally do something, but this year, we didn't have any plans. So Rob decided we needed to host a Super Bowl party, for non-football people. This party was not for watching football, but for eating. Rob's parents and brother's family came over to eat... and watch commercials. I made 10 lbs. of super hot buffalo wings and we had chips and dip, veggies and dip, taco dip, and Rob's mom made her yummy cabbage rolls w/ cheese dip. We are a family that enjoys our dips! Most of us cheered for the Cardinals, except for Jeramy. He cheered for the guys wearing the yellow pants. And Lisa had an odd obsession over Larry Fitzgerald's butt. She thought it was big and told us many times. I really don't have an opinion either way. It made the game even more eventful... especially when he actually started to make some real plays. You be the judge...

So we ate and ate. I ate so much I almost puked. But it was fun. Here, I don't look like I was having fun, but I really was.

Here is the yellow pants fan, Jeramy. He had to leave for work before the game actually got good. He worked and then went straight to the hospital for kidney stone surgery. I got the privilege of watching their kids today. I had an 11 wiper diaper and and 8 wiper diaper!

Here is the proud owner of the 11 wiper diaper... Kayden. Is it chocolate or is it poop? ("Baby Mama" reference for those who don't know...)

Ethan and Briyanna took their cousins, Hannah and Brenden, to the youth group super bowl party so we were minus 4 kids (and that was GREAT!!). The other four did this...

and this...

In other words, they ate, dressed up and messed up rooms.

For the Undecided Super Bowl Fan!

2009-02-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

I am always looking for a way to make life a little more fun. So 3 hours later.... I made the kids their own super-fan shirts... especially since we don't have a team to cheer for this year and they are going to a youth group Super Bowl party with the church. So here is the plan. They are going to flip their shirts around whenever possession of the ball changes. We'll see how long that lasts!

Oh Crap!

2009-01-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

Oh Crap!! I'm now well (12 hours at the exact minute I'm writing this) into my 34th year. Is that right? I turned 33 today at 12:28 p.m.... so that means I've lived 33 full years and I'm starting my 34th year. Now that I've thought that out, I think it makes sense. This is how I look on my 33rd birthday! With a little help from my friends at Kodak! I would have left it w/ regular color, but I had just woke up from a nap and my hair was a mess, my skin was blotchy and no make up.

For my birthday, we decided to go to Outback Steakhouse. We got a gift cerficate from a friend... kind of... but that's a long story... ;0D. And we were going to go to a movie but the movie we wanted to see was no longer in the movie theater. Rob and I split our food. I got the 16 oz. prime rib and Rob got the chicken. I tried a Sour Apple Martini. Now I can say, been there, done that... Meanwhile, across the aisle from us sat our neighbors whom we have had some minor conflict with in the past. We got to witness them scam the resturant. It was kind of funny. She was complaining that her steak was too dry and told her waiter. Mind you, it took her eating 2/3 of said steak before she all of a sudden realized this. The waiter brings out the manager, and the manager brings out a new steak. He and she split the new steak, eat it gone, and then eat the 'too dry' steak. Now, this really bothered Rob, way more than it bothered me. Rob thinks they should have left it. All in all... it did seem kind of sneaky. Rob was embarrassed that I paid so much attention to the situation and she even caught me watching it go down. What can I say?? I'm a nosy neighbor! After dinner I was given my FREE birthday ice cream. I love birthdays! After dinner, we decided to rent a movie instead of go to the movies. We've already seen every movie there, but I did almost talk Rob into another round of "Twilight." Alas, I ended up loosing that battle. Off to Hollywood video. I take the video up to the counter... and lo and behold... you get a FREE movie rental on your birthday!! Did I mention I love birthdays? And I was worried she was going to bust me that my license expired today. We even got a FREE pop refill at the Chevron by our house... of course... we always get FREE refills at the Chevron by our house, but since it's my birthday, I'm pretending it was for that reason!

So I love the "CRAP" picture! This is on the Nampa-Caldwell Blvd. between Nampa and Caldwell. Every time I drive by I think, I'm getting a picture of this next time. And this time I did. I may use it again if needed!

Holy Mockamole!!

2009-01-26T17:21:00.001-08:00

I really, really like Mexican food and one of the highlights for me is a really good guacamole. But since I'm dieting, I decided guacamole (actually Mexican food in general) is something that I should probably avoid to some extent. But as I surfed my favorite website last night, I ran across a mockamole recipe made from sweet peas. At first, I was skeptical, but Rob talked me into going ahead and trying it. Not to mention I read everyone else rave reviews of it. I made it for dinner tonight and it is by far some of the best "guacamole" I have ever had. I'm so excited that I have to share it with you.

* 1 package frozen sweet peas
* 1 C cilanto
* 1/4 c. onion
* 2 cloves of garlic
* 2 T. lemon juice
* 1 t. oil
* 2 t. salt
* 1 T. cumin
* 1 1/2 t. crushed red pappers
* 1 tomato
* 1/2 jalepeno

Throw it all into a food processor and blend. Make sure the peas are really mashed.

This recipe is actually less than 1/2 the calories of traditional guacamole, about 23 calories a serving.

May I share something rather disgusting??

