Tastey Treats!

I spent most of the day Wednesday baking cookies:


And I spent most of last night baking 7 more pans of cinnamon rolls! I think we're set for holiday goodies!

Thankful

Things I am thankful for:

*The health of my family
*My wonderful children
*That no trees fell on our house during the windstorm
*That my husband HAS a job, even though he has to work LONG crummy hours
*Activities that keep my children busy and happy
*Allergy medications
*The Toyota Sienna that fell into our laps 4.5 years ago and has been a fantastic vehicle for us
*Close friends
*Family
*Chocolate
*Hand-me-downs
*Our pets, who can be pains in the hiney, but overall, have been great/fun additions to our family
*email, Facebook, and blogging, which has allowed me to keep in better contact with people at weird times of day I otherwise wouldn't get good opportunities to be in contact with... I can't call them at 10pm when the house is finally quiet and the chores are done, but I can pop on Facebook or a blog and read updates, and offer comments, suggestions, congratulations, etc, or email them something.
*Hubby's paid vacation days, which allow us the opportunity to spend time together as a family without also dealing with the loss of pay for the day/week that we're together.

And the list could go on and on!!!

Look what the storm blew in

It's huge! It's width is the same as the length of my foot, and it must have stood 6 inches off the ground (and that was with the bottom all smashed in from the impact of the fall). I'd already broken it apart a bit with a big stick from a distance (checking for bees before messing around with moving it!!) before I thought to take a picture



As I suspected, it was empty, THANK GOODNESS! Of course, poor Jared was the one to come across it in the yard while we were doing clean-up from the storm. After getting stung 31 (or more!) times last summer, he understandably has an issue with bees, and was NOT happy (to say the least) to discover the nest.

The nest was quite soggy, and built up in several layers (like a cake!), which were all really moldy on the bottom. I'm a little horrified that huge nest was up in a tree in our yard this summer and we didn't notice! I'd have expected to see a steady stream of bees coming and going!! However, minus the bees, the nest WAS pretty neat to inspect. Had it not been soggy, I'd have tried to salvage it for the kids to share with their classes.

1st storm of the season!

And if the scientists and weather forcasters have it right, it sounds like this winter is going to be ROUGH for most of us. Is it okay to just stick up our white flag of surrender now before it gets any worse?

I started to remove some of the branches from the patio (which, I might add, hit the roof BEFORE ending up on the patio!), but some of them were so big I could barely lift them! One of them was a huge forked branch that I had to DRAG across the yard to the burn pile!


This picture does not do justice to the amount of branches and twigs that were strewn all across my yard, the alley, and into the neighbor's yard


I thought this one was funny, sticking straight out from another bush, blocking the walkway, like a tollbooth or something!






huge branch sticking out both sides of bush in the yard!


Branch that fell right above the kids' rooms and scared Emily half to death (it rattle her room so hard that some little knick-knack stuff got knocked over!)




you can barely see the cement of the porch, or the blacktop of the driveway under all the Fir needles!

Flying V, or A?

You tell me, but the group of preschool kids I was with at the time I saw this decided it was far more of an A than a V (Even more so right before the picture was taken; those darn things started shifting as soon as we grabbed for our cameras... They couldn't bear for us to have EVIDENCE! haha!).

It should have been so simple

My husband decided to repair the popcorn ceiling in our house (which got damaged four years ago when the new roof we'd had put on the house LEAKED). The new popcorn didn't match up in texture OR color, so then he decided we should paint the ceiling. And then since we were painting the ceiling, he figured we may as well texture the messed up wall in that same room. And since it was being textured, it would need to be painted. And since we were painting it, we might as well paint it an accent color (but we have mismatched garage sale and/or hand-me-down furniture, so I'm not sure what we're accenting...). I was told something along these lines, "I'll get all the tape and plastic up in like an hour Saturday morning, and we'll paint some primer and be doing final coats before we go to bed Saturday night. Just leave it to me, this'll be no problem."

