10 Years Ago today....

I was holding the most beautiful human in the world! I was in such awe and amazement. Lonnie and I were on top of the world! It was also the day that "made" me a Mother and Lonnie a Father, together a FAMILY!

Born on her Father's 25th birthday, Raegan Ivey was born, not with out a little hitch, at 1:35 AM December 31, 1999 weighing a light 7lbs 2 oz, 20 inches. No, she wasn't very big but she sure did end the Millennium BIG!!! It was the MOST amazing experience of my life, becoming a Mother, my life changing in and instance! There hasn't been ONE dull moment with her in my life!

I love her so much. She totally gets my humor ( as if this is about me, but..)

She is kind, sweet, funny, ornery, creative, friendly, athletic, artistic, beautiful, helpful.. the list could go on and on! I have so many adjectives that would describe my first born.

As you can see by her baby photos she had black hair when she was born.. it all fell out and came back blond and her eyes never changed. I love it that she is unique in that way to our family.

Our fist picture together...(well the ones that developed)

Here is is about 2 months old.. Her eyes were sooo dark blue!

So much has happened in 10 years.. it has been such excitement watching watching her grow through the years and discovering life living!

I love being her Mother!

Thank you Raegan for being my daughter. I am glad your spirit choose me!

I LOVE YOU!!

$5 dinners book giveaway

GIVEAWAYS...

THIS IS A VERY INFORMATIVE BLOG. GO CHECK IT OUT!!!


THE FITNESS FREAK

NOW!!!

Sydney's debut performance!

Here it is, our daughter Sydney singing in front of an audience of about 475 students and hundreds of parents. I know this doesn't seem like a "big" deal to you, but you have to understand a little something about Sydney.. She was the baby you could never ever ever ever put down.. she was literally glued to my hip all of the time until she was about 3 and we had to start weaning her off!!( I had two more little boys to take that place!) Sydney is shy and quiet. Most of the time she doesn't speak her mind(brothers and sis do not count).

Sydney has seen Raegan do a few little performances at the annual talent show and decided she was just going to sing all by herself!! Raegan of course has always had an entourage of friends to do it with, she would never dare do one alone.. and of course that is what I thought about Sydney.. boy I am learning to NOT under estimate my children's abilities.

I think for a seven year old who has NEVER sang, besides in the car or at home with me etc.. She also had to learn to sing with just music and no words.... SHE DID A GREAT GOB!!!!

My nerves got the best of me waiting because she was like number 65 out of 70 performances!!

Well here it is and I hope you enjoy it!!

O' Christmas Tree!

Last year Lonnie and I started a new tradition.. pick out a fresh real tree for our home! It was quite a disaster last year.. I did not know you needed to water it at least twice a day, so it died two weeks before Christmas. It was a mess! I had to shopvac all day long..

This year we waited until two weeks before Christmas and went to Longbranch Christmas Tree Ranch. It was a whopping ZERO degrees that day, so.. it took us 5.5 seconds to pick out our perfect tree! At first we thought we would get a pine, but then we saw the Frasier Fir's they import in from Wisconsin. The needles are thick and soft!

As they were preparing our tree for the journey... we warmed up in the barn by the wood burning stove and some hot apple cider!

They had tons of ornaments and decorations. We all picked out our new ornaments for the year!

Nathan freezing and not wanting the sun in his eyes!

Even though it was freeeeeeeeezing, the kids had a good time at the ranch!

Mine and Lonnie's ornament(reindeer)

My ornament from a Christmas party.



Raegan's ornament.. what sophisticated taste!!

Sydney's ornament... again... with the sophistication!





Ashton's Sleigh ornament. He was the very last one to choose his. Too many options!



Nathan's ornament! all so whimsical! Just like him!








This is also a new ornament to our tree this year.. IT was a gift from a good friend of mine. She said this is Perfect for your tree!! Hmm I wonder why?





