A Peek Into Our Nest

Autism Walk

2011-05-08T14:59:00.001-05:00

Friday and Saturday was our school’s first Step Up for Autism Fun Run/Walk. On Friday, we had a 1 mile family walk for parents to walk around the track with their children. Saturday, there was a 5K Fun Run/Walk. Saturday started out with lots of rain and lightning, but cleared up before the 5K started. We were so thankful. I think our turnout would have been even bigger had it not started out raining.

I loved being on a committee where we had such a variety of strengths that everything came together because of all the talents the group possessed. Especially those who were able to get businesses to sponsor the cost of all the t-shirts. The event raised over $7,000 that will go toward the purchase of new sensory equipment and items for our students with autism. They will also use some of the money to create a lending library for parents.

Cole kept shying away from the camera, but here he is with his friend and our Superintendent.

Lisa, a fellow Kdg. teacher, me and Betsy our Secretary.

Our wonderful committee after a hot day Friday outside.

Even our mascot isn’t immune to a leg cramp. :

Cole had the important job of holding the finish line sign on Saturday.

I cannot wait for this event next year!

Chair stealing and fish healing

2011-03-21T22:54:00.001-05:00

After school today, I had to run to Walgreen’s to pick up a steroid pack for my first poison ivy rash of 2011. Not fun! I have it on my eyes, cheeks, neck, lips, ears, arms and tummy. I feel like an itchapotamus! However, our fence row is looking better and I’m so thankful that my eyes didn’t swell shut this time. I’m suppose to do something with Kim from Helping Me Up tomorrow, but I’m not sure she will want to be seen with me.

I’m so thankful that there is medicine that gives me quick relief in the early stages of itchiness. I have no self-control when it comes to itchiness. I barely got out of the Walgreens parking lot before I was popping

When Cole and I got home, we ate dinner quickly and took Audrey outside to play. She wanted to wear her pajama pants and ladybug boots. She immediately headed straight for the mud puddles.

We took a walk to the pond and found an almost dead grass carp. We just had the pond stocked last summer, so it was nice to see such a long fish, just not in this condition. John tried throwing it into deeper water, but it kept coming back to this spot. It made Cole sad that it was likely going to die, so he found a stick and tried to get it to swim back to the deeper water, but it wouldn’t.

On the way back to the house, Cole broke out the metal detector. He loves trying to find things around the fields. He’s found several neat, rusty, old farm machinery pieces, but no big treasure yet.

Cole finally let me take a few pictures of him. When he got tired of it, he got silly.

After bubble blowing, Audrey chased Cole down to tell him a secret.

I love this picture!

It ended in her running off to her chair in fear. I’m not sure I want to know what she told him. However, when she got to her chair, this is what she found.

She wasn’t thrilled because every time she got out of her chair tonight, our dog, Copper, would jump in it and steal it away from her. At one point, Audrey was leaning forward in her chair and the dog jumped up between her back and the chair and sat there while Audrey held the cat. There is barely enough room for Audrey in the chair, so seeing all three of them in the chair was hilarious.

I am so loving this weather! I hope it sticks around for awhile before it starts getting hot. We left the windows open in the bedroom all night last night and it was so comfy to wake up to this morning.

Spring Break Recap

2011-03-20T13:28:00.000-05:00

Our Spring Break has been filled with so much fun I don’t want it to end! I have truly enjoyed this time with my family. It allowed me to do lots of fun things with the kiddos, actually talk with my hubby for more than two minutes, and the time to get a few things done around the house. I also got to spend time with my grandmas, my parents and my mother-in-law and a good day of scrapbooking with friends. You can’t ask for much more!

On Wednesday, I went with my family and my mother-in-law to Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. We had a great time! We bought several packs of vegetable seeds, some onion starts and some dianthus and morning glory flower seeds. We enjoyed walking around the little town and seeing the animals and vintage and antique items. Then, we made a little trip to Springfield. John went to a flea market. The rest of us went to DAV and then we headed to Hobby Lobby and Braum’s.

(Several times on this trip I noticed John and Cole standing the same way or looking very much like each other. I think the first two pictures show this very well.)

On Thursday, Cole, Audrey and I went to my friend Kim’s house to scrapbook. Shelly and her kiddos came, too. The kids had a great time playing inside and out and eating Kim’s brownies and the big girls were able to scrapbook a few pages. Cole & Audrey played hard!

When we got home from Kim’s, we worked out in the field and driveway. Cole was cutting down cedar trees and Audrey and I were cleaning up the fence line in the driveway and at the road. It’s amazing how overgrown things can get.

On Friday, we took it easy. It was super windy outside, so we didn’t work as long as I’d expected us to. John drove his pick-up down to the road so we could throw lots of limbs in it to be burned. He and Cole did all the hard work while I broke the rake and only did about an 1/8 of what I needed to do. We still have a lot of work to do in this area.

Saturday was my Dad’s birthday. We spent the morning at home cleaning up the house and then headed to town to pick up my grandma. We went to three drive-thrus to get everything that everyone wanted for supper and then we headed to my parents house to celebrate. Cole & Audrey absolutely love showing off for my parents and they also like to get rowdy. They were having a great time! Dad decided he wanted a cake, so Mom and I headed to the store to pick up a German chocolate cake. After we ate and visited a bit more, we headed home.

Sunday has definitely been our day of rest so far. I’m still battling a cold that makes me cough every time I lie down. Needless to say, I haven’t gotten much sleep the last week. Plus, with the time change, I seem to be getting up even earlier.

It’s going to be hard to get up tomorrow and get back into our routine. However, each school day gets us one day closer to summertime and I can’t wait to have some more time off with my family!

Our Last Preschool Screening

2011-03-20T12:59:00.001-05:00

Last Tuesday, Audrey had her last Preschool Screening. It was very bittersweet. I remember when Cole use to go and now my last baby is done. Cole affectionately refers to it as ‘Preschool Screaming’.

Although Audrey will not likely go to preschool since she stays home with John, our school offers optional screening to all families who participate in the Parents as Teachers program. So, both of my kiddos have been going to Preschool Screening since they were infants. I think it’s important to know where your child is in relation to other children their age, especially when it’s not based on competition. It has always been important to me to know that my kids have hit their developmental milestones at the appropriate time.

Last year, Audrey was extremely distracted by what all of the other kids were doing and she couldn’t focus when she heard all the bells, kids running around and all of other tests going on. Needless to say, I was nervous about what this year would hold. However, she more than made up for it this time and did an outstanding job! I am so proud of her!

Audreyisms

2011-02-13T21:36:00.002-06:00

Audrey was on a roll with hilarious talk today.

This morning, she came into the living room and crawled up into my lap. She put her arms around my neck
and said, “I love you so much I want to kick myself.”

We went to visit my mom in the hospital today and as we were leaving a medical helicopter was taking off. Cole mentioned something about it and I asked Audrey what it was and she said, “It’s a helicopter. I haven’t seen one of those in years.” Yes, she’s all of 4.

Boppa (my dad) took the kiddos to the hospital cafeteria to eat lunch with him. My kids love going to the hospital cafeteria as much as I enjoy going to Olive Garden. I know it’s weird, but they love it! Cole had pears and pudding since he had already eaten lunch. Audrey had a corn dog, fries and a huge Hiland chocolate milk. When she got back to mom’s room she stuck her belly out, put her hands around the sides and said, “Look at my chocolate milk belly. It’s big!” Since she was wearing a sweater dress, her tummy stuck out like she had a balloon inside it.

Dad took Mom to the hospital last evening. Her blood pressure was dangerously high and she was having trouble breathing along with chest pains. The doctors are checking her out and she will have a stress test tomorrow. I know she isn’t looking forward to it because she gets winded right now going from one place in her room to another. Walking on the treadmill tomorrow is going to be exhausting for her. I hope she does well and gets to go back home soon.

I don’t know where she gets it

2011-01-16T21:11:00.001-06:00

One thing Cole and Audrey have had in common from the time they were big enough to hold a pencil is their love of drawing. Both of them have loved drawing, making creations and giving a little gift of themselves with each piece of artwork. Audrey has chosen to add a little detail to each of her pictures lately by giving us some background about her drawings.

I know you can’t see this one well, but she drew grass, the sun, flowers, a tree and a tree swing.

A snowman

I thought his one was cute. Then, she added, “This is my brother when he was a baby in jail.” I don’t know where she gets this stuff, but it was cute. I thought maybe it was crib or something, but no. The little black dot to the right of ‘Cole’ is the doorknob.

A “generator”

“Cole at school screaming.” The big red circle is his mouth. The black thing on top if his head is a hat. I’ve never received a phone call from his teachers about this, but apparently this is what Audrey thinks is happening.

A flower

Audrey gives each of us about 10 pictures per day. I’m not exaggerating. John keeps each and every piece of paper she gives him. I am a little more selective, but I do look forward to seeing everything she comes up with.

Puffy Paint Paw Prints

2011-01-10T22:37:00.003-06:00

Say that five times fast!

Audrey and I decided to make puffy paint tonight because I have been contemplating trying it out with my Kindergarten students and felt like I should experiment at home first. It is basically equal parts glue and shaving cream.

(A little background before I tell you how mad I was at our dog.)

The last two nights we have been feeling guilty because it’s been so cold outside, so we let our outside dog, Copper, inside. (She’s gotten a little spoiled by all the attention, warm blankets, warm bodies and endless amounts of food and water the kids have bestowed upon her.)

Back to the painting….Audrey and I were on the tablecloth on the kitchen floor painting our puffy snow paint pictures when Copper decided to make her way through the kitchen.

Can you see the evidence she left behind?

She walked through all of our pictures, across the tablecloth and all over the floor before we could stop her. Luckily, the glue/shaving cream mix was only on one paw and it was really easy to clean up. However, I yelled at the dog. It wasn’t pretty. Audrey and Cole laughed and laughed. Then, I laughed, too.

Who’s idea was it to let the dog inside anyway. Oh, right…that was my idea. (Note to self: Don’t act like it was a stupid idea to let the dog in when you suggested it in the first place.)

I wouldn’t trade this time at home with my kiddos for all the money in the world.

Sorry for the blurry pictures. I don’t know which one was moving more, Audrey or Copper.

Audrey made both parts of this picture completely on her own.

If you’re snowed in tomorrow and have no school like us, try your hand at puffy paint right after you decide to let the dog in. You’ll never know how much fun you’re missing if you don’t.

Walking by Faith

2011-01-02T22:24:00.001-06:00

We started our day off at church this morning. One of the things the preacher mentioned was 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” For some reason it resonated with me and when I came home and I was reading more about the verse, I realized that far too many of the decisions I make on a daily basis are by sight and not by faith. I tend to think of bigger things when I consider my walk by faith and not the day-to-day decisions that affect who I am as a Christian.

The ways I react to things my children do or things that my husband says are far different sometimes than the way I tend to regard my religion as a whole. In many ways I do not project my relationship with God, because I react impulsively without thinking about what He would expect of me. Obviously something I need to work on.

Each of us had to fill out a prayer card so we would have someone to add to our daily prayer list. I am glad to have someone to pray for and I’m excited about the thought of someone praying for my family. Cole was asked by the preacher to hand out all the cards and distribute them again. Watching him made me realize he is really becoming a great young man. I’m so proud of him!

After church we went to my mother-in-law’s house again for leftovers. She makes the best food so it’s always a treat to eat with her. Audrey and her baby doll wore matching dresses. She got them as a Christmas gift from my parents. She loved the set! I didn’t get a good picture of her in it though because she wouldn’t slow down for very long.

When we got home, Audrey got out of the van and walked right through the mud where our pool use to be and she slipped and fell. Being the horrible mother I am (remember I’m a huge fan of physical comedy) I was laughing and then I did the same thing, except luckily I didn’t fall. Needless to say our shoes were covered in mud and I know I probably should learn not to laugh because I always end up being laughed at. Cole thought the whole thing was hilarious and made sure he was the first one inside to tell John.

This evening, I gave Audrey a kiss on the forehead and noticed she felt warm. She took her temperature and it was 99.9 degrees. Not high, but not a good sign either. I think she may be getting a cold. Poor thing! A cold rag on her forehead and some Tylenol worked wonders. We have the coolest Vick’s thermometer that shows green, yellow and red after a temp. has been taken to indicate the severity of a temp. After about an hour of having the Tylenol in her system, Audrey took her temp. again and was rejoicing that it was green! Down to 98.9.

For dinner, we ate the easiest and most yummy chicken quesadillas. I can say that because Audrey helped make them. We like to make it super unhealthy by serving it with sour cream. Here’s the recipe in case you’re interested. Chicken Quesadillas

After dinner, Audrey was helping me with the laundry. We always fold it together in my room. I had left to go put away the kitchen towels and when I walked back to the room, this is what I saw. How sweet is that? She was carrying the basket of towels to the laundry room and it was really heavy. We gave her extra kisses for being such a good helper.

It’s now 10:30 and I’m in denial about having to go to school tomorrow. I truly enjoyed my time home with my family and cannot believe our break is over. Cole gets to enjoy the day at home with John and Audrey. The teachers have a Professional Development day. I am really anxious though to hear all the stories my students have about their Christmas break and all the gifts they received.

Let the thrifting begin!

2011-01-02T09:58:00.001-06:00

Being at home for Christmas break has made me realize how much I want to change in our house. Unfortunately, I’m not someone that likes to spend a lot of money. That has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that it allows me the creativity to find new and inexpensive ways to spruce up what I already have with just a few new to me items.

Before we left for town yesterday, we ate lunch at my mother-in-law’s house. We go there every year on New Year’s day for black-eyed peas. I still think they taste like dirt, but it doesn’t keep me from eating a few (3 to be exact) so I won’t be the only one that misses out on good luck and prosperity.

Cole, my mother-in-law & Audrey

Cole, Audrey and me

Audrey sporting the new shirt that her daddy lovingly chose for her. They call it a ‘cat’stronaut.

Cole about to dive into the banana pie if he doesn’t get a second piece.

Begging….Puss in Boots adorable eyes trick style.

Audrey and I had to visit Chick-fil-A before we left town.

