Some things are just worth it!

Chinook had a little play date this morning w/ this beautiful little girl: Saydee

His Fence training is going pretty well. He stays in the yard for the most part... but sometimes the temptation on the other side of the fence is just too much to bare. For example... today, while Saydee was over playing, she went beyond the "fence". So did all the kids. He stayed in... he wagged his tail, he watched all the fun from a distance. Then he mustered up all his will, and ran for it. SOME THINGS ARE JUST WORTH THE SHOCK! How do I convince him otherwise? I don't know. She is pretty cute, So I could see his dilemma.

I can't believe it!

The kids will have their "last day of school" tomorrow. WHAT?? seriously?? Wow, that year flew by. I can hardly believe that Liza will be headed to middle school, Alex to 4th Grade and Tori to 1st Grade. