thankful thursday

1.i'm thankful for my job
2.i'm thankful for my kids having health insurance
3.i'm thankful for my hubby fixing the heat in my car so we won't freeze
4.i'm thankful for all the great deals i got on black friday
5.i'm thankful to be able to attend a family Christmas party this year that i haven't attended in probably 10 years

kids say the darnedest things

Skip: Xavier are you sexy and you know it?
Xavier: no
Starr: yeah, Xavier you are tell me you are.
Xavier: no, daddy is. Him is sexy and him knows it



Serenity: mommy, we have to look for a mouse so we can cook it and try it.
Me: WHAT????
Serenity:  we have to try and find some mice so we can cook them and eat it to try.
Me: why would we do that?
Serenity: you know mommy, it's just like the turkey. You and daddy say that we have to try everything. so we have to find some mice to cook and try.

flash back friday

thankful thursday

1.Thankful that God has plans that we don't even realize he has set into motion when he has that come back around later to really help you out.
2.thankful my hubby is doing his best in school and then on top of that he has made the decision to do an internship to teach himself as much as he can about his field.
3.thankful that skip has been blessed with the opportunity to make some extra money right before Christmas
4.thankful that my MIL takes even just one of my kids from me on days where i feel i could lose my mind
5.thankful for health insurance, with as sick as my kids have been since school has started and as much as they have been at the drs we would be continuing to drown in even more medical debt
6.thankful for the nights that my kids sleep in their own beds (although,it doesn't happen often)
7. thankful for pinterest. most days it's just neat to look around but i have actually accomplished some nifty things from it

the crazy that is life

life has been hectic over the past couple weeks, but honestly when is it not? I don't think Skip or I actually understood what it would be like for me to go back to work. Even if i have Xavier there with me there is still the chaos of the things the kids are involved with in the afternoons/evenings as well as the normal dinner,bath, bedtime routine. between my kids being sick, skip being sick, me being sick,working, church, gymnastics,serenity's school schedule,skip's school schedule,mariah's dance schedule, then add in mommy working again and it just seems like we lost so much time. so as much as i hate being sick i'm kinda glad that i'm down in the dumps today b/c it gives me the opportunity to cuddle in my bed with my babies watching dora all day if that's what they choose. (although i honestly hope we can switch it up at some point)
it has been a pretty rough road so far and we will still have patches where we feel like we are falling i'm sure but in the end i know it will all be worth it

thankful thursday

hmm, can i do the typical it november let me list 1 thing every day that i'm thankful for? probably not. and not because i can't come up with that many things to be thankful for but simply for the fact that i can't remember to do it every day. i have a hard enough time sticking with my thankful thursdays.
but i do have the time to say that this week i am definitely thankful for.....
1. trunk or treat at our church. fun with our church family in a safe place
2. my daughter. even though there are days she irks me to no end she can say one small thing and completely make me loose my breath and think, how in the world did i get so lucky.
3. i'm thankful for my decision to not force Xavier into potty training and letting him kinda do it on his own, it's making it a lot easier.
4. thankful to myself for Christmas shopping throughout the year so that i don't have that crazy mess to deal with come this time of year

bare butt

funniest thing ever. Xavier curled up with us tonight and fell asleep, he just rolled over and uncovered and skip says, "Where's his diaper?" so i go searching the bed and can't find it. I start retracing his steps after we got home tonight. we got him ready for bed then he said he had to potty. after that he ran to the kitchen to get his marshmallows (his big potty treats) and then apparently he ran off and i never remembered to put his diaper back on him. so he's been running around and then sleeping for 2.5 hours now completely with his butt hanging out. the boy could totally sleep and live naked if i let him.
but since we don't want peed on we made sure to put his diaper on him now. haha

kindness

It's getting closer and closer to that wonderful time of year. when it gets cold,when people suddenly get nicer,when you hear bells being rung outside a lot of your normal stores.yes,it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas or at least it will soon enough. in all the years that skip and i have been together we have always given gifts to those in some sort of need. We've donated to toys for tots,we've gotten the angels off the trees you see in stores,and then the past 2 years we've given gifts to the teenage boys at a local foster home. this year though i'm thinking we will go a completely different route. Of course it isn't my idea, we won't be the first people to do it, but it will be a first for us. 25 days of 25 Random Acts of Kindness. I've been compiling a list all day with the help of other people's blogs.I'm so excited to tell the kids all about it and get some help from skip for some more ideas

flash back friday

some days this seems so long ago and at others it seems like just yesterday but never the less it is a flashback and kinda a big deal at that. this coming sunday is our 12th anniversary of marriage.

