Into the Mind of Michelle

Iowa and Christmas party

2009-12-08T13:42:00.007-06:00

We went to Iowa for Thanksgiving. The girls had a blast and the weather was actually nice. Strange for Iowa. On the way up, we stopped in KC to see my college roommate, Jenni. She just moved into a new beautiful home and had her 3rd girl. So I like to tease her that she's copying me, since we just moved this summer and also have 3 girls. Jeni and Brecklyn:

Me and Jenni with our 6 girls!

On the way from my parents' over to Russ' mom's house, we stopped to see my good friend, Dana at her parents' house. She lives in California now, so we hardly ever get a chance to see each other. I hadn't seen her little girl yet and she hadn't seen Rylan.

Chelsea, Becca, Caleb, Maddie and Rylan:

We had Christmas at my mom and dad's. The girls were so excited! I like it because it spreads it out a little instead of a ton of toys all at once. The best new toy is a big wooden Barbie house. Yes, we thought we were going to have to get a trailer to get everything home, but we made it. We only had to tie Maddie's headboard and footboard on top. Dad wanted to send home chairs too, but we thought we'd look a little too much like the Clampetts with those tied on top.

Russ and Rylan reading in Grandpa's reading chair:

The giant barbie house:

We also had Russ' work Christmas party. It was at a really nice hotel, so I got to get all dressed up. So fun. I borrowed a dress, had a friend fix my hair and off we went- with NO kids for a whole 7 hours!!! It was wonderful. In Russ' office are 14 people that also go to church with us. So it is really fun going to his office party, because I actually know quite a few people there. So much fun!

Me and Russ, all dressed up:

Me with my friend Tracy:

Me and my friend, Sherry:

Me and my friend, Pam:

Tracy, me and Pam:

My friend Heather and her baby bump:

Yes, they actually got Russ out on the dance floor. Everyone circled around when he walked through the middle and "danced".

New playset

2009-11-09T08:29:00.007-06:00

After months of promising we would buy the girls a swingset, we finally got one! Becca, especially, couldn't wait. She is our outdoor kid and it has been killing her that there is "nothing to do" outside. She woke up this morning and said, "I can't wait to get home from school so I can play outside on the swingset!"

I was a little worried when I saw how many pieces this thing had. And just in looking at the instructions, I felt like I needed to take a college level class to understand it. When Russ and John went to buy it, John looked at the display and said, "This should only take us 3-4 hours". Ha! It took 4 hours LAST Saturday and then about 5-6 hours this Saturday. The instructions even say 9-12 hours!

The girls were having fun playing the leaves while we worked.

But we had a rhythm. I told the boys that I was the brains of the operation and they were merely the muscle. In other words: I read the instructions, got all of the pieces out for that particular step and then they put it together. While they were putting it together, I got the next step ready for them. It made it go so much faster that way. We had a lot of fun doing this, and only had a "few" extra pieces. Why do they do that to you? It makes me feel like we forgot something! Russ was a little disappointed that they didn't have any major screw-ups to have a fun story to tell. Me on the other hand- so glad our story is only that it took us a long time and no one lost a finger.

extra pieces

The finished product.

Concert #2- AC/DC

2009-11-05T09:54:00.007-06:00

AC/DC. What can I say? When Russ asked me if I wanted to go, I said no. After a little convincing, I decided to go with him. Boy am I glad I did. This concert was awesome! I had no idea I liked so many AC/DC songs. And no, AC/DC does not stand for after Christ, devil's child. They got their name from one of their younger sisters who looked at a sewing machine and saw ac/dc on it. They thought it fit because of the type of music they would be playing would have so much electricity and excitement in it.

We had great seats for this concert. I was just glad to have a seat this time. :)

Russ looking like a crazy rocker, me just looking crazy.

Me and my friend, Carla. We had so much fun with Terry and Carla. I'm glad we went together.

Mitzi, This mullet is for you:

Train tracks on a big screen with a train sound getting louder and louder.

This could only mean "Rock 'N Roll Train"!

Brian Johnson- lead singer.

"Back in Black"- love this song!

"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"

It was a little scary to watch these old dudes dance. I hope they didn't hurt themselves. Brian Johnson is 62!!!!

"Thunderstruck"- LOVE this song!!

"Hells Bells"

Terry and Carla rockin' it to "Shook Me All Night Long".

Mitzi- I took this one for you too- total '80's. Carla and I wondered if their jeans were pinch rolled. :)

"Whole Lotta Rosie"- yes she's a giant blow up doll on top of the locomotive. She tapped her foot to the beat and moved back and forth. It was a little creepy, but cool at the same time.

Angus Young is amazing guitar player, but he is also one freaky lookin' dude. He's like 56. Crazy!

"Highway to Hell"- this song is also not what most people think. It's about a teenage boy who is trying to sneak into his girlfriend's bedroom.

"For Those About to Rock"- we salute you!!

I loved it. I had a blast. I never would have thought that I would enjoy it that much, but I did. So glad Terry and Carla went, they made it even more fun. I am now a huge fan of these amazing old rockers. Way to go old guys- but please don't gyrate so much, I'm afraid you'll break a hip.

Fall Festival

2009-10-26T11:46:00.006-05:00

Our church had a fall festival last night. The girls had so much fun. There were lots of cars in the parking lot that did "Trunk or Treat" and fun games inside for the girls to play and to get candy. Maddie loved the magic mirror because it told her she was "fancier" than Snow White. Becca loved the bounce house and Rylan, well she just wanted that scratchy skirt off and wanted to eat more candy.

Becca IN the bounce house, Rylan outside of it. She was too scared to go in with Becca, so I just held her right on the edge and let her jump.

As they stood next to Snow White and talking to the magic mirror (which was so awesome! Way to go Jamie and Susan!) Rylan kept sneaking candy out of Snow White's basket and putting it in her sack. It was crackin' me up.

We have called Rylan our little ladybug since she was born. She had a ladybug birthday and so it was only fitting that she was a ladybug for Halloween. I added the big poofy skirt on to her costume.

Mckenna and Rylan

Becca had originally wanted to be a ballerina. But one day at Wal-Mart, she saw the leopard mask and decided that is what she HAD to be. Add a leotard, skirt and tights and we have a little Leopard.

Maddie was the difficult one. But she has been every year. That girl comes up with some crazy ideas. This year, she decided to be Fancy Nancy. It's a series of children's books that Maddie loves. Nancy wears LOTS of different Fancy clothes, so we looked at all of them before deciding. She went with the dress that was on her birthday plates from this past spring (we actually didn't end up using them because Maddie chose to take 2 friends to see the Hannah Montana movie instead). So you be the judge. Pretty close huh?

It took a LOT of hairspray to get her hair to stick up like Fancy Nancy's.

Maddie and Jaylee

Maddie was pretty excited because she got 3rd place overall for best costume. She's placed 3 times now. She is a very creative kid. I have let her pick her costumes every year since she was 3 and she has done a great job. It will be fun to see what she comes up with next year!

U2 concert

2009-10-19T16:26:00.012-05:00

Last night was one of THE coolest experiences I've ever had. Russ and I got to go to the U2 concert in the football stadium. We had gotten general admission tickets, so we would be on the field...standing. I was not looking forward to the standing part. In fact I kept questioning Russ on why we didn't get seats. But after Bono walked by us the first time, we were so stinkin' glad we didn't get seats! Being on the field (and getting there early enough to get a good spot) was AWESOME!!! Even with the rude people trying to push in front of us. I just pushed right back. And I was so happy when the weed smoking girl beside us got too high and had to sit down and then didn't feel well and left only 3 songs into the Black Eyed Peas. I couldn't take a whole concert of that.

I admit that U2 sang a few songs that I didn't know- from their new cd. But this concert was so impressive, I didn't care what they sang. I did get goose bumps when they sang "Amazing Grace". That was cool.

Black Eyed Peas opened for them. They were really good. I'm not a huge fan of them, but I really like a few of their songs (especially "I've got a Feeling"-I was sooo ready to do the flashmob dance) and they were an awesome band to open for U2. They really got the crowd excited.

This tour is called U2 360. Their stage spun around so the people that were "behind" the stage could have a front view too. There was an inner circle of people and then a track around them. There were two bridges that went from the stage to the track. We were on the outside of the track. It was amazing! So here are a "few" pictures. Since Russ is so tall, he was able to get above everyone else and take great pictures:

This is what they called their spaceship. See how there is an inner ring of people, then a circle around them? We were just on the outside of that circle directly across from the stage.

The monstrous stage.

We got there an hour early, so we sat for a while.

We were so excited to be at this concert!

Having a concert outdoors in a football stadium is so awesome!

That black ring is a huge screen.

Once it got dark, the Black Eyed Peas started.

That's Fergie.

I think Russ liked taking pictures of Fergie. :)

All 4 of the Black Eyed Peas.

You can't really tell, but the lighters are no longer. No people pull out their cell phones as lights to wave at a concert. It was neat.

The beginning of U2.

We were so excited!

Bono just came out on stage!!!

Edge walked right past us on the track quite a few times. It was so cool!!

Edge and Adam.

It rocked when they were just RIGHT THERE!!

There were two bridges that went from the main stage, over the inner circle people, out to the track. This is Edge and Bono each on their own bridge as the bridges are moving together.

I thought they were going to crash!!

Bono pulled a kid up on stage and sang to him. He even got to run around the track with Bono and in the end, Bono GAVE the kid his sunglasses. Can you imagine being that kid???

I was so excited when Bono (and the kid) stopped right next to us to sing. I made Russ take a picture of me with Bono in the background.

What a Rockstar!

Now this is a really cool picture. That is Bono on the huge screen and right under it you can see him on stage singing.

Edge and Larry.

Here they are again on the track, right next to us!!

The big screen was so awesome.

Bono playing his green guitar.

A red circular microphone came down for Bono to sing in. His jacket also had red lights that shot out from it. He even swung on the hanging mic.

Singing into the red mic.

The end of the concert was just awesome!

Everything lit up.

Bono walked the rail while holding the mic (which had now turned blue)

This was amazing. They are one of the world's greatest bands. I am now a true blue fan. I even bought a cute tshirt!

For those of you who may be interested, here is there set:

U2's Set List : Breathe, Get On Your Boots,, Magnificent, Mysterious Ways, Beautiful Day - with snippet of God Only Knows, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - Stand By Me, Stuck In A Moment, No Line On The Horizon, Elevation, In a Little While, Unknown Caller, Until the End of the World (lyrics), The Unforgettable Fire, City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (remix), Sunday Bloody Sunday, MLK, Walk On
Encore 1: One, Amazing Grace, Where the Streets Have No Name

Encore 2: Ultraviolet, With or Without You (lyrics), Moment of Surrender (lyrics)

Say What????

2009-09-09T09:04:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I went to the local Office Max. I put Rylan in the seat and buckled her in, I helped Becca get into the basket and Maddie went around to stand on the front part. We do this just about every time we go to a store. Well, we weren't allowed to at this Office Max.

I had just started to push the cart when a huge, and I mean like as tall as Russ but maybe 75 pounds heavier, Office Max man stopped us. He was very intimidating- he looked like he used to play football. Here's the conversation:

Big scary guy: "Oh no no no".
Me: "Excuse me?"
Big scary guy: "She can't ride there." meaning Maddie
Me: "Why not?"
Big scary guy: "It's too dangerous."
Me: "What?"
Big scary guy: "She could fall and hit her head and we are liable for all of that."
Me: "Are you kidding me?"
Big scary guy: "No, she needs to get off the front of the cart."
Me: "Seriously? She rides on the front of carts in EVERY store we go to."
Big scary guy: "Well, she's not going to here."
Me: (I was actually pretty mad at this point, because how ridiculous is this? Plus, Maddie had a blister on the back of her heel that was hurting) "I have never heard of anything so crazy before. She would fall like 3 inches."
Big scary guy: "Well, she needs to get down."

So I made Maddie get off. There was a bunch more that I was thinking, and wanted to tell this obviously crazy man, but I just wanted to get in and buy my label maker tape and get out.

If she did fall, she would fall down maybe 3-4 inches! And I know there are sue-happy people out there. But why let kids get in the carts at all? What if Becca stood up and fell out? What if Rylan got her buckle undone and fell out? How nuts is this? And if Maddie did fall, it would be either my fault, or hers. I'm not going to blame Office Max and their carts for my child falling 3 inches!
Crazy.

First Day of School

2009-08-27T15:55:00.004-05:00

Yes, I know it's been a week since the first day of school, but my computer and pictures do NOT get a long very well. Most of the time that I'm uploading pictures to the computer or to facebook, my computer completely shuts off on me. Right in the middle of something. I don't know what the deal is. In fact while typing this and uploading pictures, out of no where- off- TWICE! Russ has said we were going to get a new computer. Well, I'm ready!!

Anyway, enough complaining....

The girls are loving their schools. Becca is in PreK and Maddie is in 2nd. Since we moved, Maddie is at a new school. So far, she loves it and I am really impressed with it and her teacher. Becca's teacher is fabulous. She was also Maddie's PreK teacher and we love her to death.

On the first day of school, I asked Becca how it was. She said, "Ms. T didn't even notice my toenails." I told her that her teacher had a lot of toenails to look at on the first day. Then Becca says, "Oh well, at least I was the cutest one there." The girl does not lack in the self-confidence area, that's for sure.

Becca got in the car the other day and her teacher says, "Becca doesn't let me forget anything." I said, "Becca's a lot different than Maddie." And the look on her teacher's face said it all- 'yep, TOTALLY different- MUCH louder and more outgoing and isn't afraid to tell the teacher when she forgets something.' Gr-ea-t, can't wait for parent teacher conferences. (sarcasm implied)

I always take a picture in front of the entertainment center to see how much they've grown since last year.

All three girls in front of the house.

Maddie at her desk.

Becca on her reading couch.

Ready to learn! Or tell the teacher what to do. Whatever comes first.

Say cheese

2009-08-10T16:10:00.005-05:00

Whenever I take pictures of the girls, I say, "say cheese". Rylan caught on to that and poses for me now. It cracks me up the way she throws her head back, squints her eyes and shows her teeth. Hi-lar-i-ous.

With Uncle Eric:

With Grandma:

With Aunt June:

With Daddy:

With Merma:

At her birthday party:

Iowa

2009-08-06T16:50:00.008-05:00

Every summer we head to Iowa to see family. This year, we had a family reunion to go to. (aka-lots of people I don't know) But it was fun to see the relatives I do know. :)

We spent about 10 days up there and had so much fun. The girls love it and within days of getting back home, they ask when we are going back to visit everyone. Maddie loves being in Iowa so much that she swears she's going to live there someday.

I have so many pictures:

Our family. (Rylan was taking a nap.)

My little brother Eric- gee, I wonder why he's single. Dork.

My cousin Jessica and her little girl Jayden.

Becca, 3rd cousin Lauren and Maddie

Becca all wet.

Ry-ry and her "silly face":

Maddie swinging.

Becca on a nature walk.

I love, love, love these pictures of Becca:

This is the giant swing at my mom and dad's house. We all love it. It makes you feel like you are floating.