And here is the tree at home! Yes it may not be the "perfect" tree with all the ribbons, bows and glass bulbs etc.. but it is our tree that we are building memories with each every year. Each year we add a new ornament from each of us..... it will be chock full of memories and happiness!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

PS... getting pics on blogger is soooo aggravating! part reason why I have not blogged in a long long time!

What's Bugged me this week!!!!???

Tori, since you asked... I was going to say it anyway... !!


This week was Sydney's 7th Birthday! Yay! for her. You can read all about our birth experience with her here.

We planned the party to be at the neighborhood pool on Thursday, they day before her birthday. How could the weather go wrong in the middle of JULY???!! Only in the two hrs that you have a party planned! yep, that's right! It was cloudy and even lightly rained a little! The girls were freezing! Overall, they had a good time!

Rewind a few days.. I had decided to make Sydney's birthday cake instead of opting for the cheap Costco cake. Yes, it does seem reasonable that a homemade birthday cake would be less expensive. My plan was to make a "beach ocean" cake. It looks like the beach and the ocean. In order to pull off the theme of this cake, it required I get decorations. Me and all the kids, plus another (that's 5 total) head to downtown Lenexa to a little cake decorating shop. This place is amazing! They have all sorts of cookie cutters, cake pans, every decoration imaginable! We walk in and I see no one! I continue to look around for what I need and all of a sudden I hear ( like a parrot I must say) "TOUCH WITH YOUR EYES, TOUCH WITH YOUR EYES!"


I am thinking my kids are crushing something.. NO they simply were touching a bag with little "made in China" cake decorations. This lady must have said "TOUCH WITH YOUR EYES" at least 30 times while we were in there. I guess she expected the kids to stand there like a frozen statue! And... seriously the only breakable thing I saw in the entire store was the sugar decorations and they were behind the counter on the wall!!!


It finally pushed me over the edge when Ashton (of course it had to be him) put his fingers on the check out counter to sort of lift himself up to see. She said to him "TOUCH WITH YOUR EYES".. I lost it a little! I said to her.. "look I have to come in and get these decorations at this time with all of my kids because you are closed after my husband gets home, so if you want my business, NOW is the time!" Handed her my debit card. "And I can't believe I just purchased $13 in decorations!!" Especially with the attitude she gave me and all my kids.. and not ONCE did she smile!


It is unbelievable to me that a small business owner would treat her customers with that attitude.. I wanted to tell her "seriously, do you think they are going to break something?" And nothing was that expensive (except the sugar decor. behind the counter). As amazing that this little shop is, I will be thinking twice about where I take my business!! RUDE RUDE RUDE!

Definitely a TAD award winner!

2nd encounter with RUDENESS!

Yesterday, Lonnie said he was in the mood for a really good cheeseburger. Around here there are not too many places, in my opinion, where you can get a really good ole' diner tasting cheeseburger! Back in the day, we lived on the Mo. side and by our house and by the Chiro school was a place called Max's Auto diner. Awesome! So, we decided to trek over across town and go to Max's. (plus it is next door to a favorite thrift store of mine).



We get there, the first person to order is Raegan.. Bacon Cheeseburger with must. only! I order for the rest of us... to my amazement for the 6 of us it was $54!! (sucks)


We get our order and Raegan's does not have Bacon on it! I take it back in and tell them they forgot the bacon.. the little "punk" who took my order said... in a HYPER defensive way.."you didn't order bacon for that one, cheeseburger must. only!" I said " No it was the first one ordered and she stood right her and said bacon, I watched you ring it up with bacon, you charged me for the bacon" He stood there and did nothing! Then the manager/owner comes over and wants to know what is going on.. I say " I just want some bacon on my burger!"


The punk continues to have "attitude" with me! He walks in the back and tells the manager that "that lady did NOT order bacon" . Then the manager looks to me and says,, "if you order bacon, we put bacon on it." I said, "yea, I DID order bacon and he didn't write it down, and I watched him charge me for it"


So He practically throws my burger back at me! I say to the entire place.. "I didn't drive ten miles to come here to get this kind of attitude from all of you! You are RUDE!"