2009-01-22T00:52:00.000-08:00

So just for kicks, I've been wanting to try the biore blackhead removing strips thingies. I'm pretty sure that's not the offical name for them, but this is my blog and I'm going to call them how I see them. So each little box costs $6.54 at a large store that starts with the letter W. You can get them in a 6 pack or 8 pack... the 6 pack being the stronger of the 2. Since this was my first time, I went with the stronger, of course. Well, 3 strips later, I finally read the directions and figured out how to use them. Had I not over-thought the first strip, I would have got it the first try and not wasted 2 of them. Finally,I get the little sucker on there and now it's time to wait 10-15 minutes. This was a rather enjoyable time at 1:30 am. I dumped my trash in the upstairs bathrooms. Then I picked up the shoes in my closet. I got bored with that and left half of them on the floor. I also got tired of tripping over dirty laundry in the upstairs hallways, so I hauled all of it to the kid's bathtub (just so it can be thrown back out there in the morning, but I'm happy now!). I folded some laundry. You know, 10-15 minutes can be an awfully long time when you're trying to patiently waiting for your blackheads to be removed. At last, the time was up and it was time to pull off the strip. Now let me tell you... it felt like I was taking off the top 2 layers of my skin, but I didn't. OMGosh... what the... what is that on there??? I swear... I have never seen anything quite as gross as what was on that strip. It looked like little worms. This was so gross that I had to take a picture and share it with you! But I think I'm a biore blackhead removing strips thingies addict. You will find me cleaing my bathrooms and hallways and folding laundry, etc. at 1:30 a.m. with a white strip across my nose once a week from now on!

Woot! Woot! I've lost weight!

2009-01-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

I was trying not to weigh myself too often... it just depresses me. I've been on the diet and exercise train since right after Christmas so.... that would be... about 2 1/2 weeks (Hey 50 weeks til Christmas, folks!). I will say I ate way too much on New Year's eve and on New Years day we went to Outback Steakhouse w/ friends, you know who you are, and I probably ate a little more than I should have. I wasn't feeling great and that helped there. Except the Bloomin' Onion at the beginning and the cheesecake at the end... Anyway, that was a week and a half ago and I'm over it! So I know that I'm starting to get on Rob's nerves! It's actually kind of funny. I'm always nagging him to loose a little w/ me and he'd prefer to... well, eat! So when I'm counting calories, I point out every little calorie he's eating too. I think he's motived now. Last night, he walked 3 1/2 miles with me after the kids were in bed.
I watch every little thing I put in my mouth now. It's great. I didn't realize how much I grazed... all day long... until now. It was insane! And I exercise like crazy. I walk/ run the stairs every night for 30-45 minutes. And I also do Turbo Jam for 45 minutes. I don't really like that, but it's what I'm doing right now. And if Rob starts walking with me then I'll have that too. I tried to get him to do the Turbo Jam and stairs with me and he reminded me about his broken foot. Good excuse, I guess.
Drum roll.... in the last 2 1/2 weeks, I've lost 10 lbs. and I'm not even starving myself!

My mom has killed my Miracle Baby

2009-01-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Sadly, this is true. On the last day of school last year, my kids walked home from school and as they came into the house, one of them innocently tells, "Oh, Mom... the car is meowing..." like is was nothing out of the ordinary. From past experiences of cats using car engines as their resting spots, I warned the kids to stay in the house, not really sure I even wanted to go out there. And sure enough, the car was meowing, quite loudly. So I pop the hood and there sitting down on this little ledge in there was this itty bitty round ball of orange fur. I decided to let Rob get the kitten out but he (cat) was having none of that. So I decided to go for it and I stuck my hand down there and yanked that baby out of there. How did that kitten get there, you ask? Well, let me tell you. Rob went to a junk yard earlier that morning, clear across town. A cat had a litter of kittens in the bushes out front and this little angel decided to hitch a ride to our house. The fur on the back side of the kitten was singed (that looks weird but I'm pretty sure it's spelled correctly) all the way to the skin. But he was otherwise fine.

So I call my mom to see of they need a cat. And even if they didn't need one, they were going to get one! And they actually needed one. I took him over and the rest is history. Expect then, we found out HE was a SHE... I've never, ever seen a pure orange cat turn out to be a girl. Until now. Over Christmas, my dad decided to have cat (the name is still being disputed) spayed. This is how it works it seems... Yesterday, my mom came home and let the cat out, went into the house and waited to cat to join her at the window. Cat normally comes in through the window. Cat doesn't show up for several minutes and my mom actually got concerned about this. I'm not sure I would have to be honest with you. Mom goes out the the garage, and there is cat stuck under the garage door. With a broken spine. Shockingly, if you knew my family and they way we used conduct this sort of "business," my dad took cat to the vet to get an X-ray. But it's not looking good for Miracle Cat.

3 words: NO MORE POTATOES!

2009-01-07T00:49:00.000-08:00

I love, really love, potatoes! And I have been trying to loose a little weight. I've been kind of watching what I eat, but more importantly, I exercise at night til I don't think there is any sweat left in me! I decided to do a little research, calories in, calories out... to see just how great I did today. I was really excited, til I realized I ate like 1000 calories(maybe even more)in stinkin' potatoes!! I really had no idea. I think I audibly gasped when I read that. So heed this warning: don't eat the potatoes. I could have eaten a salad and the ENTIRE bottle of salad dressing and been in better shape than this. And just to add on here... as far as my researching went... I realized that I'm actually considered underweight for my heigth, but IMO I could shed a few. But I have had 4 wonderful babies and they really got me out of shape. So I really just need to tone up. I guess I need to go back to high school and college days when I was running alot more (3-8 miles a day). It's been a long time since I could even dream of doing that!