I love the way the sun was hitting the girls in this picture:

This is the cabin part of Mom and Dad's B&B:

My dad out mowing hay:

They all sat still!!

There are dozens and dozens of deer near Foxwood. We were driving home and we counted over 20. This one just stared at me when I got out to take it's picture.

Two of the girls' favorite things to do at Grandma's house are:

1. Ride in Grandpa's golf cart. Uncle Rex was nice enough to drive them around. and around, and around and around.

2. The shopping cart. Rylan has taken to it now.

We put Rylan down in the yard to take some pictures. She had to "try" the grass. We don't have soft stuff like this in our yard!!

Rylan and 2nd cousin Ben having a chat. Ben is just 3 months older. His dad is Rylan's 1st cousin.

Russ might have gotten his sports girl after all:

This was just before she started walking. She didn't know what to think about the grass on her feet.

We went BACK to Mom and Dad's (it's a closer drive home than from Russ' family). It was the 4th of July.

The girls with my Mama Pat:

The girls with their Merma:

Dad found some OLD sparklers. They seriously burned up in like 7 seconds. You had to be quick to play with them. :)

VBS

2009-08-06T14:01:00.004-05:00

We had a great VBS this year. Jenny L- you rocked it. She was super organized and had it all together. If you were nervous about it, you didn't show it. :)

The girls had a great time, learned new things, got to go in an underground church (that was awesome- way to go Wendy and Jim), made cool crafts (Maddie wears her pop bottle lid necklace every day) and new friends.

I didn't have VBS when I was a kid, so it is a great experience for me to see our great church put this on for our kids and so many others in the community. Rome was fun, but Egypt next year will be even better!! :)

The registration team was awesome!! They were so organized. Better than last year, huh Mitzi?

The decorations rocked. Susan and Karen did a FABULOUS job painting the Colosseum.

Jenny- checking in on everyone.

Rick and Amanda did games. The kids had so much fun fighting Gladiators and "riding" in a chariot.

Matt and Johnny did a great job of playing Paul and Brutus.

Mike and Billeta were Becca's family leaders. They had a whole gaggle of little girls. So Mike girlied it up for them.

yeah, I know...

2009-08-05T15:10:00.006-05:00

It's been quite some time since I've blogged and there is so much to share. So I'll start with the most recent and work my way backwards:

Rylan turned 1 at the end of July. I can't believe it's been a year. She is walking (almost running) and talking like crazy. She is the sweetest baby. She is totally content to sit and watch her Praise Baby videos. She loves her sisters to death (unless they won't let go of her) and wants to be with them upstairs all of the time. She still takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon which is fabulous!! Most days she'll still take a 1 hr. nap in the morning.

Rylan's first steps.

Listening to music.

Hiding behind the chair.

Watching Praise Baby.

Our Birthday girl! She got a baby doll- she loves babies.

Our little Ladybug got a ladybug cake.

Finally- technology!!

2009-06-19T14:35:00.002-05:00

So 3 weeks without internet didn't kill me. I had Russ' blackberry, so I was able to check my email a few times. We won't have tv until tomorrow. That has been tough. But the hardest of all was not having a home phone. I finally got that done last Saturday.

We are on our way to being settled in our new house. Most of the boxes (in the house) are unpacked. We still have a garage full of junk. I just want to put a sign outside that says, come take anything in the garage for just $5!

My goal by Sunday night is to have all of my pictures on the walls. I think I've only hung 3 things so far. But I'll get there.

Buying an older house is such a different experience than when we built our new house 10 years ago. It was so awesome to move into a totally spotless house that no person, mouse, raccoon, frog, mole or roach had ever lived in. Yes, we have had all of those things (some of them are still here) in this house.

Along with unpacking our boxes, I am having to clean everything in site. No one had lived here since last July, so you can imagine how the bugs and mice took over. We still have a raccoon or very large squirrel living in our attic. We have closed up a soffet twice, and it chews through it. We are just going to board it up this weekend.

Our pool looks great. Russ has worked so hard at getting it to go from pond with frogs and tadpoles to sparkling blue. The girls are having so much fun in it and want to swim everyday. It will be really nice when they are older and can go out there without us having to swim too.

Maddie and Becca are still a little scared of going upstairs by themselves. They are good to go with each other (most of the time). They sleep upstairs and are fine with that- as long as the door is closed.

Rylan is crawling all over the house exploring. She made it up 6 stairs today before I caught her. I put the gate back up, but it's so easy to push over.

So anytime you all want to stop by, come on in. This house is going to be a work in progress for quite some time, but I'd love to give you a tour (and ask for some decorating ideas!!)

Just take me to the Funny Farm!

2009-05-26T15:51:00.002-05:00

This house stuff is about to drive me up a wall! I have never been so stressed/excited/angry/happy/worried in all of my life!

So if the underwriters got their paperwork done by noon today, we could close tomorrow. They got it done, but the appraiser came back with an appraisal under what we are asking for on our house. So now it is in "appraisal review". I honestly haven't even asked what the appraisal came back as. But it frustrates me because the appraiser basically looks at the age of the house and measures for square footage and that's it! He didn't look at the fact that we live in a neighborhood with a pool and a clubhouse. He didn't look at how huge our backyard is compared to most neighborhoods. He didn't look at the large deck we have on the back, or our huge 10x10 wood shed. He didn't look at all of the updated fixtures in the house- lights and doorknobs. He only looked at two things. He also pulled comps from last fall (when the market started to tank!) and those houses got less per square foot. He also pulled a comp on the largest house in our neighborhood. Well that doesn't make since- it's twice as big as ours, so they undoubtedly are going to ask less per square foot. No one wants to own a $300,000 house in a neighborhood where all of the houses are $150-$200K. So because of all of this, or house is supposedly worth less than what our buyers were going to pay for it. UGH!!!

Since we aren't closing tomorrow, we have to file another extension with Fannie Mae on our other house. Well, the realtor that is the Fannie Mae rep here is ticked at us. He had this happen last fall where the guy was trying to sell his house, so he kept filing extensions and never sold his house, so therefore backed out on the deal. But we aren't going to back out!! But our realtor called and said to get to the house and get anything out that is ours. Jerry (listing realtor) was angry enough, that she was worried he would go over and change the locks or the code to get in and then he would claim anything inside as property of Fannie Mae. All we really had over there was cleaning stuff and yard stuff. We had a few painting things left there. But we got ourselves over there VERY quickly to remove our things.

So our mortgage lender (who is wonderful- we go to church with him) is rewriting our loan to do a bridge loan so we can close on our other house and not worry about this one. But this won't be able to be done until Friday- hopefully. Everyone is so busy, being the end of the month and all. And to top it all off- did I say this before?- Russ is moving his office this weekend. When it rains it pours.

Russ keeps telling me that we aren't going to lose the other house and to calm down. I'm just so angry at that other lender for screwing things up for us. We should be sitting in our new house right now, unpacking.

I do know there is a lesson here somewhere. And I'm leaning on God right now to help me with my anger/sadness/excitement/worries. I know He has a plan and it is always better than mine. I just would deal much better if I knew what it was. ;)

house update

2009-05-21T19:48:00.002-05:00

So the appraiser called on Tues. night and came out first thing Wed. morning. He was great. He couldn't believe that that lender had forgotten to order an appraisal. He said he is actually backed up 3 weeks and he squeezed us in. Thank you!!!

Anyway, it was too rushed for everyone to get their paperwork done by Friday and there were no times available to close at the abstract office, so we are closing on Tuesday. We will be out of here by Saturday night. So this is our last weekend in our house.

We moved in on May 28, 1999 and are officially moving out May 30, 2009. Ten years and two days. Time flies. But I just know that when we moved IN, we had about HALF, no wait, A QUARTER of the stuff we have now. That's what ten years and 3 kids does to ya, huh? So needless to say, I'll be having a garage sale in a month or so. I have packed so many things that I look at and go, "why do I have this"?

stupid people suck

2009-05-15T17:26:00.002-05:00

Ok, so my title may be a little blunt, but they do.

We signed a contract on our house April 14. We had 5 weeks to get all of the paperwork done. That's a long time in the buying/selling house business. Our stuff is all done. Our buyers stuff is all done. Well, except for the appraisal.

Three weeks ago, their lender called them and actually said he had put in the order for the appraisal on our house. Lie #1.

Since then, Stephanie (our buyer) has been calling me about every other day to see if someone has called us to set up a time. They haven't.

She talked to their lender on Tues. who said someone should be calling us this week. Lie #2 because he still hadn't put in the order.

Stephanie talked to him today and he said he put in the order on Monday after talking to her. Lie #3 because she didn't talk to him on Monday about it.

He also had said that he had no way of knowing who the appraiser would be or how to get ahold of them since it was a VA loan. Lie #4.

He also hasn't been returning their phone calls.

So today Stephanie finally gets ahold of him. He said he thought everything was going fine and on track since he hadn't heard from her. She had called and left voice messages for the last 3 days. He then said, "oh, I don't return all of my missed calls." Stephanie said, "don't you think you should, especially since we are closing in less than a week!!".

So anyway, he admitted that it was his mistake and he would take the blame. Well, for every day that we don't close on the other house, we have to pay $100. So Stephanie said, "you need to take more than just the blame. You need to pay the $100 per day that Russ and Michelle have to pay for not closing on time."

Long story, but he is going to be doing that. And we now don't know when we are closing or moving. I have a ton of phone calls to make on Monday. I have to change start dates and stop dates for our utilities and cable. I have to call the place we ordered our fridge from and tell them not to deliver it on Thurs. Same with our dishwasher.

I am all ready stressed out, this just took the cake today.

And when Sonic forgets to put the vanilla in my VANILLA diet coke... well that just sucks too!

What a day.

At least I have some awesome friends who are coming to the new house to help me clean tonight. Thank you in advance ladies! I love you all! I love my friends who had other plans and can't make it too, just in case you all were wondering. :) But I am rewarding these special friends with chocolate and wine. Now that's the way to end the day. (even though I don't really like wine- but my friends do! :)

Pictures

2009-05-05T09:45:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I've put pictures of my girls on here, and I'm getting grief from my out of state family and friends, so here is a blog of pictures:

Coach Russ and Maddie.

Grandma with Maddie and Becca.

Me and Rylan on a boat ride.

Maddie and Becca at the flower garden.

Our sweet girls.

Merma and Papa with the girls. (see all of the boxes in the background?)

Uncle Eric and Rylan on Easter.

Rylan at 9 months. She looks a little puzzled.

Becca kissing a statue. She is such a nut.

Rylan and her "silly face". We think she's going to be funny like her big sister Becca.

Paint and texture and stain, oh my!

2009-04-29T08:20:00.007-05:00

I finally got pictures off of my camera. I think there were like 400 of them or something ridiculous. So I wanted to show you my handy work. I stripped the wallpaper off of our walls in the breakfast nook. Then I textured, painted and rubbed brown glaze over it. Then we pulled up the carpet and acid-stained the concrete. Now that was a huge job! But it turned out totally cool. Then I had to fix the baseboards. Once you pull up carpet, the baseboards are up too high, so I had to buy quarter-round, paint it, cut it (at the correct angles-that was hard) and stick it down. Thanks to my dad for helping us with the carpet edge. We put wood trim across that. But all in all, I think it looks good. So do the people buying the house. It was a lot of work, but worth it if it helped to sell our house.

This is how it used to look.

Wallpaper and border torn off.

My mother-in-law helped me pull all of this stuff off. Thanks Inez!!

I spray textured the wall where the wallpaper was.

First coat of paint.

But a problem. You can see a line where the chair rail was. So I had to take my sander, sand down the wall, re-texture and repaint. ugh.

Brown glaze.

I painted the whole kitchen. It was not easy getting above the cabinets.

This is what the floor looked like when we first pulled up the carpet. There was paint and stain all over it. So I had to use paint stripper and a scraper to get up all of the gunk.

After doing like 3 other things to it, it was ready for stain.

This is what it looked like right after I sprayed the stain on. I had to use chemical gloves because it actually eats into the concrete.

Cool, huh?

We then had to mop up all of the excess stain and suck it up with our wet/dry vac. I was a little worried at this point because now it just looked so dull and not as cool looking.

But then we put the sealer on it and it shined right up. Doing this actually makes the breakfast nook feel bigger.

This is my quarter-round addition. I got a little paint on the floor that I still need to clean up, but it looks pretty good in my opinion!! :)

Out of the mouths of babes....

2009-04-27T22:45:00.002-05:00

Driving in the car yesterday, Russ was giving Maddie a spelling test. He was saying random words and having her spell them. She was doing great. house- H-O-U-S-E, store- S-T-O-R-E, station-S-T-A-T-I-O-N, and then he says Doctor. Maddie answers with "D-R-period". Then she started laughing. Maddie is not our "funny kid". So it kind of took us off guard, but cracked us all up.

Now Becca... oh Becca. First of all, I really need to watch what I say when I'm driving. Yes, I'm an angry driver. I've told you all before how I hate it when people won't turn right on red, or if we sit at a green light too long. Well, that happened today. And before I could even say (or really think) something, out of the back is Becca: "Go people, the light is green!! Gas is on the right!!"

I'm going to try to stop being angry when I drive, you just never know who's listening.

Can't live without

2009-04-16T17:37:00.004-05:00

So in buying a new/bigger house, we had to redo our budget. Mortgage going up=not eating out, ever. (ok, maybe a few times) and a few other things.

But there are certain things in my life that I will not give up and I will not buy the generic version of. Here's my top 3:

1. Heinz ketchup. I refuse to buy any other brand. I don't like Hunt's and anything else is just gross.

2. Cheerios. I can buy all kinds of generic cereal. Most of it tastes just fine. But when it comes to Cheerios, I have got to have the real thing baby.

3. Charmin. Yep. I don't like anything else. That thin stuff is not fun.

So even though we will be buying more generic things, those three will not be going anywhere. Russ would probably add Diet Coke. Sam's brand is just not the same no matter what anyone says.

So what are your top three?

New house

2009-04-16T15:18:00.008-05:00

I know it's been a month since I've blogged. Until last week, nothing really exciting has been happening. I stripped wallpaper and painted my walls. I pulled up carpet, stripped paint and acid-stained my concrete. (It's still not totally done) But it looks cool. Pictures will come eventually. It's just getting them off the camera on to the computer.

But the biggest news came today, when we found out that our offer was accepted on the house we were wanting!! Woo hoo!! We sold our house, contract was signed Tuesday night and we put an offer in on Tuesday night also. It took a day and a half (of lots of stress) for them to get back to us, but at 1:30, we found out it is going to be ours!!

We are so excited! We've lived in this house for 10 years. It will be almost exactly 10 years. We moved in May 28, 1999, and we will be moving out on May 23rd. We love our house, we just feel a little squished. So we are moving up! From the front it looks like "Grandma's house". But it has an addition on it, so it gives it a bunch more space. Here are a few pictures of our new 5 bedroom house:

The front.

The back. That is a balcony that goes all around the top. Lots of French doors to lead outside. That just means lots of locks I'll be buying. :)

The kitchen had been totally gutted and redone. Beautiful tile floors, granite counter tops. Not necessarily a huge kitchen, but bigger than I have now.