We didn't end up doing any taping or putting up plastic until closer to 1:30pm Saturday (due to the boys' soccer games and some bloodwork Dan had to get done as part of his physical). Wall texture and ceiling popcorn didn't happen until closer to 3pm. Then we spent about four hours celebrating my BIL's birthday. By the time we got home and put kids in bed, it was 9pm and we were still dealing with primer. The lights in the room kept flickering out, and then we discovered a MESSED UP wire in one of the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling (complete with SPARKS when the light fixture was moved even the tiniest bit...makes me feel super safe!!), so that took some time to deal with. And then the paint sprayer we borrowed was full of WATER, so we had to drain all that out before we could start spraying paint, and THEN it over-heated and stopped working before we were finished with what we wanted to do. We called it quits around 10:30pm and headed to bed.

Sunday morning, we realized that with the kitchen and familyroom all taped off and plastic covering everything, we'd need to eat breakfast OUT somewhere. Once we got home and Dan started painting again, we realized that 4 gallons of paint was not enough to paint a popcorn ceiling (that stuff SLURPS UP PAINT!), so then we had to drive out and get more paint. And by this time, the high-quality plastic we'd used was getting too heavy for the tape, and started pulling loose in some areas, which led to a staple gun being used along the ceiling/wall line to hold it up instead. One thing after another seemed to go wrong (including Connor somehow managing to get paint on his new jeans AND MY COUCH, despite being banned from being anywhere near the work!!!!!!!!!), and we didn't end up with enough time to paint the newly textured wall. My livingroom and diningroom and both currently storing furniture from the familyroom, and my kitchen looks like a war zone.

All to fix the popcorn ceiling that got damaged when the roof leaked four years ago. LOL

Yes, I'm happy the ceiling is decently fixed, and the messed up wall has been on the "to do" list for the entire ten years we've been living in this house, so I'm thrilled that's being taken care of as well. It's just that something seemingly simple always turns out to be such a PRODUCTION for us!! (the roof that caused that problem in the first place was supposed to be a two-weekend job, which really took 4.5 months when all was said and done, but that's a story I won't get into right now!)

I will share a few before/after pics once we have the wall dealt with and all the light fixtures screwed back into place, which should be by Tuesday (but in the meantime, the toilet will probably over-flow, the car will break down, and the ceiling will cave in from the weight of 4+ gallons of paint). HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Special shout-out to my FIL, who spent part of both days this weekend helping texture and paint so that I didn't have to!! We appreciate all your hard work. What a relief it will be to cross a few things off the ever-growing "to do" list!!!

THIEVES!

Dan and Emily stole my camera last night and headed outside to take some pics of spider webs.

Curtesy of Dan:


Curtesy of Emily:


Em said she saw the hole in the web and wanted to fill it up and knew that a clover wouldn't be too heavy. LOL I ♥ that girl!!

Firefly Lane

I just got done reading Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. I didn't start out loving the book, but something about it pulled me in anyway, and I could hardly put it down. I wanted to see where life took the two characters, who start out as 14 year olds meeting and becoming friends in the early 70's. The setting of the book is Seattle and the surrounding areas (cities within Washington, where I live), so that was fun to read, and it was fun to read the references to what was popular in those time-frames as the book progressed to present day. By the end of the book, I was totally hooked, and it ended with a great reminder/message about how precious life is, and how each and every moment count, which is something I often forget in the chaos and rush of day-to-day life. I'm so glad I decided to pluck this book off the shelf at Target last week (I completed my errands with about an hour to kill before Connor was done with preschool, which wasn't enough time to bother going all the way home and having to come right back out again, but left me nothing to do for an hour, so I bought a book and read in the preschool parking lot!!).

I just started reading another book by the same author called "the things we do for love" (written in lowercase letters on the book cover, so don't go thinking I don't know you should capitilize book titles! LOL). I'm hoping I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Firefly Lane. I guess we'll see!

Has anyone else read Firefly Lane? I'd love to hear what you thought about it.

Alexander and the THNGVBD

Have you ever read this book?


If not, in a nutshell, this book is about a little boy named Alexander, where his entire day just sort of goes sour, one thing after another. It's funny, kids (and adults!) can relate to it, and it's a nice reminder that other people have bad days, too.

Every so often, when I feel like the day is spiraling southward, I can't help but smile and think of poor Alexander and how he "went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

Mine's been more like a bad week.