She knows Jesus is at her side

some pieces of a movie will be given out here in this story but not enough to make you decide to not watch this movie :) I mean if you know anything about the bible you already know that Jesus died and I'm not really telling you much more than that. with that said.....

I believe it was for Easter that the kids got a new movie called At Jesus Side. But for whatever reason they haven't watched it until the other day. I spent some one on one time with my princess tonight curled up in her bed and watched some of it with her. after watching it for a while i told her that we should probably call it a night and watch the rest when it isn't a school night. She said but mom we have to wait until we at least see Jesus. ok, how can i argue with that?? lol
so we continue watching and in a part there were some kids throwing rocks at a dog. every time they hit him i made that "ohh, oww, awww" reaction. Serenity said mommy i know that is sad but wait until you get to the real sad part. that is when Jesus dies. That part will make you really cry. At this point i looked over into my daughters eyes and they were getting that glassy look to them. that, i'm gonna tell you about crying at a sad part b/c it made me cry but i'm not actually going to cry right now. She then said that when she watched it the other night she did cry when they killed Jesus. I reassured her that yes it is absolutely fine to cry b/c Jesus was killed but she is allowed to be happy as well. I reminded her that even after Jesus died he came back and she said yeah i know with a big smile on her  face, "but it's still sad that he was killed." I made sure once more to inform her that b/c Jesus did get killed we will be able to spend wonderful time together when it's our turn to go to Heaven. She kept reassuring me that she knows all of this but it was still sad that Jesus had to die. I love that my daughter has so much love for the Lord at such a young age that she is genuinely sad about Jesus' death.
that girl is going to go to such amazing places in her life with the help of God I just know it :)

reading old hebrew

just a little joke i got in an email. it made me chuckle :) Written across the wall of the cave were the following symbols: It was considered a unique find and the writings were said to be at least 3000 years old The piece of stone was removed, brought to the museum, and archaeologists from around the world came to study the ancient symbols. They held a huge meeting after months of conferences to discuss the meaning of the markings. The President of the society pointed to first drawing and said: "This is a woman. We can see these people held women in high esteem. You can also tell they were intelligent, as the next symbol is a donkey, so they were smart enough to have animals help them till the soil. The next drawing is a shovel, which means they had tools to help them."  Even further proof of their high intelligence is the fish which means that if a famine hit the earth and food didn't grow, they seek food from the sea. The last symbol appears to be the Star of David which means they were evidently Hebrews. The audience applauded enthusiastically. Then a little old Jewish man stood up in the back of the room and said, "Idiots...Hebrew is read from right to left... It says: 'Holy Mackerel, Dig The Ass On That Chick"

almost a month

i'm very happy to see that i have many of friends who feed the same line that i do. "ok, i'll do better with keeping up with my blog this time." i have many instances almost daily that i think, oh i need to write that down b/c it was super cute,super funny,super cool,super_____ (continue to add in all the different kinds of super things it could be) then i tell myself well i'll just blog about it later. later comes and daily life still has a hold of me and i either a.forget about it all together or b.tell myself yet another lie,"oh i'll be sure to do it tomorrow."
we are creeping up on a month since i last blogged and there have been so many of those super experiences that i wanted to share but don't you dare ask me what they are now b/c i don't even know everything that we had for dinner last night let alone what cute thing my 2 year old said 2.5 weeks ago.
what i do know though is that my house party went super,Serenity had fall break last week and we took a couple days to get away and took the kids to their very first ever fair,skip has had midterms this week and been slightly stressed with that,both of the kids have had strep throat, we went right past monday and i am pretty sure neither of us remembered that it was the anniversary of the day we meet 13 years ago, this coming sunday will be our anniversary of being married for 12 years and let's see if we remember that, we are having a kid halloween party here on the 27th and will be doing trunk or treat at our church on the 31st and that should wrap up our october.
then we will move into some field trips,some more break time from school,some more fall fun and of course black friday with a side of thanksgiving dinner :)