The movie theatre room. Yes, a movie theatre. Cool, huh? Guess we'll be having a lot of game watching parties at our house!! And those are tvs on either side of the screen. So Russ can watch three games at the same time!

This is the sun room. The french doors on the left go to the master bedroom.

This is Becca's bedroom. Between her and Maddie is a Jack and Jill bathroom. Each of the girl's bedrooms has these beautiful white built-ins. They all just look like "girl" rooms.

So those are the highlights anyway. I have a scrapbook area, Russ gets his own office and the girls also get a playroom. I am so excited just to have lots of storage!! We should be signing the papers tomorrow, so until then, I'm still a little uneasy about it all, but I have just been trusting that God will lead us to the right house. So as soon as we get all moved in and school is out, we are having a pool party. Hope you all can make it!!

new look

2009-03-12T15:47:00.003-05:00

I wish I could decorate my house as easily as changing the background to my blog. I get bored. I need something new.

In our house, it's all new door knobs. After 10 years of looking at shiny brass, I got sick of it. I have also bought new lights to replace the shiny brass ones.

Next, it's the wallpaper in our breakfast nook. Chair rail is all ready down. Border is peeled off, now for the wallpaper. Then texture and paint. Any suggestions on a color?

After that, we are pulling up the carpet in the breakfast nook (I know, who would put carpet in a breakfast area? Well, we were just too cheap when we built the house to do tile there). We are going to stain the concrete. I'm excited about that. I'll have to take pictures as I go along my redecorating journey.

Maddie's award

2009-02-26T09:45:00.005-06:00

All of the first graders at Maddie's school (and a few other schools in town) were asked to draw a picture of Abraham Lincoln. They could choose to do a pencil drawing or color it in. Their pictures were posted at a bank, where the employees of the bank chose the best drawings. And to our surprise, Maddie's picture won first place.

Her teacher emailed me and told us to be at the awards assembly last Friday. She had kept it a secret from Maddie, but let us know so I could bring my camera. It was very exciting for Maddie because she got to go up in front of the whole school to receive her award. And for winning first place, she got a $50 savings bond from the bank. Now that's a good prize for winning!

This is Maddie's principal giving Maddie her picture and award.

Maddie with the 2nd and 3rd place winners.

Maddie and her principal.

Maddie's pencil drawing.

Ketchup

2009-02-17T12:07:00.002-06:00

We were at Braums last night. I was busy cutting hamburgers in two and dividing up french fries. We get all settled and Becca says, "where is my ketchup?" I looked around because I know she had one of those little cups with ketchup in it.

Then I look at Rylan. She's in her highchair, with her head bent down (surely so we couldn't see what she was doing) sucking the ketchup right out of the little white paper container. She had squeezed it so it was coming out and boy was she licking it up as fast as she could. I got it away from her with only minor ketchup stains on my shirt and hers. She had the perfect little ketchup mustache and was smiling so big. It's times like these that I wish I kept a disposable camera in my diaper bag. It was hilarious. The girls couldn't stop laughing.

So we now know that Rylan can reach things on the table and she's not afraid to go after something she wants!

Ray

2009-02-10T09:05:00.006-06:00

On Saturday, January 31, my father-in-law, Ray, passed away. He was 84 at the time. We just want to thank all of you for your thoughts, prayers, cards, plants, flowers and food. We are so truly blessed to have so many people near us that care so much. Thank you.

Ray was an amazing man who was extremely proud of his family. He loved everyone so much. He was prouder of his kids' and grandkids' achievements than his own. This is amazing to me because his own father was a jerk. So much so that Ray left home at 15.

He had a tough upbringing. He basically raised his younger sister, Hazel. Ray only had an 8th grade education, but was one of the smartest people I have met. He was extremely well read and "educated" on so many subjects.

Ray welcomed me into his family immediately. He was extremely loving to everyone. You hardly heard him say a bad thing about anyone. He loved our girls immensely and I am so glad he got to meet all 3 of them. Rylan was only around him twice, but we have a ton of pictures to show her some day.

Russ loved and admired his dad as much as anyone could. He looked up to him for his kindness, his intelligence and his love. Even though Russ was a late in life baby (his 4 siblings are 18-22 years older than him) Ray told me he got so much enjoyment out of going to Russ' games and raising such a good kid. In fact, at Christmas when we were home, Ray and I were sitting in the car when Russ ran into a store and Ray told me how proud he was of Russ. He said he knew he hadn't said it much, but he couldn't be any prouder of him for who he is and what he has done with his life. I thanked Ray for raising such an amazing man.

Ray was a Christian, so I know we'll see him again someday. Until then, I know he'll be having a good time on the beautiful golf courses in Heaven. :)

The girls loved it when Grandpa drove them around the farm on his golf cart.

Ray was always so good to play cards or read to the girls.

One of Maddie's favorite things to do with Grandpa was to read the comics.

Ray and Inez with our girls and 4 of their 7 great-grandchildren.

I heart my new camera

2009-01-22T17:21:00.011-06:00

My computer still isn't working right. It just took me about 2 hours to upload photos and get them ready to put on the blog. It shut off on me 3 times during this process. Twice, it was almost finished uploading and I had to start all over.

Anyway, I haven't gotten to share pictures from my new camera. Russ completely surprised me at Christmas with a new Canon Rebel xsi 12.2 mpx digital SLR. PLUS a tele-photo lens. It has been very exciting (and overwhelming). There is so much you can do with it and I haven't got a clue how to use 75% of the cool things on it. Someday I'll take a class to learn how to use it, until then, I just keep on clicking (656 pictures saved since I first got it- that doesn't include the ones I deleted)

But I wanted to share some of the highlights from Christmas and some of my recent favorite pictures:

Rylan, Papa and Maddie Josh is actually smiling!

Eric with Rylan I love this little outfit

We got Mom a flat panel for her computer. She had no idea.

It snowed on Christmas eve- HUGE flakes!

The Night before Christmas

Maddie got an acoustic guitar.

Russ' favorite gift was the Lite Brite :)

I think Rylan having a "boy toy" was Russ' favorite.

A picture of me- these are rare.

Becca helping Grandma make cinnamon rolls.

Russ balancing Rylan

And again...

And again. Notice the bald spot? That's why she wears a lot of hats. Aren't her little jammies the cutest? Thanks Aunt Marla!

Grandpa and his girls

Grandma with her girls

Becca stuffing her birthday cupcake.

Becca showing off her "birthday outfit". Russ playing stick the tail on the pony.

Becca's friends at her birthday party.

Can you tell I did the cake all by myself? Jenny B- I wish I had even half your talent of making cakes! And this picture was just so cute of Becca squeezing the life out of A.

Maddie started playing basketball in December. Russ is the coach/ref. Jenna from church is on her team. Maddie loves it all so much (we were very surprised by this).

Maddie's first real shot in a game. (she missed)

I love this soft focus picture of Becca.

She was playing outside in her mask, velvet black/red skirt with a blue shirt, pink butterfly on it, and one blue princess shoe and one pink princess shoe. She told me she felt very pretty.

Rylan likes to suck on her toe.

I love all of these shots of Rylan. Her eyes are just so blue!

Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks?

I'm learning about the different settings on my camera- see the difference? The second one is so much clearer.

And this was my favorite series of pictures. From happy, to sad, to snot bubble.

All kinds of stuff...

2009-01-15T15:39:00.002-06:00

So my computer was broken for a little over a week. That totally stunk. I hate computer viruses. So I am no longer allowed to download ANYTHING. So for all of my Facebook friends, I will not be accepting your birthday invitations, or little gizmo thingys. Sorry, but I don't like not having a computer.

I had so many things to blog about during that time, but I have forgotten most of them by now, but here are the highlights. Pictures will come eventually, just not today. :)

We had a great Christmas in Iowa. I got a new Canon xsi 12.2 mega pixel digital SLR camera. Russ even got the tele-photo lens for me. It is awesome! I have had no time to sit and learn about it. I'm excited to have time next week to do that. And to show you all how great the pictures are. I think I've taken about 800 pictures since I first got it. Seriously.

I am enjoying Facebook, but feel bad when I turn someone away who's asking to be my "friend". But I really don't care much about a friend of a friend of a friend. I don't know them. I don't really want to know them. I'm mean, I know. Oh, I also think our virus came from downloading Facebook applications. We were told that Facebook is an easy way to "get in" to your computer. So be careful downloading things from it.

The house we were wanting sold, so we took ours off the market last Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, the lady across the street from us called to find out why we didn't have a sign in the yard. Anyway, she preceded to tell us about a couple in our neighborhood who were going to call to come see it that week. They are really interested in it, but just hadn't had a chance to call and come see it. They are coming tomorrow night. So maybe we'll end up selling it on our own. Who knows?

I finally saw Twilight. There was some really bad acting, but over all, I really enjoyed the movie. I can't wait to see the next three.

Becca had a fun birthday party. She had 6 little girls over for a My Little Pony party. It was cute.

Oh and the best for last... How do you completely get rid of lice? Yep, that's what I said. Maddie came home from school on Tuesday and I noticed little brown dots in her bang area. Upon searching even more, I found lice. YUCK! Double yuck! So I immediately ran her into the bathroom and basically didn't let her leave there until it was time for bed. I cut her hair (it's chin length) and started going through it with a fine tooth comb. Russ brought home the treatment and we did that. Then yesterday I washed her hair in vinegar, used a blow-dryer on hot and also flat-ironed her hair. If this doesn't work, then I'm pulling out the mayonnaise, peanut butter and vodka. No, not for me, but all for her hair. I think I've now done about 15 loads of laundry, with about 6 more to do. And that's all since Tuesday at about 3:30.

Can you get it from trying on clothes? She did a bunch of that this past weekend. Ewww. That makes me never want to try on anything! Or rolling on the mat in gymnastics. Or sitting next to someone on the bus with it, or leaving her coat near someone who had it. If she was a boy, she would have a shaved head right now.

Anyway, off to do more laundry and get my house ready for tomorrow night. We just won't tell the prospective buyers that we have lice in our house. Shhhh.

Happy 4th Birthday Becca!

2008-12-30T20:16:00.005-06:00

Today our Becca is 4. She has been calling herself the "birthday girl" all day. She was announcing it at Walmart even. She's awfully proud of the fact that she is now 4.

I asked Becca tonight what her favorite part of her birthday was and she said, "getting my bunny, Rella". We went to Build a Bear and she picked out a bunny and put it in a Cinderella dress and named her Rella Rabbit.

When asked what the worst part of her birthday was, she said, "having to clean my room- and on my birthday!!".

She got to choose what we had for dinner tonight. She chose Hannah Montana macaroni and cheese. Now that's a birthday dinner I can definitely fix!!

Happy 4th birthday our little tax baby!!

(Maddie got a new outfit for her bear from Build a Bear, so she had to put on her matching outfit too. She even had me do her hair to look like her bear's ears. Becca's hair is in pony tails, like her bunny's ears)

Conversations with Becca

2008-12-18T12:44:00.002-06:00

For those of you that know our Becca, you know how much personality she has. She is a crack-up. Here are two funny stories for you...

When we were trying to convince Maddie to pull her tooth out, we told her as soon as she pulled it, we would go to Braums and get her a malt. She kept crying and wouldn't do it. Becca just looked at Russ and very calmly said, "I want a malt, I'll pull my tooth out for a malt Daddy." And she proceeded to try to pull out a tooth.

Just now, she came to me with three pennies.
"Mommy, can I buy something with these three pennies?"
"No honey, that's not enough to buy anything. But if you help me clean your room and put away laundry I'll give you some more pennies so you can buy something."
Dramatic pause....

Becca's response: "How about I pay you $5 to clean my room instead?"

(Sounds good to me. Show me the money!)

What a little nut.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

2008-12-09T08:03:00.005-06:00

Turn up the volume. Maddie was so excited that I found the song for this blog.

Maddie lost her right front tooth last Monday. Since then her left front tooth has been VERY loose. It has been driving Russ and I crazy. On Saturday, Russ convinced her to let him try the floss trick. (Just a helpful reminder- it does not work if you only have the Glide floss)

Maddie on Tuesday.

This is what "the tooth" looked like on Tuesday.

Russ trying to get the tooth out. Maddie didn't like this so much.

Tying floss around her tooth on Saturday didn't work.

We've been calling her "Snaggle tooth, Goofy tooth and Cyclops tooth". We tried to convince her that she couldn't be an angel in the Christmas program because angels don't have goofy teeth. Her friend, Eden also only has one front tooth left, and it's pretty loose. So we tried to make it a competition between them.

Last night it was just barely hanging on. Just breathing would make her tooth wiggle.

Finally, last night, she bit into a cracker and it pushed her tooth backwards. She came running to me with a mouth full of blood. Well, after about 30 minutes, it came out!! Finally!! And the first thing she says is, "Yes! I beat Eden!!"

Russ was starting to get frustrated, when....

Yes!! Success!!

I told Maddie that she could now sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". She said, "no it's not Mommy, I want other things too."

Muscles I've forgotten about

2008-12-02T12:08:00.003-06:00

So Russ has threatened to cancel our Y membership if I don't get my big 'ol behind back there. I've gone only 4 times since Rylan has been born. In my defense, I've had some back issues. But I don't have any excuses any more. My chiropractor has cleared me.

I walked 2 miles and ran 1/2 mile today. That 1/2 mile was run by running a lap, walking a lap, repeat. I am so out of shape. It makes me sad to think that a year ago, I was running 2-3 miles when I went. This is what pregnancy and laziness does to you.

Just in the little bit I did today, I could feel muscles that haven't been used in quite some time. You know the ones at the very bottom of your stomach? Girls-you know the REALLY low ones that help keep the baby from falling? Well, did you know you use those when you run? Ouch. Not a pleasant feeling.

I'm sure I'll be a little sore tomorrow. But I'm going to go back 2 more times this week. I have to, or we won't have a membership anymore. Sure, it would save us quite a bit of money every month, but I would be very sad (and fatter).

4 months

2008-11-27T10:42:00.004-06:00

Rylan just turned 4 months old. She is getting so fun. She laughs at us and is able to play with toys. She is just such a good, sweet baby. God truly blessed us with this one.

So now that Rylan is 4 months old, she can start eating baby cereal. So we gave it a try last night. She loved it! She started getting upset if I didn't get the spoon in her mouth fast enough. I couldn't believe how much she liked it. If she thinks rice cereal is good, just wait for the fruits!

You want me to eat what?

Ok, let's give this a try.

It's not terrible...

Give me more!

You caught me! I LOVE this stuff! WOW!

House for sale!

2008-11-21T09:25:00.006-06:00

This is the house that Russ and Michelle built.

This is the living room of the house that Russ and Michelle built.

This is the backyard of the house that Russ and Michelle built, and it's all for sale.

Ok, so I'm not clever enough to do the "This is the house that Jack built" poem. But if you want the website to see a virtual tour of our house, send me an email. I don't want to just put it out there for the whole world to see where I live.

Our house has been on the market now for 2 weeks. Yes, I know that's not very long, but I was working my self to death for the 2 weeks before that getting this house ready. It hasn't looked this good since we first built it.

