Dd9 has been raking TONS of leaves as you can see in these pictures. All three of my girls love to jump in the pile.

We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner Saturday night. That was a big hit with the kids. It was a lot of fun! :)

We also put up our Christmas tree and inside decorations this afternoon. Dd9 and dd4 were a big help all afternoon. Mollie was so excited when she saw the grinch doll. She just pounced on him!! We got Mollie last Christmas Eve so this is her first year to be here the entire Christmas season. She loves the tree. She was laying on the tree skirt when I put it on! She must know that if you're gonna be in my house, you have to LOVE Christmas!!! So, she fits right in.

I am sooooo excited to have the tree up! Tomorrow night we will put the ornaments on and I guess after that I"ll start with the outside lights. My foot is still bothering me a bit so I"m not sure about being up and down a 7 foot ladder to hang lights. Ds16 may be doing most of that....he does a lot of it anyway.

I just finished a book called "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan". It is a wonderful book. I recommend everyone read it. It is about 2 girls growing up in China and their stories of foot binding and arranged marriages. It is fascinating. The main woman's shoes were 7 cm long (the ideal length) after her foot binding. Here is a picture of what that looks like. Can you say OUCH!!!!

foot update

Had my recheck appt for my foot today. The dr. thinks it is fractured. I"ll be having an mri on it some time next week and hopefully they will get it figured out and it can heal. He fussed at me for not having my boot on so I guess I'm back in it tomorrow. Yippee!!!

Hopefully I'll get some pics of Canada on here this weekend in between cleaning and shopping. The kids all need winter clothes and my house is a wreck so I have a fun filled weekend planned. :)

Canada

Wow....Canada is wonderful! I don't know why I don't live there! Needless to say I absolutely loved everything about it. We had a wonderful time. Toronto is HUGE and Niagra Falls is amazing. We went to Niagra Falls last night to see it at night and to see the Christmas lights kick off show and fireworks. It was cold and crisp...perfect weather to start the holiday season. They were the biggest fireworks I have ever seen and we were right under them. It was beautiful against the backdrop of the falls. LOVED EVERY MINUTE!!!!!

So, then I got home today to 79 degree weather, cranky kids and a messy house. Welcome home Mom.

We had a great time baking and decorating Halloween cookies Saturday night. There were some real masterpieces made that night! :)

I"m off to Toronto tomorrow. I'm really sad that I'm going to miss trick or treating. We did take dd4 trick or treating at the zoo Sunday night. That was fun so I didn't totally miss out.

Happy Halloween!!

Here is my newest fashion accessory. It goes with everything so well!!! Man, what a mess. I had to wear a high heeled shoe on the left foot to be almost even with the boot. It was a fun day at work. LOL

Mollie, as you can see, LOVES her new bed. She's quite spoiled and loves it!! While dd9 was at the pumpkin patch with the church group today I took dd4 to Michael's to decorate a pumpkin. They had something where you could buy the pumpkin for 1/2 price and use their stuff to decorate it there. The coolest thing about that is using glitter and stuff with no mess to clean up! YAY! Anyway, she did most of the decorating by herself. I poked the "hair" into the top but that's about it. She's very proud of it. I"m sure you can't tell from the picture just how sparkly it is. It's VERY glittery....her favorite thing!! She has named the pumpkin Sheridan (no clue). Anyway, it was a good afternoon of Mom and daughter time with, surprisingly, no fits or attitudes. WOW! She's such a fun kid when we are by ourselves.

Well, maybe my prayers have worked some this week. I'd like to think God was looking out for us. I had a plumber to the house in sherman and he fixed everything in the bathroom for $117.00. I was soooo happy about that. The last quote I got was going to be about $400-500. I was really stressing about that. Something like that always comes up when you are trying to pay off bills and save money. So, anyway, it was nice to have one good thing happen this week. Maybe my luck is going to turn around. I listened to a new podcast today called "scream free parenting". I need to listen everyday to that. Been having a bit of a hard time with that. Dd4 is pushing every button she knows how. She must sense my stress and be feeding off of that. Not good.

Anyway, I'm off to bed soon I hope.

