Cannery Trip

We had a great trip to the cannery today. We were really able to get a lot of canning done. As always, it was done pretty quick and I look forward to the next time we get to go. If only the traffic in this state wasn't so crummy! It seemed like it took us forever to get there and to get home because there was so much going on on the roads. I wish I would have gotten a picture of us all in our hair nets and aprons. Unfortunately it was very poorly attended. Only 3 of our youth showed up. Tisk tisk!

Dreams

I sometimes get in a sentimental mood and really enjoy watching stories of success and fulfilled dreams. Not quite sure if it's because I feel that I have a lack of fulfilled dreams or lack of success. Honestly, my attitude on life is probably the one that needs adjusted. ANYWHO....watching those stories/dreams makes me think about the Lord's hand in things. There must have been a lot going on at that time to help these things happen. I know that there are many of those stories out there in the world, many that haven't been told. Most of the stories that I have are sports related. Do you think the Lord enjoys sports? Do you think that He even cares who wins? Today in one of the files of my million file mind, I decided that He does. There are great leaders in this world that have a lot of life lessons they can teach. In sports, there is a lot to learn - and some of life's lessons are best taught on the field/ice/water/court. Being part of that process must be an amazing experience. Just think about our founding Fathers! Wow, one can only imagine how strong the spirit was at that time, in those meeting places, on those battlefields. This is a wonderful land, a Promised Land, a land where dreams are made and fulfilled.

Welcome Back IKE!

I have a lot to be grateful for today. Today was the homecoming of my husband's FORMER ship (another thing I am grateful for). A good friend of mine's husband is unfortunately still stuck on that ship. The great news is that he was reunited with them today. I know what it is like to finally have the missing member of your family home again. I know there are thousands of others that are also home with their families tonight that haven't been since new year's day. Welcome back and we are grateful for your safe return. JTBJM Enjoy your daddy/husband/family time!!!

Furthering Education

One of my hubby's big goals while he is on shore duty is to complete a college degree. He is well on his way to getting started. I think he is only a few credits away from an associates degree.... all from just taking clep tests and the credits he gets from his military training. In the excitement of helping him get a good plan for himself that will be fruitful and will work with our family's goals.....I have revisited the option to finish a degree myself. A few years ago when I got online to BYU-I to see if I could attain an online degree through them, they didn't have one available. When I checked the other day, they finally have one! I attended college 7 years ago with the intent of getting a degree in health science. My only option for an online degree through them is one in University Studies. I know, it isn't glamorous, but it will fulfill the need for me to have a degree of some sort in the event of an emergency situation. It will also provide me the option on continuing to further my education in other areas and attaining my dream - becoming a personal trainer. I am continuing to research my options, but am very hopeful all will work out and who knows... maybe my husband and I can do school together!

It's on

Me and the hubby started a little weight loss challenge today. I'm gearing up to win (hopefully). Since my hubby has a million and one things he wants (the list is constantly getting longer and being edited) that usually add up to a million and one dollars..... it's tough trying to appease those wants. In my desperation to not only help him get healthier/stay healthy after getting off the boat, I thunk up a challenge. You see, on a boat of the size he was on, you are ALWAYS walking FLIGHTS of stairs. Up, down, up, down, down, up...etc. Since he is now on shore duty, he doesn't have all those steps to climb. He walks to work and that helps a little (we are pretty close) he needs that swift kick in the pants. Not to mention, I need the same. It's tough to continue to work hard with weight loss when you know you still have a child to bear in the future. At times I really want to be done with childbearing so that I can just work the weight off and keep it that way. OH WELL. One day I will be done with childbearing. Unfortunately, today is not that day.

I will let you know who wins in the end (not that you care) and show pictures of the prize. My husband's prize is going to go along with the 2nd amendment, mine is still a bit undecided.

Happy Birthday #1!

Ok, so I am a horrible mom and #1's birthday was Saturday. She turned 5. We threw a little shindig (and I mean little) but we had great fun. Hello Kitty was the theme of choice this year.

I can't believe that it has been 5 years since she joined our family. She has become such a wonderful girl. #1 is always willing to lend a hand, is usually compassionate, tries hard to learn, all almost to a fault. Sometimes she is a little too hard on herself. I see a lot of me in her. Hopefully she doesn't turn out to be like her mother, or we'll all be in trouble. We are so proud of you #1 and look forward to the years ahead.