We ended up making a trip to a thrift store and Hobby Lobby. I only brought home a few things. I found this ceramic urn marked down to $1.98. The picture doesn’t show the true color. It was a pale shade of sage green. It looked really strange. The top and bottom are both metal.

I used an Elmer’s school glue crackling method to paint the urn. First, I used brown craft paint for my base coat. I only used one coat, as you can see. It doesn’t have to be perfect because it’s just going to be the underneath color that shows through when the paint crackles.

Then, I divided the urn into thirds and brushed on Elmer’s glue. I let it sit for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Then, I painted over the glue (while it was still tacky) with my top coat of ivory craft paint. I used an embossing gun to dry the paint to create the crackle effect. You could probably use a hair dryer if you don’t have an embossing gun.

The color is completely off in this picture because there was so much light streaming in the window, but I ended up putting a plant in the urn and setting it on my computer desk.

I didn’t like the looks of the fern in the white pitcher on top of our piano, so I picked up some new greenery at Hobby Lobby.

I spent about $11 on the different floral stems and dark red bouquet. The price of floral arrangements is crazy! This is my first real floral arrangement. My sister-in-law, Niki, had made one for me for fall, so she showed me a few tricks. Mine is by no means perfect, but it’s better than the fern.

It looks better in real life, but here’s an idea of what it looks like now. We will be giving the piano back to my parents soon, so it should free up a lot of space in our tiny farmhouse.

This is the way we celebrate

2011-01-01T10:35:00.000-06:00

Most of our New Year’s Eve day was spent at home playing, cleaning and just enjoying the fact that we didn’t have much to do.

Audrey and I got her birthday thank-you cards finished. It was great practice for her writing her name and she really enjoyed it. When I made an icky face after licking too many envelopes, she told me she would do it. I think she felt the same way I did about the taste.

After we finished putting away the Christmas decorations, we decided to make a quick run to Wal-Mart. I treated myself to some new Paula Deen cookware with some of my Christmas money. Let’s hope the new pans will make me cook more in 2011 or at least maybe a little better!

When we were in the check-0ut line at Wal-Mart there was a younger man behind us that had two very large bottles of liquor. The cashier finished ringing up my items and said, “These aren’t yours, too, are they?” I looked at her, looked at my cart and my children and told her no because my things probably weren’t nearly as fun as his.

As I was walking to my van it made me think of how my shopping bags were full of food, things for our home, treats for the kids and that I was very happy that although my idea of fun may be completely different than others, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When we got home, we immediately put everything away and pulled out our special treat, a bag of Pepperidge Farms Milano cookies. I’m pretty sure we ate 2/3 of the bag last night. It’s a good thing they are more expensive than I like or we would get them all the time.

Cole played a wii game before we watched a few movies. He likes watching Green Acres of all things. It’s so cute!

Audrey played with her Barbies and her new fairy princess Barbie that she got on sale last night. I love listening to her play with her dolls because she does all these different character voices and she makes her dolls have meaningful conversations. She gets kind of embarrassed when she knows someone is listening.

By 11:00 we are all getting kind of tired. Cole read several books to Audrey and then we all plopped down on the couches to watch Little House on the Prairie and tried to stay awake while John was busy listing ebay auctions. We made it to midnight and John, Cole and Audrey were in bed very shortly thereafter.

Happy New Year!

New Year's Perspective

2010-12-31T09:48:00.001-06:00

I am so excited about the coming year! There are so many things that I will do differently. I find this time of year to be great for reflection and for looking forward. It's almost like we are given a chance to start over and to do better. Although we don't necessarily get to start over, the feelings are somewhat the same to me.

I don't typically make resolutions. I've tried and I rarely succeed. I am more likely to commit myself to something if I tell someone and have to be accountable, but that doesn't seem to work with resolutions. I'm kind of the same way with goals.

This year, I'm taking a step back with my perspective on goal-setting. Instead of just making long-term goals, like I usually do, I'm going to make and set smaller goals and less deadlines for them. That way, if I don't meet my goals exactly when I thought I would, I won't sabotage myself and give up.

One of my biggest short-term goals is to blog more regularly. Although I would love to blog daily, I find that I just don't have the time to do it. So, for my goal to be attainable, I need to set a number to it. My hope is to blog at least three times each week. I know that doesn't sound like much when others do it daily and some multiple times a day, I just don't seem to be able to do it.

While I've been on Christmas break, I was looking back at pictures, scrapbooks and old memories items that I've kept from the kids and I began to realize how much I was forgetting. The pictures and items brought back memories, but not specific details that elicited feelings of being in the moment. Since I have neglected scrapbooking in this phase of my life, my blog needs to be the scrapbook that I can record my thoughts and feelings about my family, my marriage, myself, my religion, my successes and failures, my need to put into words the feelings that I will one day forget.

We have no big plans for New Year's Eve. We are simple in our celebration of a New Year. We find comfort in the thought of just being together and not going out. So, our only plan is to stay home. We hope to make M & M's cookies and watch Netflix movies. We will do silly things and giggle. We will take pictures and clean up messes. We will read books for the millionth time and receive countless pieces of paper that only read MOM, DAD or COLE from Audrey. We will hear about Transformers and computer games. We have all been staying up way too late, so we might actually make it to midnight tonight, but if not, that's okay. I know that I'm happiest when I'm home with my family doing whatever it is that makes each of them happy.

Happy New Year to each of you and may 2011 bring you many blessings, good health and lots of love!

Waiting for Superman

2010-11-03T23:22:00.001-05:00

After school today, a group of over 20 fellow teachers and co-workers went to see the movie Waiting for Superman. The movie was much different than I expected. I was actually pleasantly surprised. Since I don’t like to really get into controversial issues, The whole lottery system for kids getting into charter schools, boarding schools, etc. made me cry. The emotions that the kids were going through like nervousness, anticipation, frustration, etc. were too much. I guess that is a reality that I am unaware of in my small community.

I walked away feeling like we are pretty blessed to live in an area where teachers genuinely care about their students and are willing to try new things to reach the majority of the learners in our schools. Do we succeed 100% of the time, absolutely not. However, I think that we are constantly striving to continually have high expectations from even the lowest of academic learners. It inspired me to be the best teacher for my students.

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Rosewood Farms Christmas 2010

2010-11-03T22:56:00.001-05:00

After school yesterday, we loaded up my van and made several stops to pick up a car load of friends to go to the annual Christmas Open House at Rosewood Farms. I am pretty sure I could live there. It’s such a cute place! Plus, it is a family owned business so you always see the same smiling faces working. Their customer service is excellent. I have even seen them hug customers. How sweet is that?

They don’t allow pictures to be taken inside, so I had to settle for outside pictures. It’s the kind of store you have to go through twice to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

This year was even more fun because John gave me money for my birthday to spend specifically at Rosewood. He’s so sweet!

I got lots of new goodies, but I will have to wait until I start decorating for Christmas to show them.

The best part was going with friends. It has become a yearly tradition. We have now gone together for the last three years. The fun, conversation, shopping, atmosphere, free chocolate, mulled apple cider and caramel mudslide coffee were pretty great, too!

I can’t wait to go again next year!

Trick-or-Treat

2010-11-02T06:54:00.001-05:00

This year it seems like Halloween festivities spanned the entire weekend. Friday we had class parties at school. Saturday, we went to Leah’s to get the kids pictures taken in their costumes and then we picked up pizza before heading to my mother-in-law’s house. We had fun raking leaves and letting the kiddos jump in them. It was totally counterproductive, but Audrey especially had fun! On Sunday, we went to my parents house and went trick-or-treating throughout their neighborhood before heading to my grandma’s. It was a very busy, but fun (and candy) filled weekend!

Cole couldn’t decide what he wanted to be this year. He decided to go as the scariest thing he knew—a politician. :) One lady threatened to put a rock in his candy bag. Others thought it was totally fitting for this year.

Here he is writing his speech. His cards said, “Trick-or-treat or a political speech.” I thought he should say, “Trick-or-treat. I’m Cole and I approve this message.”

I had Audrey’s costume made this year. She was Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. I absolutely love the outfit on her. The dress and pants themselves are cute enough that I think I may have a Christmas dress made for her in the same style.

Date Night

2010-10-31T09:36:00.001-05:00

Since I had to go to school to get ready for Parent-Teacher conferences the night of my birthday, John made plans for us to go out on the weekend. He wanted to surprise me, but I couldn’t handle not knowing, so he finally caved. Since we typically go to two larger nearby towns, he decided we needed a change of pace.

We took the kiddos to my mother-in-law’s house and then headed in a completely different direction.

The kiddos took our pictures before we left.

We ate at a tiny BBQ place. John had made all our plans based on places he found online. He wasn’t thrilled with the Harley-Davidson decor, so we ate outside in a gazebo. It was cool and rainy, but we were dry and it was great to see all the beautiful trees and colorful leaves. We had a little squirrel that was trying to entertain us, as well.

Since no one else was outside with us, we had to take our own picture. :)

Then, we drove around for a little bit before we went to the movie theater. We saw Life as We Know It. It really liked the movie, but I think I cried through half of it.

Afterwards, we headed to a tiny frozen custard place on the square. It was so nice to get out with John and have non-interrupted adult conversation. We realized that we hadn’t actually dated in over two years. Yikes! We definitely need to get out more often, just the two of us. I know a huge part of it is my fault because I feel guilty leaving the kids. However, as they are getting older, I know they are okay. I can leave them and know they are having a great time and they don’t need me for everything. It’s good for them, too.

I can’t wait to go out on our next date soon! I soooo love this man!

Fun with Friends

2010-10-31T09:20:00.001-05:00

A quick trip to Hobby Lobby last week ended with us going not only to Hobby Lobby, but Michael’s Joann’s and Wal-Mart. We took Shelly and two of her kiddos. The kids had so much fun and it was really nice to catch up with Shelly. Luckily, my kids aren’t mortified that I take pictures of them in the store.

Since Luke and Audrey were little, we have taken pictures of the two of them together in hopes that one day they would get married.

This cart was super tiny, but Audrey insisted on sitting in the back. I’m not quite sure it was the fit she was expecting.

Olivia loved this dress.

By this point, Audrey was exhausted!

We love to have fun!

Labor Day Weekend 2010

2010-09-06T00:04:00.001-05:00

This weekend has been wonderful! Despite the fact that I have been sick almost half the time, I have managed to get things done around the house and have some wonderful quality time with my family.

On Friday, I got home later than usual from school and I wasn’t feeling well, so John watched the kiddos and I took a nap and slept for several hours. It was nice to wake up feeling halfway decent.

Saturday, I cleaned out my side of the garage. I’m not quite finished, but I was in complete simplify mode. John will have to haul off several truck loads of stuff for me, but it was so nice to begin making a dent. I would like to go through all my seasonal decoration bins sometime soon, too. I may be able to park in the garage again soon! :)

While I worked in and out of the garage, the kids played outside. Cole worked on pricing toys for Granny’s yard sale and Audrey kept herself busy playing with the cats and dog and rummaging through all of Cole’s old toys. John also cleaned off the bouncy spring horse for her to play on. It was cute! Cole use to bounce himself silly on it.

Today, we went to Granny’s for lunch. I looked through old photo albums with John. It was cute watching him reminisce. After that, we headed out for a scenic road trip. We ended up going to the Windyville store, several yard sales, Bennett Spring, McDonald’s for fries and back home. I had a migraine from about 4 PM until almost 10, so I was ready to get back home.

Here are some of the pictures from today.

We had to take pics at the Windyville Store again since Cole’s eyes were closed last time. :)

When we zoomed in on this picture, we laughed and laughed at Audrey's expression when she was looking at Cole. If we only knew what she was thinking.

Doesn’t eating a Sugar Daddy from a general store just scream childhood?

John wanted to show the kids where the spring at Bennett Spring met the Niangua River. Can you see the color difference? The lighter blue in the front is the spring and the brown in the back is the river.

This was John’s first weekend off since he was laid off. I hope that the next 4-5 months go by slowly. I want my family to be able to spend lots of time together before John has to go back to work. There is nothing I like more than spending time with my family.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Fondue Fun

2010-09-05T23:31:00.001-05:00

This past Tuesday, I had so much fun going to Fedora’s with my friend, Kristi. She was Cole’s teacher in 2nd grade and has been a wonderful friend ever since. I am so blessed to have her in my life. She is the kind of person that you can trust to be honest with you even if she knows it might hurt. I appreciate her perspective and consider her a wonderful Christian friend. Plus, she’s absolutely hilarious! I always have a great time when she’s around.

This was how much of our Butterfinger fondue we left. Can you believe we couldn’t eat it all?

Our sweet waiter was so much fun. He and his wife were expecting their first baby “anytime”. He told us that he was just waiting for a text from her.

One of our fondue pots started getting a little too hot, so we experimented and got the burner turned off with a knife. The waiter asked how we did it and said that most people blow on the flame (Kristi tried that, too, but we would have never admitted that to him). He said, “See my beard? It use to be 3” longer.” Then, he proceeded to tell us that the first week he started working at the restaurant, he blew on one of the burners and singed half the side of his beard and mustache off. He told us the worst part was he had to continue working like that the rest of the night. :)

During our second round of experiments, we found that you can turn off a burner with a graham cracker. Just a little bit of useless knowledge for you.

Super blurry self-portraits are the best!

We had so much fun catching up and chatting about everything that’s been happening since school started. It’s so nice to have good food, fun and great friendship. By the way, I highly recommend the Carbonara fondue. It had chicken and bacon in it and was soooo yummy!

Can I still win a Mother of the Year award if…

2010-08-30T23:15:00.002-05:00

our swimming pool is green and my flowers are dead?
I finally got up the nerve to pull up my pant legs and let the water out of our nasty green pool today. I will NEVER make it in the pool industry. I am horrible with the chemicals, I rarely vacuum, I never cover it and I overuse our skimmer. With that being said, all the water in our yard made for some interesting playing tonight for the kiddos.
Although the kids were muddy and dirty from head to toe, they had a great time splashing in the water and sticking their toes in the mud. Don’t worry, they both immediately showered after playing outside. :)

He got her hair dirty, so…

she splashed the daylights out of him.

The perfect mix of pink and blue.