And this has nothing to do with potatoes.. but I have a smell in this house that is going to kill me and I CAN blame it on R. He decided to dump the trash... that's an a-okay thing to do, but it's not a-okay to carry the bag through the living room, very unneccessarily I might add since the garbage can is right out the back door, and dripped chicken or something icky all over the carpet. Just so he could turn off my Scensty candle warmer thing (that makes things smell good) that he hates and is just positive that it is going to burn us up while we sleep. Now the Scensty thing is back on, and not working well.

My life is back to being ruled by soccer...

2009-01-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

So we had our first weekend of games. I must say that the 6 week break was nice, but it was also fun to see the girls back in the game. I never would have dreamed that I could enjoy watching so much soccer, but when you watch it 5 times a week... then you start to apprecitate their improvements. So we're doing indoor now, and its fun to watch. There's no out of bounds so you just kick the ball into the wall and play on it, there is shoving into the walls, subing is on the fly (just running in and out w/ out stopping), the field is about double what they are used to, and there is a 1 minute (yes! 1 minute!!) half time to regroup! (I would so love to play this way!!) Our team has 2 subs, if they show up. Our first game was Sat. The team we played was an upper bracket. Supposedly all the teams that we are playing are upper bracket, meaning better, but you'll see why I question this in a minute. So the Sat. game, we found out these girls played the fall indoor session, plus they've been practicing 3 times a week since the fall season ended. We just started practice back up last week. Needless to say.. They beat us... 9-3. I could have been much worse. We had 1 sub and a new girl... that's always weird. We had another game on Sun. This was a different story. The girls came in thinking they were going to get killed again. There was no sub this time so everyone had to play the whole game. We won this one. The score depended on who you talked to. It was 20-2 or 20-3 or 19-2. Does it really matter at this point? I'm not sure, but it does to some certain litle girls. By the end of the game, our team had pulled one player, the other team had added a player and our defenders were playing as forwards and forwards as defenders. And they still couldn't stop them. Everyone made a goal too. That's always fun. Briyanna almost scored from the half line again. I actually felt bad. You know I love winning, but when the girls are in the lobby crying when your leaving, you feel a little bad about it. I really hate to see what the team on Sat is going to do to them.
And the best part... I had my best gossip buddy sitting next to me! Maybe that's why I enjoy it so much!! I missed not having that for 6 weeks!

New Years Resolutions??

2009-01-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

I hate New Years resolutions. So why do I make them every year? They're just a start of starting point for failure. I wanted to stop drinking coffee. I had made that decision a couple of months aog. But I quit in November/ December. Not that I won't drink cofee when I go to a coffee shop. I just don't drink 3 24 oz Strawberry Hazelnut Mochas a day. They were making me sick, not to mention the cost and the HUGE amount of calories. I got tired of being sick so I stopped. SO I don't get to add that to my list, but wish I could have since I succeeded! So this year, I have to make my standard list. #1 I need to loose 40 lbs. I want to by June! Wish me luck! I *might* keep you posted on this. I actually already started and have lost my first 5 lbs. #2. Read through the Bible again this year. That's always a fun one to try. I've only succeeded a few times. 2008 wasn't one of them. #3 I want to work on being kinder. So when I see someone I know, I want to be sure and go up to them and say "Hey!" I'm pretty good at trying to ignore people. So if I ignore you in public... call me out on it! #4 Be a funner mom! (is that correct grammar... doesn't look right) So I know that I just an absolute blast... maybe not. I just want to be a fun mom, cuz I know sometimes I'm not. #5 I will not, will not, will not coach soccer this year. Remind me of this when they try to guilt me into it this spring. Life's alot easier when I don't have that on my plate, no matter how much I enjoy it. Now... I'm just counting down to failure!

Happy New Years!

2009-01-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures from our New Years Eve party. This is the first year that we went somewhere other than my side of the family's for New Years. Since we spent Christmas up in McCall my family this seemed very fair, beside the kids LOVE to play with each other. So we loaded up and invaded Rob's brother's house... even though he wasn't there! His wife, Lisa, was though! Jeramy had to work. We ate til we were stuffed and played Canasta and Spades- even though we didn't know the rules for either game well- til 3 in the morning. The kids slept in til noon today. I woke up early as usual.

Most of the cousins. Kayden and Sean were asleep.

Me! Playin' cards.

All of us playing cards- Lisa, Rob's parents- Mary Jo and Tim, and me.

Rob bonding with nephew Kayden. K wasn't feeling too good.

Rob got ahold of the camera if you can't tell!

Neighbors, Shneighbors...