WHOOPS!

There were a couple days that I definitely forgot to post something for. First being the 19th- my best friends birthday! Erin, hope your day ended well, glad we could talk on the phone for a little! My best friend is just that, the best! I am so blessed to have her in my life. Her brother chose to get married that day as well. He is the closest I have to a brother and I wish them both the best. Congratulations and enjoy that honeymoon!

20th - Another good friend's birthday. Happy birthday Cheryl! It was also Father's Day. I want to thank the wonderful fathers in my life, my father, husband, grandfathers, and many others who have influenced me for the better and been a wonderful example.

21st - $0.99 Rita's Italian ice day! In commemoration of the first day of summer, Rita's was having a sale on their regular size Italian ice. We stopped by for a treat and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Keela

So.... we got a dog. Yeah, I know. Finally took the jump and got a dog. The girls have been asking forever and since things weren't going as well as we wanted with getting a new car (basically, we haven't gotten one yet because we can't figure out what we want) that we decided to do the dog first.

We headed to the SPCA after Sissy's graduation on Friday, saw Keela and J said he really liked her. So, we interacted with her, things went well and so we said we wanted to adopt. Off we flew to the nearest Petsmart to get her the necessities and then we picked her up Saturday. She is such a great dog. I think she has come to accept us as her family and I hope she loves us a lot. She seems to. I love the exercise too. J and I take turns walking her. He usually gets the evening walk, I get the morning. No sleeping in for me ever I guess! Oh well. Maybe we will switch again once J starts work. This morning I took her for a 3 mile walk. She did great. Running with her isn't too easy, she keeps swerving back and forth. Until she gets used to it I think it might be slow going.

Her first day here, she fell asleep on the couch for a bit and Sissy put a blanket over her to keep her warm. It was the cutest thing.

 

Moving On..... aka Graduation

Sissy (little momma) "moved on" from Pre-K on the 11th. I tried to get some good pictures of her teachers, but.... most came out fuzzy.

The children sang a few songs, got their certificates and we all got to munch on some cake (at 10 in the morning).


This is Ms. Padgett - Sissy's Pre-K teacher. Ms. Barnes was her assistant for part of the year, as was Ms. Reid. I wasn't able to get great pictures of either of them though. We loved all of her teachers and feel that they were all very kind, loving, and HUGE helps in helping Sissy to learn a lot this year!

A Surprise

It has been a little while since I blogged. Mostly because we have had so much going on and I have had so little time on the computer. First.... J surprised me by coming home early. Some of our best friends here surprised me by bringing my husband home Friday night! He told me he wouldn't be home until the 7th and lo and behold, he shows up on the 4th!

Our time with him so far has been spent going to the zoo (and finally riding the train), looking for cars, running errands, looking for dogs, more errands, watching movies, and hanging around. Let me tell ya, we are never more lazy than when Daddy first comes home. But... the laziness is most definitely under the category of "quality time" as well. =)

J showed up very late on the 4th, some of my friends kidnapped my kids to give me a chance to "clean house". They all knew my husband was about to pop through the door. I come home, get ready to start cleaning, and the doorbell rings. I go to it thinking it is my friend, Stephanie picking some stuff up for the kids overnight and there is J staring at me - mustache and all! I couldn't believe it! Naturally, the kids didn't see him that night, so we planned a dinner for the following day with our friends so that Jeremiah could sneak up and surprise them. little momma was HILARIOUS! She looks at him, says... "Hi Daddy...." then it clicks. (Wait... Daddy isn't supposed to be home....) "DADDY!!! Did mommy pick you up??" While this was going on, destructo girl was already not paying attention, we had to turn her focus on him before she noticed, got a huge smile on her face and said, "Daddy!!" and smothered him with hugs. Little Man wasn't really sure what to do. He was already a little tired, he sat with J for a little while before he went to sleep.

We talked this past Sunday at church. Since our stake has stake conference this Sunday (Father's Day) we celebrated it on the 13th. Our topic was Fathers and the primary children sang. J had me tearing up a little bit when he thanked our Home Teachers and Friends for helping to make his job easier by knowing his family was taken care of. It is very nice knowing that you have people to call to ask for help in any way when your spouse is away.