It wasn't really about the bacon, it was the fact that he was soooo "right" about how the order was and no matter what I said he wasn't going to give me bacon, even if I paid for it. Plus, he didn't even know if the carrot cake was homemade! Dumb ass, little punk!



I have had my fill of soon to be twenty something adults this summer!



I have made up my mind, that I am not going to let people get by with the way they behave or their attitudes! I am going to say something.. I'm not going to take it.. especially if I am spending my money in their business!



Another thing, is it is amazing to me that some adults are still "bossy". Especially to people that they consider to be their friend! Do they not get it? Micro managing your friends is not a good way to keep them!





POSITIVE ENERGY~~~~POSITIVE ENERGY~~~~ POSITIVE ENERGY~~~~








The cake was adorable!

Vacation 2009

Yes, I am a blog slacker. I find it difficult to blog when the kids are needing me 24/7. Any whoo.. to vacation.

We started off Saturday.. we only had to go back into the house 4 times.. I think that was a record LOW! With all four kids, two dogs and loads and loads of stuff.. we were off to Grand Lake, Oklahoma.
It was bad karma from the get go...we had to stop and add water to the van twice, once Lonnie didn't even notice that the van was about to EXPLODE! I noticed the "dinging" alarm! humm, need your hearing checked? I was praying the entire time that the new dog would NOT vomit in the van.. (she was good) It must be short choppy trips or my driving that makes her sick...

A 3 hr trip took us 5. We stayed the first night at the in law's house. Lonnie had a plan to repaint and touch up the roof on the house. With the help of his nephew and niece the paint job went really fast! oh, and by the way the paint swatch we picked out was tannish and the paint came out sort of burned orange.. OH MY!

While painting the house, his nephew found a tree frog on the side of the house. It captivated Ashton's attention for hours and hours. Then when the poor little frog had no more energy Ashton let one of the dogs (not one of ours) sniff the frog and she gobbled that little frog right up! SAD! Note to self: "Don't let the Lab sniff frogs or they will disappear!"
We had a little drama about it, but what could we do?

Then after a fun day and dinner, it was time for bed and a new day...I pushed the reset button but apparently it wasn't working....

Lonnie had some business to tend to on Sunday. He would not return until about 1 pm. I awoke to the smell of bacon and coffee! Ahhh... so nice.. After enjoying a few cups.. I called my mom and decided to take our dogs to her house since she had two fenced-in yards. I alert the children that we would be making a drive to see Mema and return in time to check in to our cabin. But first I need to add water to my van. So I pull back into the shade to add the water.. all is good.. then I pull up a little closer to the porch in order to put my bags in the van...
I hear **clump, ka boom, cleek** (yea that is hard to describe) Well I had 'run' over something.. what was it??? By the look on Ashton's face I knew it wasn't good! It was a RAKE!! and no ordinary rake.. it was a tiller looking spider rake! ( so I looked for a photo but couldn't find one, and I was to damn pissed off to take a picture of it)
Anyway.. I ran over it and punctured a hole in my front tire. So know imagine my R A G E !! I had the biggest tantrum and adult could have... I was soo mad that I wasn't going to be able to do what I wanted to do that day..
In the brink of a nervous breakdown, I hear Ashton say " Great! Now were going to die.... in the country!" I started laughing so hard I could help my self..then I say "okay, I get it" (me talking to God) It isn't a big deal." I tell Ashton that everything is alright and that mommy was just having a huge tantrum, but it was over..

I notice that the tire isn't deflated or anything.. I'm thinking it didn't make a hole... I load up all the kids and dogs and head to the gas station. I put gas in my van and I needed to put air in one of the tires anyway... I pull up to the air compressor and to my not so amazement.. the front tire is flat! I guess it did make a hole. I air it up and head back to the in laws house.

As soon as we pull in to the drive way... can you guess what happens??







Gabby vomits in the van.. and misses any form of protection.. she hits the one spot on the floor that is NOT protected...gross...figures..

It's about noon and I know that Lonnie will be returning soon. I decide that I will jack up the van and get the tire off and ready for him to take somewhere to get repaired!