2008-12-30T19:28:00.000-08:00

We have this one neighbor that we can not get along with at all and in my opinion, it escalated tonight. It all stems back about 3 years. Our kids all got along great and everything was fine and dandy. Then one fine summer day, their cow dog got loose and was in our backyard and Ethan was back there and tried to get him out. Well, this dog bit him in the crotch. When I realized something was going on, Ethan was laying in the back yard, screaming, and this dog had him cornered and baring it's teeth, and then it turned on me and tried to lunge at me. I told the neighbor boy to get his dog now or I was going to kill it. Long story short... the police came, took the dog and exterminated it to rule out rabies. And that was about it. Until this neighbor gets another cow dog and a beagle. Now the new cow dog, not a bad dog. The beagle... that is another story. I have to digress a moment though... because that's the part that make the story even crazier. A little history: #1- The neighbor is on the sex offender list and I kind of think that he thinks we are picking on him for this reason... not true. #2- 2 summers ago we were at a family reunion and in walk our "dog neighbors." Wow... we're related... great! To think we thought about sueing them over the dog bite! So to continue... This stinkin' beagle will be the death of Rob. It doesn't bother me so much. But it howls ALL the TIME and it gets out quite often and we catch it in the back yard. One time it cornered Berlyn on the front porch and howled at her to the point she peed her pants. She was barely 3. Rob talked to the shneighbor about it, and all he said was that the beagle wouldn't hurt a flea. Tell that to a 3 year old. I would say that Rob goes over once a day and says, "Uhhh... your dog's howling." And he always says he knows but doesn't do a thing about it. So this morning, I have to take Ethan to the church for a tubing outing and I see the shneighbor man and his 3 kids standing out at the side walk, just standing there. And as I leave the subdivision, there is that beagle at the front house... digging up a flower bed. I made a comment to Ethan that I wasn't going to tell his dad because it would just make him mad. I drop him off, come home and the dog is across the street on the sidewalk across from our house. I just ignore the dog, always. I don't really care about it. But I can hear the dog following me, the oldest son is chasing the dog and shneighbor is telling his son to get the dog. The dog followed me all the way to the door. Many hours later I caved and told Rob... just because the dog came up in conversation. This evening, once again, the dog was howling. And of course Rob had to do his whole, "Uhhh... your dog's howling" routine. And then he relayed the morning events to the shneighbor and he said it wasn't his dog, he wasn't home all day. Another long story short, he told Rob I was lying......... yeah, now I'm mad. And he told Rob that the dog howls all the time because my kids knock on the fence on the way home from school. #1- Shneighbor is not home at that time. #2- Ethan? maybe. The girls? no! Ethan rides the bus home. #3- It's Christmas break! Explain that one, shneighbor! #4- Do my girls now walk home from school at 9p.m. when the dog does most of it's howling?? Anyhow, I was going to stay out of this but this guy just threw down the gauntlet. Call me a liar...

There are still a few honest people out there...

2008-12-29T18:50:00.001-08:00

I had a completely freak-out moment that I think I handled quite well. Briyanna and I had to do a little shopping at Fred Meyer. I HATE going there... just because it across town and somewhat over priced. Anyhow, we got the 3 things we needed and went back home. About 30 minutes after we get home, Briyanna calmly tells me that she can't find her cell phone. So we call it and check in the van, the bedroom, outside. It is no where. So I'm kinda pissed but I think I did a pretty good job of being nonchalant about it. I really didn't want to go back to Fred Meyer. I didn't have gas, and once again, it is clear across town! Well, when Briyanna starts to cry, I normally have compassion because she does it so rarely. She literally has to be hurt bad or REALLY upset. I think the last time I saw her cry real good was when she got her head cracked open like an egg by a rock a year ago. So she was really crying. I gave in and drove back to that stupid store. I was irritated enough that I let her look around for a bit by herself, but then compassionate mom kicked in again. So I got out and looked around to. While we were in there my phone rang and it came up as 'BRIYANNA' and I just figured that I drove all the way down to that store and a kid had found it at home. But it was a man I didn't recognize, standing in the jewelry section call me. I was so glad. It's a trac phone and it's attached to my debit card and every 60 minutes used it pulls out $10. I was just imagining diaster. I was giving her til 9 to find that phone and then I was cancelling it. I'm so thankful for honest people.

A couple Christmas pictures...

2008-12-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

Chrsitmas with THE Crank!

2008-12-26T13:23:00.001-08:00

Without going into too many details, I had a pretty miserable Christmas. I was really excited about our plans... going to McCall and just vegging. BUT... there are 5 things that I forgot to factor in.
#1. Rob hates Christmas.
#2. Rob hates my family.
#3. My family hates Rob.
#4. My mom is a control freak.
#5. I don't like to be told what to do...by ANYONE!

So those 5 things all thrown together = a disaster. I'm glad to be home. I think I will lock myself in a bathroom away from everyone for the next month. I'm extremely irritated w/ several people right now. Hope New Year's goes a little better.

Wanna talk music anyone?

2008-12-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

I'm making scrapbooks for each of my kids that's all about their dear mother...ME! so I was laying in bed thinking about my favorite songs- EVER... and I really did think that I could narrow it down to my top 3 songs ever. No..no, that didn't quite do it. How 'bout 5? Naw, I have a few more than that. 10? Nope, that doesn't cut it either. I finally narrowed it down to my top 72 songs. So if you don't know me really well, (wait, I just changed that to 75~ nice round #) then you don't realize how much I love music and I felt it needed to be added in the scrapbook. My life revolves around it. I sing non-stop, much to my families irritation, play piano and picking up the guitar. I just love music. When I was little (I love saying that now that I'm big!!), I had 2 friends that I would go to concerts with all the time. I've been to at least 30 concerts, some good and some bad. I own hundreds of CDs. And now that I have Youtube.... I'm in heaven! I know all of the lyrics to every song on my list. That is my requirement!

So here it goes, in no particular order. Songs w/ the * beside have special meanings or memories. And of course, I may have to explain myself on some of them, so bear w/ me!