Friendship

Melanie had a little (less than 30 minute) music concert last night at school. Kindergarten and Pre-K classes were the only ones to perform. Melanie and the rest of the Pre-K performed 2 songs. I was able to capture the first one on tape. You have to excuse the blurry parts and those where I completely move all over the place. I needed to hold Julia (because we were rapidly losing seats with all the friends and family that showed up) and so there were quite a few "operator difficulties". At one point you will hear Julia say she wants to go dance with Melanie. So yeah... my 3 year old trying to crash the party. GO FIGURE. I thought Melanie was HILARIOUS and am very proud of her... even if she doesn't know the words.

Numb

Once again, I am numb. That's the third time in a month!! Finally was able to get my gimp tooth filled. Things could go well with it, or badly. I am really hoping after spending as much as I have on the thing, that it will be good. The filling is fine, just that the cavity exposed a pin hole amount of pulp and that could either be good or bad. The bad resulting in a bridge, and a yanked tooth. Not extremely thrilled about that idea. All that is left now is to pray and hope that the Lord will bless me. (please!?)

Camping Out

 

This past weekend we were lucky enough to be invited along on a camping trip with our best friends. We went to Pocomoke River State Park for Memorial Day weekend. It was a little stressful at times (with three crazy kids and their dad not around to be stern) but overall, I had a BLAST! Tara helped the kids find a "tarzan swing" that they got to swing on a few times. I wasn't able to get pictures of that (and some other things obviously).

The weekend was full of bike riding, walking, swimming, smores, popcorn, campfires, yummy food, lots of bathroom trips, treats, birthday cake, and even some ticks! Melanie and Julia each had only one tick. I have yet to find one on Hunter or myself. We will keep looking though just to be sure although we were pretty thorough.

Julia fell off a scooter during our trip and scraped up her nose pretty good. Poor girl... thank heaven it did not break! Hunter was really great. He sat around in his pack -n- play most of the time or was held (aka spoiled) by someone in the group. He slept pretty great all three nights and had a rough night at home last night. Go figure... hopefully we'll get the routine down in the next day or two.

Special Treat

We headed out to the Tides game last night (yeah... I know... I am crazy) for Military appreciation night. Where we sat next to a cross dresser (man dressed as woman) and my kids took about a million bathroom breaks. Even with the kids being kids we had a really good time. It was too bad my "honey" couldn't make it. The game was mostly uneventful, they lost (BUMMER)terribly, however... the night was redeemed when we had a chance to enjoy our first fireworks display this year (minus new years). Our seats were so close to the fireworks that the cardboard came flying down on top of us.
They had a Hummer out front for the kids to check out while we waited to get into the game. It was pretty fun watching the kids climb around in awe. Oh yeah, there were quite a few HUGE smiles as well. =) Get those terrorists!














These were from before the game. Instead of their normal uniforms, the Tides wore the camo uniforms in support of our troops! Go USA!








Treats the kids got for hanging in there half way through.






Julia got so sticky from her cotton candy, we tried pulling her hair up. Tara did a "Tinkerbell" do. LOVE IT!

Bike

Melanie finally earned getting her bike a month and a half early. I had to take pictures because she was so excited. Plus, she TOTALLY matches!! Check it....


oh and please ignore the small detail of me actually cutting the grass, but not sweeping it off the pavement. =) hey... hubby is deployed, you just have to take shortcuts sometimes!

Projects and a Book

There was a day last week that I was able to spit out quite a few projects (yay). Granted, they are small projects that don't take much time. However, when you are mother of 3 small children AND your husband is deployed, it makes for very little time to get away and sew/project. Here are a few pictures of what I have gotten finished lately.

Ok... so very primitive looking bunting. I made this for Hunter because it was annoying the blazes out of me when his blankets would get eaten up by the stroller on our walks. So, I just button him up in here, strap him in the stroller and off we go! No dragging blankets, and still the luxury of cozy toes.


The recipe holder I made for my craft swap. I always save the worst looking one for myself. (if you ever get something from me... know you are getting better than what I have) I like it, but I want to tweak it a bit too.