"I keep waking up in the middle of the night unable to fall back to sleep and my allergies go crazy every morning and I spend half my morning just blowing my nose and sneezing, and everytime I try to pack the kids' lunches they complain that we don't have anything good to eat, and Connor says he wants one thing for breakfast and then changes his mind after I've served him, and no one wants to do their homework and I get to be the bad guy and MAKE them do it, and even though we have shoe bins and coat hooks no one ever seems to have any idea where their shoes and coats are, and somehow that's MY fault, and I had my very first cavity and got my very first filling and I am upset and embarrassed and my dang tooth hurts now, and and AND....." I'm trying not to let this be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

I need a better night's rest, more cooperative children, more hours in the day, a personal chef, a housekeeper, a daily hour-long massage, and...

Maybe I'll have to just settle for a better night's sleep because that's probably the only one I can realistically "get my hands on"! LOL!!! It's amazing what sleep can do for a person anyway!!!!

Send me sweet dream wishes, and any "get back to sleep pronto" tips you may have. I'm tired of waking up anywhere between 3-5am and being AWAKE for the day!!!!!

The Blind Boy

I love the message behind this story:

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.

That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.
The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but in a different way." I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it."

Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling. And even more beautiful, is knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Whoever said money doesn't grow on trees?

My SIL's birthday was over the weekend, and when asked for some birthday ideas, she mentioned there was a jacket she was saving up to buy. I wanted a fun way to gift her with some cash, so Emily and I created a money tree. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!

WORST LUCK!

Apparently, there's some unwritten agreement between the items in my home, in which they've decided to all just BREAK this year.

Quick run-down:

*swing set (not yet replaced)
*blender (not yet replaced)
*food processor (not yet replaced)
*computer hard drive (replaced)
*computer mother board (in the process of being replaced)
*washing machine (replaced with a used set)
*computer monitor (not sure if it's fixable or needs to be replaced--pricing entirely new computers--currently borrowing a monitor from a friend)
*oven heating element (burned up last night, heading out today to try to get a new part)

I mean, seriously, what rotten luck, right???

I woke up Saturday to the dead computer monitor, and then the oven's heating element put on a pretty flaming/sparking show as I was attempting to toast the dinner bread last night. I smelled something funny, and the bread hadn't been in their long enough to be burning, but I thought maybe something had dripped down from a previous use, so I opened the door and saw a flame on the upper element, with long white sparks snap-crackle-popping away. I turned off the oven, but it didn't stop, so Dan yanked the whole oven out from the wall and got it unplugged. I was standing there ready to figure out using the fire extinguisher, but thankfully Dan was strong enough and fast enough to move the whole thing out from the wall and get it unplugged.

My luck it's going to be some big expensive replacement part. Or even better, it'll be some discontinued part and I need a whole new oven. UGH!!!! Keep your fingers crossed.

Did you miss me?

My computer crashed nearly a month ago and I haven't had enough computer access to be able to update my blog. How many times have things happened that I wanted to update about since then??? UGH!!!!

1. Jared graduated Kindergarten, and got to wear a white paper cap and tassel, which he'd decorated in class by drawing a moose and a guy dribbling a basketball. LOL He was the only kid in his class that knew all 100 Fry Words (the sight words they'd like the kids to know before entering 1st grade). Several were very close (missing the word "were"), but J was the only one that knew all 100. Crazy how fast this year went by...

2. Emily had her dance recital on June 19th. She did a ballet performance in a Tinkerbell ballet that her ballet teacher created. Em's group was "Pixie Dust" that got sprinkled on the baby's laugh in order to turn it into a fairy. She was also in the evening variety show; her tap class did a routine to Footloose. I enjoyed seeing her onstage for both performances, but LOVED the Footloose routine. SO FUN!! This year's show marked her 5th full year of dance, and her 7th recital event.

3. Connor celebrated his 4th birthday on Father's Day. My goal was to try to create a laid-back day for Dan, and a fun day for Connor. We ended up spending the first half of the day dealing with a broken washing machine... Then we went and saw Toy Story 3, which made me CRY at the end. And before you start making fun of me, I saw MANY other moms wiping their eyes as we were heading back out to the car. *grin*

4. In addition to the broken washing machine, my garage door opener broke, my blender broke, and so did my food processor. The broken swing set still hasn't been replaced either. Our luck has not been great! As to the computer, I'm currently using my hard drive in a borrowed computer while we wait for a new motherboard for our usual computer.