September 25,1999

nothing makes you feel quite as old as baking a cake for your 13 year old niece. it seems like just yesterday i meet her and she was only 2 months old. Skip and I used to be much closer with Mariah but as with all things in life that has changed some. Since we started our own family we are generally spending more time with our kids but that doesn't change the fact that we feel like Mariah is kinda ours as well. We will always be there for her no matter what she thinks. now that the teenage years are officially here i'm sure along with that will come an attitude even she doesn't know she'll have quite yet. but once again that won't change how much we love her. we are prepared for her to have her moments where she hates us and we are prepared (well, as much as we can be) to be hated b/c in the end we know it will be for her own good whatever the instance is.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to our teenage girl.

first step bake 2 huge cookies

second step dr some icing to make it super

while you are assembling it reward your helper :)

stack them and make a huge looking sandwich

then add the finishing touch of making yourself feel old

he's gonna be bigger

I am predicting that some time next year xavier will surpass serenity in either height or weight. heck maybe even both. they went to the dr today for some yuck they've been dealing with for a little over a week now and Serenity weighed in at 39.8lbs and Xavier was 36.6lbs. keeping in mind that he is 22 months younger than her but he is my little beast :)

no room in my bed

so i guess it was crazy to think that the kids could just be thrown into a room together and that would keep them out of our bed. Xavier joined us before skip and i even went to sleep and Serenity was added to the party around 230. she was coughing like crazy so i gave her some cough medicine so she could get some sleep but me on the other hand, i've been up since. at this point since i'm sitting here making up grocery lists and ordering coupons i'm thinking of going and starting a pot of coffee. maybe xavier will be awesome and let me nap later.

on a completely different note i'm super excited for my fisher price playdate party this weekend. We have already assembled the kitchen and the kids have been cooking on it like crazy. I can't wait to actually let them have all the accesories and open the other 2 toys. There have been a few other parties i have applied to but not been chosen for. One of them being a halloween party. i have figured though that even though i didn't get picked for it we are gonna have one anyway. Serenity & I spent some time on pinterest yesterday looking up games and fun food.

well, i guess that pot of coffee isn't going to make itself.

fire station

she got to be the line leader all day :)

 Serenity had her very first field trip and mommy forgot to take her camera. what was wrong with me. She had a great time learning some new things at the fire station though and since then I've been trying to come up with a way for her to remember her address. finally today it hit me, she loves to sing so we made the whole 911  conversation a song. I hope and pray that if for any reason my daughter ever has to call 911 the operator doesn't mind her address being a little sing songy. LOL

checking out a fire truck

she thought it was awesome to ride the school bus :)

finally getting water

We've been without a decent amount of running water for about 2 weeks now. finally in the morning they will start digging and hopefully they will find water fast and get the new well done. It's crazy the little things you really take advantage of with the use of water every day. the simplest thing of rinsing off a dish. or the fact that we have gotten so used to loading everything in the dishwasher but instead over the past 2 weeks we've had to use gallons of water that we've gotten from other people's homes and then boiled them on the stove just to wash dishes. We've had to shower at others homes. we've had to use other people's washers. it's really been a pain, but we are so thankful for these friends/family for helping us out.

thankful thursday 9/13

1. I'm thankful for family and friends that are allowing us to shower at their homes while we wait on a new well to be dug
2. I'm thankful for pinterest.without it I wouldn't be able to find things to do at our halloween party
3. love selling things we don't need anymore and making some extra cash 
4. lazy days, i love lazy days where no one cares that you were lazy
5. friends removing their heads from their behinds :)

the shred-house parties-school

I've been slacking with my 30 day shred. not because i'm to lazy to do it. ok, some days i just feel to lazy to do it. but mainly it has to do with our water issue. We are in need of a new well and without a well with plenty of water i just can't stand the thought of working out then not being able to jump right into the shower. i know it's a horrible excuse but if i have to wait to go to someone's house to shower i kinda want to wait to do my workout but then i end up in a rush to get the kids some where to shower that it's been getting thrown to the side.  besides that though i can tell a difference from the first day i did it and now. there are still some things that i am completely out of shape with but others i am getting better at. 

there is a website that i love and it let's you host these house parties. you apply for different styles of parties and then if you get picked you get to review whatever the awesome product is. I've been chosen to do a fisher price party and got all my awesome goodies the other day. these items are for the kids to play with and then the best part, wait for it......... we get to keep them!!!! how cool is that? i'll tell you how cool. it's super freakin' cool :) then they also sent some great things to send home in goody bags for my guests.