We built this house in 1999. We moved in at the end of May of 1999. We had no children then and our house seemed huge! Russ had his own study. I had a sewing/scrapbooking room and we had a guest room for all of our out of state friends and family. It was great.

Fast forward to 2008. I have taken over the study for my Creative Memories stuff, I have a sewing cabinet in our bedroom, Becca gets kicked out of her bottom bunk (full size) when we have guests. There is no where to move here. We have outgrown our house. We love it to pieces, but it is time to move on.

We have found a house that we love that is twice the size of this one. But... we won't put an offer on it, until this one sells. So nervously I sit EVERY day, waiting for a phone call of someone to come see our house, fall in love with it and buy it so we can buy our "other house".

Do you know how hard it is to live in a spotless house? Ok, Jenny, I know you do.... But I am not used to it. I clean before I go to bed, I clean when I wake up. My house sparkles. You all can now drop in any time, and I won't mind at all. Jessi- I could do that old post now where I take a picture of all of the different places in my house. You'd be impressed!

So if anyone would like to buy my house, please call me!! I am not good at being patient.

Money

2008-11-18T12:35:00.006-06:00

One of Becca's first words was money. No joke. I think the order went, Mama, Dada, Madda and then money. She has loved money almost her entire life. You have no idea what just a penny does for this girl. She gets so excited to have money in her piggy bank or her purse. And I can get her to clean about anything with the promise of money after she has completed her task.

So I wasn't completely shocked when I went to check on her last night before I went to bed. She had been asleep for a couple of hours, but what was in her hand? Money. Uncle John had given her a fifty cent piece that she couldn't bear to part with. So she slept with it, along with two pennies and a dime. Until mean mommy came in and took it out of her hand. But before I did, I got pictures!

Bible Bowl

2008-11-13T09:22:00.004-06:00

For the last couple of months, "Grandma Karen" has been preparing our Life Group kids for a Bible Bowl. We have so many kids in our LG, that in August, we divided them up into a "big kid" group (1st-5th grade) and a "little kid" group (age 5 and under). We do basically the same routine with the little ones, but the big kids are learning so much! I have been very impressed with what Karen has been teaching them. We normally rotate in teaching the kids, but Karen really took over and has been working their little minds every Sunday. I think Karen has only not taught it maybe 4 times since August.

Now the things she taught them were not easy things. It wasn't "how many days did it take God to create the world" kind of thing. One question was "How did Zacharias tell people the name of his son". And "What apostle was blinded by light on the road to Damascus?"

She was teaching them these lessons and helping them prepare for the bible bowl at the same time. Since Mel, Carla and I had all taught the big kids and knew the questions, we couldn't compete. And since Paul is a walking Bible, he was over-qualified. Trey had to work, so it was up to Russ, Terry and James to beat the kids. You can only guess the outcome. The kids had a blast beating their dads. They were so excited. And Paul and Karen, being the awesome people they are, took the older kids to McDonald's for dinner to celebrate. Aren't they cool?

The boys sat around one bell, the girls around another. Russ had his own bell and Terry and James were sharing one. They couldn't ding in early or they were disqualified. If one of the kids' teams dinged (is that a word?) in, then the kids had to take turns answering the questions.

Karen pulled the questions out of a bag, while Paul kept score.

Russ in "training". He had to get his thumbs limber.

Terry trying to pass the bell off to James as James says, "I don't know the answer!"

Terry claimed he was dinging the bell and I said I hadn't heard him ding. He says, "I dung, I really did!". So I guess the past tense form of ding is not dinged, it's dung. (according to Terry anyway)

Karen, the dads, the older kids (plus Ruthie) and the final score. Dads-10, kids-17.

I'm a little behind

2008-11-11T10:14:00.004-06:00

So between the election and getting our house up on the market, I forgot to post Halloween pictures of the girls. They were so cute!

We had bought part of Becca's costume on sale last year after Halloween, so we knew she was going to be a bumble bee. So Maddie thought it would be cute if she was a flower. So we got creative once again and made a flower. Rylan wore Maddie's first costume- a ballerina. This just shows how big Rylan is. She was 3 mo. old at Halloween, Maddie was 6 mo. And the costume was even a little tight around her tummy. But these were the easiest costumes I've made so far. Thanks goes to my sister-in-law Donna for the idea of putting poster board between two pieces of fabric to make the petals stand up.

Russ & the girls carving a pumpkin. Rylan @ the Fall Festival at church.

Becca got a flower painted on her cheek and Maddie got a bumble bee on hers.

At the Fall Festival and on Halloween night.

Aunt Janet with Rylan. And I just had to put this picture of Rylan in. She's just getting so big.

Maddie votes

2008-11-03T19:39:00.002-06:00

I picked Maddie up from school today and she was so excited to tell me about her day. "We got to vote for President today!" She was thrilled because it's something only grown ups get to do. But I guess we haven't been talking about the election enough with her...

"Who'd you vote for?"

"Obama."

"Really? Why did you vote for him?"

"I don't know. I saw their pictures and I liked his."

Now this comes from a 6 year old. But I'm afraid there will be adults voting like this tomorrow. Sad, isn't it?

Dad- I apologize for your granddaughter.

Seriously?

2008-11-02T22:00:00.003-06:00

We have to take a test to get a driver's license. We study and take driver's ed, then we are allowed to drive by ourselves. So why don't we have to take a test in order to vote? There are so many people who do not do their research and just vote for someone for the way they look, or because they are a better public speaker. Listen to this and you'll see how dumb people can be when it comes to politics.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=SCcHzUmVP5c

Cardboard Testimony

2008-10-27T15:59:00.002-05:00

My cousin, Sarah, sent this to me and it is amazing. It really makes you realize that all Christians struggle and have problems. But thanks to Christ, we are forgiven and can be made new.

Watch this video: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDDc5RB6FQ

It's Halloween!

2008-10-26T14:06:00.004-05:00

Russ does NOT like the idea of dressing up, but I love it. It's fun to become someone else for a night. So on Friday night, I chose to be Marilyn Monroe. I made this choice for 3 reasons: 1. I couldn't think of anything 2. my friend Jennifer told me I could borrow her costume and 3. It was free. That's the best reason, I think.

But since Russ didn't want to go, I convinced my friend Heather to go. (Not much convincing was needed. Here's our conversation: "Heather, what are you doing on Friday?" "Nothing." "Do you want to go to a Halloween party with me?" "Heck yeah!") Russ was thrilled that he didn't have to go and he wouldn't hear me gripe about not getting to go. So thanks Heather for going with me.

We had so much fun. The scavenger hunt was a blast. (except for wearing 3 inch heels- give me a warning next time Jenny!) There were 12 people crammed into a van driving (very fast) around town to take pictures of things we had on a list. We only had 1 hour to do it in, but we found all but a live spider. Our team even found the headstone of someone who died on October 31. Good times.

Heather- aka Sarah Palin and me. (Yes, mother, I know the dress is low- it was higher at the beginning of the night.) (Does anyone have a full length picture of me, I didn't take one.) Todd and Pam aka- Slash and guitar hero girl.

Rusty & Mitzi aka-Mickey and Minnie. Jenny-aka Princess Leia.

Disco Man Darin, Pam and Disco Amy.

Chim chimmery, chim chim cherrie. (I have no idea how to spell that) Jamie and Susan were Mary Poppins and the guy from Mary Poppins- what's his name? And Rusty pouring 7-up into our tiny trophies for James and Jeremy for winning the scavenger hunt. Way to go team!!

video

2008-10-24T13:24:00.002-05:00

I'm not Catholic, but this video, made by a Catholic, is very profound. I have stated that I am against Obama becoming president. There are too many reasons to list. I'm sure after I finish reading "Obama Nation", I'll have a bunch of stuff to tell you. ;) But watch this video and you'll see some of the reasons I do not want Obama to become President of the United States.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=61wj4tJICcc

A glimpse of fall

2008-10-22T13:55:00.010-05:00

Iowa in the fall is beautiful. And we were up there at just the right time. The leaves were changing to these extremely bright colors. Some of the trees were still green on the inside, but all red or orange on the outside edges of the tree. It was awesome. You just can't imagine the beauty unless you see it first-hand. As Becca said, "God painted Iowa pretty".

Views at my Mom and Dad's Bed and Breakfast:

Love/Hate relationship

2008-10-21T10:01:00.004-05:00

We just spent the last week in Iowa and had so much fun. We love going there to see our families and friends. I love Iowa in the fall. The weather is wonderful and the trees- wow! I'll do a post on the trees later.

But I also hate Iowa. I hate it because of my allergies. Growing up, I had terrible allergies. I was always rubbing my eyes, sneezing and coughing. It could be that we lived in the country on a rock road. Or near farms, or the moist air up there. I don't know. I didn't even realize how bad they were until I moved out of Iowa. Living in Oklahoma, I really don't have allergies unless the allergens are really bad. But within a day of being in Iowa, I rubbed my eyes so hard that I rubbed out (and pulled out) a majority of my eyelashes on my left eye. (Look for the fake eyelashes on Sunday) Russ went to the only store that stays open past 7:00 last Monday to buy me allergy eye drops and Tylenol Severe allergy medicine (over $15!). I was sneezing non-stop and it eventually went to my throat where I couldn't talk very well. Then the coughing started. One night, I coughed so hard I was sweating.

We got back Sunday night and I still didn't feel very well. But by last night, it has all cleared out and I don't have any allergy problems. Thank you Oklahoma air.

So here are a bunch of pictures of our trip.

Rylan got to meet a lot of our family and friends for the first time: (Amy- why didn't I get a picture of you and Rylan when you stopped by to see us? I think I was so out of it from all of the allergy medicine I was on!)

Russ' parents with 4 of the great-grandchildren (they have 7 and another on the way) and our 3 girls.

My Mama Pat with the girls.

Rylan and her 2nd cousin Ben. (His daddy is Rylan's first cousin- that makes him a 2nd cousin, right?) He's just 3 months older and such a doll!!

My college roommate and one of my dearest friends Jenni. We stopped for lunch in Kansas City to see them on the way home Sunday. Maddie, Lauren, Becca and Ashlyn (Jenni's girls).

Maddie and Becca with their 3rd cousins from Texas (their mom is my first cousin) Emily and Jacob.

The girls with Uncle Eric. (He's still single, anyone, anyone?)

The girls with my Mom and Dad.

Maddie and Becca at a pumpkin patch with Aunt June (Russ' sister).

Russ, Maddie, Becca and me swinging at a park. How fun!

2008 Race for the Cure

2008-10-08T13:33:00.003-05:00

Russ ran in the Race for the Cure this year. He found a program called "From couch potato to 5K in 9 weeks". Well, he had to condense it to 7 weeks, but he did it. I'm so proud of him. And he did it in just 30 minutes and 44 seconds. Here are a few pics:

Russ (in orange shirt- easy to find) crossing the finish line.

Our little family. The girls and I got up EARLY to get up there to see him run. Rylan slept the entire way up and the whole time we were there. We got there too late for most of the free stuff, but they were able to snatch a couple of these cute lunch bags/play purses.

Cancer

2008-10-01T16:45:00.005-05:00

It's October and Breast Cancer Awareness month. So of course I think of Melinda.

The Race for the Cure is on Saturday. I'm not running this year, since I just had a baby 2 months ago. I think my body would have collapsed if I tried to run it. So Russ is representing our family this year. He has been doing great. He ran home from church Tuesday morning after going to Men's Fraternity. That's over 3 miles. I'm so proud of him.

I watched Christina Applegate on Oprah yesterday. Wow. She's so brave to come forward and talk about having breast cancer, and a double mastectomy. And Susan G. Komen's sister was on talking about starting The Race for a Cure and how they've raised over a Billion dollars for research.

But another type of cancer has now touched our lives. Our friend, DeWayne just found out he has cancer of the esophagus. He's just a few years older than Russ.

DeWayne and Stephanie were some of our first real couple friends from church. Russ and I lived in Moore when we were first married. We met DeWayne and Stephanie at church and were excited to learn that they lived in Moore too. (Unlike now, there was no one our age who lived in Moore) So we would ride with each other to Life Group, hang out and go to the lake where they tried to teach us how to water ski. They eventually taught Russ, I think I was just better at tubing.

For years, Carla, Russ, DeWayne and I played volleyball together. We were actually pretty good. Mostly thanks to Russ and DeWayne. But I do not have one single picture that documents this part of my life. In fact, in all of the years of being friends with DeWayne and Stephanie, I found 10 pictures involving them. Five of those were either me or Russ water skiing with them.

So, my friends, I am tired of not having pictures of you all. So when you see me armed with a camera, just smile and laugh it off. I WILL have pictures of you. I have many pictures of my friends that live out of state. That's because I see them so rarely, so we are always taking pictures. But for my friends here, get ready. I'm going to be carrying my camera with me almost everywhere.

But seriously, please pray for DeWayne and Stephanie. They need many prayers for healing right now.

Thank you.
DeWayne and Makenna at a pool party.
DeWayne, Makenna, Stephanie, Mark, Russ and Kim at Russ' 30th birthday party.
Me trying so hard to learn how to water ski. DeWayne and Stephanie are great teachers, I'm just a bad student.
Stephanie on the boat. We all got very burned that day because it was a little overcast. And if I remember right, Stephanie was pregnant with Makenna here, but just like 8 weeks along. She still got out there and skiied and tubed.

2 months

2008-09-26T13:51:00.006-05:00

Rylan turned two months on Wednesday. Boy does time fly by. She is such a good baby. I know I've said that a million times, but she really is. She is just so sweet natured. And I love that she is smiling so much now. It is so cute. She has a bit of a dimple on her right cheek that I just love.

Here's her stats at 2 months old: 13 pounds 8 ounces (95%), 24 inches (95%) and I don't remember her head circumference, but it was in the 75% range. Yep, she's our big girl. Maddie was always 95% for height and 50% for weight (long and skinny). Becca was always 50% height and 95% weight (short and chunky). Rylan is our long, chunky girl. Funny how they're all different. It will be interesting to see how they are as they get older.

She was completely asleep here, but it looks like she was winking at me. ;)

ugh

2008-09-25T10:44:00.004-05:00

I can't take it anymore. I have to say it. It's my blog and it's here for me to vent, right? So here goes...

Obama is an idiot.

There, I've said it. It's out in the open.

I was flipping channels last night and came across Pastor Rick Warren talking to Obama and McCain (separately). He would ask Obama a question, then we would see his response. Then it would show him asking McCain the same question and his response.

When I flipped to it, they were talking about abortion. When asked how he felt about abortion, Obama danced around the question, stuttered like an idiot, then he actually said he couldn't make that decision because it is above his pay grade. What? How much does he have to get paid in order to answer it?

I don't know how much you all have seen of Obama on tv, but I have been watching a lot. If he doesn't have a script in front of him, he doesn't have a CLUE what to say. Sure, when someone else writes his words, he sounds fantastic. On his own, not so good.

He was asked when life begins. He said it depends on if you are looking at it from a faith-based perspective or a scientific perspective. Jeez, just answer the question. He said he was pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. Huh? Oh, and if he says, "uh" one more time, I'm going to scream.