5. We spent a week in Eastern Washington visiting one of my friends. The kids enjoyed swimming in her backyard pool, playing in the nearby park, seeing a free movie, and just plain hanging out. Jared was thrilled to get to play the new Lego Harry Potter game that my friend's husband purchased. I suspect he'll be using his gift card money to purchase that game himself ASAP... LOL

6. Hung out at a lakefront cabin for the day yesterday with some friends. Kids had a blast splashing around in the lake, running around with friends, going for a boat ride, cooking hot dogs over a fire, staying out late, etc. The only real bummer was Connor falling headfirst on his back partway down the embankment as we were saying our goodbyes at the end of the night. Thankfully, he fell on the part that had lots of tall grass and bushes and tree branches to keep him from falling all the way down. Scared the pants off me, for sure! He was quickly rescued, and minus some long scrapes on his neck, torso, and one arm (nothing that even bled, just roughed up and reddened skin), he's totally fine. Within less than a minute of being rescued, he'd moved on to being ticked that he'd dropped his cheese in the process of falling... LOL Once he had a new cheese in hand, he ran off like nothing happened. My heart raced for quite a bit longer while I waited for the adrenaline rush to wear off. SHEESH!

7. Looking forward to celebrating the 4th of July with family and friends today!!

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There, that's my last month in a nutshell... *grin*

America's Got Talent

I SOOOOO enjoy this show! I enjoy laughing at the people who get up and make total fools of themselves, I enjoy seeing the judges react to the contestants (and try to figure out what to say to some of them!), I enjoy Piers Morgan ripping the terrible acts to shreds (sometimes he's a little over the top, but mostly, I think he says what we're all thinking!! LOL), I enjoy seeing people's emotional reactions to having fulfilled a dream in at least performing on stage in front of an audience, and hearing some of their personal stories... I enjoy the further rounds where EVERYONE is good and it's a matter of upping the efforts, and I am constantly amazed at just how far they can push their acts and their abilities.

There's not much about this show I don't enjoy, and I think I'm going to start letting my kids stay up to watch it with me next week!! At least the first hour.

My current favorite is the guy who was raised by his grandparents, who lost everything after Hurricane Katrina came through. Not only was it awesome to hear how hard he was working to support his grandparents, who gave so much to him as he grew up, but then to hear him SING. OH MY WORD. It was awesome. Great singer, great sounding guy; he's got my vote for now!!

Anyone else watching this show???

Things that make you go "Hmmm..."

Emily told Connor last night that she saw a show where they were testing out toothbrushes on skeletons.

Hmmm...

A lady at JoAnn Fabrics yesterday was questioning why she wasn't being charged more for the fabric she was purchasing. It was a certain price per yard, then was on sale for 40% off. She was insisting that she was supposed to be charged X amount of dollars, which would have been 40% MORE than regular price, not OFF regular price. Took two employees and a calculator to convince her.

Hmmm...

Saw a guy driving down the road, making a right turn with his left blinker on.

Hmmm...

Jared, playing T-ball with his mitt on his head

Hmmm...

Would you believe I actually had several more, but then drew a blank when I actually sat down to type up this post?? don't you hate that?!?!

Polar Bear!

Jared LOVES polar bears, and I was soooo disappointed he wasn't at the zoo with Connor and I recently (CJ and I were there for a preschool field trip and J and Em were at school), because we arrived at the polar bear exhibit just in time for feeding time, which meant that instead of sleeping up on the hill where you can't see him/her, the polar bear was actually swimming around in the water, totally visible from the viewing areas. It was AWESOME. Standing by the glass seeing polar bear feet on the other side the size of your head is pretty incredible, as well as witnessing this HUGE bear tiptoeing along a skinny ledge to lap up food floating in the water...

This was the best picture I managed to get through the thick glass, the large crowd, the cloudy water, and a very swift-moving polar bear! He/she was diving down for a fish that fell to the bottom.

Dogs and Cats and Pigs, oh my!