*1. Lamentation~~Leah Andreone....great song! I listen to it when I'm depressed.
2. Strawberry Fields Forever~~ The Beatles...I actually like the "Across the Universe" version alot better. Definitely in my top 5 songs ever.
*3. Paint it Black~~ Rolling Stone... In my top 3. Maybe even #1
*4. Hurt~~ Nine Inch Nails AND Johnny Cash... Another of my top 5. I can't chose which version I like better, but I think I might lean towards NIN
5. Hey Jude~~ Beatles... Another I like "Across the universe" version better. also in top 5
*6. Incomplete~~ Backstreet Boys... Good song. I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring here and just say right now that I think that AJ is the best singer...and hot. He's got the tattoos. I can't help it. How old am I??
7. Stay~~ Lisa Loeb
8. Smells Like Teen Spirit~~ Nirvana
9. She's Gone~~ Steelheart... If you have never heard this song, you have to listen. I think it is amazing.. and that note he hits... WOW! You will know it when you hear it.
10. My Savior, My God~~ Aaron Shust
11. Drive~~ Incubus... Now playing on my phone. In my top 10
12. You are Holy (Prince of Peace)~~ Michael W. Smith
*13. Creep~~ Stone Temple Pilots... Used to listen to this song for hours on end in college when I was depressed. I think my roommate thought I was suicidal.
14. I Can't Hate You Anymore~~ Nick Lachey
15. In Christ Alone
16. Mercy~~ Duffy
17. Poison~~ Alice Cooper Alright... I know! This is a nasty song and an even nastier video, but it's part of my past. And I love it!
18. Dr. Feelgood~~ Motley Crue... and yes, I feel guilty when I hear my kids singing this song, but at the same time i realize that they are kids after my own heart!
19. Adonai~~ Avalon
20. Fly to the Angels~~ Slaughter
*21. Grey Clouds~~ Dakota Motor Company... Aww.. the memories. one of my favorite concerts
*22. Jesus Freak~~ DC Talk... another great concert-- actually fabulous since Kevin jumped on my head in the mosh pit!! Haha... I'm such a nerd!
23. She Wants to Move~~ N.E.R.D.... A dumb song, even dumber video but it makes me want to dance... if only I could!
24. What Goes Around ~~ Justin Timberlake... so true...
*25. I Remember You~~ Skidrow... Definitely a top 3 song. The only reason I started playing guitar. I almost started to hate this song when I saw Skidrow in concert. Absolute scariest night of my life ever (that's another story). Plus Seb Bach was so high on something he couldn't sing.
26. Only Time Will Tell~~ Nelson... sigh... Some of you will understand that!
27. Our Song~~ Taylor Swift
*28. Knees to the Earth~~ Watermark... WOW! one of my favorite worship songs. It used to move me to tears.
29. Sexy Back~~ Justin Timberlake
30. Kick Start My Heart~~ Motley Crue
*31. I Saw Red~~ Warrant... One of their lesser known song, but their best- IMO
32. House of Fire~~ Alice Cooper... I had to throw in the other nasty A.C. song. Just as bad as the first.
*33. Slipped Away~~ Avril Lavigne... So I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE everything by A.L. so it would be redundant to list every song she has so I'm just listing my absolute favorites. I do prefer her angrier stuff though. Her newer stuff is a little to girly for me.
*34. Complicated~~ Avril
35. Girlfriend~~ Avril
36. My Happy Ending~~ Avril
*37. Nobody's Home~~ Avril... I love this video
38. Don't Tell Me~~ Avril
39. 18 and Life~~ Skidrow
*40. What Hurts the Most~~ Rascal Flatts... The one and only country song
41.Consume Me~~ DC TALK
*42. Heartbreak Station~~ Cinderella... I swear... I can't even begin to say what this song meant to me when I was in high school
*43. After the Rain~~ Nelson... sigh... again... my favorite concert ever... 3rd row floor. I still have the guitar pick they threw
44. Patience~~ Guns n Roses
45. You Give Love a Bad Name~~ Bon Jovi
46. Signs~~ Tesla... another fun concert
*47. Praise You in this Storm~~ Casting Crowns... makes me cry EVERY single time I listen to this song...it was played at a dear friend's funeral who committed suicide. So, so good for us here on earth.
48. Since U Been Gone~~ Kelly Clarkson
*49. Youth Gone Wild~~ Skidrow
*50. I Wish We'd All Been Ready~~ DC Talk
51. Every Rose has it's Thorn~~ Poison
52. Rebirth~~ Skillet
53. The Kill~~ 30 Seconds to Mars... I really like their acoustic version of this song is better, but I'll take either...not mention how hot Jared Leto is.
54. What if I Stumble~~ DC Talk
*55. More Than Words~~ Extreme... One of my top picks. This song has more meaning than anyone can begin to imagine. My parents passed this fabulous gene to me that doesn't allow me to audibly tell people that I love them. Nice, huh? Anyhow, this song made me realize they did tell me that they loved me by their actions. still chokes me up a little. and I realize that it was a love ballad between couples but you take things how you need them when you need them. Oh! and ah-hem... Nuno Bettencourt... I will leave it at that.
56. Never Again~~ Kelly Clarkson
57. Quicksand Jesus~~ Skidrow... another not good song, but I feel in love w/ it, good gravy, can that man sing or what?
58. Sweet Child O' Mine~~ Guns n Roses
*59. Let it Rain~~ Michael W. Smith
*60. Be Thou My Vision... My all-time favorite hymn. I want this song played at my funeral just so everyone knows. And in case something happens to me soon... remind Rob. I'm sure he has forgotten I said this.
61.No Air~~ Jordan Sparks
62. I'll Be There For You~~ Bon Jovi
63. Here I Am to Worship
64. While Shepherds Kept Their Flocks By Night... my favorite Christmas song
65. Home Sweet Home~~ Motley Crue
66. You are my All in ALL
*67. My Jesus, I love Thee... reminds me of my choir teacher that was murdered. She taught the whole school sign language for this song so her deaf parents could "hear" it
68. Behind These Hazel Eyes~~ Kelly Clarkson
69. Beautiful Savior~~ Casting Crowns... yep... a really good one if you need a reminder of how great our God really is
70. Wasted Time~~ Skidrow
71. If I Fell (in love w/you)~~ Beatles... Once again, like the across the universe version better
72. While my guitar gently weeps~~ Beatles (see above statement)
73. I Wanna Hold your Hand~~ Beatles (see above statement)
74. What's left of Me~~ Nick Lachey
75. Me and You~~ Cassie

Did I miss any? Feel free to add your favorites. I know I missed some good ones out there.

edit:: I forgot one!!!! Canon in D... piano version. Simple and beautiful. I really wanted to walk down the aisle to this song, but it was yet another thing that I didn't get my way with at my own wedding.