McCain was great on his answers. He said life begins at conception. End of debate. He said marriage should be between one man and one woman. End of topic. There's no dancing around and stuttering until he can think of something intelligent sounding to say. He answers the questions, and from a Christian point of view.

Click here to see the video from youtube. Go to youtube and look up Obama and Rick Warren. You can see how his answers don't always line up with the Christian view point. (Partial-birth abortion for example.)

I think it's very important that we all watch the debate tomorrow night. Please don't get busy and let it pass, I believe you will see McCain kick Obama's...butt.

I'm Michelle and I approve this message.

Milestones

2008-09-19T10:30:00.007-05:00

Rylan is 8 weeks old now and finally slept 8 hours straight last night!! Yeah sleep! She went from 10pm to 6am. I just hope this wasn't a fluke.

She also started really smiling last week. I finally got it on camera, so I thought I'd share.

Also, my brothers came down last weekend for a visit. (They are still single- anyone out there know of any girls for them?)

Oh and to my lovely friends, Jessi and Mel...

I don't like drop-ins, so I'll have to clean my house before I will let you "peek". :)

Bless You

2008-09-12T14:35:00.002-05:00

We have taught our girls to say Bless You after someone sneezes. We say it a lot at our house because Maddie has had allergies since she was born. She sneezes every morning. There for a while, I would fix her breakfast and put a tissue beside her cereal bowl, because I knew she was going to sneeze. Becca is lucky enough to not have allergies. She rarely sneezes. Yesterday, she started sneezing and probably sneezed 5 or 6 times in a 30 minute period. She looks up at me and says, "I have the bless you's". Now how cute is that?

My church

2008-09-08T13:41:00.004-05:00

Our church does some really neat things for the kids of our congregation. A week ago, they had baby dedication. Every quarter, the families that had a baby go up front where we receive a little bible with the baby's name engraved on it, and a few other gifts. My friend, Joan even wrote a song for everyone to sing after they announce the babies. This quarter there were 4 of us. Two boys and two girls. The elder that got up to pray for us was disappointed. He wants more babies. So he told the young couples of the church to "get busy" and start making some babies. I laughed so hard! He was funny.

These pictures were up on the screen.

Thanks Tracy for taking this. I had to show Rylan's cute dress.

This past Sunday, they did a graduation thing for the kindergartners who are now first graders. We have a preschool program that runs from age 3-kindergarten. But once you are in first grade, you are with all of the other elementary kids. It's a big deal! :) Maddie was so excited. "Tutor" the angel came in and blessed them with "blessing dust"- aka gold glitter. You could just see how big the first graders felt. It was very cute. My friend, Amanda was a great angel.

I had to share pictures of Rylan. She is 6 1/2 weeks old and just a chunk. Just look at those thighs and chubby cheeks!!

Nostalgia

2008-09-03T08:38:00.005-05:00

I am publicly confessing...

I watched 90210 last night and liked it. I LOVED the old one, so I thought maybe this one would be good too. It wasn't bad.

I also caught New Kids on the Block on the View yesterday. I was a HUGE NKOTB fan when I was about 15. I had t-shirts and posters. I even went to their concert. (pictures below)

Can you believe "Hangin' Tough" came out 20 years ago? Boy that makes me feel old!

Joe (with his beautiful blue eyes) was my favorite New Kid. I cheered like crazy for him when he was on Dancing with the Stars.

Well, they have a new cd out called The Block. And no, it's not a greatest hits cd, it's all new songs. I listened to 30 second bits on itunes yesterday. They sound great! I know, as my brother Eric said, "You are a dork". I guess so, but I still want their cd!

They are all grown up! And I would add- much cuter than when they were teens. Aren't we all though?? :)

I was 13. Total dork.

New Kids then and now.

One month old

2008-08-24T16:30:00.005-05:00

Rylan is one month old today. The past month has flown by! Why couldn't my pregnancy go that fast?

Like the mohawk? It's Russ' doing.

Where's the baby?

Becca thought she needed some animals and a baby doll to sleep with.

Happy Birthday Russ!

2008-08-20T16:33:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry I forgot to tell you happy birthday this morning. It was so hectic getting Maddie out the door, nursing a baby, getting Becca ready for school, etc. I stink, I know. I win the bad wife of the year award. I remembered before 10:00 this morning though. That should count for something. I didn't totally forget. I hope the cookies and balloons we brought to work make up for it.

I love you!

Happy 38th Birthday!

First Day of School

2008-08-20T13:12:00.007-05:00

Becca started her new school on Monday. She just goes twice a week, but it's a nice break for me and Rylan. She was so excited on Sunday night, but when I got her up Monday morning, not so excited. She was very nervous, which is strange for our social butterfly. Russ finally got her to smile before we left. But when we got to school, she started crying. Maddie and Russ tried to comfort her, but she did not want to be there- as you can tell from these pictures:

Maddie started first grade today. I can't believe she's a first grader! That's what I used to teach, so to think of her like one of my former students is strange. She doesn't seem old enough! I am really excited about Maddie's teacher. I have heard wonderful things about her. And Maddie has many of her kindergarten classmates in her class. So she was thrilled about that. I think she's going to have a great year!

And I HAD to throw some pictures in of Rylan. She is getting so big- and all ready getting chubby. She is just such a good baby. She makes having a third kid seem easy (so far!)

The Last Lecture

2008-08-18T09:58:00.003-05:00

I finished Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture last night. You have probably heard of Randy. I heard of him through his youtube video. He was also on Oprah and a few weeks ago, shortly after he died, his interview with Diane Sawyer was on.

Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given 3-6 months to live. He could have easily curled up into a ball, but he decided to live as much as he could in the time he had left. The college he taught at always had a "Last Lecture Series". A "if you only had a few months to live, what would you do?" kind of lecture. Well, he literally had a few months to live, so he wanted to give bits of advice to his students before he died.

He wrote his Last Lecture not only for his students, but for his kids. He has a 6 year old, a three year old and an 18 month old. He talked about how sad he was that they wouldn't have their dad around. So he video taped himself with the kids and giving bits of wisdom as much as possible. And he put tons of advice for them in his book.

Randy was a "Tigger". He said in his book that there are two types of people in this world- Tiggers and Eeyores. I am more of an Eeyore who desperately wants to be a Tigger. I'm just too lazy. But after reading his book, he has inspired me. Here are some of the things he talked about:

Achieve your childhood dreams. He often kept a crayon in his pocket, so he could take it out and smell it to remind him of being a kid and the dreams he had.

His parents were awesome. They let him dream. They let him paint and draw on his bedroom walls. They made him look things up in the dictionary or encyclopedia. They never coddled him or made him feel like he was "sooo wonderful". After he got his PhD, his mom introduced him by saying, "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind that helps people."

He talked about his football coach and how hard he rode him in practice. Coaches now days can't get away with half the stuff this coach did. But it made him a stronger, better person. An assistant coach noticed the coach was riding Randy pretty hard, but told Randy, "That's a good thing. When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you."

Another thing Randy did that I think is awesome: He had just gotten a new convertible before he was married. He took his niece and nephew almost every weekend for fun little trips. Randy's sister was so worried that one of her kids was going to mess up Uncle Randy's new car. She kept reminding them to keep it clean. That's when Randy opened up a can of soda and poured it all over the back (cloth) seat. He didn't want them to feel bad if they did make a mess. And it's a good thing he did that, his nephew threw up in it the next weekend.

He talks about how brick walls are there for us just to see how badly we want something. Some people hit a brick wall and give up. Others will keep trying until they find a way over it, around it, or through it.

A piece of advice for his young daughter- when it comes to men, just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do. I'll be passing that on to my three daughters for sure!

I highly recommend this book to you all. It is great! It is sad that Randy Pausch couldn't beat his cancer. But he was an optimist all the way through it. A metaphor he used that has really stuck with me is this: "My family is about to be pushed off a cliff. Now I can either curl up in a ball and watch them fall, or I can get to work sewing nets to cushion their fall."

He is blessed he had time to say goodbye.

I finished this book last night- one year later,to the day, that Melinda died. I thought of her and her family the entire time I read this book. I miss her. She was an optimist that would tell you how it was. I loved that about her. She didn't dance around things. I strive to be more like Melinda, Randy and Tigger.

New background and other stuff

2008-08-12T16:37:00.004-05:00

To celebrate my blogger-versary, I chose a new background. Pretty, huh? Do you have any idea how many backgrounds there are out there? It took me forever to choose one. So I'm planning on sticking with it for a while.

I added three great songs to my playlist. The first is called Three Little Girls by J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton. I love it! Especially since that is my life now. I never pictured myself with three little girls. (Russ definitely didn't!) But that is what God has blessed us with, so I am extremely happy. It must have been because of all of those times I prayed for a sister. God gave me three girls to be sisters. How blessed they are.

I had a birthday last week. I'm 33 now. Does that still qualify as "early thirties"?

Here are some new pictures of Rylan. She is getting so big so fast. She looks a little like the other girls, but definitely has her own look. I think the brown hair throws us off too. She is just such a good baby. Hardly fusses at all. Maddie and Becca are great big sisters. They are always so willing to help me with whatever I need.

I LOVE the big bows on babies.

Russ can't stand them.

Guess who wins this battle?

Just look at those cheeks!!

The most precious thing ever-

a sleeping baby.

Busy week

2008-08-01T13:42:00.005-05:00

Rylan in her Iowa Hawkeye Pjs.

We LOVE this hat Mitzi made for her. The nurses at the hospital kept asking where we got it.

This is just to prove that she has BROWN hair. We are still checking to be sure she's ours. :)

Her first outing dress. We had to go back to the hospital for a jaundice check on Monday. Notice her "sandals". Mitzi crocheted those too. Too cute!

Russ and his 3 girls. Everyone keeps asking me if he's o.k. He's adjusting. Ask us in 10 years.

Rylan is officially one week old (as of yesterday). This past week has flown by. I know having a newborn will do that to you, but so will almost buying a house. The night before Rylan was born, we went and looked at a house and fell in love with it. We came home and were in the middle of figuring out our budget and crunching numbers for a new mortgage, etc. when the phone rang. It was the hospital calling to see if I could be induced on Thursday instead of Friday. Wow! We weren't completely ready, but o.k. One less day to be pregnant sounds great!

As you can imagine, we hardly slept that night. Between thinking about having a baby and wondering if I was ready and if my house was ready, and thinking of buying a new house, my brain wouldn't stop. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep Wednesday night.

Russ took my parents and sister-in-law to see the house on Friday while I was still in the hospital. We were nervous that someone was going to go see it over the weekend and put an offer in on it. So on Saturday, just a few hours after getting out of the hospital, our realtor met us at our house and we signed papers to put in an offer. They counter-offered on Monday. Not low enough, so we put in one more offer. They went down only $1,000 more. Not low enough. So we do NOT have a new house.

I was bummed, but at the same time, we were both a little relieved. Talk about bad timing. There's another house out there for us. We'll find it. In the meantime, we'll enjoy our house and the fact that we have 4.5% interest on it. That's Russ' favorite thing about our house. :)

I know the next few weeks will fly by too. School will be starting soon. Hopefully we'll be in a good routine by then.

I have to thank my Mom and Dad for all of their help this past week. Maddie and Becca loved being with them and it was a great help just to get them out of my hair for a while. They are still adjusting to the new baby, but love her to death just the same.

She's here!

2008-07-25T13:54:00.003-05:00

Yep, I said "she". We have a third baby girl. Rylan Nicole is doing well and is healthy. That's all that really matters, right? Russ is doing well too. We BOTH were in shock when the dr. told us it was a girl. It really took us a while to realize that we now have THREE girls! But it is God's plan for some reason. It is exciting for me to think about my girls having each other. I always wanted a sister, so for me to have three girls is pretty neat.

Maddie was in as much shock as we were. She was totally convinced it was a boy. When we told her we were naming the baby Rylan, she got mad at us, because that was going to be our boy's name (Ryland). So Maddie refused to call her Rylan. She started calling her Megan. After much convincing, Maddie finally started calling her Rylan. She's gotten used to it now.

Becca was so excited. She's one of the very few that has said from the beginning that we were having a girl. I think every time Becca looks at her, she says, "Awww". It's pretty cute.

So we all are doing well. Thanks to all of you for your prayers throughout this pregnancy. She is here and she is beautiful and healthy.

So much to do...

2008-07-14T20:12:00.002-05:00

Do you ever feel like you have so much to do and so little time to do it in? That's where I am now. I have a list about a page long of things to get done before the baby is born. I've gotten most of the "big" projects out of the way, so now it's just the little stuff.

But I've got to get through this week first. Tomorrow I have to finish working on stuff for VBS. Then VBS is Wed- Fri, with a Dr. appt. in there too. I'm helping with a baby shower on Saturday, and going to another baby shower on Sunday. We have friends that are moving, so Russ wants to plan to go out with them on Saturday night. Russ has softball Mon. and Tues of this week and next. I'll be cleaning the house on Wed. because my parents will be here on Thursday, then off to the hospital next Friday. It will be here so soon! I have GOT to get a pedicure somewhere in there! It is a requirement that you have pretty feet and toenails when you have a baby. :)

So wish me luck on getting my list done. It just seems like once I get about half way through the list, I think of other stuff to do, so I add it to the list and it just never gets done. Plus, when you can't bend over very well, it sure does make cleaning take longer!

Bible Camp

2008-07-12T08:46:00.003-05:00

Bible Camp is very important to Russ and I. Our camp in Iowa is a very special place. That's where we met. Russ has talked about taking our girls there since they were babies. He can't wait until they are old enough to go with him.

Growing up Church of Christ in Iowa was not easy. There aren't many around. In fact, Russ counted one time and there are more Churches of Christ in the OKC area than in the entire state of Iowa. Both of our families had to drive 30 miles to go to the nearest C of C. And they are all small. A large C of C in Iowa is 100 people. My church had about 25. Five of those were kids (me and my two brothers being 3 of the five). So I couldn't wait for church camp every summer. Just to be with other kids who believed the same thing I did was awesome.

I started going to camp when I was in 4th grade. I didn't miss a single summer. Russ and I met there the summer after I graduated HS, and we were engaged at camp two years later. I love Bible camp.

So two weeks ago, Maddie had an opportunity to go to a day camp just a few miles from here. We found out about it the Thursday before (it started on Monday and went through Wednesday). But luckily, we had time to register her. So our Life Group sent all of our kids (ages 5-9) to it. Erin was awesome and said she would be their sponsor so they could go. Thank you Erin!! The kids loved it! They learned so much, made new friends from other Churches of Christ and can't wait to go back next year.

I realize there isn't a lot out there for kids ages 5-9, that's why we were all so excited about this. But I have to admit that I was a little upset that we didn't know about it sooner. It was not our church that sponsored it, but a C of C from a nearby town. I would have killed for something like this when I was a kid. To know there are other kids out there that believe like you do is so important.

We are very blessed to be part of such an awesome church. My girls have a huge youth group and I love that. But I want them to know kids from other churches of Christ too. So I guess my question is, why don't we do more with the churches here in town? Why can't we sponsor a camp for the kids?