Lastly, the diaper/wipes clutch. I tried to applique the "C" on there and did horribly. I am pretty sure my bobbin was all messed up for this one. (not to mention off center...) I like it, I made a few more for some new mothers (like I mentioned above).




Now.... on to the book. I finished a book recently titled, "Don't Cry Wolf" by Clair Poulson. He is a mystery writer and his books are sold at deseret. I really enjoy LDS books. I recommend this book if you like a little mystery and a little bit of romance as well. I am grateful to the Bishop and his family's library of LDS novels. It makes for a great library check out - especially since we aren't blessed enough to live in an area where LDS books are available at the local library.

My lucky day..... sort of

Yesterday I had some dental work done. Long story, but to keep it short - a tooth I had damaged as a small child (bicycle accident) finally decided to cause more problems. Now I have stitches and everything, not to mention feeling the way that the godfather looks (saggy cheeks). I have swollen a little bit due to planning complications. I hope that goes down soon. It is hard to really want to eat anything that isn't super mushy.

The Lucky part of my day was when I went to walmart to get a big girl bike for Melanie. We weren't planning on getting it until her birthday - but we are getting ready to go camping and the people we are going camping with are all bringing bikes. So.... we decided to do it a little early. As I was walking down the bike aisle, I see the bike she wants (16" disney princess one) ON SALE!! I grabbed the matching helmet and knee pads and off we went. Saved at least $25 on the whole shabang. VERY excited. She got to test drive it today... pictures to be uploaded soon.


Overall, pretty impressive day.

Life.... happens

Little man and his FIRST Oreo!! LOVE IT!

Apparently, as the years have passed, I take less and less pictures of my children. Why? Have NO clue! I really wish that I had taken more... hmm... maybe a smaller camera purchase is in my future!? I sure hope so! I get so irritated with the flash on my canon (yet, it still is wonderful). Ugh. I think I will get myself a nice little portable one so that I don't have to make extra shoulder room for my camera strap. Just pull it out of the purse, click and go. Anyone have a money tree I can borrow? So wish money grew on trees..... or maybe that's just the US mint. I get a little confused these days.

Back on track. I needed to order (and i mean needed or I would lose what I paid for) some prints from snapfish and realized I don't have a bunch of documentation of little man's first 8 months of life! GASP! The HORROR!! I am making a new resolution to do better and take more pictures (no matter how silly). Maybe I'll get lucky and I'll even be able to be in a few. =)

Check it... whaddya think?

Apparently this isn't the first song this kid has done. Ellen apparently twittered that he will be on tomorrows show (for those of you who watch). It is truly great that kids these days actually still practice their instruments. Hallelujah!

P.S. My favorite part is the girls in the background, whispering in amazement, and looking at him like... hey... maybe music geeks are kinda cool! LOL

Down in the Mouth

I feel pretty stinking lucky these days with how things are generally turning out. Times like these truly make we worry about what is ahead. My life has just gone that way most of the time. Things will be really bad, then get really great, to then happen across something that puts a bump in the road. This bump in the road has to do with my "gimp" tooth. Why "gimp" you ask? Well, it doesn't really fill the normal job description of a tooth. I don't get to chew on it much since it didn't have the opportunity to come in the whole way. So, it just sits there and causes problems (different story entirely). The dentists didn't even really know what to do with it when I first came to them. "Oh, well, we'll keep a close eye on it and see what happens". Being it is EXTREMELY rare - so much so that my dentist had never seen something like it before, it is pretty much a learning tool. But, it finally did something. It decided to decay - but had this funky hole in it that goes the whole way down to the bone. Apparently there is some hope for it. I will have to consult a specialist to find out for sure, or else, it's my first trip to the oral surgeon and a fake (permanent) tooth for me! It's amazing how we get these teeth for free and then spend the next 80+ years spending 100s-1000s of dollars on upkeep and preventive measures. Plus... the way I got this gimp tooth was by falling off my bike nearly 17 years ago. BEWARE THOSE VICTIMS OF BICYCLE CRASHES - you may be in for some hefty dentist bills! I will keep you posted (not that you care.... I care mostly for posterity's sake). Maybe in the future dentists will finally realize that we all should have a full set of dentures, instead of paying out the wazoo to keep ONE tooth!