Serenity has her first field trip next week and i'm so excited. I'll be going with her.  i'm so excited that she is really enjoying school. it's still a daily struggle to get her out of the bed, but once she's up and dressed and ready to walk out the door she's super excited to go to school and play and see her friends. here are her first ever school pictures. of course i'm a little biased but i think she is even more adorable than ever. The school year is going great so far for both Serenity and Skip. And Xavier and I are managing pretty well by ourselves as well.

bedroom changes

the kids will start sharing a room next week. we got them some bunk beds and they are super excited.Serenity talks constantly about how excited she is to have the top bunk :)
this is the awesome set we found for super cheap on craigslist 

and with new beds comes new bedding. Serenity's set and Xavier's set. they are excited but i think mommy and daddy are even more excited than they are :)

first the weight, now this.......

Measurements on September 7,2012

Hips: 49" Waist: 37"
Around Belly Button 43"
Bust: 41.5"
Under Bust: 35"
Thighs: 25"
Arms: 14"
Calves: 15"
Neck: 13.5"

flash back friday

so apparently sometime in the evening we thought it would be a grand idea to try and put my foot back behind my head. i guess i couldn't quite get it done myself so my brother had to help me out. 

circa march 2005

thankful thursday

1. Coffee, oh i'm so thankful for coffee. not much more to say than that. oh, except for sugar and milk too :)
   
2. Clearance racks. people get so much more at gift time when i find stuff on clearance :)
   
3. lemon juice. i'm trying to drink more water. (like 99oz a day) and i get sick of the taste so adding a little bit of lemon juice makes it more tolerable.
   
4. my new job. it's nice to be able to help out a friend and make some money to help us get closer to being out of debt.

30 day shred

 So i've had friends in the past do this workout. I have friends currently doing this workout. And i myself have been avoiding this workout. I make up all kinds of excuses as to why i can't start but today after stepping on the scale and deciding to publicly put my weight out there once again that i will start it and i will start it today. The lowest weight i got to last year was 163 and as you can see i have put a lot of that back on. I'm still far from putting back all of my weight back on but still 35lbs is way to much. so here i go. September 5,2012 a new starting weight of 198lbs and 37% body fat. oh and please excuse my dirty scale.

fall is here

halloween will be here before we know it. we talked a bit about costumes today. nothing set in stone yet. i was throwing around the idea with the kids of doing another family costume idea but not sure if we'll do it or not. guess we'll have to just keep talking it over until the end of the month and then get more into gear as to what everyone will be.
I've applied for another houseparty. I love them, if you haven't ever heard of them check it out. basically, you apply for different types of parties to host. if you get picked they send you all kinds of free goodies to test and try out :)
I have applied for a larger than life halloween party and fingers crossed we get it. We haven't had a halloween party since Serenity's was a baby and i'd love to do nothing more than have family and friends over in their cute costumes, make some s'mores over a bon fire, and just hang out. If we don't get the house party we just may have to do our own halloween party anyways b/c i've talked it up so much.

funk

just one of those days where i'm in a funk and can't get motivated.
what to do to get out of it? suggestions??

1st day

Serenity's first day of pre-k

First day at Pike Primary & Pike Middle

butter you

Xavier is sitting on my lap holding a pink plastic toy knife....

Xavier: stay still (as he puts the knife towards my face)
Me: dude, don't poke me in the face with a knife that is rude.
Xavier: I'm not gonna poke you, I'm just gonna butter you.

almost a month in

yesterday was the start of week 4 of school. i can't believe it's been almost an entire month my baby girl has been in school. she really is enjoying herself and even though she can't remember pretty much anything she does there for 6.5 hours a day, lol, she is so excited to tell me the things that she does remember. today she sang me the whole entire song, This Old Man. she only forgot what a couple of the tasks on a couple of the numbers were but beyond that she sang me the whole thing :) oh and a huge, huge deal was that Serenity finally walked into school all by herself yesterday. they were running a little behind schedule and skip asked her if she would be able to just go in by herself and she did.
xavier and i are slowly adjusting to being the only ones home since daddy started back to school as well. although last week did throw us for a bit of a loop as a friend of ours was in a bind and we went to her shop to help her out a couple days. it was good to do though since i will be doing it on a full time basis soon enough.
fall is fast approaching and we didn't quite finish all of our summer bucket list but we did manage to knock out a lot of things. hopefully I'll be able to come up with our 2013 bucketlist and keep up with it better and not wait so long to get things done. hehe
technically i did tell myself that our summer would be over the end of august so we have a couple more days to see what we can hammer out.