In my defense, if these plants weren’t dead, our new kitten would have nothing to play with. I didn’t neglect the plant, I spoiled the kitten. Hee, hee!

We were amazed that Tinkerbell climbed about 20 feet into one of our walnut trees. She is so stinkin’ cute!

Don’t let her puppy dog eyes fool you. She jumped on me with muddy paws and gave my old lady legs a bruise.

At least some things are perfect.

Freezer Cooking Day (Part 1)

2010-08-29T20:59:00.001-05:00

Confession time…I would rather do just about anything than cook after a day at school. I love homemade food and I’m tiring very quickly of frozen breaded chicken and potatoes in some form. However, I love my husband and his willingness to cook for us when we get home from school.

I decided that I need to start off on the right foot this school year and start participating in lots more freezer cooking days. I actually love doing several hours worth of cooking and cleaning at once because I can do it when I have the energy and not when I come home hungry and have a hungry family to feed. It’s much more economical and it fits into my life better because it’s so practical.

Over the last few years, I have tried to learn to live more simply and in all things simplify. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I have the tendency to over think and overdo things sometimes when life would have been way less stressful if I had just remembered where my priorities lie.

The brownies & cubed chicken didn’t make it into the picture. The brownies barely made it into the evening. We ate pork bean chalupas for supper, so the blue lidded containers are what’s left over.

Here is what I ended up making:

Southwest Roll-ups
Lazy Granola (makes 3 qts.)
Pork Bean Chalupa
Best Brownies
Cubed Chicken
Chopped Onions

When it’s all said and done, I have enough for at least 8 dinner meals, several nights of dessert and lots of granola cereal for breakfast.

This was my first shot at making true homemade brownies and this recipe is wonderful! I think it would be easy to prep all the mix and place in baggies to add the wet ingredients later for a super quick dessert.

Proof that the brownies were scrumptious! :) Audrey got more on her than in her, but she enjoyed it!

The Southwest Roll-ups are super yummy! I popped one in the microwave for 40 seconds and ate it for lunch with sour cream.

I had read that you can bake the chicken in the oven instead of boiling it. So, I placed it on a broiling pan with water in the bottom and cooked 4 large chicken breasts @ 350 degrees for 45 minutes. They were very tender. I kind of expected them to be tough.

Southwest Roll-ups (makes 8 roll-ups)

1 can refried beans
1/4 cup salsa
1-2 cups cooked chicken, chopped (I used two cups, which was one large chicken breast)
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
8 tortillas

Mix together beans, salsa and chicken.

Spread 1/8 of mixture onto one tortilla. Sprinkle with cheese. Roll up and turn ends under. Stick in a freezer bag or in a 9×13 baking pan.

When ready to bake, thaw and bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for 20-30 minutes until heated through. Sprinkle with more shredded Cheddar cheese, if desired. Serve with salsa. Serves 4.

I need to get some containers to freeze lots of soup in. I would like to avoid plastic. Does anyone have any suggestions for meal storage in the freezer that doesn’t include tons of plastic containers or is that my only option?

Nannie

2010-08-29T00:00:00.003-05:00

Tonight we decided to go visit my grandma, Nannie, in the hospital. She has had quite a few rough weeks lately. About two weeks ago she fell in her garage after she was dropped off from church. She couldn’t get into the house, so she tried everything she could to get herself up, but ended up staying on the ground until her friends came back to pick her up for evening church services. Her poor leg and arms were hurt, but no bones were broken. Fast forward a week later and she is back in the hospital. She was having trouble breathing and she was also retaining fluid. Bless her heart!

Here’s a picture of her about 3 weeks ago when she went with us to Wild Animal Safari. I didn’t have the heart to ask her if I could take a picture of her in the hospital. Heaven knows I wouldn’t want my picture taken!

Totally unrelated, but her favorite animal at the park was the zebra. I really need to make this picture fun to send to her. Tonight she mentioned how interesting she found the zebras stripes because they went all the way up into their manes. :)

Audrey demonstrating her fabulous eye rolling technique. We aren’t nearly as annoying & silly as she thinks we are.

When we got to the hospital, it was about time for the nurse’s to do their rounds, so we spent a bit out in the hall while Nannie was being checked out.
Audrey and I had lessons on the tile shapes on the floor while John and Cole decided to walk up and down the stairs from the 4th floor to the ground and back up again.

I took a picture beforehand because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t make it back up. I was wrong. Hee, hee!

After visiting with Nannie a bit, we decided to leave so she could get some rest. The boys thought it would be fun to walk back down the stairs.

I thought it was cute when Audrey was looking down the stairs at Cole. I’m pretty sure the people watching hospital security videos think we are nuts. They’re right!

We enjoyed our visit with Nannie and she was in good spirits. We are praying that the doctors will figure out what is causing her dizzy spells so she can regain a sense of normalcy. She won’t be allowed to go home until at least Monday. Please keep her in your prayers.

A few random thoughts…

2010-08-28T23:47:00.001-05:00

I have sorely neglected my blog, once again. I’m pretty sure at this point, I can’t even remember how many times I’ve done it before because it’s more than I have fingers and toes to count. I feel pressured to get everything captured and written as it’s happening, but find that days turn into weeks and weeks turn into a month and I feel like I will never catch up.

So, here I am once again trying to figure out how everyone seems to balance it all.

I have weeks worth of pictures to post and the need to be sure to do it since I don’t seem to scrapbook anymore.

I have entered my 7th year of teaching and things are just as hectic now as they were when I first started. John is officially laid off until the beginning of the year. That is good news in our house! We enjoy the extra time with him. Especially since I work Mon-Fri and he works Fri-Sun. The 12 hour shifts are hard on him, too.

Looking forward to catching up soon!

It’s only this cute when you’re 3!

2010-07-27T00:31:00.001-05:00

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Last Monday, I went to Arkansas with my friends Wynne and Kristi. On the way back home we decided to stop by a roadside stand and buy some sweet corn. Kristi mentioned that I should boil the corn in sugar water. It was so yummy!

Cole & Audrey both helped me shuck the corn. Audrey especially enjoyed ripping off as much as she could. She also enjoyed eating it more than any of us, too. She ate 1 1/2 ears all by herself. The cutest part was that she insisted on putting the salt and butter on without our help. She looked so big!

While she was eating, I remembered a few pictures of her that were taken when she was much younger and eating her first ear of corn. It was like watching Goofy eat corn typewriter style. Too cute! But only cute when you are little.

Audrey ~ Age: 1 1/2

(She looks so different without a bow in and long hair!)

I told John that eating corn was so messy that I don’t like eating it in public. That quickly turned into a discussion about foods that should only be eaten in private and included foods like corn, ribs, fried chicken, etc.

It must be nice to be able to enjoy corn so freely without giving a single thought to the fact that you are squirting people in the face while having greasy butter from ear to ear, not to mention corn stuck between each and every tooth. I believe this is why my parents always said not to be in such a hurry to grow up. It couldn’t have been the bills, the laundry, the day to day mundane tasks that adults are faced with, but simply the inability to care what people think and the lack of self-consciousness to worry about how you look when you are enjoying something so thoroughly.

If only Audrey and Cole wouldn’t grow up so quickly.

(However, I’m pretty sure Cole has reached this stage as he wouldn’t dare let me take a picture of him eating his corn.)

Sweet Summer Sun Tea

2010-07-24T18:12:00.001-05:00

This summer heat and humidity is about to completely drain the life out of me. I feel like I can’t do anything until after 9 PM because it is too hot to do anything that requires extra warmth in the house, you know like cooking, laundry, showering or just any general housework. The bad part is, I’m on the countdown to the beginning of the school year and I don’t have this time to waste.

So, last night I decided to get busy cleaning out the kitchen cabinets. I decided to get rid of anything and everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary or useful at some point in the past year. I happened to come across a beverage dispenser that I had bought years ago to make sweet tea. I’ve only used it once. Yikes!Cole & Audrey had never had sun tea, so we decided to make a jar today.

John usually makes the tea at our house because he does a much better job at it. I love tea, but don’t ever seem to get it right. Today was different. The sun that I normally blame for my heat induced lack of motivation actually pulled through for us. In less than an hour and a half, we had a beautiful maple syrup colored jar of sweet tea.

It looked so pretty and tasted so good and sweet that I think I just might keep the jar now. So much for that empty spot in the cabinet.

This isn’t what I meant…

2010-07-22T17:39:00.001-05:00

Last week I asked John to be the strong one. I asked him not to bring home any soda, even if I begged and pleaded. I told him that I needed him to help me, not enable me. If there is soda around, I will drink it. Actually, I probably drink more than my fair share and maybe even blame Audrey for all of it being gone. :)

So, last night, John and Cole went to the grocery store to pick up some tortilla chips and cheese for taco soup. This is what I saw when I walked in the kitchen.

He’s funny and all, but did he really think this was going to stop me?Did I mention that I needed someone to be strong? I’m pretty sure I’m going to drink both bottles now just to spite him. Ha!

Bubby’s back!!!

2010-07-19T00:09:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, Cole finally made it home!!! John had to get an alignment done on my van, so he went to pick Cole up. I thought I would have plenty of time in between when he picked him up and when I had to leave, but he ended up getting home, they picked up Audrey and headed to drop her off at Granny’s while they went to an auction. I am pretty sure that we about knocked Cole over when he got out of the van. It was so nice to see him. He seemed bigger. Boppa took him to get a haircut. He spoils him with the VIP treatment which includes not only a haircut but a steamed towel and a massage. :)

Last night, I was able to meet up with a few friends from high school to eat at Garbo’s and go to the movies. We enjoyed talking over dinner and laughed a lot during Letters to Juliet. The movie was cute. The movie kept cutting out and muting the voices and it was so funny to hear the reaction of the crowd each time it happened. Stacey said it was like going to Bingo and someone yelling Bingo and everyone ripping their cards off in disgust. :)

Amy’s baby is due in September and she and her husband have chosen to wait until the baby is born to find out the gender. I don’t think I could ever do it (because I’m weak and when I was a child I use to unwrap and rewrap my Christmas presents because I couldn’t handle the suspense), but it was fun hearing her talk about the different things they are going to try to do to reveal the gender to the baby’s siblings once the he or she is born. What a fun surprise!

Stacey spent all day in the crazy heat at baseball championships for her son and he won! She must be so proud of him. Now his team gets to go to state and hopefully win there, as well!

Amy, Stacey & Me

Today, Audrey and I went to church and then met up with John and Cole at my mother-in-law’s house. Lunch was so yummy! She had fixed roast, gravy, mashed potatoes, home grown tomatoes and corn. Audrey and Cole enjoyed painting and drawing pictures with Granny.

Cole was pretty tired today from the weeklong festivities with MeMa and Boppa and from standing through a hot auction last night. His eyes looked so sleepy.

We took my van back to the mechanic tonight. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it will be fixed tomorrow so we can head out on a little trip on Tuesday. When we got home from making our rounds, I had to mow the yard. I finally finished at 9:00 PM, but only because it was lightning. It was so very hot, too! I was so very ready to come in and shower.

Audrey crawled up on the couch with Cole to watch something on Netflix.

She was getting VERY sleepy, but still wouldn’t give it up. I think she missed her Bubby.

I’m so excited about my day trip to Arkansas tomorrow with Wynne & Kristi. It should be a great time. I hope to take lots of pictures, share lots of laughs and hopefully find some cute things for the house.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but this was Audrey yesterday. She keeps bringing me her bible and she wants me to read stories to her. It’s so sweet! She loses interest quickly when I can’t pronounce any of the names that she insists I read from random verses in chapters of her choice. I’ve tried asking her if she wants me to read to her from her bible stories books, but she says no. I think she mostly enjoys looking at the maps in the back. ;)

Bubby Withdrawal & Annabelle Baskets

2010-07-17T00:26:00.001-05:00

Today makes day 5 that Cole has been staying with my parents. I truly think we are starting to go through withdrawal. The absence of bickering is deafening. :) I love that little guy and have found it very hard not to be part of his daily life. I know he is having a great time and it actually means a lot to me. He is making memories with his grandparents and that is priceless. However, this momma needs more than talking on the phone to feel connected. Have I mentioned that I miss him?

We have called him everyday. We have interrupted him playing the wii, making up SpongeBob jokes and visiting with his cousins. We have begged relentlessly for him to come back and at least act like he misses us, but here I am again with a quiet house. I don’t know how I will ever be an empty nester. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be an annoying mom that calls my children everyday to ask them what they are doing. They’ve been forewarned!

This has definitely created some extra special bonding time for Audrey and me though and even allowed me some time with John to have meaningful conversations.

Audrey has been so cute when she talks to Cole each night. She always says she loves him and has the biggest smile on her face. It melts my heart that they have such a great connection.

Performing the Nutcracker Suite :) She loves doing “bullay” ballet.

This is her new thing. She constantly poses for pictures and she will pose herself and ask me to take a picture. I think I’ve created a monster!

Today is the day that my Etsy store was featured on Fabulous Friday Freebies. Yea!!! Last week when I was approached by Mandy to have my store featured, I was asked to send free merchandise to compensate her for featuring my store. She briefly told me about her daughter having a successful heart surgery, but also mentioned a friend that went through the same experience, but her daughter didn’t make it. Mandy wanted me to send items that her friend, Rebecca, could place in Annabelle Baskets. They are gift baskets that are donated to heart babies undergoing open heart surgery to repair congenital heart defects.

After visiting the Annabelle Baskets blog, I wanted to donate something to go in the baskets in addition to what I already sent. I contacted Rebecca and she gave me an idea of what she already includes in the baskets.

I wish I could do much more. If you are inclined to make a donation or purchase things from the Annabelle Baskets registry at Toys ‘R Us, please visit the blog to see how you can help. They also accept monetary donations.I was very inspired by the fact that Rebecca turned something so tragic into a ministry to help others.

This is what I will be sending.

Here are some random pictures from this week that I haven’t had time to blog about.

We made strawberry milkshakes yesterday. She loves her Princess Aurora sunglasses.

We whipped up a lemon bar recipe from a cake mix cookbook.

This was suppose to be my job, but someone’s getting too smart!