When I told other people at church about Maddie going to camp, they were a little upset, because they would have sent their kids if they had known about it. So Erin is going to be sure that it gets in the bulletin next summer so everyone does know about it. I really appreciate Erin taking the lead on this one. I just know there will be so many from our church who will send their kids to this wonderful camp. And I thank the other church for putting it on. I hope we all can help out and make it bigger and better next year.

5 kids from our LG plus 3 others. Maddie and Mason

Becca, Maddie and Jaylee Maddie made ice cream at camp.

They even brought out a bunch of animals for the kids to see and touch. This is a HUGE snake!

I've been bumped!

2008-07-10T21:59:00.003-05:00

So my doctor looked at my chart today and said, "the 28th? I'm starting my vacation then! We've got to move you to the week before." Not a problem here, because I told her I wasn't waiting for her to get back. So now it's the 25th! Woo Hoo! Three less days of being so stinkin' huge! It will be almost 2 weeks before my due date, so I just pray it's lungs are ready. They should be, but you just never know.

Here's two new pictures. It's face is getting so chunky. My fluid level is down to about a 23. My Dr. was very happy that it had gone down. But it's still high, so they are still going to do another ultrasound next week, just to be sure it's all o.k. But everything looks good to go. I just have a bunch of stuff to do around the house now! Only 2 weeks from tomorrow! Yikes!

It has been driving the ultrasound girl crazy that we don't know what we are having, so she just "had" to look today. I closed my eyes and turned my head so I wouldn't accidentally look. It was hard though. A part of me wanted to just look and not tell Russ. But I've made it this far, what's two more weeks?

These pictures look like a boy to me. Everyone keeps telling me that. I'm going to feel really bad if it does end up being a girl. We just won't tell her that everyone thought she looked like a boy before she was born. ;)

mostly pictures

2008-07-06T18:56:00.006-05:00

I had some pictures I wanted to share, so that's this post, mainly pictures.

Slip 'n slide fun. Becca always has to get a big running start. Then she falls to her knees and scoots down to the end. Maddie's gotten pretty good at making it to the end.

This is for my mom so she can see how huge I am.

Thursday night was spent at a work 4th of July party. They had a climbing rock wall, a big moon bounce and this HUGE slide. Becca's first time down didn't go so well. She ended up flipping over and over again to the end.

Russ and the girls laying down to watch the fireworks.

Here's the baby and it's arm at 35 1/2 weeks. My fluid is at 27. Still really high, but at least it hasn't gotten any higher.

June updates

2008-06-30T12:08:00.003-05:00

Over the past couple of weeks, we've had some exciting things happen at our house:

Maddie lost her first tooth. Her other bottom front tooth and two top front teeth are also loose. She's very excited about all of this.

We got a Wii! What an ordeal to get it. We knew when WalMart got their shipment in, so I called them and they only had 5 left. So I yelled at the girls to get their shoes on and out the door we went. We literally were jogging to the back of Walmart to get this thing. Yes, me, 8 months pregnant, jogging. I'm sure it was hilarious. We got the 2nd to last one! We got the Wii sports and Wii Play games. We are constantly looking for Mario Kart and the Wii Fit. Eventually we'll get it. But I won't be doing any jogging to get those two.

My Life Group threw me a diaper shower. It was so wonderful of all of them to do this for me. I have great friends. We had quite a few people there. And 4 more showed up around 3:30 when everyone else had left. It was fun and I appreciate Carla for opening up her new house to host it and for Mel coordinating everything for it. I received so many diapers and wipes. I literally have them under the crib because I don't know where else to put all of them. Jenny was the only one brave enough to buy blue things. I hope we get to use them! And Amy came all the way from Tennessee for my shower. OK, not just for me, she just happened to be here visiting, but I appreciate her taking the time to come to the shower.
Thanks again girls!!

Baby pictures in 4d!!

2008-06-26T16:26:00.003-05:00

Looks like Becca to me....

This one looks like it's getting angry!

My amniotic fluid level is up to 28. My dr. says this baby just has it's own swimming pool in there. Lots of fluid. But she doesn't seem too worried. So I guess that's good.

I'm just past 34 weeks. So we're getting close! If I can just make it 3 more weeks, that would be fantastic. My dr. says I will because I'm not measuring big. I'm right on track. So we'll know more in the coming weeks.

No change

2008-06-20T12:11:00.003-05:00

Amniotic fluid is still at 26. It didn't go up, so that's good. The baby looks great. The ultrasound tech switched it to 4D again. That is just unbelievable to me. This baby looks just like Becca. Russ said, "It looks like Becca, just more manly." He's hoping anyway.

My Dr. said everything looks great and it looks like I'll go full term. So that's good news for the baby. She told me that when it is born, she has to take a lot of time to suction out it's nose, and mouth. So if I don't hear it cry right away, to not worry. There's just a lot more fluid to deal with. So at least I'm a little prepared for that.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I know all will be fine. It's all in God's hands, so you know it has to be good.

Just 5 weeks and 3 days to go!

another update

2008-06-12T22:17:00.003-05:00

I went to the doctor today to have my first biophysical done on the baby. It wasn't too bad. It was about 15 minutes long. The ultrasound tech checked the heart rate (152), watched it breathing and watched for movements to be sure it wasn't under any type of stress. I didn't know babies would "breathe" in utero. But their bodies go through the breathing motions. They have to practice for when they are born.

This baby was sleeping today. She kept shaking my stomach so we could see movements. Everything looked good. It's kidney's were holding very little fluid. She said it was nothing to worry about at all, but we would continue to look every week.

My amniotic fluid level is up to 26. The ultrasound tech asked me if I was diabetic and I told her I had passed the 3 hr glucose test. She just went, "huh". She said that is the most common reason women have high amniotic fluid. But we don't know why I do. It's just weird if you ask me. But we'll keep checking on it every week. The biggest problem with it is that you go in to preterm labor. Your uterus can only stretch so much and when you have a bunch of extra fluid in there, it kind of gives the signal of "ok, we're ready to have a baby", when in reality, you might only be 35 or 36 weeks pregnant. So we are just going to keep an eye on it.

It was fun getting to see the baby. Janet went with me. (thanks Janet) She thought it was pretty cool too. At one point, the ultrasound tech turned the machine to the 4d view. It was so neat! I had never seen an actual 4d ultrasound. You could see it's chubby cheeks and chin and it's little nose and lips. It was really neat to see.

Anyway, here's the best picture of the 5 that she gave me. By the end of all of this, I'm going to have to have a scrapbook just for all of the ultrasound pictures. I've had it done at 7 weeks, 12, 20, 30, 32 and probably 6 more!

Dear Michelle...

2008-06-04T17:31:00.001-05:00

Do not look up things on the internet. You will become more worried than ever!

Baby update

2008-06-04T16:37:00.004-05:00

Good news and bad.
The good:I don't have Gestational Diabetes. Yeah!
The bad: The baby's kidney's are retaining fluid.

So starting next Thursday, and for the next 7 Thursdays, I have to have a non-stress test. Basically, this is a 30 minute long ultrasound. They will be looking at the heart rate, lungs and kidneys to make sure they are all functioning properly. If not, then I'll have more invasive tests to be sure the baby is not in any stress. And if it is, they'll be taking it early. I'm only 31 weeks, so I just pray I get to at least 36.

But that is all worst-case scenario.

My amniotic fluid level is a 23. My Dr. says she doesn't really worry until it hits 24. So I'm right on the edge of the worry-fence.

The fluid in the baby's kidneys is at the lower end of the spectrum. Nothing serious, just something to watch. That's what these weekly ultrasounds will be doing.

We're still going to try really hard to not find out the sex of the baby, but having a weekly ultrasound will sure make it hard.

Please just pray that everything works itself out. This has been one interesting pregnancy from the beginning. I think it's God's way of saying- "You need to talk to me more, so I'm going to give us something to talk about."

It's also a good way for God to show me that I don't have control. He is in control of it all. I felt like if I had gestational diabetes, then I could control it. There is something I could do to fix it- by eating well and exercising. But with this, there is nothing I can do but to pray.

I'm sure everything will be fine in the end. This baby is God's creation and He doesn't make mistakes. I believe things happen to teach us things. I've learned a lot in the last year. Lessons I don't want to have again, but am grateful for them anyway.

Maddie's big trip and Big 'Ol me

2008-06-02T17:28:00.004-05:00

Russ and Maddie made a trip to Iowa over Memorial Day weekend. I didn't want to go because I still enjoy seeing my ankle bones. That won't last much longer, so I wanted them to be around as long as possible. Being in a car for 11 hours can make a pregnant woman's feet, ankles and legs do weird things. So Becca and I got to stay home.

We realized it was the first time Becca and Maddie had spent the night apart since Becca was brought home from the hospital. They missed each other so much. It was cute when Maddie got home. Becca just about ran past Russ to get to Maddie. She was so excited.

They got to spend a few days with Grandma and Grandpa and then to my parents for one night. Here are a few pictures:

I also wanted to share pictures of how huge I am. Last week I had to have a 3 hour glucose test and another ultrasound. My amniotic fluid level was high at 20 weeks and my sugar level was high at 27 weeks. So in order to rule out gestational diabetes, I had to have these tests done. I'll find out on Wednesday if I do have gest. diabetes. Hopefully not because I am addicted to snow cones and sweet tea right now.

Having the ultrasound was fun though. I'd never had one done this late. We could actually see the chubby cheeks of the baby and its' pointy chin. It kept sticking it's tongue out. That was really neat to see. It's hard to see in these ultrasound pictures, but I thought I would share them anyway.

My turn

2008-05-26T11:40:00.007-05:00

Everyone else has done the 100 list, so here's my feeble attempt. I'll start out by saying, I am boring. Especially compared to Pam. This list is dull and those of you who know me well, all ready know this stuff. So I apologize to you in advance for the boring-ness of this post. Here goes:

1. I was born in Illinois

2. I am a typical oldest child

3. I have 2 younger brothers

4. Josh is 29

5. Eric is 27

6. They are both single (see picture below)

7. I wish they were married

8. Then I'd have sister-in-laws closer to my age (I still love you Donna, June, Cathy and Janet!)

9. I grew up in Iowa

10. My mom is a medical transcriptionist

11. My dad is a signal maintainer for the Union Pacific Railroad

12. They own a Bed and Breakfast in southern Iowa. Click here: Foxwood Bed and Breakfast

13. I went to the same school K-10th grade

14. The town (Russell) only had 500 people

15. If I would have stayed, I would have graduated with 18 people

16. My dad got transferred and we had to move before my Jr. Year of HS

17. I was sad at first, but so glad later. I loved my new school and friends

18. We moved to Colo- a town of 1,000 people

19. I graduated with 53. (It was a consolidated school- 3 little towns in one HS)

20. I took dance lessons (ballet, tap and jazz) for 6 years

21. I had to quit because sports became a bigger part of my life

22. I played basketball through my Jr. Year in HS (then they changed from half court bball to 5 on 5- Iowa was one of the last places to change over)

23. I played varsity volleyball through my Sr. Year

24. I ran track (hurdles) through my sophomore year

25. I had to quit because I had blown out my knee playing basketball and had to wear a brace

26. I was on the drill (dance) team my Jr. Year

27. I was in swing choir my Sr. Year

28. I was in many plays and musicals

29. I was on the student counsel my Sr. Year

30. I was even a football cheerleader one year (Mel-this was only so I could go to the away games)

31. I played the clarinet up through my freshman year of HS.

32. I worked as a waitress my Jr and Sr years

33. I had the coolest prom dress ever my Sr. Year
A sequined American flag!

34. My mom made it

35. I loved HS and wish I could do it over again

36. I went to the University of Iowa my freshman year

37. My roommate was my best friend, Carrie from HS.

38. I met Russ 2 weeks before starting at the U of I

39. We met at Bible Camp in Iowa

40. I got quite the education at Iowa

41. Most of it was not in a classroom

42. I transferred to Harding my sophomore year

43. Russ convinced me we needed to be in the same state if we were going to date

44. So site-unseen, I transferred to OC in Jan. of my sophomore year

45. We got engaged that August

46. We were married 4 mo. later in December

47. My mom made my wedding dress, 5 bridesmaid's dresses and a flower girl dress in just 4 mo.

48. My mom is very talented

49. I was just 21 when we got married

50. Russ was 26.

51. We've now been married 11 1/2 years

52. Russ was in grad. school at OU

53. I was a Jr. at OC

54. I got my degree in Early Childhood Education

Look what I found Jenny!

55. My first teaching job was a morning Kindergarten teacher

56. After one semester of that, I was moved to First grade

57. I loved teaching 1st grade

58. I taught for 4 years

59. Then I had Maddie

60. We decided I should stay at home with her

61. It was really hard at first

62. Now I can't imagine working

63. I always hoped I would have a daughter (since I didn't get that sister I wanted)

64. I NEVER thought I would have 2 daughters

65. Maddie is just like me

66. We are both extremely stubborn

67. Just ask Russ

68. I started working in the church benevolence office when Maddie was about 6 mo. old

69. I enjoyed having something to do and being around grown-ups again

70. I became a Creative Memories Consultant 5 years ago

71. I love scrapbooking

72. I think it's really important for a kid to see "their story"

73. I love to take pictures

74. I secretly wish I was a professional photographer

75. But I'll go back to teaching someday

76. I would like to teach 2nd grade

77. I love to travel

78. I have been to about 35 of US states, and 11 foreign countries

The Colosseum in Rome

Swimming with Sting Rays in Grand Cayman

Traversing through the jungle in Jamaica

79. I do NOT have a green thumb

80. I don't enjoy yard work

81. Neither does Russ

82. That's not a good thing for our yard and house

83. We built our house 9 years ago (May '99)

84. Less than a week after moving in, while building a dog run, Russ hit me in the head with a sledge hammer

85. My brother, Josh was here and he thought I was going to die

86. The sledge hammer head actually broke off of the handle

87. I had to have 4 staples in the back of my head

88. This was all the day before we were to drive to Ohio for my cousin's wedding

89. I am ready to build a new house

90. I look at house plans all of the time

91. It used to drive Russ crazy

92. He's gotten used to it now

93. The older I get, the more comfortable I become in who I am

94. I have a great family and I married in to a great family who has become my own

95. Russ is the youngest of 5

Russ (#5), Donna (#2), Russ' Mom-Inez, Russ' Dad- Ray, June (#3), John (#4) and Rex (#1)

96. His closest sibling (John) is 18 years older than him

97. All of his siblings and spouses are older than my mom (that's why I said #8)

98. I have life long friends

99. I love my church of over 600 people (I grew up in a church of less than 20)

100. I am extremely blessed

I hope you weren't too bored. I threw in pictures to break up the boredom of it all! :)

Plus-sized???

2008-05-19T08:44:00.008-05:00

America's Next Top Model crowned their winner last week. Now I didn't watch this show at all, but it has been all over tv about the winner. Her name is Whitney and she is the first "plus-sized" winner of the show.

Here are a few of her pictures. You tell me if she is "plus-sized".