Not much new here...just work and school pretty much. I do actually have a menu planned out for about 10 meals so that is nice. I'm sure that will help make the evenings a little more pleasant. The kids and I have been going to church every week for about a month now. We are all really enjoying it. I am glad that the kids like it so much. We haven't had one Sunday morning complaint about getting up and ready to go. SO NICE! That is one positive thing that I feel really good about these days! YAY ME!!! I know it's probably not that big of a deal to people who have always gone to church. But we haven't been more than a couple of Sundays here and there since dd9 was a tiny baby. Yeah it's been a while. I'm proud of us for doing it.

Mollie Mae

We have a special birthday girl at our house today. Mollie Mae is 1 year old today. Yes, we had cupcakes, fixed her a new pillow for her bed and got her a few new toys. After our loss last December, Mollie has been such a blessing to us. She is the sweetest little thing and brightens everyone's day. It is impossible to feel bad when she is sooo happy to see you even if you are outside for 5 minutes. We love her and can't imagine life without her around here.

I took dd4 to see Disney on Ice Princess Wishes show last weekend. We had a lot of fun. It was a great time for just her and I to go check out the fair and then go to the show. We've gone from spending every second of every day together to not having much time together at all. So, it was a special night. We were on the 6th row. Dd4 was so excited. Anyway, here are a few pics from that night.

Life is so crazy busy these days. I'm leaving the house at 6:45 getting back around 5, then doing the usual kids stuff (by myself 99.9% of the time) until 9-9:30. By that time I barely have the energy to pick out clothes for the next day and drag myself to bed. Needless to say, I am feeling totally exhausted to the core. My house is a mess, my van is a mess...I am feeling out of control b/c I don't have time anymore to keep these things up. Yes, I know I am whining...lol!

I don't know why life has to be so hard. I am trying so hard to do things to get organized, pay off debt and just basically feel like I"m in control of my life. Everytime it seems like I may be making a little progress in the right direction, something or someone knocks me down. I just can't get ahead. Can't get dh on the same page with budgeting or much of anything for that matter, so that just makes it soooo much harder. He promises things and then the next day does another. UGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I AM VERY FRUSTRATED WITH MY LIFE!

Okay, I'm done. Hopefully I can go to sleep now....

Here are a few new pictures. Dd9 and dd4 on the first day of school. Dd4 is student of the week (has been for 2 weeks now)! She's very proud of her display as you can tell!! lol. Little Mollie has spent a lot of time in the pool much to her dismay....and she's found a new hiding place (she thought).

Wow!! It has been a long time since I've been on here. Let's just say that my life has become a little crazy these days. I'm about to rush out the door right now to run a few errands before picking up dd9 from a slumber party. But I do have pics and updates about school and all that good stuff so I'll be back soon....maybe even today.

work

Well, I now have two days of work under my belt and it feels good. The worst thing so far is getting up at 5:30 in the morning. That is very, very hard for me b/c I like to stay up late but that is slowly changing. It is fun to see Nat at lunch and stuff and everyone has been super nice. So, I am enjoying it. The kids are doing okay with me being gone. I've been home at 4:15 both days so it's still early enough to spend time with them. Last night we went to the movies and tonight we spent an hour or so in the pool. I am worried about getting everyone where they need to go when school starts but I'm sure it will all work out. K, I"m off to put dinner away.

Today has been a great day so far. Dd4 and I just got home from the Omniplex. I haven't been in about 5 years. It is such a fun place. We were there 2 1/2 hours and she wasn't near ready to come home but we had to get dd17 to work. The sun if finally out hopefully for the rest of the day. Dd4 wants to go swimming but i'm sure the water is like ice.