I get all my stuff out ready to go. The tool to the jack is smashed and you can't get the handle out... I find a way to get it pulled out of itself ( of course nothing can me smooth moves for me) I get the van all jacked up. Of course it is sooo difficult to get the lug nuts off of the tire. I have to stand on the "tool" to get them loose. I get to the third one and I slip off of the 'tool' and the freakin things swings back and hits me right in the lower shin!

OKAY.. I'M DONE!! Lonnie pulls in like 5 min's later...if only I had waited.. but I was trying to be helpful!
Every place is closed.. being Sunday and all! Lonnie buys a kit and repairs it himself... we are all good and ready to get to the cabin.

We head off. The resort is beautiful! They gave us a cabin close to the pool... I'm thinking this is great! The cabin is a queen studio. Across the street I notice two bedroom, full kitchen, washer and dryer mobile home cabins..... get this... for the SAME PRICE! I was a little upset by this.. so lady.. when I called two months in advance and said what do you have that would accommodate a family of SIX... this is what you gave me?? Her excuse... "I didn't think you wanted your kids running across the street to get to the pool" HELLO! what kind of dynamics do you think I've got going here??? You think I just let my kids run around like wild coyotes? Something I had to quickly get over.
That night we rode wave runners with Lonnie's childhood friend. We were exhausted ! Off to a good night's sleep.
Monday was our first day with the boat. We had to drive 1 hour on rural curvy roads that made me sick every single time... OH.. And we got lost!
Lonnie's and Raegan's goal was to get Raegan up on skiis... they worked on it for about an hour on Monday.. She got really close..
Tuesday: My mom and Sister with my nephew and Niece meet up with us for a fun day on the boat. All the kids went tubing, with the exception of Sydney.. she got it in her head that something was going to get her from in the water ( I have NO idea where she gets this from, because I Love being in the lake :) )
It was the most hilarious thing to see her ski with out skiis and without being pulled by the boat. When she fell off of the tube and was "in" the water... just imagine.

Soaking up the sun on the boat deck was just her cup of tea!

Wednesday was our last day with the boat and we enjoyed every minute of it and did not want it to end. Raegan got up on the skiis twice that day. I attempted to ski, but after near drowning twice, I gave up. Plus I didn't know what was about to surface from the bottom.. gives me the creeps just thinking about it..

Thursday, we meet up with my childhood bff, Tonya and her kiddos. We all decided to take a tour of the Pensacola Dam. Something that none of us had done. We all grew up in this town and never took the opportunity to learn about the history of the dam. It was very interesting. We had a great tour guide! Afterwards we drove across the dam to "Pistol Pats" for a famous dip cone. This was our lunch. Very tasty I must say.. Lonnie has great memories of trips across the dam to visit his grandparents. On the way home his mother would stop at Pistol Pats and get a dip cone for the both of them. Lonnie would eat his right up and look at his mother and her 1/4 eaten dip cone and would give her the "puppy dog eyes" and she would hand it right over. (what a great mother, I would never do that) He tells these memorable stories to the kids at night before bed. I think it brought back some great memories for Lonnie that day. Sad, but good times remembered.

On our day out, we met my dad, brother, his girlfriend and their son for brunch. Then it was "on the road again"! I think we only had to stop one time! It was nice to be home and be in my own bed!
**Yes I will be adding pictures to this post!

Where to begin......

O' MY it has been a month or more.. so many activities happening: soccer make-ups, soccer end of the year celebrations, Girl Scouts, end of school year activities... you name it.

It is summer break... I would say we are full swing.. but with all the RAIN how could we be?

What's been happening!:

*Mother's Day

*Ashton's Preschool Graduation

*A trip to the Farm

*Me and my Hubby's 13 yr anniversary

Mother's day was as usual. We made plans to go eat an expensive brunch at Granite City! So delicious and worth it.

The kids also got me two small pallets of flowers to plant in our new flower beds! Yes I had to do the planting.

Lonnie tried over and over to get a good photo of me and the kids... but someone had an issue in every picture! This one was the best out of the five!