1. Go to a zoo
2. Go swimming
3. Go fishing
4.Blow bubbles
5. Have a water balloon fight
6.Scavenger hunt
7.go to the movies
8.have a picnic
9.make tie dye shirts
10.watch fireworks
11.feed the ducks
12. Go to a new to us park
13.go camping
14.make cookies
15.fingerpaint
16.go to dauset trails
17.catch lightning bugs
18.camp in the yard                                                                                                                                       
19.take a hike
20.go geocaching

21. Mail a card to someone
22.plant flowers
23.make seashell wreath
24.find and make craft from pinterest
25. Go to our normal park
26.roast marshmallows
27.Go to Noah’s Ark
28.Have tea party
29.Lowes Build and grow clinic
30. Excavate toys from ice
31. find and make craft from pinterest
32. Go to Yellow River Game ranch
33.Go to lazer show at Stone Mountain
34.play board games 
35.Go on a boat ride
36.Sit outside under a tree and read
37.play miniature golf
38.go to a museum
39.Make a raised salt picture 
40. Marble race
41.make father’s day presents
42.help daddy build something
43.find a new snack to make and try
44.go get fresh homemade peach ice cream
45.help cook dinner
46.go to the flying high circus
47.watch a parade
48.make a messy painting
49.spend a day with grandma (each separately)
50.lay and watch the clouds

good start on the 2nd

today was the start of the second week of school. we had our normal talk about how we don't like school and we don't wanna go and then i gently reminded her that yes she does like school but was just tired b/c it was so early. by the time we got to school she asked me if i would walk her in and of course i reassured her once again that as long as she wanted me to walk her in i would. we walked all the way to the door without a problem, we walked into the school without a problem and i passed my girl off to one of the para-pros without a problem. hopefully the week continues like this and she's over the scare of being pulled out of the car.
Xavier misses her terribly during the day. he's always so excited to see her when she gets home. He's gonna be in for a real shock next week when Skip starts back to school again. He's been used to all of us here, then just mommy and daddy, but next week it will be just me and my boy. it's never been just me and the boy so i'm not sure if either of us will know how to act :)

Thankful Thursday

1.    Today I am thankful for quiet. It’s actually a bit of a struggle. My baby girl is on her 4^th day of school and my little guy is getting himself some much needed grandma time. I’m used to so much noise and commotion in the house that it’s weird to hear nothing. But it’s nice to be able to make phone calls without hiding in a bathroom or closet.

2.   I’m thankful that Wal-Mart price matches. Kroger has milk on sale for 2 for $5 but Wal-Mart is closer. Wal-Mart wants over $4 for one gallon but for $1 more I can get 2 gallons.

3.   I’m thankful for direct deposit. That’s one less trip a week I have to make

4.   I’m thankful to the teachers at Pike Primary who have been so sweet to my crying baby girl the past 2 days I’ve dropped her off and that they have been trying to help mommy by reassuring me that as soon as I leave and she gets to class she will calm down and forget she was even crying.

5.   I’m thankful that my hubby started mowing the lawn after I left to take the girls to school because I was gonna help him out and do it when I got home (but I really didn’t want to)

3rd day of school=first bad day

Today's drop off at school did not go so well. Serenity has done super so far this week. she hasn't cried, she hasn't tried to hold onto me, she's just went on into school and i've handed her off and she's been having a great time. well today i tried to just drop her at the curb like a big girl. that didn't really happen. She was screaming that she wanted me to go in with her. She was holding onto the inside of the car as one of the teachers had to help pull her out telling her about how she would help her to class and reassuring me that she would be fine as soon as i drove away. she was just going to cry until she saw her friends and her teacher but it didn't really help me. as soon as she closed my car door i lost it. i've cried here and there over her going to school but with this episode i bawled. i was sobbing as i drove out of the parking lot. i continued to do this the bulk of my ride home. it killed me to see my little girl crying so hard about something so little. so of course i decided, and told her this afternoon when i picked her up, that i will walk her in until she doesn't want me to anymore. when she tells me she is too big to be walked in is when i will stop and until then i'll treat her like my baby girl b/c let's face it, that's what she is :)
I'm gonna let her be my baby as long as she allows me too and if the only thing that let's me do that is walking her into school then by golly i'll do it.
(oh, but she did say she had an awesome day at school, so i'm pretty sure it happened just like the teacher said it would and she stopped crying as soon as i left and she went inside)