The picture on the right is what ours was suppose to look like. Except Audrey didn’t like the leaves in the picture. She insisted that we not eat leaves because that’s, “Yucky!”

John brought home this beauty. I don’t know what someone was thinking when they wallpapered it, but I hope to upgrade it at least a little before bringing it into the house. I don’t know where I’m going to put it yet so it’s making it hard to decide what color to go with. I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a lot of sanding involved.

Tomorrow, Cole will be back and I am suppose to have a girl’s night with some friends from high school. Monday, I’m going to Arkansas with two friends to go to several flea markets. I’m secretly just happy to be getting to spend some time with the two of them. They are crazy, adorable & absolutely the most fun to be around! We are also going to take a mini vacation as a family next week. My van has been in the shop the last few days and we have to take it back Monday to get new struts put on it before we head too far.

I’ll be excited to post more soon!

I’m being featured!!!

2010-07-14T16:07:00.001-05:00

This Friday, July 16, my Etsy store, Shabby Chic Baby Bowtique , will be featured on Fabulous Friday Freebies. Feel free to check out Mandy’s blog and go back on Friday to see how you can win your choice of a $25 gift certificate or over $25 worth of merchandise for yourself or your girly girl.

Until then, visit my Etsy store by clicking on one of the pictures below.

Feel free to become a fan of Shabby Chic Baby Bowtique on Facebook for product updates, special fan sales and lots of giveaways!

Dad and Moom

2010-07-13T23:07:00.001-05:00

Sunday, my parents came over to pick Cole up for several days. He was really looking forward to spending time at their house. I am glad that he has the opportunity to go, but I sure do miss him. Even with Audrey, the house seems so quiet and different without him here. I have no doubt that he is thoroughly enjoying himself. When I talked to him earlier, two of his cousins were also visiting Mema and Boppa, so I know he is having a great time.

Boppa reading to the kiddos

Sissy kicking back as Boppa reads

Mema and Audrey

Audrey loving on Cole before he left

Since Cole has been gone, you’d think I’d try to make the most of the time by getting a lot done, but no such luck. Instead, I’ve tried to give Audrey some one-on-one attention and say yes a little more to her crazy whims.

Like letting her sit in the light box with her dominos.

Then, making LOTS of silly faces for the camera!

Like letting her hand me markers with her toes. She’s such a monkey!

Giving her a choice of bedtime in her bed or on the couch watching movies we rented just for her.

Saying yes when she asked to walk in the mud. She was genuinely shocked when I said she could, too. She wasn’t so sure of it at first. She stepped out and didn’t like the mud between her toes. She adjusted quickly after I told her I’d just put her in the sink to wash up. Trust me, I have about 20 pictures and videos to prove it.

Sharing the “big bowl” of popcorn after cleaning up.

Tonight, she ran into the living room to grab paper from the printer. I knew what she was up to because she also had a handful of her carefully chosen Crayolas. She ran back into her bedroom and came out with a picture of Daddy. She “even drew his beard”. (It’s the blue part at the bottom.) I told her to take it back to her room and write D-A-D on it. So she did. She was so proud of herself that we had to take a picture and have Daddy come take a peek.

Of course, John was genuinely impressed with her artistic ability and the fact that she wrote DAD on the top. He quickly put it on the fridge. Then, I asked her to draw a picture of me and write M-O-M on it. She kept trying to say it back to me but kept starting with the O and saying MM. She ended up writing MOOM. :) She was so happy that she had drawn my lipstick on the picture. Again with the blue. :)

She is asleep now and I’m happy that we have had the last few days together. We’ve played lots of games and put together the same 7 puzzles about a million times. She went swimming last night until it started lightning. We even watched lots of old videos of life around here the last few years. When she wanted McDonald’s chicken McNuggets, we headed out for a late lunch today.

Even though we are having fun, we miss Cole tremendously. She and I both want him to come back now. He’s not ready. She thinks we should go get him anyway. I’m hoping that he comes home soon. Life is not the same when my whole family isn’t together.

Being a mom makes my heart truly happy.

Catching Up with Great Friends

2010-07-06T11:48:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was a great day. I woke up early, got a few things done around the house and felt completely in the moment with my kiddos. That doesn’t always happen the way I envision it, so it was nice to be able to say yes to their quirky whims for awhile. We started by filling up lots of water balloons and having a water balloon fight.

This picture cracks me up! Audrey is very serious about chasing Cole with this balloon. This is definitely the face of someone who is trying to get a little revenge. Can you tell?

That’s a little better!

It was hard to take pictures of the part that I was involved in, but let’s just say that I was the most wet when we all went inside.

Then, we played in the gravel pit. Audrey and I dug the gravel (soil), dumped it into the wheelbarrow (garden) and planted seeds (leaves). Magically, carrots grew before our very eyes and we even pretended to eat them with ranch dressing. It is so much fun pretending with Audrey and Cole. They are both so imaginative and curious. The conversations we have while playing are priceless. Audrey even called me her Sweetie and Pumpkin Pie. Those are terms of endearment in our house. :) Never mind that John told me she called him the same thing that evening.

When we came inside, we put together a few puzzles and then I had to get ready for a reunion lunch with previous Kindergarten teachers I have had the pleasure to work with. We ate at Mille’s and it was great, as usual. We met at 2:30 and didn’t end up leaving until after 6:15. It was so great to catch up with each of them. They all hold a dear place in my heart. It was great to feel like we just picked right up where we left off. No awkward silence. No feeling judged. No topic left uncovered. We talked politics, religion, friendship, marriage, dating, school and many other topics I cannot discuss. It was wonderful! I am so blessed to have these wonderful friends.

On the way home, I picked up a birthday cake for our neighbor since I wasn’t going to be home in time to bake one to take it over to him. Cole and Audrey walked over to his house to give it to him. They were so proud, as was I. They love our neighbor, Gene. I believe that he is fond of them, too. He always shows a genuine interest in them. He has even give them several $2 bills. I think that is pretty special.

We like to have Gene over once in awhile for supper and family gatherings. We take him cookies and dessert when it’s fresh out of the oven. He comes to our house when there are tornado warnings. He calls to check on us when he hasn’t seen us outside or about in awhile. He’s such a great neighbor and we are lucky to have him looking out for us.

(Don’t look at the weeds. I am scared to mow them down for fear of killing what little green we have left in our yard.)

Our dog, Copper, had to get in on the action. I’m pretty sure she smelled the chocolate cake. :)

I am going to miss summertime.

Food, Fun, Family & the 4th

2010-07-05T21:30:00.002-05:00

Since the 4th of July was on Sunday this year, we were able to attend several different fireworks festivities throughout the last week. Saturday, we went to my mother-in-law’s house to watch the fireworks in her town. I’m pretty sure we talked about all the way through them this year.

John does all the barbecuing on the 4th, so Cole went with him to help this year. Audrey and I headed to church first. She insisted on wearing her hair in pigtail braids minutes before we left. It looked cute on her, but I had not planned for her to wear her hair up which meant no cute matching 4th of July bows. What??? I took this picture at church just to document the fact that she is WAY too young to have hairstyle opinions already, right? :) I love her independence.

The church presented me with bibles for Cole and myself for being baptized on June 27. I hope to get some of those pictures posted this week. I wish that Cole would have been at church to receive his bible and to shake hands with everyone after the service. It was so sweet!
After church we went to my mother-in-law’s house for BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs, soda pop, homemade ice cream and lots of other goodies.

After lunch, there were lots of water balloons waiting to be filled and thrown.

John was lucky not to be a recipient of a wet shirt from all the water balloons flying around.

Sarita and Claudia and their sisterly love…

A little ballet demonstration

Audrey doing her famous Cole-taught-me-how-to-pose-like-this pose

Cole got soaked by his own balloon ( I’m a huge fan of physical comedy, so things like this or pants splitting just crack me up!)

No one is safe from Audrey’s water balloons, not even Uncle Tom.

Getting their feet wet

Feeding Granny’s chickens

After the kids ate and played for awhile, we brought Claudia and Sarita back to our house so the kids could swim and play. The first time the kids got in the pool, it started raining.
Audrey enjoyed all the attention she got from Claudia in the pool. Sarita was snuggled up asleep on the couch, so we let her rest.

Patriotic swimsuit

After we finished playing, napping, and eating strawberries and Cool Whip, we headed to the fireworks stand for more fireworks and then back to Granny’s.

The kids with their Uncle Phil and some of their fireworks loot

I spent WAY too much money on sparklers because I thought it would be the one thing that Audrey enjoyed doing since she was too small to do much else.

No such luck. She had one sparkler and that was enough. She was too scared that they would hurt her. It’s not like her to be this cautious, so it really caught me off guard.

Audrey enjoyed popping bubbles.

I think Granny enjoyed blowing them, too. :) She is a very hands-on grandma. She really enjoys playing with the kids and she comes up with such creative ideas.

Audrey didn’t like that Uncle Phil was sitting in ‘Mommy’s chair’. She made it a point to tell him that it was my chair. He didn’t say anything, but when he got up, he got in one of the blue ones. Oh my goodness! Where does she get her boldness? We weren’t even sitting in the chairs.

Cole spent the majority of the evening lighting fireworks. In case you are wondering why there aren’t many pictures of Cole it’s because he wouldn’t let me take his picture. He made it a point to do something goofy in each one or he would intentionally hide. I guess he is now at that stage where everything I do is going to drive him nuts. Maybe it’s just the fact that I tend to take pictures like a Mamarazzi. Nah, couldn’t be me.

Audrey was done with the fireworks and wanted to go inside. I couldn’t be in both places at once and felt like Cole was too young to do fireworks by himself. So, Wanda got Audrey a bucket of water and let her water the plants.

It was a very busy day, but one filled with lots of great memories. We are so very blessed to have the freedom to live, love and worship by our own choice. I’m very thankful that others are willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the lives of my family and friends. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Sleepy Drive

2010-07-03T10:27:00.001-05:00

As I began my master bedroom weekend painting project, I realized that I wasn’t getting quite as much done as I would have liked. I had a super cute 3 year-old who kept wanting to use the tools on EVERYTHING in sight, including trying to hammer nails into the mattress. Yikes!

Audrey hadn’t had a nap and 8:00 P.M. was probably not the best time to begin painting. So, I decided I needed some soda to stay awake and Audrey needed a sleepy drive. She welcomed the opp0rtunity, so you know she was getting tired. :)

This is what we saw on the way back.

Then, this…

Followed by me doing much more of this…

(woodwork & wall color before)

(woodwork & wall after—it’s not really this blue in real life. It’s kind of a steel gray blue.)

However, she didn’t stay asleep for 10 minutes once I got her in the house and into her bed. So, she ended up going back and forth between the living room to play Barbie’s and animals to my bedroom to hammer more nails into the mattress.

It was like her sleepy drive turned into a cat nap that recharged her enough to stay up until almost midnight! Ugh! Needless to say, by the time I finished painting half the ceiling, half the woodwork and half of the walls, and then cleaning up all the paintbrushes and trays, I was ready for bed, too.

My room was filled with what seemed like toxic vapors because my throat and head started hurting from breathing the paint fumes. (Yes, the room was well ventilated or so I thought.) I ended up sleeping on the couch, which meant, I got no sleep whatsoever. It’s just not my bed! It was now 3:00 in the morning and I hadn’t had more than half an hour of sleep.

John woke me up at 4:00 to find coupons we had for free hot dogs so he could pick them up before the 4th of July festivities tomorrow and I ended up in Audrey’s bed and slept until almost 9:00 this morning. Ahhhh…… Now, if only the room would finish painting itself so I could run to Kirkland’s to exchange the lamps I bought yesterday.

Fireworks Frenzy

2010-07-02T17:01:00.001-05:00

Ever since the first red and yellow striped tents popped up in June, I’ve had one excited boy that has wanted me to stop at every fireworks stand from town and back. On Wednesday, I took the kiddos to grab some Sonic and Cole headed to Wal-Mart to get a Transformer. The money had been burning a hole in his pocket and going to town meant we would somehow end up at Wally World. We also stopped by my friend Shelly’s house to return a dish she had brought full of potato salad to our Oscar Mayer Thrill of the Grill House Party.

Trying to be Mother of the Year, I stopped by the fireworks tent first. I gave Cole $5 + tax and told him to buy as many sparklers as he could. I figured I’d stay in the car. Not so lucky. Audrey wanted to go, too and I admit, I was a little curious about what was under the tent myself this year.

So, $15 later, we came home with 12 boxes of sparklers, snakes, smoke bombs, a fountain, firecrackers, parachutes, a dancing butterfly, etc. (Yes, I’m easily impressed by sparkly things.)

As if that weren’t enough, John and Cole got more fireworks last night. Not only could they not wait until the 4th of July to set them off, they couldn’t even wait until it was dark. So much for me being Mother of the Year. :)

Try Not to Dally With a Dilly Bar

2010-07-02T16:41:00.001-05:00

On the way home from town today, Audrey had her first Dilly Bar from DQ. I’m pretty sure she enjoyed every single bit of it, until it started melting all over her dress, car seat, face, etc.

In the end, I told Audrey I didn’t think she was quite ready for a Dilly Bar yet. Cole said, “I don’t think I’m ready for one either!” They got their cleanliness from their father.

Whirlwind Summer

2010-07-02T16:34:00.001-05:00

I have sooo much to catch up on here. I like to use my blog posts to journal things that are happening in our daily lives. Unfortunately, I have found that I haven’t been so faithful at doing it lately, which is really sad because we have had so much fun doing things while school is out. I hope to catch up this week. Until then, I better go get started painting my bedroom. Apparently, just wishing it will paint itself isn’t working.

Mysterious spots

2010-05-31T01:06:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, Cole woke up with spots all over his belly and back. We were hoping that they were just some kind of bug bites or a reaction to his sunburn. However, in the back of my mind, I remembered reading about several friends kiddos having chicken pox within the last week. Plus, he did have the low-grade fever the day before.

I had agreed to watch John’s cousins kiddos the week before, so they were to arrive around noon. We decided to hit McDonald’s for lunch before a day of swimming and playing.

I called John’s cousin to tell her there was the possibility that Cole had the chicken pox. She did not seem too concerned. He had been vaccinated.