***

In mid May the girls had the opportunity to get all dressed up and take their dad to Father Daughter Dance. OH what fun they had... they theme was Hollywood Glam. As you can see they are so excited to go.

***
Then, later in May I had the chance to take the boys to Deanna's Farm. (yes the girls were soo jealous) We had a great time. It was the most beautiful day. The boys fed the baby goats milk from bottles, rode ride on tractors, fed the ducks, "pretend" milked a cow, touched a cow. See how beautiful it was...

To my surprise, Nathan was NOT afraid of the goats. Even as a baby in the stroller he would totally freak out if he even looked at them! I knew he was growing up when I witnessed him feed one with a bottle.


See! Ashton was a natural... he loved loved loved doing this...Future farmer?? or Vet??

And the most fun of the day goes to............

tractor crashing!

And now... introducing.. my new little "soon to be" Kindergartner

I think I will end with that! Til' next time and another jar of pickles...



Gretch!

It's been the RAIN~

It has been so long.. I always have great blog ideas but never execute them... As any other mom would know.. April and May tend to be very busy months. Here are a few things that we have been up to.

1. This will be our 5th summer living in our house: We finally built up a flower garden around the front of the house. It is so beautiful! I love it.. with all of this RAIN we have been having I have postponed the actual planting of the flowers.. so as of now it is a mulch garden! I promise to post photos as soon as all the flowers are full in bloom!

2. Gabby has been a good adjustment to our family. I thought the potty training would be difficult, but she as proved us wrong. She is a very smart dog.. she picked it up quickly! She already knows the word "outside"!
However, she has done some serious damage around the house...I left my kitchen drawer open and she chewed off part of the corner!
She chewed off our numchuck to our Wii ($20)
She chewed up the hands and feet of Sydney's American Girl Doll Ivy...Ivy had to take a little trip to the doll hospital up by Chicago. (about $40)
and very numerous Starwars toys are missing limbs!
She has also learned out to jump onto the dining table... she jumps on a chair or bench and then to the table.. she just cant help herself.. the smell of food just drives her crazy! This behavior has been hopefully nipped in the bud thanks to a newspaper!
Even with all this... she is a very lovable dog & has a great personality.

3.. We are in full swing soccer mode... Three of our 4 kids are playing with Lonnie coaching one of the teams. It has been a little crazy with all of the RAIN! We have had too many games cancelled and rescheduled and cancelled again! I am just hoping we do not have the entire season in ONE day! ( for all teams)
We teach our children to always put out your best effort. I feel that two of my children mostly do that. But..... Sydney has always said she wanted to play soccer and she has played on a team since prek. I have had trouble believing that she was putting out her best effort. She really struggles with believing in herself and no matter what I say, she has to be the one who believes in herself in order for there to be change. She always complained that she didn't want to be there, she wasn't as good as the rest, she wasn't as fast! I always reassure her that if she really did her best she would get better and better and better.
Brings me to my "brag". On Saturday, she had two games back to back.. in the first game she was her usual self and coach let her play about 2 minutes the entire game.. Then after the game I had a great talk with her as I listen to her complain about how great the other girls were... but then we got to the second game and I assured her again that she was good enough and that you don't have to be the "fastest" player. .. she goes in and the ball keep coming to her over and over.. she can hear me yelling at her "Sydney! You can do it, keep it going!" (seriously i turned around and another mom from the other team had her fingers in her ears!! WHATEVER!! I should have handed her the TAD award!! so annoying!) so anyway back to my story... so coach sees that Syd is really doing well and "trying"(not just looking at her manicure) and she stays in and keeps going and going... she had control of the ball several times.. but then..... she got the ball at half field and keep going.. going... going....BIG KICK and .........












No score.... missed it by about an inch!!! I was soo sad BUT sooooo swelled with PRIDE for my daughter..... she really did well! I was in tears... I just could not get over it.. when you witness a child "get it" and their own pride just shining sooo bright... it is overwhelmingly emotional! I am soo proud of her... I am hoping now that she keeps what she "got" and keeps putting her best effort out!
KUDOS to SYDNEY!!