Oh yeah, forgot to put pics of my first garden stuff. I was so excited to eat something that I actually grew. Very cool!! Well, pics are taking forever so I"ll put them on here in a bit b/c it's naptime. :)

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I've been on here. Summer has been pretty busy so far. I hope I will be starting my new job on Monday. I am excited about it! It has been a long time though since I had to get up and get everyone ready in the mornings and all of that stuff so it will take some getting used to. I think the kids will be fine. My main goal is going to be to get some bills paid off and get a new car. Can't wait for that!!! :) Dd9 is at camp in Broken Bow this week. We both cried when I left her there. It was very hard. It's her first time away anywhere like that. I hope she is having fun. Can't wait to see her on Saturday. Spent last weekend in Broken Bow. I was glad to see Granny...although I don't think she really knew it...at least I did. She is not doing too well but seems to be happy. I'm glad she doesn't really know enough to realize what's going on. There are times when that is a good thing. Anyway, got grocery shopping to do so I"ll write more later.

Wicked

Just got home from FINALLY seeing Wicked! I've waited for almost 2 years to see it. I was sooooo worth the wait! I wish I had tickets to go see it every night that it is here. DD17 and I waited in the pouring rain without an umbrella outside the stage door for autographs. Everyone was soooo nice. I love the girl who played Glinda (Christina DeCicco). She just made the whole show. Anyway, it was a great ending to a really bad day.

Summer...

Well, summer is in full swing. Last week was the first week out of school. We all stayed up late and slept late. I would love to have some kind of summer schedule. Going to work on that this week. We have a few things going on at the library that we are going to and our movie on Friday. Other than that, not much planned. This is my first summer just being home. Well, I guess last summer was my first one not working outside of the home. We were getting ready to move at the end of July though so it definitely wasn't a normal summer. I stayed pretty busy and the kids went to the babysitter's house part of the time. Anyway, after just a week out of school, I can see that some kind of structure is going to be neccessary to survive the summer. Anyway, I"m off to plant flowers in the back yard.

Jordin Sparks

Dh went to the walmart meetings in Arkansas this week. He is in charge of the musical guests for the meetings. He called this morning and told me that one of the people is Jordin Sparks! I told the girls and I'm sure the neighbors heard the screams! My ears still aren't the same...lol! Just one thing to say to him....if he doesn't come home with pictures and autographs...he probably should not come home for his own safety! I hope he doesn't tell her how mad I was that Blake didn't win....lol!

Dd9 received several awards at school on Wednesday. I was so proud of her. She got a coupon for a free bowling game once a day all summer. Guess we'll be improving our scores this summer!

We had fun at dd9's class on the last day of school. We had a beach party lunch. We all had a good time. I can't believe that I have a 4th grader!!
This is dd9 and her teacher, Mrs. Tilton. We really liked her a lot.

Well, here are our ladybugs. We are letting the rest of them go in the garden today. It was really cool to watch them grow from those ugly little larvae into beautiful ladybugs.

diaper cake

I found this picture of a diaper cake that I made for a baby shower a few years ago. It is made totally of diapers and ribbon. The flower thing on the front is made from baby socks. I had fun figuring out how to make it and I love the way it turned out. Wish I could figure out how to mail one so I could make one for Julie!

ladybugs

We now have 10 ladybugs. It has been really cool to watch them change. We let a few of them go in the garden. We'll let the others go today or tomorrow. The picture of the ladybug in it's house is not too good. The big things are actually pieces of a raisin (that's what they eat). The small dot is the ladybug. Most of them have turned red now. When they first come out they are not red. It takes them a day or so to turn really red and look like ladybugs. Neat project! :)

We just got home from dd4's dance recital. As far as her group goes, there wasn't a whole lot of dancing involved. They were far too worried about the snack table. It was fun anyway and they looked really adorable. :)

Limo ride

Dd9 went for her first limo ride last Wednesday. She was one of the top fundraisers for their last one. They all got to ride to the pizza place for lunch. She was thrilled! What a fun day!

Graduation!

I am still not sure that it's hit me yet that dd17 just graduated. When did she get so grown up?? I'm excited for her to go to college and all of that but I'm feeling kind of sad too. :(

We had a great time today. Dd23 and her husband came up last night. It was nice to see them. I think Dd17 really enjoyed herself today which was my only goal.