Whitney is 5'10" and is a size 8-10. A size 8 on a shorter woman is normal. So for someone who is as tall as her, a size 8 would be "small". Not in the modeling business. I saw some pictures of her standing next to other models from the show- the "regular-sized models", and she looked like an Amazon woman.

What has this world come to? A size 8 is plus-sized? I always thought size 16 was the start of the plus-sized section. They say the average American woman is a size 12. So to me, Whitney is much smaller than the average woman. But she is still considered plus-sized.

I think we need to be more careful with our wording. We can give little girls the wrong impression of themselves. Russ and I have tried to be really careful in not using the word "fat" in front of the girls. We use the terms "getting in shape" or "being fit". Somewhere though, Becca has picked up "Chubba Bubba". So we try to explain to her that's not nice. We just need to eat better and exercise. Maddie has been really good at picking up on our language. Becca just mentioned the other day that she had a big belly. Maddie told her to stop eating candy and to exercise and she would be fit. Not skinny. I don't like that term. Skinny is for the super-models, not for real people.

If they must label this girl, then call her a full-figured model, not plus-sized. Maybe after this baby is born, I can get down to being a plus-sized, or full-figured woman. I would LOVE to be a size 8!

Mother's Day

2008-05-13T10:18:00.004-05:00

I had a great Mother's Day weekend. I left Friday afternoon for a scrapbook retreat and didn't get back until Sunday afternoon. It was wonderful!

Not only did I get 104 pages scrapbooked, I got a massage and a pedicure while there. When I got back on Sunday, I was so relaxed. I really needed a weekend away.

Some people said, "I can't believe you're going on Mother's Day! You should be with your children on Mother's Day." What I have to say to that is: I am with my children every day. I love them very much and am blessed to be a stay at home mom. But some times you just need a break. You need to rejuvenate yourself. You need "me" time. I think that is really important. Plus, shouldn't EVERY day be Mother's Day?

I was excited to get home to see Russ and the girls and show my family all of the work I did in our albums. They were excited to give me my presents and flowers. Maddie had made some really cute cards and made a picture at school that had all of my "information" on it: My mom weighs 50 Pounds. My mom's favorite food is Frito chili pie. My mom is best at cleaning. Now that one is funny. There were a bunch of cute sentences on there and a great picture of me.

Here are a few pictures of my weekend. I had 5 friends there and we had a lot of fun. It's sad I won't be able to go back for a while (having a baby and all). But they are all going back in the fall. I'm so jealous! :)

This is a view from the living room looking into the scrapbook room. It is such an awesome house. And decorated so cute!

Me staring at a blank page. I do that a lot!

Our group: Patti, Cindy, Amy, me and Cheryl. Barbara had all ready left when we took this.

Dumb Drivers

2008-05-07T13:57:00.002-05:00

Is it just me or does every driver around me need to go back to driver's ed? I'm getting tired of being surrounded by people who don't know how to drive. Here's my top 10 things that drive me crazy about other drivers:

1. Not turning right on red. It's legal, really! Don't just sit there until the light turns green. If it's clear- GO!

2. People who think they "know" how to drive in the rain or in the snow. Guess who I see in the ditches in Iowa during a snow storm? Big trucks who think they are good enough drivers to still drive 60 mph on the interstate. DUH!

3. Forgetting to turn off your blinker. Mine makes noise if it's on too long. Do other cars not do this?

4. When it is raining, you should drive with your lights on. Especially grey and white cars- you are hard to see!

5. People who drive with their parking lights on. They are called PARKING LIGHTS for a reason. Not driving lights. What's the point? Do you think you are saving gas by not turning on your headlights?

6. People who let their 3 year old sit up front. It's illegal. Aren't you supposed to be like 10 or 12 before you can sit in the front seat?

7. Along with #6- People who don't buckle their kids in, and let them run around in the back. They are just asking for an accident. How sad.

8. People who pull out in front of you and stay in your lane. If you MUST pull out in front of me, move to the other lane!

9. People who don't pay attention to the lights. You know it is going to turn green soon. Pay attention!

10. People who are getting on to the interstate from an access road. They just assume it's their right to get on the interstate (going 40 mph) and don't yield to the cars going 70 mph. There is a yield sign there for a reason!

And...
Only in Oklahoma. I was driving the other day when a big truck pulled up on my right. I looked over and started laughing. The side mirror had been broken, but they fixed it. They put a hand mirror (handle and all) in it's place, held on by rubber bands. I wish I would have had my camera. I tried getting out my cell phone to take a picture, but I wasn't quick enough and they turned. Clever of them. You do what you must do, I guess.

Do you have any driver pet peeves?

Names

2008-04-29T14:40:00.002-05:00

Naming a child is a very difficult thing. Especially when you've been a teacher. I will never name my child William, Lucas, Novie or Jayme. If you knew these children that I taught, you would know why. My list is much longer than that, but those are just a few that really stick out in my mind.

I know we have 3 months left to come up with a name for this baby, but it will be here so quickly. And we have made it even harder on ourselves. First of all, we aren't finding out the sex. (I know how many of my friends are mad at me for this one, but it's fun. There are so few real surprises in life.) So we have to come up with boy and girl names. Secondly, if it is a boy, Russ wants it to have the same initials as him. So we are stuck with "R" names. The only thing we have agreed on is that his middle name would be Wade, like Russ'. But when it comes to first names, we do not agree at all.

Here is just a short list of names that it can not be. Do to either me having taught a child with that name, or I'm related to someone with that name or a name similar to it, or I just don't like it.
Randall (I have an Uncle Randy), Ryan (my brother's middle name), Remington, anything with Ray at the front (Raye is Becca's middle name), Richard (sorry Dad-too many bad nicknames).
Here are some that Russ likes that I don't: Radley, Regan, Roman, Rogan, Royce
I have a few that I like that Russ doesn't. Here are the ones we kind of agree on, but don't really love any of them: Ridley, Riley, Ryder, Rowan, Ryland

There's a small part of me that just hopes it is a girl, because girl names are so much easier to me. We are not stuck with any letter when it comes to a girls' name. Right now, I really like Megan or Alyssa. I also like Molly, but Russ doesn't. Macy is on my list too, but not on Russ'.

Maddie's name went from Madison Grace to Alyssa Rae to Madalyn Paige. In fact, we had decided when she was born she would be Alyssa. But before we called anyone to tell them, Russ kept telling me she didn't look like an Alyssa. It just bugged him. She looked like a Maddie to him, so we changed her name before we called anyone.

Becca's name never changed. We found out she was a girl, so I made a list of names I liked. I was reading it off to Russ and Maddie one night and when I came to the name Rebecca, Maddie gasped. She said, "Reeeebecca, that will be my baby sister's name". And it kind of stuck. I just didn't want her called Becky, so we agreed on Becca and it fits her.

So if any of you have any suggestions, I am willing to take them at this point. We even watch movie credits trying to find a cool "R" name. There just aren't that many out there. And so many names have become girl names (Riley, Regan). I just do not like this name game.

So don't be shocked when you find out I've had the baby and it has no name for a few days. This one is tough.

Maddie's birthday

2008-04-23T08:14:00.004-05:00

Yesterday our Maddie girl turned 6. She was so excited when she got up because she had a busy day. The first thing was...I volunteer for a reading program at her school, so I get to go once a month and read to the kids and do an activity with them. She was excited that I would be at her school on her birthday. I brought her birthday cupcakes and juice boxes for snack. She decorated the top with lots of sprinkles. (Becca helped too) They were VERY multi-colored, and she was proud of them. Then, Russ took a "special" (Sonic) lunch to her. Maddie felt very proud that her Daddy came to school too. And that she didn't have to eat the school lunch.

When she came home from school, she helped me get our picnic dinner ready. Then we left for gymnastics, where they sang Happy Birthday to her. She thought that was pretty neat. Then off to the park to meet Daddy for dinner and present opening. It was just the 4 of us at the park, but it was so nice out and the girls had a lot of fun.Twenty-five Junie B. Jones chapter books from Merma and Papa. She was so excited!! Polly Pocket Pet shop. She couldn't believe it! :)

We've decided not to do big birthdays every year. The thought of it exhausts me and it can get rather expensive! I'd much rather spend that money elsewhere. This is not to say that the girls are never going to get parties, because they will on "special birthdays". 5, 10, 13 and 16 sound good to me. (Maybe one or two in between those.) Last year, Maddie had a big Tea Party. It was cute and she had a blast. So until she turns 10, we'll do family parties, or have a few friends over for a sleep over, or a movie at the dollar theater. I, personally, just don't see the need for these HUGE parties every year. (I hope I'm not offending anyone.) I just think if you have a few parties here and there, then they are more special to the child. Plus, I don't know about you, but we can't squeeze another stinkin' toy into our house! I'm going to have a hard time finding room for the Polly Pockets- and they are TINY!

So if you are invited to Maddie or Becca's birthday parties in the future, feel free to contribute to their college fund. :)

I love this weather

2008-04-21T09:48:00.004-05:00

Spring and Fall are definitely my two favorite seasons. Spring because everything feels so new. It is a time I want to completely clean out my house and get rid of just about everything. (Russ is not so happy with this since a lot of the stuff I want to throw out is his! ) The city is having large trash pick up day on Saturday and I can't wait to throw some stuff outside! And our neighborhood is having a garage sale in May. I'm debating on doing it. Is it really worth all of the work? We'll see.

I just wanted to share some pictures of our zoo trip last Saturday. Russ got free tickets for all of us. He had coordinated a blood drive at his work in Melinda's honor last fall. So the Blood institute gave out free tickets to all coordinators and their families. Plus, they gave us a free lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs. The whole day cost us $6 and that was because we "needed" cotton candy. It was about 65 degrees and sunny. A perfect day at the zoo. The girls had a blast. Russ hadn't been to the zoo in years, so he had a lot of fun showing the girls all of the different animals. Looking at these pictures, I think they were just as excited about the "fake" animals as the real ones.

Reality shows

2008-04-17T14:02:00.007-05:00

I am a reality tv addict. And it has been a great week.

#1 confession- we watched Rock of Love II with Bret Michaels. I loved Ambre from the beginning and was so glad he chose her. Can't wait to see the reunion show Sunday night.

#2 show- The Bachelor. This is the smartest (and cutest) bachelor ever. He has gotten rid of all of the psycho girls and is down to 4 normal, sweet girls. I am rooting for Amanda.

#3 show- Dancing with the Stars. My girls love watching this show with me. I am hoping Shannon and Derek win or Kristi and Mark. Priscilla got kicked off this week. She was good for 62 years old, but not my favorite.

#4 show- American Idol- It was Kristy Lee's time. I love Brooke, so I was scared she was going home. I was really sad last week when Michael Johns got kicked off. He was in my top 3. David Cook is my favorite.

But my favorite reality show of the season- The Biggest Loser. Ali won! Way to go girl! She went from 234 pounds to 122. She totally rocks! And I was glad Bernie got the 2nd prize. He was so funny. I just hope they all keep it up. For those of you that watch the show- Paul didn't come. I think it's because he either 1. didn't lose any more weight or 2. actually gained weight. I never liked him anyway. Glad Kelly moved on to someone else.

I can't wait for Survivor tonight to see who goes home. I love Ozzy and Amanda. I hope they stick around to the end!

I'm going to be bored when summer gets here. Anyone have any good suggestions for summertime tv? Not Big Brother. That is one reality tv show I can't stand.

Updates

2008-04-14T09:41:00.008-05:00

I'm combining 3 short posts in to one, so here we go:

I had posted over a month ago that I wanted to start taking a friend out for lunch. I finally did. Chasity and Adrianne got to be my Guinea pigs. It was a great feeling. We had fun and great conversation. Adrianne didn't know I had planned on paying, so she kept thanking me. It was the best feeling I had had in a long time. I can't wait to invite my next friend out to eat.

Maddie won the citizenship award at school for the 3rd quarter. She was so proud. She got this award for doing her work, having good grades and a good attitude at school. We are so proud of her.

I love our Life Group. Last month, we did two mini service projects. Two of our members- Ricky and Julie go to Bolivia every year on a parasite campaign. They take a pill out to children in rural areas who can't afford to take this one pill that will help them to not get sick. Their water is very dirty and has many parasites in it. But if they can just take 1 or even 2 pills a year, they will be fine. But most people can't even afford the one pill. They also can't afford toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap. Things we all use many times a day. We just take them for granted.

Ricky is originally from Bolivia. So when they go to visit his family, they take these huge crates of supplies and deliver them to the rural children. I think this is such an amazing act. So one night at life group, we helped them pack up supplies for their trip. We had done a lesson for the kids on helping others. Ricky and Julie brought a video they had put together a few years ago. It shows the extremely poor conditions of these kids. Their schools look like what we had in America in the 1800's. We wanted to show our kids just how blessed they are. They were all excited to help pack these crates with toothbrushes to give to kids who can't afford to buy them.

Ricky just got back, so we got to hear a little of his trip. Julie will be back on Thursday. I'm anxious to hear more and see pictures.

Our Life Group also hosted Parents' Night out at church last month. From 6-10pm you could drop off your child and go out to eat or go to a movie, or do whatever you wanted. We have used this a few times at church and love it. Recently, the life groups have taken over doing it, which is great. We used to only have it a few times a year, but now, it will be much more. For Russ and I, who have no family here to watch our kids, it is an awesome service. So Mel and I got together and figured out how to have rotations and how to divide up adults and kids so they could have fun and we wouldn't have huge headaches by the end. We ended up having 45 kids there between 10 adults and 6 stations (rooms). It was a lot of work, but I think everyone had a good time. I'm glad it's over and we don't have to do it again for a long time! ;)

Becca the photographer

2008-04-09T08:42:00.005-05:00

For as long as I can remember, Becca has been fascinated by cameras. She loves not only to have her picture taken, but she loves to take pictures. She used to take toys and pretend they were a camera and take pictures of all of us. After each "picture" she took, she would say, "That was a good one!" It cracked us up. So for her birthday last year, we bought her a kids digital camera. She was so excited. But here we are not even 4 months later and it is broken. I think I just bought too cheap of one.

So Becca still has this need to take pictures, so whenever she has the opportunity, she will grab my camera and take pictures. Yes, she knows how to turn it on and how to take the picture. Focusing and aiming are not talents of hers quite yet though.

I just had to share the most recent pictures she took. I was looking through the camera to download a certain picture and came across these. I didn't even know she had gotten a hold of the camera, so I laughed out loud when I saw them.

These pictures combine her love of taking pictures and having her picture taken. Too funny.