You knows it bad when you can hear it in the garage!

2008-12-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

Never have I been more proud of my son than today when he farted in the living room and his dad came into the house from the garage and asked if that was a real one... Okay, so I can't help but laugh, BUT.... this is what I get to ride up to McCall with tomorrow. Wow! I am one lucky woman! I hope I get a gas mask in my stocking for the ride home.

The books have fallen

2008-12-11T23:19:00.000-08:00

This past week has been a complete frustration for me. I'm not sure if I'm PMSing or what. I don't think that I normally do that (DH may not agree w/ that) so I'm pretty sure it's not that, but I have been a mess. I've made stupid actions on several things. And then, this is what set me off, I have a few "friends" that really took advantage of me in the last 2 weeks. And family members have hurt my feelings. The list could go on. But here I am all irritated about one thing, then something else happens... It's like having a large book, then someone putting another on top and this happening until the books to heavy to carry any more and they come crashing down. And that is how I feel. So now I have a pile of books that I have to clean up. And I don't want to. I just want them to lie there on the ground. I'm going to watch them lie there. And I don't care. I have alot of work to do and I've been so in the dumps today that sat around reading and playing the guitar til I had blisters. Both of those seem to sooth me. And my wonderful time of evenings at home is coming to a screeching halt! Briyanna starts soccer up here in a few weeks so it's back to soccering 3-4 nights (maybe more) a week. I know I am complaining about this. I hate it, BUT! it has improved her game so much this fall. She was good before, but now she's really good. So I'm going to live with it. But I'm not sure that I could handle all of my kids in this kind of program. I'm actually looking forward to summer break already!

Finally..

2008-12-11T22:55:00.000-08:00

I finished... life can go on!

In the Twilight Zone

2008-12-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Not the do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do kind. I can't put down the Twilight Books. I have had my nose stuck in any one of the books for the last week and I'm just now starting the 4th book. So yeah, you found me out. I am a super (and I mean SUPER) slow reader! It is so frustrating. But I can't skim a page and get the jist of it. I have to read every single word (sometimes twice)! I just want to make sure I got the whole concept of what I'm reading! So that said... like I said, I'm just nowstarting the fourth book. Actually, I bought it this morning and I'm starting it tonight... hopefully done by Wed. I had so much to do last week, including fill orders (!!), that I have have put off, ignored, forgotten, all because I have found a new book series to be in love with. And now that I have a face for Edward Cullens... do you blame me??

So last night, I'm sitting on the couch, reading of course, and decided to take a bath because I'm freezing. Now please don't get a visual here, but as I undress I am literally covered from neck to knees with some kind of bug bite, about 50 of 'em. And these are big bites, like the size of my thumb nail. I was thinking spiders because I've seen them moving in for the winter. But Rob reminded me that I had been cuddling with the stray cat the day before. So be it fleas or be it spiders... I itch like crazy!!

Blah, blah, blah...

2008-12-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

That's how I feel... mentally, physically... I haven't posted anything in what feels like forever because I just feel like crap. So I will go back a few weeks...
The weekend before Thanksgiving, we went over to my grandma's house and re-roofed her house. It was cold, snowy, not to mention, the day that BSU played. I have not worked that hard in years. I ripped off shingles, laid tar paper, ripped up old boards and nailed on shingles. 3 large blisters, a hole in my hand from setting my hand on a hidden nail, 2 HUGE bruises on my leg and knee from the crowbar and 3 days later... we finished! I can mark that one off my list of things to do before I die... even though it was never on there to begin with.

And then on Wednesday, Rob came down with a cold. I got it on Friday, Briyanna and Berlyn on Saturday. It sucks. I am so miserable!

Sunday had to be my worst day by far. I just laid on the couch in misery. Rob got a call from our friend up at the church camp we have worked with for a few years. A young man that we worked with died over the weekend in a tragic accident at Celebration Park. It has been all over the news channels and newspapers. So as I sat there on the couch feeling sorry for myself, it felt like a large grey cloud rolled over me. It is still numbing. Rob just took him to a board meeting, a month ago today. And everytime I flip through the numbers in my phone, I run across his phone number. And all I can think is... He's dead! Everytime someone dies that I don't think should, it brings me back to reality! We are all so fragile! Hold the ones you love a little closer because you may never see them again... or they may never see you again.

Words I HATE with a passion...

2008-11-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

For as long as I can remember, I have had a short list of words that I absolutely can't stand. I get the heebie jeebies every time I hear them. You know, kind that makes your neck curl, your stomach churn, your face scrunch up! I had a room mate that knew me better than any one else on this earth and she found a card that had a list of icky sounding words. It was perfect! 3 of the 5 words were on my list! So the next time you see me, you'd better not use these words in any way, shape or form:
1. GIZZARD (yet lizard doesn't bother me!)
2. PANTS (I don't know why but I hate it. You repeat it 10 times and then tell me it's not a weird word.)
3. LOLLYGAG
4. SOCKS
5. CHEESE
6. TONGUE (I also hate to hear people chew. I think this word may have something to do w/ it.)
7. LANYARD (Reminds me of gizzard. I think that it's that drawl when spoken that gets me.)
8. BARNACLE (Need I say more??)
Now I'll all freaked out because I thought of my 7 least favorite words ever uttered for the last 5 minutes!