4. I also have to brag about my new dishwasher.. It is totally awesome!! Love it love it.. my other one was a cheap piece of junk and has never worked appropriately! So we, I mean I had a big enough fit to get a new one... It is a Maytag fully integrated stainless...just totally awesome.
Now, if it would just load and unload itself!

The new Member of our Family

"GABBY"

(Sorry, she would not stay still for a photo)

Gabby is about 3 mos old. My friend is a foster parent for dogs at the shelter. We have been looking for a small dog for the kids, but wanted a puppy. Puppies are had to come by from the shelters. We got "first" dibs on her because of my friend. We immediately fell in love with her. The girls named her Gabby Green eyes. They think she is a Chihuahua mix.. we will see...

She has already been a big SPAZ and all of the kids have cried over her being too "rough"!

So far she has peed in the house 5 times just today... fortunately we got her outside to take care of her other "business" ! yay!

Our Mini Schnauzer is not the happiest about her being her, but she is playing with her outside. She gets really territorial when she is on the main floor of the house!

The kids are so far cleaning up after her. HMM I wonder how long this will last??

I am also thinking " everyone is potty trained, why did I do this?" At least my carpet is already trashed!

I will keep you posted on our new little Energy Ball!

REPEAT OFFENDER

Ashton is officially a repeat offender! By the law! Both of my phones were up on my bed. That is where I tend to carry them. While I was cleaning or attempting to (haven't been back to it since) the kitchen. Ashton picked up one of the phones on my bed and thought.. I will call 911. Apparently it is the ONLY number my 5 year old son knows! He called and hung up. Also, dispatch called back. Ashton answered the phone and said "Don't come!".

I didn't not find any of this out until about 4 minutes later!

Doorbell rings, Sydney looks out the window to see who it is! MOM! its the POLICE!

ME: totally freaking out, wondering what the hell did I do!!

I answer the door, He says to me "ma am, can I talk to you?" Me: "what about?"

then he proceeds to open my door all the way and walk into my house. I am like really scared at this point, thinking I have been wrongly accused of something!

OFFICER: "a child called 911 and hung up and dispatch called back and he answered the phone and hung up again"

Me: "humm, okay! ASHTON!! where are you?"

Ashton standing in the living room literally scared to death!

ME: "Ashton, did you call 911?

Ashton: "NO!"

me: "well Ashton the policeman is here and he knows who called, so you might want to tell me!

Ashton "NO, mom, it wasn't me!"

As he begins to cry uncontrollably and hides behind me. At this point I think he thinks he is going to jail! He was SO upset, but still never admitted to it in front of the officer!

Me and the policeman tried to calm Ashton down, to tell him how important it is to only call 911 when there is an emergency like a fire or someone is hurt really bad, NOT just because your parent would NOT let you have your way!

We thanked the policeman and apologized over and over for WAISTING his time and the city's money!

Needless to say, My son will be punished....for LYING most of all! When you are confronted with it just admit to it. Take responsibility!

and... by the way... Ashton is a repeat offender! He called 911 when he was 16 mos old....two police showed up and didn't even ask to come in!

NEVER A DULL MOMENT AT THE RUDD'S HOUSE!

Updates!

So now that I have a computer again and I do not have to go into the basement knee deep in toy vomit, I can blog!

Here are a few updates.

SYDNEY: Has finally lost a tooth! Just one! It is not the tooth that we thought would come out first. she had another one that was very loose and then the "adult" tooth pushed up and strangely tightened up the loose tooth. I was very nervous about her loosing a tooth because in involves a little blood! Sydney will almost faint at the thought of blood. All went well.