Or maybe the title of this post should be "One of these things is not like the other..."



That sign is posted on the fence around the playground at Emily and Jared's Elementary school. It makes me laugh everytime. If you're going to say No Pets Allowed, that's one thing. But it just seems funny to then list and picture three animals, as if they're the only ones the rule applies to... And are pot-bellied pigs really that common of a pet??

Oh, my aching shins!

My friend Jami and I have been using the last three Wednesdays as our buddy work-out days. It's been really nice! Time spent with a friend, but also getting in a good work-out. The first week, we did some Zumba DVD's she bought online. The 2nd week, because it was sunny outside, we decided to do a walk outdoors on a new trail in our area (very hilly for 5 miles round trip). I pawned Connor off on my FIL for that walk because I wasn't messing with going his pace, or shoving him in the stroller (all 42-ish pounds of him). The third week, we decided to do the trail again, but this time we took Connor. I hauled out the bike trailer/stroller and reassembled it and off we went. It's wide enough that we could both push the handle up the hills and I figured it wouldn't be a very big deal. Um... I thought wrong! We got to the top of the first large hill and we were both pathetically out of breath. LOL! Connor asked if we could sit on the bench for a few minutes and Jami and I gratefully agreed. ha! We spent a minute or two sitting (didn't want to lose our momentum by sitting too long) and then headed out again. As Connor wanted in or out of the stroller, we took small breaks, but mostly kept up a pretty good pace (in my opinion). By the time we got back to the car, I was pretty convinced I wasn't going to be able to walk the next day, and I was POSITIVE I wasn't ever taking Connor in a stroller on that walk ever again.

I felt pretty good the next morning. Shins were a little achy, but not terrible. I didn't feel anything in my butt/thighs. Back felt decent (still having problems in that one area from being rear-ended almost two years ago). Jami and I decided that maybe adding Connor as a way to intensify the work-out wasn't such a bad idea.

Fast forward to today, and my shins are KILLING ME, my butt/thighs are decently achy (that "good" pain, though, not the "I can't walk" pain), and I can feel I used a lot more muscles than I thought.

Dan says I just need better shoes (the shin thing has been pretty persistant for me after a good walking or running work-out). I guess it's worth a try because I don't want to give up the exercise.

My thoughts on taking Connor next time??? UNDECIDED! He was good company and well-behaved, and it was definately a better work-out than NOT having to push him up and down big hills, but I'm not huge on self-torture, so I'm not sure I can very willingly take him, knowing how tired and sore I'll be afterwards. LOL

PS Any tips on good walking shoes? Or tips on how to deal with aching shins? I've been icing off and on and taking Ibuprofin, but I'm not feeling any difference.

Birthday Card

My brother and SIL gave me this card for my birthday:


LOL!

MS Walk

I participated in the MS Walk over the weekend. For those of you that don't know, the MS Walk is a fundraiser to get money to help find a cure and help fund research and treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. My Aunt Sue died from complications of MS when I was a little girl, and my parents were both diagnosed with MS within 6 months of each other back in 2000. The first year I ever did the MS Walk was the year my mother had been diagnosed (but not my dad quite yet), and I walked with both my mom and one of my aunts. Some combination of that original group has walked every year since, with the addition of my mom's good friend Mary, and my cousin-in-law, Jessica the last two years. I've missed three years due to being rather heavily pregnant with each of my kids, but I'm proud of my involvement thus far, and look farward to my involvement in the future. Doing the MS Walk and raising funds helps me feel like I have a little bit of control over a situation that I truly have no control over whatsoever. I'm so thankful that both of my parents have responded well to treatment, and both lead active, normal lives (minor issues here and there).

Here is Mary, my mom, myself, and Jessica (we're loaded down with "freebies" they hand out before the walk starts)


These guys took the picture of our group for us. LOL!


There was a big poster set up with the words "I walk because..." listed at the top, with Sharpie pens hanging from string to allow people to sign it.


We had a great time, and I look forward to next year! It was COLD (39 degrees!) with a rather biting wind, but the sun was out, the sky was blue, the crowd was energized, the scenery was gorgeous... We just made sure to have warm coats and whatnot and enjoyed the day!