Yum-O!!

2008-11-09T16:37:00.001-08:00

Wow! These were so good that I had to take a picture of them! Brownies w/ Fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting. I have to admit that I got the recipe off Allrecipes.com and I have been dying to try them for several days now. I finally did it and they were well worth the wait. I ate one and there are so sweet that I feel like I'm gonna puke! As Rachel Ray would say: "Yum-O!!"

Berlyn as Courtney's flowergirl (see post below!)

2008-11-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

Berlyn as Courtney's flowergirl.

Berlyn and the matching cake!

Courtney and her flower girls.

I made the veil!!

Courtney's adorable poka-dot cake. I love it!

I will NOT conform!!

2008-11-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

So this may be completely ridiculous, but I absolutely refuse to quit using my 35 mm camera. I love my cheap little camera. I have a Canon Sure shot w/ a 70 zoom. This is actually my second of this camera because I loved the first so much. My first camera endured a tragic mishap while we were camping several years back. No, it is NOT water proof if left in a camp chair when a crazy downpour occurs! So I found the exact same camera on ebay for less than $10 right before Berlyn was born. I'm seriously thinking about getting each of my kids one off ebay for Christmas, or maybe birthdays. Anyhow, has anyone tried to buy 35 mm film lately?? I looked all over and finally found the film, very well hidden! And there is only about a 2 ft. x 2 ft. area of film now! I wonder how long they let me live in the 20th century. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. They've done away with vhs movies (which I would pick any day over DVDs), tape cassettes, polariod film and our beloved 8 tracks! I bought a cool (and really old) polaroid camera at a yard sale this spring for less than $1. I thought it would be fun for the kids at their birthday parties. Then I came home to search the internet for film for it.... about $35 for ONE package!! WHAT?!?!?! I threw the camera away. So I still haven't completely gone to a digital camera. We own one. My husband loves it. I use it for the business. But for fun (anything I plan on scrapbooking), I use my faithful 35 mm camera.

So here are a couple of pictures from my cousin's July Wedding, taken, of course, with my faithful 35 mm camera.

Alright... my 2 cents on this election

2008-11-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I'm not going to be one of those people who complains non-stop about the current government. I am not a naturally positive person so this will be a challenge for me. I will NOT be praying for patience in this area because I don't want to be given opportunities to practice it! That said, the elections were a disappointment for me. But Romans 8:28 tells me that we know that for those who love God all things work together for good... and Proverbs 16:4 NKJV) The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom." Not saying that Obama is wicked... just saying the good and the bad are made by God.

So from here on out, I'm looking for the good. And you can call me out on it if you catch me being negative. I can't stand listening to people rag on Bush. I refuse to be one of those. I was at the grocery store a few weeks ago and got a $5 back. All over the back is written "Impeach Bush!!" "He tells nothing but lies." "He lied about the economy!!" etc.. I'm so embarassed by that $5 bill. I've thought about passing it to off to an unsuspecting relative or employees a couple of times, but it still sits in my pocket. I don't want anyone thinking I wrote that! I will not be that person. I solemnly swear that I will never deface the American dollar with "Impeach Obama!" no matter how irritated I am.

Who am I kidding? No one cares what I think! I don't care what anyone else thinks! But I'm going to try really hard not to be pessimsitc about this new administration. Not for anyone out there but my family. I realized just how much my opinions (and attitudes) about just about everything rubs off on my kids. Brenna wrote a note to her second grade teacher on Monday and it says "Mrs. Scott, I love you as a teacher (all in big words) vote for John McCain (small print in the corner)." Does she know why to vote for John McCain? Or for me, it was more why I wasn't voting for Obama. I didn't jump for joy over McCain but Obama scares me (that's the last negative thing!). Kids hear really weird things. One of Briyanna's classmates said that his mom says that Obama likes to kill babies by smashing their heads in with hammers right after they are born. I would really like to know exactly what his mother said to him. I do know his mother so who knows what she said. Hmmm, yeah, I had to explain what he was talking about, the terms, the procedure. That was a fun discussion. But at least she knows why I don't agree with abortion. So now, I will try to be less publicly biased. I can think whatever I want but I don't need to wear all of my opinions like a badge on my sleeve. My kids can learn from my example instead of my words. Proverbs 22:6 "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

I'm taking a 30 minute break!

2008-11-05T20:46:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I have an issue numbers. I've always had an issue with numbers. It's quite crazy. I always think that I skip the number 3 and 8 when I'm counting when in fact I know darn well that I didn't skip 3 and 8. But that doesn't matter. I have to start over at the beginning and count again because it just wouldn't be fair to number 3 and number 8 if I had actually skipped them. I've been doing that for as long as I can remember. Anyways, today has been a particularly annoying number day.
I woke up and instantly the number 30 stuck out in my mind.
I knew then that it would be a 30 day! All day long, I have 30 chores to do.
I had to work in my living room for 30 minutes, fold 30 pieces of clothes, go through 30 scraps of fabric, pick up 30 things in my girl's room, wash 30 dishes, put away 30 clean dishes....
the cycle can go on and on and did go on and on! And to make things worse, I'm "spring cleaning" in November so I have lots of 30 sets of things that I can do. I even took a 30 minute nap this afternoon to get a break from it all. I wonder what number curse I will have tomorrow!