Not to take the spotlight away.....But ASHTON just celebrated his big 5th birthday! We had gift cards to Dave and Busters and decided it was just as good or better than CEC's! It was. It was quite a treat. For any of you who know me, know I do NOT let my children drink soda and I gag, hate ROOT BEER gag gag!! Only on occasion will I let them have soda. They wanted Root Beer! GAG! I really do gag at the smell! I do not like the smell of RB flavored candy! GAG!

anyway... focus..... We headed out on a Saturday afternoon, ate lunch and played games.
Gag! See how excited Raegan was about the Root beer? Gag!

Ashton being the lucky little fellow he is...plays this

do you see the little 1000? you hit the stop button and where ever the light stops that is the number of tickets you win! Guess what? That's right! He wins 1000!

Here is his initial reaction. I think he was trying to count to 1000 on his fingers.!

Wow! Look at all those tickets! (they are worth 2, I guess to save the trees) Over all it was great family time!

I am having a hard time believing that Ashton is 5! It was just yesterday that we moved into the house we are in and he was only 10 mos old! TIME FLIES! He will start Kindergarten this fall! I will not believe it until he is actually there.

Ashton is an extremely bright kid. He also has a lot of energy. It's not like boy "Tigger" energy. it's hard to explain. Basically when he wants something he will do and try anything to get it. Even as a newborn he wanted out of his car seat and would "try" to pull himself out! He looked like one of those toys that when you pull the string it moves the arms and legs up and down. One time I caught him on top of the dining table at like 13 mos old getting ready to pull down the chandelier! (all of my other children didn't walk until 13 mos old) Ashton started walking around the end of 9 mos old. I used to think that was impossible until I had Ashton.

Another time he moved a chair and stacked a bunch of stuff on it to get on top of the counter, then continued to stack stuff on the counter all to get something on top of the refrigerator! All in a matter of seconds! Kids like him move fast!

Just the other day we were at the park and all of a sudden I could not find Ashton anywhere!! I was screaming and screaming for him. I was almost to the point of ...nothing could come out because I was so upset! I even had all the other parents looking a screaming for him. Finally, I here him say "what?" He went to the van to play his Nintendo! I said to him " we could not find you, I was scared that someone had taken you" He says to me: "but mom, no one did, I was just in the van" . He was so matter of fact!

I could go on and on with likable stories of my chronicles of Ashton.

I see as he gets older that he is growing out of this and is able to "think" a little before he does something. HE is a beautiful child, smart, funny, friendly, sensitive, STRONG, determined, a good brother, amazes me everyday (good and bad). I love my little buddy!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I totally promise to back to blogging soon.... now that I have a new laptop! Whaooooooo!!!
Lonnie gives the most practical gifts now that we have been married for almost 13 yrs!
I am a happpy girl!
Hope everyone had a very romantic day!

It's been so long!

I'm quite sorry that it has been so long!  I have been recovering from Christmas and EVERYONE has been sick a time or two!  I think that everyone is hopefully on the mend.

I am very excited for the new year and all the new possibilities.  For me, it is a huge year!  I will turn 35 in a day.  Now, at first I was very upset about it.  I look at my life and thought that certain areas are not where they should be.  There are many things that I wanted to accomplish by age 35.  But then I look at all my sweet beautiful children and know that that it self is a HUGE accomplishment.  One that 15 yrs ago didn't see as a possibility.  

My so sweet young neighbor said to me "Gretchen, you are soo accomplished, I aspire to be like you one day!"  WOW!  That really opened my eyes!  It shaved off a little more depression!  Thanks, Sara Jean!  Then I realized it is the Year of the OX for Chinese New Year!  I am an OX!  YES! another couple of inches shaved off!!

So you see Dears, I have a new outlook on turning 35!  YAY! for me!  I realized I can turn my life in a new direction, well not entirely.  What I'm saying is... there are a lot of things that I want to do, some of them things I used to do and stopped because I viewed my children as a restriction or burden!  (My view was distorted! it's no longer that way).

I am soo blessed!  I have 4 very unique individuals that I cannot wait to see what they do in life and impact this World!

My husband is so very sweet!  HE is such a soldier!  He is the best father to our children and a wonderful provider!  And damn cute!!

So, I look forward to the year to follow!  Exciting things will happen!  Some historical!

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!