So we went along with our day as planned. I called my friend and she told me about two of her kiddos having spots and that she took her daughter to a nurse prac. who diagnosed her with chicken pox. She had all the symptoms that Cole had, too.

After reading several messages on Facebook about some of the other kiddos who had the pox, I called our doctor’s office and they referred us to the ER since Cole was having eye pain associated with the spots. After about an hour and a half of isolation, Cole was diagnosed with ‘possible early chicken pox’. I was a little surprised at this because that was my diagnosis when I walked in the door and had him admitted. I guess I was expecting something a little more definitive.

He ended up with a prescription to be filled if/when the spots turn into blisters. We are hoping that they don’t. They also said that his eyes were fine and gave no explanation as to why they were so red and hurting. We were glad that his eyes were fine. There was talk of blindness and things that tend to scare the momma. ;) We prayed for the best case scenario and got it!

Since they weren’t sure if he had chicken pox, they treated him as if he did and he was isolated. All the triage ‘stuff’ was done in a room. Here he is getting his vitals checked.

We had to wait a long time before the doctor came in, so the nurse gave Cole the remote and told him he had his choice of two channels—the patient channel and Cartoon Network. It was funny because when he finally decided to turn the TV back on the second time, he said, “Watch. As soon as I turn the TV on, they will come back in.” Sure enough, they did. :)

The nurse took the BP cuff off his arm and forgot to turn the machine off. It inflated and inflated until we thought it was going to blow up. He decided to pretend like he was dead when they came to check the machine. (He has his grandpa’s sense of humor.)

I looked at my arms and told Cole I was a freckle-potamus and he was a spot-a-potamus. He looked at his arm and said he was a hairy-potamus and I changed into something inappropriate and we laughed for probably five minutes. The off and on ~~inappropriate for our surroundings~~ kind of laugh that you can’t help but do every time you look at the other person. He started giving me the evil eye because we couldn’t stop.

All in all, Cole is feeling pretty good. He’s tired and hasn’t had his normal voracious, growing boy, appetite, but his spots are minimally itchy and he has only had about 3 spots turn into blisters and they went back down to regular spots. We are so glad he is okay and glad that this happened to him as a child and not as an adult.

We are actually kind of excited about being forced to stay home until he’s better. I’m pretty sure he did this on purpose. :) I love my little homebody.

Summer—Off to a ____ start!

2010-05-31T00:27:00.001-05:00

busy, crazy, hectic, fun-filled, exciting, you fill in the blank.

I finished school on Tuesday. We had two days of Kindergarten Screening for the incoming kiddos after my class had left on Friday, so Wednesday was my first day of summer vacation. Woo hoo! On Wednesday, I decided that during my summer vacation I was going to do at least two big things a day. In my mind, big can be defined as finally pulling weeds, putting to use a tutorial for a twirly skirt or even organizing paid bills. Yes, I’m that exciting. :) It lasted maybe two days.

My big projects for Wednesday were working in the yard (all day) and putting up the pool(s). This is how happy my kiddos were to finally be able to get in their swimsuits and start having some water fun. It was only this sweet for the first 5 minutes as they are so relieved to finally be in the water.

It turned into this and then a full fledged water squirting fight.

Until we finally got the big pool up.

Audrey is finally big enough to touch the bottom this year.

However, the first time in the pool, she would barely let go of Cole’s hands.

Cole liked jumping up in the water and then splashing back down. Audrey really enjoyed it, too. Maybe to the point of exhausting Cole.

Thursday, I stayed inside and worked on a huge bow order that has to be completed by June 1. (Mainly because I was so sore and sunburned from working in the yard all day on Wed.) I also got a few things cleaned up in the house for company on Saturday. Cole did LOTS of swimming. Except, he forgot to put on his sunscreen and he ended up being very burnt.

That night, he complained of feeling hot and that his eyes hurt. We chalked it up to him being so sunburned and his eyes because of the pool water.

Friday morning, Audrey and I cleaned some of the outside play toys.

Right before we were suppose to leave to have lunch for my sister-in-law’s 30th birthday, Cole said he didn’t feel well. We checked his temp and it was 100.3. I called my family and told them we would be coming to town to give my brother his power washer back, but wouldn’t be able to go to lunch because of Cole’s fever. They called me back and insisted it was probably because of his sunburn and to go ahead and come and we could sit at the far end of the table. :)

So, we picked up my grandma, Nannie, and headed to HuHot for lunch. It was really yummy and very affordable for all-you-can eat.

Someone REALLY enjoyed the noodles with teriyaki and sweet and sour sauce.

She slurped so many noodles that the pineapple juice from the sweet and sour sauce started to burn her chin. We had to dip a napkin in ice water to cool the burn. Then, she went back for more.

This is my sister-in-law, Maegan. She is married to my brother, Ryan. This was the last day we will see them for awhile. They moved out of town the following day. This was a bittersweet celebration.

Nannie, Cole and Dad

Mom and Ryan

My grandma, Gigi (Loved this face, Ryan!)

Audrey and me

My nephew, Myric, finishing off his bowl of noodles

My niece, Rhiannon, and her grandma, Liz

Audrey and Nannie

Audrey and Rhiannon were both sitting on my lap and I was trying to get a good picture and I obviously looked awkward, so the waiter took this picture for me.

After lunch, we took my grandma home and headed back to our house. I’m pretty sure we all ended up taking a nap. That night, we cleaned house to get ready to have John’s cousin’s kiddos over for the afternoon on Saturday.

To be continued…

Retail Therapy: That's what friends are for!

2010-05-16T11:34:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited! I just attended a scrapbooking fundraiser for our local Memorial Library this weekend with my mom and several friends. It definitely renewed my interest in scrapbooking. One of my friends, Amy, had an amazing Canon Selphy ES30 photo printer that doesn't require ink!!! The paper is thermal, so the photo is essentially burned onto the paper. It basically did one color layer at a time and the end product was amazing! It was much better quality than any of the one hour photo pictures I have purchased.

I knew instantly that I had to have one. She told us they were around $99 on Amazon.com. I couldn't wait to get home to check it out. I love to find a bargain and my mom gave me the goal to come home and find it as cheap as possible. I was shocked to find out they were on sale for $50. I had $15 in Amazon gift cards from SwagBucks and $54+ in my fun/bow money and $2.53 in Amazon Rewards, so I only actually paid $5.66 for the printer and a 100-pack of paper!!!

By the way, if you aren't using SwagBucks, you should be. There is nothing better than free stuff. For me, it's Amazon gift cards! Here's a referral link if you need one: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Marlana

Now, I cannot wait until school is out to start playing with it!!! Shipping was free for standard, so I went with the cheapest. It will take longer to get, but it will be sooo worth it because I wouldn't have purchased it if it hadn't been a bargain. :)

For those of you who are thinking how expensive it will be to print the photos, I live about 20 minutes one-way from the nearest photo developing center, so this printer will be perfect for my scrapbook photos that I need to only print a few at a time. I will continue to get the inexpensive deals for my regular photos at Walgreens. ;)

Let the countdown begin…

2010-04-19T23:00:00.001-05:00

We only have 24 more days of school this year. That includes only 4 more Mondays. If you take off a field trip day, graduation practice and the last day being a half day, it’s like we only have 21 1/2.

Needless to say, I have a lot to do right now. The end of the year is always insanely busy. This year is no exception. Well, maybe a little exception. I have an ebay customer wanting to buy 6800 bows to donate to the Canadian NICU that her babies were in. So, this adds a little extra pressure. She is suppose to pay tomorrow. I said I wouldn’t begin the order until I actually had her payment, but I’m starting to feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day anyway, so I better get started. If she doesn’t order, I’ll have them ready for my ebay and Etsy customers and maybe I’ll feel like I’m ahead.

On top of this, Sissy has been sick. She is having some horrible coughing rounds at night time. Her days are okay, but nights are awful. Last night, she coughed so hard that she threw up all over both of us. I felt awful for her! I’m hoping that she gets over whatever this is very quickly. She doesn’t think it’s even remotely acceptable for us to deny her playing outside right now. She’s definitely an outdoor girl. Tonight, she was fine with just walking the track around the pond a couple of times and then coming in.

While we were at the pond tonight, a neighbor dog decided to swim in the pond. It was so funny to watch. He would run into the pond and doggy paddle (or is it just called paddling when a dog is doing it?) and then walk right out and play with our dog. Copper, our dog, didn’t initially like the stranger one bit. However, she warmed up to him and they chased two huge bunnies through the field like they were best of friends.

Cole is taking the MAP test the next three days and I offered to make and send brain food on the testing days. Tomorrow, it will be banana bread. The next few days will be pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and to celebrate on Wednesday, some kind of popsicles or ice cream sandwiches.

Tomorrow is our first Families and French Toast breakfast. I think there are 16 people coming in our class. I’m excited about seeing the kids with their parents. We are also starting Kindergarten Graduation practice. This is always a bit stressful, but I’m hopeful anyway.

Sorry for the random, all over the place post. :) I hope to get some pictures added later this week.

Once upon a pond..

2010-04-11T20:53:00.001-05:00

….there were finally duck footprints. For the first time today, I saw ducks at the pond!!! I was so excited!

I admit, I was starting to have a little pond envy. It seemed that all the ponds around us had ducks or geese, except ours. I even asked Cole on the way to school one day, “What is our pond missing that everyone else’s pond has.” He replied, “Geese.” He’s so funny!

After John came home from work tonight, we took a walk down to the pond to check everything out. Tomorrow, the pond is going to be stocked with catfish and grass carp. Currently, it only holds crawdad and deafening frogs. Oh, and maybe a few hundred rocks that everyone has thrown in. :)

I love watching the ripples from the splashes the rocks make.

This is my favorite picture below.

Audrey demanded to wear her boots and church dress to the pond. This reminds me of climbing trees in a velvet jumper when I was a little kid. Partly girly, partly tomboy.

John did not want his picture taken. He had just gotten off work and hadn’t showered yet. Regardless, I think they all look pretty cute, myself.

Last year, when we got the estimate for the pond, I am pretty sure I freaked out. It was twice as much as what we were expecting. Low and behold, a portion of the pond was unable to be dug out because it rained immediately after the first few days of digging and it was already filling up. This meant that the tractors could not get in without getting stuck. So, the cost ended up being right around what we were initially thinking it would be. I felt bad, really bad! I spent time being angry thinking the pond wasn’t something that was ‘necessary’. Now, I look at it and all the times we’ve visited and I know that there are years of memories to be made here. I am pretty sure that memories are necessary and you can’t put a price on that.

MAP Night

2010-04-11T20:23:00.001-05:00

Last Thursday, Cole and I participated in the school’s first MAP night. The kids will be taking the MAP test in just a little over a week. The point of the evening was to encourage the kids to use good test-taking strategies and for parents to see a tiny glimpse of what the test is actually like. The parents and students participated in a mock test. The parents were expected to take a small portion of the test while the kids observed.

It was actually quite humorous! I think the kids enjoyed seeing their parents strain just a little too much! Plus, the teachers had put on a videotaped skit that was academy awards style. The kids seemed to think it was funny, too.

Each family was asked to write a star of encouragement for their child. I thought this was very meaningful. As a mom, I really enjoyed reading the notes to the kids. Hopefully the kids will find it meaningful, too.

The school served a sack lunch dinner. We sat with one of Cole’s classmates and his mom. We had lots of good conversation. (I think Cole got a little tired of me taking his picture. He kept threatening to smile like this.)

After I finished my first portion of the test, Cole gave me a thumbs up.

When we got in the car to go home, Cole said, “Mom, you did a good job.” Awww, that made it all worth it!

The “Creature’s” coming over…

2010-04-11T20:10:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, we were getting the house picked up and ready for a visit from our preacher and his wife. John came inside and asked Audrey who was coming to our house. Her reply, “The Creature’s coming over!”

(Penny, Audrey, Pastor Keith, Cole and John)

Throughout the night, Audrey kept bringing all her toys in the living room from her bedroom. Cole went to his room to get his bible to see if it was a KJV or NIV. When he brought it into the living room, Audrey decided to get hers, too. She pointed to the words and asked us to read it to her. Then, she pointed to her name and said, “My name is on the Bible.” It was so cute. She’s finally able to recognize her name on things instead of just the letter A.

There is just something pretty precious about teeny, tiny three year-old fingers pointing at such a powerful title.

Both of my kiddos got bibles as a first Easter gift from their Uncle Tom and Aunt Tammy. Such a wonderful gift!

Voting in small town America

2010-04-06T18:19:00.003-05:00

FOREWARNING: This post has nothing to do with how I voted.

I’m pretty sure that there should be a reality TV series about voting in our township. It would be called “If They Want me to Vote, Then Maybe the Polls Shouldn’t be in the Middle of Nowhere”. Well, maybe that’s a little extreme.

However, saying it is out of the way is an understatement. However, the scenery (if you choose to look at it through a glass half full perspective) is beautiful right now!

We had only two issues on the ballot today. A school bond issue and electing school board candidates. As a teacher and a parent, both of these affect me and my family significantly.

So, after school, I headed out to my polling place. It is such a remote location, that they have to place signs like this everywhere so people won’t miss the gravel road.

This is the gravel road to Bethel.

Bethel is a cute little Community Building that stills holds pews and a wood stove. There are only two booths/stands from which to vote. The overflow voters can stand and wait for an open booth or vote in the pews. I have been a pew voter before. ;) We vote with pens on paper. There are no computers. The building barely has electricity. There is a small, beautiful cemetery right next to the building. We are greeted by people we know and that know our story and our families. Sometimes there are cookies and gifts. In my mind, there are no glitches. This may seem primitive to many people, but it’s simple and amazing in my eyes. I love it!

Cole thinks I’m crazy for taking pictures, but I had to have something to prove I was there. :) Actually, I have taken pictures of him here several times in his life and even though he thinks I’m weird for taking them, I hope to instill in him that this is a valuable right that he will one day be thankful to have.

On the way to and from voting, we travel over ‘Washboard Hills’ as the road is so affectionately referred to or in true Ozarks fashion, ‘Warshboard Hills’. It’s a series of several hills that pop up and down one right after the other like an old metal washboard. Sometimes, when John drives, I feel like I’m losing my tummy. It’s great!