My New Favroite Song..

2008-11-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

It will be different by Friday, but for now....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4loBTNvxXiY

Lit Up Pumpkins

2008-11-02T19:58:00.000-08:00

Halloween: BERLYN and her PUMPKIN

2008-11-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

Berlyn as Ariel (a.k.a. The Little Mermaid) and her pumpkin. She researched for serveral minutes (that's pretty good for a 4-year old) and picked out this pumpkin design.

Halloween: BRENNA and her PUMPKIN

2008-11-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Brenna as a sick girl.... or as a girl that just got out of bed. Depended on what part of the night you asked her!! And her pumpkin is the classic face.

Halloween: BRIYANNA and her PUMPKIN

2008-11-02T19:26:00.001-08:00

Here is Briyanna, also a hippie. This picture just doesn't do the outfit justice. These pants used to be a dress that my mom made!! Who needs reflective strips on their clothing when they go trick or treating w/ Briyanna?? And her pumpkin... another original... Poke-a-dots. Looks cool lit up!

Halloween: ETHAN and his PUMPKIN

2008-11-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

Ethan as the hippie, once again, and his pumpkin- "Maple Leaves" made with cookie cutters.

I am a LIAR!

2008-10-30T06:01:00.000-07:00

Briyanna's soccer coach made a liar out me, not once, but twice! First off, our game on Tuesday night (the 28th) was cancelled. That was great. I really didn't have the time for that game anyways. Then, I get a call on Monday. We were invited to a tournament this weekend. So we play twice on Saturday and once on Sunday. So yes, I did lie, accidentally, and soccer is NOT over!! But... Briyanna finally got to go to Awana's yesterday. She'll make about 8 meetings this year!

A New Family Picture

2008-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

My mom gave me this picture. My dad's cousin from California (or maybe Nevada) took it and sent it to her. Anyhow, I think it is a great picture... of me at least. Normally I don't take a decent picture, but this one was bad, except for one major problem... do you see it? I'll give you a second to find it. Alright, time's up! Ethan is missing! It took me about 5 minutes to see it!

Just one more post for today!

2008-10-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

HIPPIE DAY AT CHURCH UPDATE: Ethan did indeed win his age division for the contest. He fittingly won a lava lamp!

CrAzY HaIr DaY

2008-10-28T19:52:00.001-07:00

Crazy Hair Day for school. Brenna and Briyanna:

I see the light

2008-10-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that we have finally reached the end of the busy season... (I say that just as we sell a gown in the store!). So now we have 2 more things instead of 1 thing! Last night, we had about 50 things to ship. But thanks to lots of hard work and lots of help from friends and family through out the whole month, we have stayed caught up. That is unbelievable. I think I might sit down and watch TV tomorrow, remove the "sweatshop" out of my living room or clean my bathrooms! Or make my own kid's costumes!

Ethan's hippie day @ church

2008-10-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ethan is wear part of Briyanna's halloween costume, so I have to give her some credit here, but I have to tell you all about this outfit. I went to Savers and loaded up my cart with... well, crap! I got 4 ties from who knows when, a belt that is absolute perfection... when it comes to this outfit, the headband/ scarf, the glasses, a sliced stone medalion and the vest. The vest was a womens vest, so I cut it down and stitched it all back up to make it a little kid's size. Then I bought the fringe and ric-rac at Walmart to finish it. Then Ethan's pants... what can I say?? Those are great! I cut then up the outsides and half-way up the leg on the inside and stitched the hideous ties in. It's the closest to bell bottoms that I could get. The shirt was done with food coloring and a spray bottle. Much cheaper than a real tie-dye job! I stitched ric-rac around the sleeves and pom-poms around the neck. Oh! I almost forgot. Last but not least... the shoes. These are actual vintage Nikes from the 70's that were my mom's! And!! They fit him perfectly! So there is a contest at our church this evening so I will keep you posted on how he does.

2008-10-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

2008-10-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

Woot! Woot! Soccer is over... for a few weeks!

2008-10-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

Yep, soccer is finally over as of this morning! Briyanna's team played Vallivue and won.. 4-1. They played 9 games this fall and won 7 of them. They even beat the #1 team... I finally took a couple of pictures this game. And I am now going to attempt to post them.

Computer geek?

2008-10-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking about just how long each day I spend on this computer. Way more than I really like. Between answering emails, listing items, printing shipping labels, etc., I spend at least 4 hours just doing those blah blah things. And then I just goof around for a few hours. WoW! I need something constructive to do. I just might need to get back into scrapbooking to get away from the computer screen for a little while.....

My first time....

2008-10-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

Alright, don't get ahead of yourself!! This is MY FIRST BLOG!! I'm excited, yet nervous! Who will read my blog? Who really cares?? Oh well... it just may be the place I need to vent my thoughts and frustrations.
So if you actually know me, you know that this is my crazy, busy time of year that stresses me out. Everybody and everything bothers me!! Yes, I am a nut job until Nov. 1! 8 days and counting!! Not only am I sewing like a mad woman, soccer is in full swing. Thank goodness only one kid this year! But that too ends here soon. Oct 28th (next Tuesday) is the last day for that too. (I can't wait!!) I can't wait to sit in my house on most evenings and be a normal family again. So I'm going to close this til next time. Hopefully it won't be 8 days from now... but it just might be!