Blake *sigh* :)

Go Blake!!! So, dd9 and I were watching AI in my bedroom and dd17 and ds16 were watching it in the living room. For some strange reason the tv in my room is a few seconds faster than the one in the lr. So, when they said that Melinda was going home, we screamed so loud from the bedroom that it totally ruined their moment in the lr. They were still waiting for Ryan to say the results when we screamed. We scared little Mollie half to death. So, we all need Blaker girl shirts to wear next week (even Mollie b/c she loves him too)....hehe...except ds16 of course. I swear that when Blake was singing Mollie ran over and put her nose to the tv. :)

We were at dd16's soccer banquet tonight during American Idol. I rushed in the door to watch it only to discover that not only had someone turned off the recording but no one even watched it!! What is going on here???? I called Natalie and got Blake's voting numbers and voted for him several times anyway.....so there!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to Natalie and Julie! You both deserve it! :)

Yesterday dd20 walked in the door around 11. I had no idea she was coming. She drove 3 hours to spend the day b/c she couldn't get off work today. We had a really nice day.

I've had a good morning. I got a beautiful hydranga (sp?) plant, chocolate, gardening stuff, a movie, necklace and tupperware. Dh didn't want to buy the tupperware b/c it was for the kitchen. I kept telling him that it is really what I wanted! Man, when did I get so old?? So, my dd20 took dd9 and dd4 shopping and they got that for me. I am wearing my new mother/daughter necklace and my tupperware is all in the cabinet. I have stuff to plant in the garden and I'm itching to get out there and get my hands dirty but have to go to Mom and Dad's for lunch and then dd17's Baccalaureate is this afternoon at 3. Maybe I'll get to plant stuff this evening....hope so.

Blake

Well we have no nails left but made it through another American Idol. So glad Blake is still on there. Dd4 has informed us that she is going to send him a letter with her picture and a picture of our house so he can find it and come here and marry her because he's a hottie!!! :)

Movies

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.
ummm I can’t think of any that I’ve seen that many times. I have maybe seen Gone With the Wind close to that many times.

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.
I can’t think of any at the moment. I usually only see them once in the theatre. I might rent them after that but that’s it.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.
Jon Bon Jovi…would he be considered an actor since he’s been in several movies? I also love Matthew Macanahey

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.
Robin Williams

5. Name a movie that you can quote from.
My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Gone With the Wind, Grease are a few that I can think of. My kids and I have gotten into older movies the last few years.

6. Name a movie musical that you know all the lyrics to all the songs.
Grease and of course, High School Musical!!

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.
Grease (listening to the cd in my car), High School Musical

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.
Gone With the Wind of course. I LOVE that movie!!

9. Name a movie that you own.
John Tucker Must Die is the first that caught my eye on the movie shelf.

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Does Jon Bon Jovi count??? Hehe…can you tell I love him??

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
Yes. The only one I can remember at the moment is Footloose.

12. Ever made out in a movie?
Ummm sort of, so, yes I guess so. Can you tell it's been a looong while?? lol

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t gotten around to it.
Music & Lyrics

14. Ever walked out of a movie?
Can’t remember doing it.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. As I recall, my friend and I cried A LOT during this movie.

16. Popcorn?
not usually

17. How often do you go to the movies?
Every few months depending on what’s out. We rent a lot of movies.

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?
Night at the Museum

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
Psychological thrillers for sure.

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
E.T.

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
Man, there are many that after I watched I wondered why I sat through it but can’t think of a name right now.

22. What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?
Halloween…the first one

24. What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?
Does Everybody Loves Raymond count since I’ve been watching it on dvd? That’s one of the few things that I watch that makes me laugh out loud.

Our new babies...

I had a hard time getting a picture of these little guys...but here are a few...sort of. We received our ladybug larvae yesterday. They had just hatched from their eggs. I had no idea what ladybug babies looked like. My first reaction was that we got the wrong thing...lol! I have probably squashed a few here and there over the years. They are black with a few yellow spots on their back. The example that the paper said was that they look like little alligators. That is their body shape. Weird huh?? We have had the butterflies a couple of times before and have watched them come out of their cocoons but never the ladybugs until now. Did you know that there are 600 different kinds of ladybugs?? I sure didn't! So, we are gonna have fun watching these little guys hatch out as beautiful ladybugs, or, Colleomegilla Maculata, which is their scientific name.

Okay here are a few more pics from this morning!