If you go too fast, your vehicle bottoms out, as evidenced by the marks at the bottom of this hill.

Since it was so windy and we were still a long way from home, I decided to do a little hand surfing. (If you know me really well, you’d know how embarrassed I am that people do this in front of other people) and you would be really proud that I actually took a picture of myself doing it.

Secretly, I love doing it when I know no one is looking! There’s just something great about the wind hitting your hand and it popping it back up that reminds me of being a carefree little kid. But I digress…

Since the polls are in the middle of nowhere and our main road to get home was closed for repaving, we had to take the long way home. We saw some beautiful forsythia bushes. I love the vibrant yellow!

Near our house is a row of beautiful trees in full bloom right now. In the sunlight, they look magnificent. (Ann, this is your niece’s place.)

Regardless of how far we drive or the scenery in the path we choose or even the way we choose to vote, we are so very fortunate to live in a society that our opinion is valued. The fact that we have a voice is something that can be extremely taken for granted. We have rights that people are willing to die for and others, to kill for. Whether or not everyone chooses to vote is a personal decision, but for me, it’s a privilege and I’m proud to say, “I VOTED!”

Feeling lucky (or blessed)?

2010-04-03T22:45:00.001-05:00

Head over to my Facebook Fan page for Shabby Chic Baby Bowtique to enter my giveaway this weekend. I’m giving away a free ‘springy’ layered bow. The contest ends at 8:00 AM CST on Monday, April 5.

Egg-stra special Bonding

2010-04-02T22:55:00.001-05:00

Cole, Audrey and I dyed Easter eggs on Wednesday night. (Okay, they actually did all the coloring and I just took lots of pictures.) I had wanted to wait for the weekend, but once Audrey saw me boiling dozens of eggs for school, there was no holding back.

Audrey and Cole sat together in the same chair. He would dye the eggs and at first, she would just watch. She would point to the cup she thought he should try next and he would patiently give in to her demands. As I watched and listened to their conversations, I began thinking about how many families miss out on seeing their kids bond over simple things like this.

Sometimes Audrey would stick her finger in the food coloring and then wipe it on her nightgown. Of course, there was a towel sitting in her lap, but what fun would that be?

As she watched Cole dip each egg, she was quiet. She was soaking in everything he did. It made me wonder if she was curious or if she was hesitant to jump right in without seeing the process first.

Cole enjoyed dipping an egg in multiple colors and watching as the new color would replace the old.

Once Audrey decided it was time to get actively involved, there were arms and hands flying everywhere. How all but one of these cups remained standing was beyond me.

Cole practiced a little crayon resist with one of his eggs. Somehow, the fact that he chose to write Easter resonated with me. Of all the decorating he could have done, this is what he chose to end with.

In the end, Cole colored lots more eggs than Audrey, but she enjoyed every second of it.

I am inspired by my children’s ability to take something small and make it special.

Although dyeing eggs, special outfits, Easter pictures, bunnies, candy and baskets are fun, it is far beyond my ability to even begin to fathom sacrificing one of my children for the sake of others. What a wonderful blessing He has given us to live eternally through the death and resurrection of His son, Jesus.

I hope that everyone has a blessed Easter weekend.

Will cute lunch totes and containers make me skinny?

2010-03-28T20:02:00.005-05:00

Dip & Eat Set - $3.99 Lunch Tote - $1.99

I found the cutest deal on Coupon Geek's blog for a pink lunch tote and a set of dip and veggies/fruit containers from Shop Taste of Home. I'm hoping they will help in my motivation to take my lunch to school and begin Weight Watchers soon. What do you think? I also found a cheap cooking oil sprayer that I can refill with my own cooking oils. Surely that will save me money and hopefully I'll use less oil when cooking in a pan. What do you think? Would these fabulous deals motivate you to lose weight?

Cooking Oil Sprayer - $1.99

At checkout, use code 347 for free shipping with a $10 order. If your order is less than $10, use code 1131 in the Suite field to make shipping $1 for your entire order.

Tons of thematic activities

2010-03-19T09:19:00.000-05:00

I like the site Making Learning Fun for all the wonderful thematic printables they offer for free. I am going to print the Easter File Folder printable to assist my kiddos who are still having trouble reading color words.

Photo Source: Making Learning Fun

Letter C and caterpillar activities

2010-03-19T09:04:00.000-05:00

Confessions of a Homeschooler has the cutest activities for the letter C and other activities with a caterpillar theme.

Photo source: Confessions of a Homeschooler

Lovely spring printables and activities

2010-03-18T21:15:00.000-05:00

Check out the super cute Spring Tot Packs from 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. Too cute! I can’t wait to use them next week during our unit on spring.

Photo source

Sewn baggie storage

2010-03-18T20:55:00.000-05:00

Photo source: Mama-Jenn.blogspot.com

I love this idea and and it looks so colorful! I think this would work perfectly for all our plastic play money, too. Great for sorting, as well!

Alphabet Resource Printables

2010-03-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

I am loving the Homeschool Creations site. They also have some wonderful printable alphabet resources.

Color Matching Cards

2010-03-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

I love the free color matching cards at Homeschool Creations. I am going to print these and laminate them for a beginning of the year pocket chart activity.

Am I allowed to post without a picture?

2010-03-16T23:07:00.001-05:00

Seriously, I think I have a picture posting disease. I feel like I can’t post anything on my blog without a picture to go along with it. I hope this post isn’t as painful for you as it is for me. :)

I just realized it has been a month this coming Friday since I’ve posted. That’s soooo very sad! I have lots of fun pictures and we’ve done so many exciting things (at least to us), but I’ve been too busy~~/tired/lazy~~ to post. I promise to purge my camera soon and get a few things posted.

We only have 46 days of school left and in Kindergarten we get very busy toward the end of the year. This year is definitely no exception. However, I’d like to be better about posting. I have had no time to scrapbook in what seems like a zillion years and I feel like I definitely need to post more often or I’m going to forget so many details that go along with the events in our lives. I love that blogging is such a fast and relatively easy way to chronicle the things that happen.

Hopefully, I will be posting soon!

It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s…

2010-02-21T22:16:00.001-06:00

….how you interrupt the game. :)

During one of our recent snow days, Cole was bored and even I was craving a tiny bit more than pretending that I was cleaning. (Seriously, who did I think I was kidding?) So, I gave Cole a choice of three games I would play with him. He chose Monopoly. I know that we don’t actually play it the right way because we only look at the rules if we think we are losing and/or we want the upper hand. I told Cole before we began that we would stop the game after 30 minutes. In our house, Monopoly has been known to go on FOREVER!!!

About two minutes into setting up the game, Miss Interrupts-a-Lotta-Games decided to help us play. We knew we couldn’t keep her from playing, so we gave her a choice of pawns and she seemed happy. Until…she realized that the game was quite boring and she took matters into her own hands. Cole and I continued to play despite the fact that she kept moving our pawns all over the board. She was making the game quite interesting. Not only did you have to pay attention to what you rolled before she scooped up the dice, you had to remember where your pawn originally stood before she got a hold of it and moved it around the board.

(Please pretend like you don’t notice the horrible blue ethernet cord and white extension cord in the background. We live an a house that is 100+ years old and only have two outlets upstairs. We make do.)

(She hid the pawns from us at one point. I’ll give you one guess where they’re at!)

I got a little too full of myself and bought every utility and railroad that I landed on. Keep in mind, when the game started and I put the limitations on how long it would last, I told Cole that no one ever goes bankrupt. :) Famous last words! He got crazy and started buying all the properties after you pass go and put up four hotels. He bankrupted me!

Well, you win some, you lose some. Regardless, the time spent laughing at Audrey and enjoying Cole’s victory were absolutely priceless! I have truly enjoyed our snow days this year. I hear that there will be a day in the near future that my kids won’t want to have anything to do with me for a time. I hope that it’s not anytime soon.

Help our classroom get an HP Printer!

2010-02-17T20:40:00.003-06:00

This may look like a super adorable, cute and fun Kindergarten classroom ~~since I enlisted the help of a fabulous seamstress mother who treated me with ladybug curtains~~ but I can’t afford the necessities for my kids like a printer, let alone, a printer/scanner/copier that actually works. Right now, our printer is so old that it isn’t compatible with the operating system on our computer. Not good! However, you can help!

(Insert shameless plug here)

Currently, HP is partnering with DonorsChoose.org to help fund projects for classrooms across the US. HP is willing to pick up the cost of half any HP product ordered through CDW or Quill. I promise that the grant proposal I submitted was for one of the cheapest HP All-in-One printer/scanner/copiers that I could find. Right now, we are $111.07 shy of having our proposal fulfilled. Please help if you can! You can donate as little or as much as you’d like.

Here's a link to our project: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=368975.

I have had two grants fulfilled through DonorsChoose and have been blessed to know that generous donors are willing to support education.

Here is a link to a peek into our classroom from the beginning of this year. http://apeekintoournest.blogspot.com/2009/08/peek-into-my-classroom.html

“I’m just a musk.”

2010-02-06T18:17:00.001-06:00

A cute little blue-eyed blonde in our house runs around on a stick horse enthusiastically saying, “I’m a musketeer! All for one and one for all” quoting her current favorite movie Barbie and the Three Musketeers.

Tonight, she took her dress-up dress off her teddy bear and asked me to help her put the dress on. So, I helped her change and she ran into her bedroom. A few minutes later she ran out into the living room on her stick horse with Cole’s Indiana Jones hat and shouted, “I’m a musketeer! All for one and one for all!” I told her she didn’t really look like a musketeer with her sequined dress on now and without missing a beat she replied, “I’m not a musketeer. I’m just a musk.”

Can you guess what she’s wishing for?

2010-02-04T23:40:00.001-06:00

Yep, for Mommy and Bubby to stay home and play with her tomorrow. Come on snow!! It took a lot of effort for her to get her fingers crossed like that and I’m pretty sure there was a lesson involved in the process. :)

Can I make this? Yes, I ……

2010-02-03T20:37:00.001-06:00

Well, we’ll see this weekend. :) I bought this pattern today to make a few coffee sleeves as gifts for Valentine’s Day. Aren’t they cute? The tutorial is fabulous! If you are looking for a frugal gift for friends or family, I highly recommend this pattern from A Green Sleeve on Etsy.

Photo source: A Green Sleeve

Compassion

2010-02-03T20:10:00.001-06:00

This past week, our school had the opportunity to participate in two different Haitian relief efforts. We took part in our state department’s hygiene kit program and also a Hats for Haiti fundraiser. Cole had seen on the news that another school allowed the kids to wear hats to school if they donated $1 to the relief efforts. He mentioned the idea to our principal and she told him yes, if he had a sponsor. I willingly offered to be his sponsor because I wanted to encourage and support him in doing something compassionate for others. I’m so glad I did!

Our school district raised enough money to purchase 110 kits to add to the kits the students brought to school. We ended up taking over 376 kits collected this past week. The kits included a full size shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, a hand towel and a comb. Our elementary goal was to collect 10o kits and we ended up with 273 from the elementary alone. That is practically two kits per three students. I know times are hard for people and this effort came on the heels of a fundraiser for Camp Barnabas, so I was truly overwhelmed with the generosity of our students, teachers and community.

Most of all, I’m so proud that my son has a heart that is compassionate. I hope that age and the world will not change his heart. He recognizes the need to help others in need. Period.

Taking the boxes to Convoy of Hope yesterday filled a place in my heart that I will not soon forget. Each and every person we met at Convoy was friendly, kind and hard-working. They even let Shelly back her truck up to the loading dock so they could unload all of the boxes for us.

Although our efforts may seem meager compared to the enormity of needs we have in our country and others, it’s so humbling to know that we have the opportunity to be able to help in some small way.

A super special thanks to my friends, Shelly and Kristi, for staying at school with me until 10 PM on Monday, to count, sort, package and load the boxes to be taken yesterday. They are amazing!

We also got to see one of my dad’s childhood friends. He helped Cole unload everything. :) (This made it even more special!)

I prayed over the kits in hopes that they will be given to children who will feel blessed, in some small way, amidst all the tragedy that they have seen and endured since the January 12th earthquake.

Is it wrong to wish for a snow day…again?

2010-01-26T23:45:00.001-06:00

I know the last snow we got seemed to bring out the cabin fever in most households, but I thoroughly enjoyed staying home with my kiddos. Now, a few weeks back into school, I find myself selfishly wishing for more family time already. I think I’m going through withdrawal. I’m fully aware that we will have to make up the days we miss, but is it wrong to wish for some forced ‘stay at home’ time? Sounds like Heaven to me! Bring on the snow…pretty please!

Welcome!

2010-01-20T23:34:00.000-06:00

I am finally getting around to creating and maintaining an educational blog. My main goal for this blog is to have an online version of all the things I seem to keep taking back and forth to school each day. :) My web site is blocked at school, so I also need a way to save my links, ideas and resources that I can easily access. I hope you find something you can use, too!

She feels pretty! Oh, so pretty!

2010-01-19T07:11:00.002-06:00

This is what happens when your house is actually silent. ;)

Audrey enjoys sitting with me to put my makeup on every chance she gets. I enjoy the time with her, too. She completely soaks everything in and seems so content just to watch what I do and to ask questions about where all the make-up goes. However, the time has come when she seems to be more content with doing it herself.

I must not have done a very good job if this is where she thinks the mascara is suppose to go. Hee, hee!

My heart breaks for Haiti

2010-01-15T23:41:00.001-06:00

This week, my emotions are all over the place. I’m heartbroken for the victims in Haiti. The mass burials. The loss of life. The desperation and the struggle for the survivors to begin living a new life with less than they had before. I want to be able to do more, but I feel so helpless. My meager donation to the American Red Cross feels less than adequate.

I have been reading Money Saving Mom’s blog for quite some time and I want to encourage you to visit Crystal’s post about how she and her family are helping the victims in Haiti. Just by blogging about my small donation, her family will donate $10 to Compassion’s outreach in Haiti. If you have never heard of Compassion International, you should visit the site here.