The church of Oprah

2008-04-04T09:26:00.006-05:00

Millions of people watch Oprah every day. I watch her quite often and have enjoyed many of her shows. I've always known she has a spirituality about her, but wasn't quite sure of her religious beliefs. She lives with her boyfriend and doesn't want to get married to him, so I have felt she's not a believing Christian. But I got an email today that had a video of Oprah talking about how Jesus isn't the only way to heaven. That disturbed me a little. The video goes on and talks about her book club. Right now she is reading "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle. I have watched the ads about it and I have even thought about checking it out at the library. But I hadn't really looked in to what the book was about until now. It's a little disturbing. Check out this utube video to see some of the things Oprah has said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW4LLwkgmqA&feature=email

There is a book out to counteract Oprah and "A New Earth". The author, Carrington Steele says, "So, this is just a normal, everyday suggestion for Oprah's book club, huh? Somewhere along the way, we went from an endorsement of cashmere sweaters and fuzzy pajamas to Oprah instructing us on our very purpose in life, based on the teachings of one, Eckhart Tolle. Who is this enlightened being, that was actually given the answers to the world's every need and problem, and has passed it on to us to absorb in 309 pages? He tells us that at 29, at the point of suicide, he had a profound transformation and through the years, became a spiritual teacher. Now, according to Oprah, this gives him the credentials to tell us to suspend thought processes and to acknowledge our painbody." In A New Earth, Tolle explains the necessity to transform, "A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die." Ms. Steele says, "How's that for a harmless book club study?"

The book "Don't Drink The Kool-Aid", just released in March 2008 studies the "Oprah Movement" in-depth. A compilation and critique of numerous quotes from newspapers, magazines, TV and internet, illustrate a web of powerful people and a powerful argument that what we see goes much deeper than the surface. This book is a thorough investigation to enlighten and disseminate the information that when pieced together form a clear pattern of influence. For detailed information, video clips, to view the author's open letter to Oprah Winfrey and to purchase Don't Drink The Kool-Aid, visit http://www.csteeleonline.com/.

I'm sorry if you are a huge Oprah fan. I was disappointed in a lot of this myself. But people don't look into things as much as they should these days. We hear Oprah talk and take her word as gospel. I have been guilty myself of saying to Russ, "Well, on Oprah today...." He has gotten really tired of that. And he would remind me, "just because it was on Oprah does not make it true."

Since this turned out so long I'll save my rant on Oprah and Obama for another post. People are taking her word as gospel on him too! Please do your research before you believe in something so deeply that you try to convince others of your beliefs. Don't take someone else's word for it.

But please let me know how you feel about this. Am I reading too much into it?

Sports Fan?

2008-03-31T12:35:00.002-05:00

Something has happened to me since Maddie was born. Russ says that I can no longer call myself a sports fan since I don't actually watch the games. O.k., that makes sense, but I must explain that I do love sports and I used to really love watching them.

When Kirby Puckett played for the Minnesota Twins, I could tell you the entire roster and even the batting order. I loved the Twins. I also could tell you the name of everyone on the LA Lakers when Magic Johnson played. And the 49ers were my football team. I loved Joe Montana and Steve Young. But the excitement of sports slowly starting wearing off when we had kids.

I don't know if it's because I need to take care of the girls, I'm too tired and would rather take a nap, I need to clean the house, or a million other things on my "to do" list. I just don't understand what has happened.

Some of it could be blamed on Todd and Terry. :) They would call up Russ and give away their wives' tickets if they couldn't make it to a basketball or football game. At first I was very jealous, because I wanted to go. Especially to the football games. When I was at the University of Iowa, I had football season tickets. I love the fall- "football weather" as I call it. I had to get over it, because I wanted Russ to go and have fun. Yes, I wanted to go too, but I was too cheap to hire a babysitter and pay for a ticket for myself. So slowly, the sports fan in me died.

March madness is always fun though. I always fill out a bracket. If nothing else, than to see if I can beat Russ. No, I didn't pay attention to anything during the season. But about 2 weeks before the tournament starts, I secretly watch Sports Center during the day. I pay attention to everything they say and then choose my teams.

So far, I am kicking Russ' butt. We do points by taking the teams' seed and multiplying it by 1 (in first round) by 2 in the sweet 16, by 4 in the elite eight, by 8 for the final 4, by 16 for the final two teams and the winner is x32. So, right now, I have 188 points. Russ has 151 points. I have Kansas and UCLA out of the final 4, Russ has North Carolina and UCLA. He also has both of them in the finals and UCLA winning. I only have UCLA in the final game, but losing. So Russ does have a chance to beat me. But it has been fun so far picking the "right" games.

So maybe I'm back on track to being a sports fan. Well, that is until this baby is born, then I'll have something "better" to do. But if any of you wives want to give your husband's football ticket away- give me a call. I will be more than happy to leave Russ at home with the kids and go to the game with you! ;)

My music

2008-03-27T13:17:00.003-05:00

I've added a playlist of music to my blog. I picked out some of my favorite songs to put on it. That is hard for me, because I love music and so many different types of music. But these are a few songs that I could listen to over and over again.

I hope it works. And I hope you like my music. You can click on any of the songs to hear them.

Oh, and it drives me crazy when people use the incorrect spelling of your or you're. On James Blunt's song "You're Beautiful", they spelled it wrong. I just wanted to be sure you all didn't think it was me! :)

1500 miles and snow

2008-03-25T08:00:00.004-05:00

We went to Iowa for Spring Break. (Not as exciting as Mexico- Pam!) It sure didn't feel like spring! The temps were mainly in the 30's, a few days in the 40's. It was stinkin' cold up there! And what did I do? I forgot my winter coat. Can you blame me? It was 80 degrees here the day we left. I had on flip flops and a t-shirt. At least I remembered the girls stuff. They definitely needed it when they hunted for Easter Eggs on Saturday. It was 34 degrees. CRAZY! Their little noses were bright red and their hands actually hurt from being out in the cold. But they still had fun.

We got back Sunday night and as we were unpacking, I turned on the tv. The weather was on. Russ was in the other room and I just started yelling- "I love Oklahoma!" I saw that it is supposed to be in the 70's most of the week. And even in the 80's on Thursday. Yeah, I get to wear my flip flops!

Anyway, I love Iowa. I love my family and Russ', but I sure hate the weather up there. I have become a complete southern girl. Oh, and traveling that far when you are pregnant is NOT fun. My ankles didn't swell too badly, but my legs sure hurt a lot in the car.

I'm just glad to be home and in MY bed!! I love my king size bed. I love my pillows. (which I also forgot- we had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way up to buy body pillows. I can't sleep without one) I'm telling you. Pregnancy sucks the brain cells right out of your head!

Maddie Girl

2008-03-14T08:43:00.006-05:00

Maddie is going to be 6 in a month and I can't believe it! Time goes so quickly. She is turning into this wonderful little girl. She is so caring and so sensitive. Maddie loves Becca to death and does so much for her. It is fun to see her be such a great big sister. She is very inquisitive and asks questions that bring me to a loss of words. She asks things that I've never stopped to think about. I think the older Maddie gets, the more I'm going to have to study to keep up with her.

From the time Maddie was a baby, she has loved books. I have pictures of her crawling around with a book tucked under her arm. She had to have a book with her at all times. Most kids needs a stuffed animal or a blankie to sleep with... not Maddie. She HAD to have a book in bed with her in order to fall asleep. And from the time she was 9 months old, she knew which way a book was to go. Russ and I watched in amazement time and time again when she would pick up a book and flip it around the right way.

That love of books has not ended. One of Maddie's goals in Pre-K last year was to learn how to read. Her Pre-K teacher was so great and really worked with her. By the end of the year, she was reading. She read all summer long. And going into Kindergarten she was reading far beyond what a Kindergarten kid does. She reads very fluently and quickly got out of "kindergarten" books. So at Christmas, her teacher asked me if she could start going to the gifted and talented program. Well, yeah! So Maddie goes every Tuesday for an hour and also sees a reading teacher to read with once a week. At conferences a few weeks back, they told us she was reading on a 4th grade level. Wow! I knew she was over 1st grade, but 4th grade? She is reading chapter books and actually comprehends everything she reads too. She just amazes me.

So I know this was a braggy post. Sorry about that. I'm just so proud of Maddie and who she is. I'm so proud that she is my daughter and I love her to death!
Maddie's 5th birthday was a tea party.Maddie with straight hair.

Maddie was a bubble bath for Halloween this year.Last year, she was the Statue of Liberty. She decided this after her Daddy had gone to NYC on a business trip.

Russ took this picture in Iowa. I love it!

Holy God Recording

2008-03-11T08:48:00.007-05:00

I had an awesome experience this past weekend. On Friday, a group of eight of us from church took a little trip to record a cd. We were invited by Keith Lancaster. He is one of the men behind the group Acapella and AVB. He is on a mission to restore 4 part harmony in the Church of Christ. He said everywhere he goes, he hears churches singing the melody and nothing else. He also mentioned how so many C of C's have gotten pianos to "help out" their singing.

So we recorded a cd that will have 25 tracks on it. It will be a 2 disc cd. The second one will be a learning cd. You can just put in the right ear phone and only hear alto and bass parts. It is meant to teach people the different parts of these traditional hymns.

We got there around 4:00 on Friday. We arrived at the church at 5:30 because singing was to start at 6:00. Well, Keith got nervous and didn't think he would get it all recorded in time, so he started early. So we couldn't break in in the middle of recording. So we waited around until 6:30. We then proceeded to sing until after 10:00 pm!! I was one tired puppy. Everyone was standing the entire time. Well, all but the altos. He realized after singing for about an hour, that the alto section was way overpowering the others, so he had us number off 1-2. And we then took turns singing every other song. That was totally fine by me because that meant I could sit down when it wasn't my turn to sing.

We went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner (at 10:30 at night!!) It was yummy! When we got back to the hotel (at 11:30), we were walking to our rooms together. I had to pass by Jenny and Amanda's room to get to mine. When they opened their door, it felt like a dragon had just blew out fire from their room. Apparently when they got there, their room was cold, so they turned up the heat. So from 5:30-11:30, the heat was a-blowin'! I thought I was going to wake everyone up in the hotel from laughing so stinkin' hard. They had to come over to our room and hang out while their room cooled off. Too funny!

Saturday morning was spent singing (and sitting for me). I sat every chance I could. And it ended with the entire group (of around 250 people) singing praise and worship songs. It was beautiful. The angels in heaven definitely had some competition this weekend.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Oh, none of us remembered a camera, so these were all taken by Mary Lewis, Adrian Steed and Keith Lancaster. I looked through over 1200 pictures to find pictures of our group. I decided that the camera people are in love with Joan. There were probably 20 pictures of her. They seemed to like Greg and Amanda too. But poor me and Kevin. We were hard to find. Most of the pictures with us, we were in the background. Maybe that's because I was sitting down so much! :)

Oh and if you want my autograph, you should get it now. Because once the cd comes out and people see my name on the back (with 600 other people), I know there will be a line at my door for autographs and pictures. I promise I'll remain grounded. The money won't change me. I'll still be the same Michelle. Just a lot more famous. :)

Me and Jenny J. Greg giving Theck a big elbow. (neck rubbin' time)If you look just over Keith's left shoulder you can see me holding my belly. I was actually standing up! :)Joan and Amanda.This is a great picture of Joan laughing.I wonder if Jenny was praying - "Please let us sit down".Sean and Greg.Keith Lancaster giving us the "it's all good" sign. See me holding my belly again. My stomach muscles really hurt from standing so stinkin' much! "Ahhhh" Don't I look angelic?Kevin and Jenny on the far right. This is a really good picture of Amanda. Joan singing.

This is me wondering when we get to sit down again.Cute picture of Jenny. Good picture of Theck. Joan and Amanda singing.

Sean. Me- SITTING next to Amanda.

Another Ultrasound

2008-03-06T12:14:00.006-06:00

I just wanted to share a couple of good ultrasound picture with you all. I am now 18 weeks along and things are going well. I'm slowly starting to come out of the slump. I am not nauseous all of the time. So that's good. I was sick to 20 weeks with Maddie and 21 weeks with Becca. So I can handle this for another few weeks.

We decided not to find out the sex of the baby. Russ told our ultrasound girl that he is not mentally prepared for it to be a girl at this point. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Not finding out with Maddie was really hard- first baby and all. But I know this baby will be here soon enough. There are so few surprises in life. And this will be a good one.

So I thought I would share two of the five pictures she printed for us. The other three aren't as clear. They are a picture of the legs, a big yawn (from the front- it kind of looks like a scary movie picture) and another one of it playing with it's nose.

All in all, it was fun to see it moving around. I just started feeling it move this past week. I'm anxious for the girls to be able to feel it. Even though I know that will be here quickly, August still seems like a long ways a way!

This is a good picture of it's lips and nose.

It kept reaching up and scratching it's nose. Poor thing all ready has allergies like it's mommy and big sister Maddie. :)

Concert

2008-03-03T19:48:00.008-06:00

We went to see Matchbox Twenty in concert last night. They were awesome! Thanks to our friends, Rick and Amanda, we got to sit in box seats across from the stage. It was really fun!
The concert opened with a group called Mute Math. I had never heard of them, but they were good. On their closing song, the lead singer kept throwing his body up on the keyboard. His hands were still on the keys, but his feet were in the air. After he did this 3 times, he flipped over the keyboard. We weren't sure if he did it on purpose, but it sure got the crowd going.

Then came Alanis Morissette. She was awesome! I had forgotten how many good songs she sings. She has an amazing voice. It sounded so good live. I love "Jagged Little Pill".

After Alanis sang about 6-7 songs, it was time for Matchbox Twenty. They rocked! We bought their new cd a month ago so we could be sure we knew their songs. I was surprised at how many I all ready knew. My favorite is "Unwell". Russ calls it my theme song. The chorus of the song says, "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. I know right now, you can't tell. But stay awhile and then you'll see, a different side of me. I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired. I know right now you don't care, but soon enough you're gonna think of me and how I used to be." They sang that in their encore. I was so excited! Amanda and I were ready to go to the mosh pit. :) Is that what it's called? See how uncool I really am?

Rob Thomas is an amazing vocalist. To sing that well for that long amazes me. My voice gets worn out after singing 5-6 songs. He probably sang 15-20. It was for nearly 2 hours. It was so great.

It had been a long time since we had been to a concert. Russ and I used to love going to concerts. That of course was BK. (before kids) I've been to... now don't laugh- New Kids on the Block, Back Street Boys, Amy Grant, Janet Jackson (the best concert I've ever seen!), Def Leppard, Page & Plant (Led Zepplin), and a few other little ones here and there that must not have been great, because I can't remember them. We had tickets to Sheryl Crow last year, but she cancelled her tour when she found out she had breast cancer. We were really bummed because Russ had actually gone down town to stand in line to get front row tickets. (Oh, my husband is in love with Sheryl Crow). So we were extremely disappointed. We almost had tickets to Madonna in NYC, but our friend who was ordering the tickets got cut off when she was about to give her credit card number and couldn't get back in when she tried calling back. Madonna ended up canceling because of a sore throat, so that worked out o.k. for us.

Besides Sheryl and Madonna, I'd really like to see U2, Lenny Kravitz, Sarah MacLaghlin, and Tom Petty. Russ would go to all but Sarah. He's all ready been to a bunch of great concerts- Pink Floyd, Doobie Brothers, Van Halen (twice), ZZ Top and U2 (Actung Baby tour).

Anyway, it was a great time! I was tired by the time we left. We found out later, that there were tornado sirens going off all around us. We had no idea though. We knew the weather was bad, but that's a little scary to think about! All of those people in that building. There's no way they could evacuate us all. Thank you God for keeping us safe! And thank you Rick and Amanda for inviting us!