their love is awesome

my daughter is AH-MAZING. last night the kids and i went for a walk. as always i had them on the side nearest the grass and myself next to the road. well i was holding Xavier's hand and then Serenity was on the other side of him. my thoughts better for both her and i to be holding his hands. Well just a few minutes into the walk Serenity stopped us and told Xavier to switch her spots. before i could even question why she started talking to Xavier and telling him why she was changing their spots. She said "you need to be on that side b/c if a car comes I don't want it to hit you. So you need to be in the grass to stay safe and I'll be closer to the car."
It absolutely melted my heart to hear her basically say that brother your life is more important to me and I'm willing to risk getting hurt so that you don't. I mean she acknowledged the fact that if a car came he wouldn't get hit being in the spot that she was in and the new spot she had taken she could get hit. It is so amazing to see how much love they have for each other and i PRAY,PRAY,PRAY it stays that way. yes they fight and as they get older i know the fights may get worse, but i pray they don't. i pray that if they fight it's small little spats about nothing important and that they keep the relationship they have now where they values each others lives more than their own.
I have some awesome kids and couldn't be prouder of them on a daily basis.

it's that time of year again and for the first time

Thursday was the beginning of getting back to school. Serenity & I tagged along to Mariah's open house. It's hard to believe she is in the 7th grade already. It seems like just yesterday I was changing her diaper (she'll be so happy to know I'm reliving wiping her butt) She seems like she'll have some pretty good teachers and she seemed to like the new school. She has been at the same school her whole life but this year has changed it up and is now off to Pike County. This is also where Serenity is this year. yep, my baby girl had her open house on Friday evening. She got to check out her classroom, meet her teacher Mrs. Green and her para-pro Mrs. Mary. She loved them both immediately and the first thing she asked me on Saturday morning was if it was time for school. She wasn't to happy of course yesterday when I woke her up at 6:45 but she sure did have a great first day. mommy and Xavier on the other hand had a bit of a rough time. I walked her into school with Skip sat in the car with Xavier. He was crying as soon as we parked saying he wanted to go with her. I held it together until I let go of her hand and placed it in one of the para-pros that's when my first tear for that day fell. of course this isn't my first tear at the thought of her going to pre-k. I mean i broke down in the middle of walmart buying her lunch box. then once again leaving the open house friday night. and then at just random times since i've known she would be going. but this was a different tear. this one was the one that dropped b/c she was actually at school. Skip & I decided to take Xavier to breakfast and have a little date with him and hopefully help keep my  his mind off of not being with her. I mean all the distractions yesterday and today were totally for the benefit of me Xavier.
overall though we all did pretty well for Serenity's first day of school. Xavier and I didn't have break downs all day and she really enjoyed herself. now remembering what she actually does at school is something we will have to work on :)

what do you chew gum for?

Serenity: mom can i play cookie.com?
me: sure
Serenity: ok, i need a pillow to sit on and gum so i can conserate (concentrate)

thankful thursday

We haven't done as many Thursday movies as I thought we would this summer but i still think we have done our fair amount. i think we will skip again this week and try to knock out some other items we still have left on our summer bucket list since my daughter starts school 11 days. 11 days and my first baby starts school. granted it's just pre-k but she's going to be there all day every day and it's school. I already had my first mental break down when we were at the store to buy her school gear i can't wait to see what fun i am on her first day. so with us only having a little time left before we should be done with our summer list we need to get cracking on the remainders. I already know we aren't going to finish it all due to time and budget but i'm ok with that. i was just a fun list to see what kind of things we could do. plus we actually did a few things that were really awesome that weren't on the list at all.

but first before we do any of the bucket items i'm gonna try something new. i'm gonna try to remind myself every week to do a thankful thursday. I have seen a few other blogs here and there that do this and i'm sure there are more than i could ever find. i'm not linking to any blogs just for the fact that my blog is more for my friends and family :)

1. I'm thankful for God saving my marriage. my hubby and I had a good thing going but let it turn to crap, then we had a horrible thing going, then we had nothing going. I'm happy that things now are better than the good they ever were before. Things are actually great :)

2. I'm thankful for my daughter getting into the pre-k program through our public school. although i'm going to miss her terribly every day it will be good for her to not only learn new things but to interact with other kids besides her 2 year old brother.