(Click on the picture to go to Money Saving Mom’s post.)

When I got on Facebook tonight to catch up on status updates, I was very disappointed to read a few of the discouraging words people were saying about the aid that is being sent to help the Haitians and it broke my heart even further. I am not usually one to let others opinions sway my feelings toward them when I know they are passionate about what they are saying, but sometimes I feel like we are so desensitized to everything anymore that all we think of is ourselves. We don’t stop to walk a mile in anyone’s shoes before we start complaining.

It doesn’t matter if you make all the money in the world and live in beautiful mansions or palaces or if you live in a lean-to on a mattress in the mud, natural disasters are not something we can control and I have never heard anyone ask for something so catastrophic to happen to anyone. Why wouldn’t we want to help?

I don’t believe that we should be so quick to judge what is going on when we are so far removed from what has actually happened. The news is only capable of showing a tiny glimpse into the devastation these people have faced and will face for years to come. Our hearts should be focused on these poor, broken people and the lives that were lost, not pointing fingers and blaming those who are trying to help in the most basic way. We can’t all get on a plane and go to Haiti to help rescue victims and take care of the injured. Making financial contributions, whether it be through our government or through our texts/phone bills, we owe it to our brothers in sisters in Christ to make a difference.

I have so much more that I want to say, but I risk ruffling too many feathers and that is not my intention. However, if all of this tragedy was happening to you and your family, would it be more helpful to have people tell you how you should recover or actually take part in helping you recover?

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

2010-01-06T23:44:00.002-06:00

we’ve had enough snow days for me to start decorating for holidays I’ve never decorated for before. :) We’re going on snow day number four after a week and a half Christmas break. I’m soooo loving it! Cole and Audrey absolutely love being crafty and right in the middle of whatever I’m attempting, so we had lots of fun tonight. I hope you like what we came up with.

I started with two frames from the Dollar Tree. They are super ornate and I new I’d like them if I made them a little more shabby chic. The corners feel like they are metal even. I took profile pictures of both of the kiddos and first attempted to cut them out of red paper (to be super color-coordinated for Valentine’s Day)—big mistake! It looked ridiculous! The silhouettes ended up being too big, so I scanned them and converted them to .svg files and was able to reduce the size and use my Cricut Expression to cut out the new ones. (Thanks, honey for the super thoughtful Christmas gift!)

We took out the glass and paper and had to start our frame painting inside. If it would have been warmer, we could have attempted to spray paint in the garage, but the temps are in the single digits and we weren’t sure if the frames would ever dry or if the paint would freeze up and do weird things.

Cole used a brush to paint the frames and I used a foam brush to get in the grooves of the corner pieces.

Audrey didn’t get to help on this project, but she had fun rocking in the rocking chair John’s grandpa made for him when he was a little boy. She also got to watercolor paint which is much easier to clean than acrylic.

Here’s our finished product! Please don’t look too closely because there’s a fingerprint on the glass and our painting is, let’s just say, less than perfect. I used distressing ink to cover the corners for a little extra dimension and vintage look.

Here are the frames on top of our bookcase in the living room. I bought the glittery branches in the Christmas section at Hobby Lobby for 49 cents each this afternoon. I may add a few hearts to them. I also got the ornament in front of the large frame at HL for 29 cents. It’s a Christmas ornament, but I added a bow to it and it looks decorative enough for Valentine’s Day. I added a valentine (from one of the printable links I added earlier) to the inside of the large frame.

The candleholder and the holder the branches are in were all Dollar Tree items that I glued together with Gorilla Glue. I was inspired by Homebody Holly’s creations here. John gave me the two old red books for color and depth. :) Isn’t it sweet of him to loan me books to decorate with? He also gave me a big can of vintage buttons I’m going to have to do something with soon.

Tomorrow, we are going to work on making a 'love'ly banner.

Free vintage Valentine printable links

2010-01-06T23:03:00.001-06:00

I am on a vintage Valentine kick to try my hand at decorating for Valentine’s Day for the first time. Here are a few sites I came across if anyone else is interested.

http://tipnut.com/vintage-valentines/

http://www.silvercollectblog.com/free-vintage-valentine-postcard-images-happy-valentines-day.html

http://collectibles.about.com/od/valentinecollecting/ig/Vintage-Valentine-Card-Art—/

http://hubpages.com/hub/free-vintage-valentine-cards-cherubs

http://karenswhimsy.com/valentine-clipart.htm

http://hubpages.com/hub/valentines-day-flowers-clip-art-images

Enjoy!

Pork Roast/Bean Chalupa Recipe

2010-01-01T19:36:00.001-06:00

My friend, Ann, gave me this recipe this week and I made it for our New Year’s dinner. It was absolutely fabulous! Even my picky eater son ate it. I snuck the beans in Audrey’s and she ate it with crushed tortilla chips. I had to cook this on the stove because I realized through trial and ~~a hugely messy~~ error that my crock pot was not large enough. I guess I’ll have to add that into my New Year’s budget somehow. :)

Pork Roast/Bean Chalupa

1 pound dry pinto beans
3 pounds butt pork roast
1 lg. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed (I used 2 T. of garlic powder)
2 cans of Ro-Tel
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons cumin
6 cups water (I probably should have used less because we had to spoon the beans/Ro-Tel mixture out with a slotted spoon.)

Directions:

Place beans, roast and all other ingredients in crock pot. Cover with water and simmer covered until beans are tender and meat falls off bone (10 hours on low). Remove all fat from meat.

Before serving, we took the meat out and completely shredded it in a bowl.

Serve over corn chips or on flour tortilla with grated cheese and sour cream. However, you can pretty much add any items you would normally use to top a taco or burrito.

A fresh beginning (again)

2010-01-01T19:22:00.001-06:00

Thank God I’ve lived to see another New Year. I am very blessed with a wonderful, healthy, supportive family and I treasure and place huge importance on my friendships. I am also blessed with a great job.

This year, I want to…

read my Bible more and try to find a women’s bible study group
participate in more acts of charity
develop pictures more than once a year (same goes for balancing my checkbook)
find even more ways to save money so that I can give more to others (I would really like to help an organization that helps children or pregnant women.)
be the mom that my children need and want me to be and the wife my husband expects me to be (John would appreciate this!)
procrastinate less and be more proactive and less reactive (Like emptying the dishwasher BEFORE the counter is stacked with dirty dishes ready to go inside.)
finish painting a few rooms and refinish a few pieces of furniture (Like the dresser my mom gave me with stickers all over it that I still have yet to strip and paint from 2 years ago.)
maintain a healthier lifestyle by eating at home more often (McDonald’s and Chick-Fil-A may see a plunge in sales)
Facebook less (I almost wish I’d never started reading everyone’s status updates. I can’t get enough of the pictures though.)
blog more (I know, can’t really blog any less w/out blogging at all, right?)
scrapbook/journal events in a more timely fashion by going back to the old way of scrapbooking without all the fancy embellishments that distract from my subjects (I realize some of you will be appalled by this. Sorry!)
drink less Dr. Pepper and more water (Notice, I do not intend to give it up by any stretch of the imagination.)
realize that all that I have is ‘enough’ and the things I think I need are not always necessary (This goes for home decorating in a big way!)

Overall, I can’t say that I regret a lot from this past year other than spending way too much time worrying about things that weren’t important. My biggest personal regret is not spending enough time with my friends and family. However, I don’t think I could ever have enough time with my family and friends. Luckily, I always have 2010!

Label Cloud

2010-01-01T01:14:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T23:43:00.001-06:00

I hope everyone has had a wonderfully, joyous Christmas this year. I know this time of year can be hectic and stressful, but it has been so nice to enjoy time with family and friends in honor of the birth of Jesus. I don’t have a lot of time to post tonight because I’m getting ready for another special birthday party tomorrow, but I will leave you with a picture I took at my parent’s church Christmas Eve service last night.

Don’t hate me for enjoying a little gift wrapping…

2009-12-13T19:31:00.001-06:00

Tonight, I started wrapping Christmas presents, not out of advanced planning, but necessity. Audrey is still two, so she successfully visits every nook and cranny of our house every single day. At this point, every place I’ve tried to strategically plan ends up being in the way. So, I decided to sneak into the bedroom while she was playing with Cole and I got all of her gifts wrapped and ready to put under the tree.

Last month, I bought a Scotch pop-up tape handband dispenser and I can’t believe how much easier gift wrapping has been so far. I seriously don’t know how I ever managed before. If you don’t have one, you need to run out and buy one before you even think about starting wrapping gifts this year. I got mine at the Dollar Tree, so it was super cheap! :)

Ahhh, life is good when I find something that makes this crazy life seem easier! Plus, I got the cutest Disney Princesses wrapping paper with Audrey’s favorite, Princess Aurora/Sleeping Beauty at Karen’s Yard Sale for $1/roll! Now, if I could just find something cute for Cole. He’s not a ‘believer’ this year, so it actually makes life easier. :) I don’t have to try to find different papers from us and the man in the big red suit. I probably need to find something a little more grown up for him instead of themed paper.

What do you do to make gift wrapping easier? (Paying someone to do it is out for me because I’m too frugal.)

Now, to go figure out where I wrapped my ambition for addressing Christmas card envelopes. :)

Picture source: 3M

Doesn’t everyone bake like this?

2009-12-06T22:11:00.001-06:00

Gotta love a sweet little helper who enjoys licking a good brownie spoon. :) We can’t keep clothes on the little thing, ~~which we hope is not a preview of life to come~~. On the plus side, she is saving us lots of money not having to wash so many clothes. I appreciate her help and thoughtfulness.

My baby boy turned double digits

2009-12-05T11:51:00.002-06:00

A week ago, yesterday, my baby boy turned 10. It is so hard to imagine that 10 years ago our family would be blessed in such a big way. We were so excited when we found out I was pregnant with Cole. I had miscarried the previous year and we had kind of given up on getting pregnant. When we had our first doctor’s visit, my due date for Cole was the same day as the baby I miscarried. That was such a neat feeling.

I loved being pregnant with Cole. Other than not sleeping and having pregnancy induced carpal tunnel, I had a great pregnancy. Since I lived over an hour from the hospital and Cole was due during an unpredictable weather time of year, my OB suggested being induced. (Plus, he was expected to be a big boy!) The induction ended up in a c-section and the rest is history.

Cole is such a handsome and smart young man. I love listening to him tell stories. He always asks such inquisitive questions and he is so curious about how and why everything works the way it does. He’s tall for his age. He likes Transformers and his little sister. He enjoys playing outside and being alongside anyone of us. He is very family oriented and he’s a momma’s boy. He enjoys playing the wii and he likes to write stories. He is an excellent artist and he cracks us up with his inventions. He’s a homebody. He loves Chick-Fil-A and Incredible Pizza. He plays the piano by ear and is extremely creative. He’s a lefty and he keeps a messy room. He’s sassy and opinionated. He can get mean, but he’s always sorry. He has always been big for his age and people have always expected more from him because they think he is so much older than what he is.

I love that he is growing up and I get to see some amazing changes in his personality and temperament. However, I’m very sad that everything happens so fast. I wish time would slow down and allow him to be a kid a lot longer.

Cole dreams of big things, but is incredibly happy with the most simple moments. The best gift that I can give him right now is time. Time to become the person he wants to be and to pursue the desires of his heart. He’s at the age now where I can’t always make everything better and sometimes things hurt.

I want the best for Cole. I want him to care about others and put God first in his life. I want him to love someone deeply someday and hopefully have a sweet family of his own one day. As of right now though, he says he won’t get married and he won’t have me any grandbabies.

For Cole’s birthday this year, he wrote down places he wanted to go on brightly colored index cards. He handed me the stack and allowed me to choose which place he would get to go. We ended up eating at Pizza Hut (his choice) and going to Buffalo Wal-Mart. He always wants to go there because it’s so small and he “doesn’t have to wait as long because I don’t like as much stuff.” He’s wise beyond his years. :)

The day after his birthday, we had another bonfire birthday party at the house. He has had a bonfire party for more years than I can remember now. What’s funny is he does it for everyone else. He knows they enjoy it and I think he knows they will come if there is food. He barely eats a hot dog on the fire and rarely roasts marshmallows. He is always so busy playing inside that he doesn’t get out much. This year, he had a friend from his class, Cooper, spend the night. They played his new wii game until about midnight and then they went to bed. He got lots of birthday money at his party and some great gifts. Believe it or not, he hasn’t even spent all the money yet. I’m hoping he will save some of it.

Here’s to hoping this year will go by a little more slowly than last year did.

On the way to his favorite Wal-Mart

Sitting with Daddy at Pizza Hut

Being silly with his straw

Sissy enjoying the cheesy crust Cole chose

Yes, we take pictures at Wal-Mart next to anything with LOST on it!

John and Cole burning brush piles before the party

Cole decided he wanted Neopolitan ice cream, cookies, brownies, Rice Krispie treats, and fondue with strawberries, bananas, graham crackers and marshmallows instead of the traditional birthday cake. We had to put his candles in his brownies.

Where does the time go?

2009-11-30T12:47:00.001-06:00

Things have been crazy busy the past few weeks getting ready for Cole's 10th birthday party, along with school obligations, Thanksgiving and the beginning of my online Christmas shopping. I would be so proud if I could buy all of my things online this year. :) Thanks to Amazon, I've already bought almost all my kiddos presents. Love the free shipping!

I will update soon with lots of fun pictures. Until then....stay tuned!

My heart is Little House, my brain is 2009

2009-11-08T21:05:00.001-06:00

Since the last time I posted, I have survived Parent-Teacher conferences, turning 35, Space Night, Halloween Class Parties, Halloween Pictures and Halloween itself, two nephews birthdays, Christmas Open House at Rosewood and countless other things.

For my birthday, John and the kiddos bought me season 8 of Little House on the Prairie on DVD. (They bought me season one last year and I spent an entire weekend watching all of it!). ~~Yes, I realize they are out of order, but he got it in trade, so I’m happy with that!~~ After watching several episodes this weekend, I have decided that my heart is completely 98% in tune with Little House on the Prairie. I love the simplicity, the overall life lessons, the morals and values, the hard work, the trust, the warm welcoming of people into your house and life, the frugality, the yearning and everything that encompasses the value of family, friendship and religion.

Now, I know for a fact that life was probably only partially portrayed correctly in the show, but in my heart, I can always find a way to relate to something on the show. However, when I begin to think of the inconveniences (running water & electricity—mainly), the feeling that we have to keep up with the Joneses and the guilt that comes with not doing everything I feel like someone else expects me to do makes me fall right back into thinking that we HAVE to live in the now.

I truly feel sorry for us. My wish for my family is to live more simply. I know that is not cool or exciting to other people, but one thing I’ve learned in the last few years is how truly meaningful life can be when we stop trying to live up to what others expect and start living the lives we want to live.

I took this picture on Halloween. We were waiting on a train to by while the sun was setting. I feel like it completely depicts my life right now. Everything is going by in such a blur even when I’m sitting still. Looking at it in real life, things were so clear, but looking at it in a photo showed the actual motion. That’s me. I ~~sort of~~ have the appearance of having it all together and am able to keep my wheels on the track, but when you take a closer look, things seem so out of focus and it’s hard to keep up.

If I had my way right now,

I would be a stay-at-home mom.
I would take more walks with my kids and play outside more.
I would not worry if my house wasn’t clean and I’d invite others over more often.
I would bake cookies for my neighbors more often than once a year for Christmas.
I would take time to hand write more letters/cards to friends and family. I would stop putting off all the things on my to-do list.
I would limit my computer time to when my kids were sleeping or playing.
I would organize things just to make them look pretty, not just functional.
I would place less value on things and more value on time and memories.
I would keep up with my checkbook and not wait 6 months to balance it.
I would give of myself more to my family and value their contributions.
I would spend less time being frustrated and be more patient.
I would find a bible study group because I know that I need to branch out of my comfortable little box.
I would not feel bad that my child isn’t involved in every sport and activity known to man.
I would read more and write more.
I would be more spontaneous.
I would stay home more often.
I would get the pictures developed that have been on my computer for over 3 years.
I would update and add things to both of my kids baby books.
I would date my husband more often.
I would ask for help more and not be so stubborn.

And the list goes on and on…..

I have to learn to do more with the time that God has given me. I am not feeling balanced right now . I owe it to myself, my family and friends to make more of an effort to do the things that I think I am missing out on. I think I am queen of mommy guilt and it’s creeping up on me right now something fierce. Does anyone else ever feel like this?

Baking Day—Late…

2009-10-18T11:26:00.001-05:00

Mmmmm, my house smelled soooo good while all of this was baking!

Last Saturday, I had lots of motivation to bake. I’m not really sure why, but I am attributing it trying to get warm. I also like the thought of Once a Month Cooking and the fact that Crystal at Money Saving Mom had multiple posts about what she does on her baking day. Also, I’m trying to be extremely frugal and enjoy more time at home rather than running around. Of course, that time seems few and far between. :)

My baking day would have actually only been considered baking hours though. It took me two hours and 15 minutes to bake 2 loaves of poppy seed bread, 2 loaves of banana bread, lemon cheesecake bars, 24 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and a pan of 9 pumpkin chocolate chip squares. I have frozen almost all of it and we’re eating little bits of it at a time. It’s so nice to have it done and to be able to pull some out of the freezer and enjoy a little treat.

What is your favorite thing to bake?

Tonight’s the night—Extreme Makeover!!!

2009-10-04T09:27:00.001-05:00

I can hardly contain my enthusiasm this weekend! Tonight is the night that my brother and his family will be featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC. KSPR 33 will be airing a pre-show with interviews with the family and I’m not sure what else at 6 PM. The actual show begins at 7 PM CST. Ashley Tisdale and Shawn Johnson made celebrity appearances. I’m including a few of my favorite pictures. You’ll have to tune in tonight to see the inside. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside until after the show airs.

Feel free to come out to the watch party at Remington’s on Republic Road around 5:30 if you want to take part in the festivities.

Chris & Niki’s house was exploded

Michael & Paige getting out the last few things before the explosion

Christine Daues, KSPR news anchor, was so sweet to my family

Shelly & me at the pep rally

Joe Daues, Cole, Christine Daues & Audrey

Dad, Audrey, Cole & Me in the VIP tent

Walls are going up

I took a picture of Chris & Niki & their family on TV. I know that makes me weird. :)

Mom & Dad at the faux rodeo

Ty filming a video for Chris & Niki

Ashley Tisdale and Ty taping Mom & Dad

Ummmm, more Ty!

Chris & Niki and their family with the builder, Sam Clifton, of Millstone Homes, and his wife, along with the sitter they had on the trip

I can’t wait to see what all actually makes it into the show tonight!!!

Our little super star!

2009-09-21T20:34:00.001-05:00

I try not to brag on my kiddos too ~~terribly~~ much, but I’m super proud of Cole. He placed in the advanced category in Math on his MAP (Missouri Assessment Program) test last year. The results came out at the beginning of this school year. The school decided to reward the students who placed in the advanced category and they were recognized at the monthly school board meeting this evening. The kids’ names were individually read and they each shook hands with our School Board President. Then, they got their picture taken with their families and with their grade level groups. The students individual pictures and names were placed on stars in the lobby for everyone to see.

It was so nice to see our school do so much to recognize the efforts of these kiddos. I’m so very proud of my former students and especially my very own MAP Star Tester. :)

Cole with our School Board President, Mr. Cunningham

Our little family with happy school board members in the background. ;) Who knows what Audrey and I were doing?

Cole standing by his star photo in the lobby

My 2 year-old reads Hemingway

2009-09-20T22:27:00.001-05:00

As if it isn’t sweet enough that my daughter points to words in a book and ‘reads’ them to me, yesterday she pointed out the ugly truth. As she grabbed John’s current read, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, she pointed to each letter as she so sweetly read to me what it said, “This says, you need to stop talking on the phone.” Seriously, where does she get this?

Earlier in the day, I was actually talking on my cell phone while Audrey was playing outside. She yelled to me, “Mommy, I need a phone in my car.” I jokingly told her that she would be okay and I proceeded with my phone conversation. She was very persistent and kept yelling, “Mommy, I need a phone in my car to drive.” Remind me never to buy her a cell phone.

Audrey yelling at me to give her the phone.

Preview of life at age 16—notice there are no hands on the wheel

Torn

2009-09-20T17:22:00.001-05:00

I am definitely someone that finds myself emotionally torn between the things I’m interested in and the things that I truly value. I find that I like to dive into everything wholeheartedly, but end up giving up on things because I feel like it takes away from my family. I enjoy teaching, couponing, frugality, decorating, reading blogs, scrapbooking, making bows, etc., etc. However, I seem to have to give up on things or put too many things on the back burner because I try to do too much at once and end up spending more time doing things that aren’t as important to my family.

As fall approaches, I have made myself spend less time on the computer, less time on Facebook, less time at school, not making as many bows and practically not couponing at all. Part of me feels a loss for not doing things I enjoy, but the guilt of spending time doing things that my family and friends do not feel they benefit directly from makes me put things into perspective. Yes, my family benefits from my couponing, frugality and bow-making, but not in the sense that I get the satisfaction of doing it.

I don’t want to look back on my children’s early years thinking that I was ever not interested enough in what they were doing or that I spent more time doing things I wanted to than spending quality time with them. The same goes for my family. I never use to be the one that people had to call and check on because I was the one trying to stay on top of things. Not so much anymore.

So, if I’m not commenting on your blog posts immediately or not commenting on your FB status often enough, please don’t be offended. I know that I have to balance my time and other things more evenly. For me, part of balancing means knowing which things weigh more heavily on my heart than on my mind. For now, I choose to devote myself to my family first. I also know that I need to spend more time checking in on my friends and feeling more connected to them. Technology is great in the sense that it gives us the ability to be instantly connected with people, but face-to-face interaction is by far more valuable.

There are so many things in life that come and go easily. I cannot let time slip by that is meant to spent on those who are precious to me.

These two are a huge source of why God put me here and I need to feel like I am serving Him by bringing them up in a way that his pleasing to Him. This is definitely not something I am torn about.

I’m so excited!

2009-09-17T07:03:00.001-05:00

I finally get to meet up with my friend, Wynne, tonight after school gets out. Cole and I are heading to her house and then to our favorite store, Rosewood Farms. Wynne retired from teaching Kindergarten last year and I’ve really missed her this year.

I always have fun when I’m with Wynne. When we get together, we laugh, sometimes cry, but always know the value of a true friend. Have I mentioned that I’m excited???

Help support Children's Miracle Network by shopping online!

2009-09-06T15:13:00.001-05:00

Search results for "amazon" - Support Children's Miracle Network

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One of my favorite online stores to shop for the kids Christmas gifts is www.amazon.com. Unfortunately, they don't generally participate in any of the cash back deals through other sites, but they do support Children's Miracle Network. If you go to http://www.shoppingformiracles.org you will find that there are lots of stores that contribute to this worthy cause. :)

A Peek into my Classroom

2009-08-30T09:36:00.001-05:00

It’s already seven days into the school year and I’m just finally getting around to posting pictures of my classroom. It’s already proving to be a challenging year, but we are taking it one day at a time. I hope you enjoy a little glimpse into my little home away from home.

Front of my room

Back of my room

This side of my room has almost all of the storage. I used the back of the cubbies as my word wall.

Our reading area

Side view of the reading area

This is the doorway leading into an adjoining classroom.

This little salvaged bookcase was charming with lots of ~~abuse~~ use from another teacher. It holds lots of things for morning play.

Calendar area

All our extra supplies. I’m hoping to get a small bookcase for this area so I don’t have to keep reaching on my tippy toes to add things to the calendar. :)

I hope you enjoyed this little picture tour of my Kindergarten classroom!

***I just realized I didn’t take a picture of one side of the room. I’ll have to add those later. It includes my desk, the sink, closet, kitchen set, water fountain, etc.

One teacher’s trash…

2009-08-16T09:58:00.003-05:00

I couldn’t resist picking up these super cute wooden chairs out of the hallway when another teacher was getting rid of them. They are so cute and tiny! I think it’s the fact that they are tiny and wooden that make them irresistible. Sadly though, the rust was a little scary, so I added a few coats of paint and voila! These will make the most adorable addition to my reading corner. The theme is kind of ladybug/cottage. I think I need to borrow a friend's Cricut and put something vinyl on the backs of the chairs. Any suggestions?

Before:

After:

This is my 100th post!!!

2009-08-08T16:46:00.001-05:00

It’s amazing to me that I have actually made it to 100 posts. I admit to being completely horrible about updating frequently. The fact that I have one person reading my blog, despite my infrequency, is even more shocking. :) Thanks to anyone who takes time to read about my family and me.

I began blogging when I realized I wasn’t scrapbooking anymore. I needed a way to document my thoughts and feelings that went along with the thousands of pictures I was taking regularly of my family and friends. This is a great outlet for me. It is my constant goal to keep up with this better.

For my 100th blog post, I’d like to have a giveaway. Since I love to make boutique bows and hair accessories, I would love to share some with one lucky reader. You have your choice of one of the following items listed below.

6 Clippies

(You choose the colors)

2 Boutique Bows

(See the above grosgrain ribbon chart for a list of available solid colors.) If you want the bow attached to a headband, I have the following 1.5” crochet headband colors available: light pink, shocking pink, lavender, black, red, white, and blue)

6 Designer Clippies

50 Itty Bitty Infant Stick-on Hairbows

For one entry, leave me a comment about which item you would choose.
For a second entry, leave another comment telling me you subscribe to or follow my blog.
You can also enter by blogging about my giveaway. Drop back by to post a link to your blog with the giveaway info. listed.

Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. Good luck!

I will accept entries through Monday, August 10. I will announce the winner on Tuesday, August 11. Make sure I have access to your e-mail address in case you are chosen.

What happened to school’s out, school’s out, teacher let the monkeys out????

2009-08-08T15:57:00.001-05:00

I remember singing this in my head like yesterday. Now, here I am back at school getting my room ready for a new and super cute batch of cutie pies. I thought it would be fun to post a few before pictures. I have my work cut out for me this year because I switched rooms again. Why, oh why, do I do this???

I’m pretty sure my Kindergartners will never realize the insane number of hours that go into making my room their school home. However, I love this part of teaching so much. I love organizing, decorating, rearranging, etc. I just wish I could have the motivation to do it at home at the same time. :) I have 10 days until Open House and 12 days until the kids come. It never feels like I will have it all done in time, but somehow, it all comes together.

This is half of the front side of the room.

Here’s the other half.

This is the front of the room. Audrey enjoyed running around the room a lot. Hopefully she won’t pick up too many bad habits before she gets in school.

This is half of the other side of the room.

Here’s the other half.

This is the back of the room. (Complete with two adorable children at the back table.)

Hidden Waters Nature Park

2009-08-08T11:45:00.001-05:00

(Maybe I should rename this post to “If you are on dial-up, you’ll want to hurt me” because this post is mega picture intense. You’ve been warned!)

The beginning of the school year is quickly approaching, so we’ve been trying to squeeze every last day of summer fun in that is humanly possible. I don’t feel like we put it off this year, but somehow, there is more left to do than there is summer vacation left to do it in. So, we have planned and planned and as a result, we’ve been able to spend lots of time with friends and family in the last few days before Cole and I have to go back.

On Thursday, my friend Christy, had asked a few friends and our kiddos to play at a park that we had never been to. Let’s just say that the Hidden Waters Nature Park is someone’s best kept secret. It was absolutely beautiful! There were very few man-made things to distract from the natural beauty of the park. It is almost completely surrounded by homes, but somehow, it seemed very secluded. It was full of tall old trees, small ponds and it had a creek running right through the middle of it. The water was very cold, but truly refreshing in the summer heat.

Kristi, Kason and Kory rode with Audrey, Cole and me. We met Christy and her children, Lyssa and Eric. Soon after, Kim and her children, Brady and Breanna met up with us. It was so great to get to see everyone. All four mamas are teachers, so we are all in the same crunch to fill the remaining days with fun before we go back. Kristi and I are lucky though because we go back the latest. :)

It was so nice to catch up with friends while the kids were having such a great time.