3. once again i'm thankful for my daughter going to pre-k because this will give my son and i our own 1 on 1 time like my daughter and i used to have before he came along

4.i'm thankful for air conditioning. with it being a crazy hot summer we had 1 day a couple weeks ago that the air broke. it was only down for a few hours but it's amazing how quick your home can heat up

5.i'm thankful for our foster puppy daisey. She brings such joy to my kids and my hubby (which i haven't seen with him since his Ginger passed) i think it's gonna be hard on the 3 of them when it's time for her to go home again.

camping trip

my AWESOME family at baby land general

aww nothing says camping like a hot summer day :)
i actually didn't think it was that bad the whole time we were gone, the other 4 in the party would probably disagree. We (skip, me, the kids and my mom) went to Unicoi State Park. there were things that we ok about it and there were things that i just didn't like at all. it was one of those places that we can say we've been to but probably will never go back too. (at least if we have to pay for it we won't) The kids had a fun time and i guess that's all that really matters. We did a scavenger hunt, went on a hike, the boys went fishing, we went to black forest bear park, took the kids floating down the river with cool river tubing

xavier was "hiding"

i LOVE this picture of her rocking her new baby

me and my kiddos at black forest

taking her oath during her adoption process

love them

                   

helping grandma inflate her air mattress  

helping prep dinner

no paparazzi while i potty

the lovely music performed by serenity and xavier while we await our dinner 

fun time at the playground after camp was set up

time for a scavenger hunt

xavier was more interested in the bear than looking at the camera

Miss Daisey

last week i was packing for us to go camping and in the midst of this i saw a friend post on facebook that a dog needed a temporary home. the owners had to give their poor baby girl up and she had a family waiting for her in texas but didn't have anywhere to go until she got her ride there. so of course without even thinking i started asking where she was and how long she needed a home for. before i knew what was going on we had become a foster family for miss Daisey.

snuggled with xavier at bedtime

She is the sweetest little girl ever. When Skip went to pick her up he went with the intent of her only staying with us until august 8th. well after he met her "mommy" and talked to her some he then realized that what we needed to do was keep Daisey until they could take her back. they were having to move and were not able to take her with them right now but don't want to lose her. skip and i both no what it's like to lose dogs we aren't ready to let go of so of course he told her that we would keep her until they got set up to take her to her new home. the kids are in love with her and although i've explained numerous times that Daisey is just here on a puppy vacation and will go back to her own mommy and daddy soon i know it's still gonna be hard for them once she does leave.
I'm just so thankful that God put us in their path so that they are able to keep their baby girl instead of having to permanently give her away.

seasonal or yearly

I have a friend who has already created her fall bucket list and i've been thinking of starting one. but over the past few days (when realizing that we just won't have the funds to do some things still on our list before school starts) that instead of doing seasonal bucket lists i'm gonna just work on a bucket list for all of next year. we had a list of 50 on our summer list so i'm thinking 50ish for each season so then we will have around 200 items to do all of next year. i'm thinking i can do this. especially since i have so much time to come up with ideas. 

bucket list time-excavating toys

one of the items on our bucket list for the summer was to excavate toys from ice and we did just that the other day. well more like Serenity and Xavier did it while mommy took pictures (until my camera died b/c like a crazy lady i didn't make sure it was charged)

our dinosaurs (with a few rocks)
the happy kiddos ready to dig

 and away they go. We decided to see what ways we could come up with to get the ice to melt. we used some screw drivers and then there is Serenity going for that salt. It was like magic mommy :)

 both of these faces trip me out. it was sooo fun watching them get so into this little activity

brrrrr, it's cold
Serenity's first discovery is a rock.

 she thought the first huge chunk of ice she got to break off was so amazing.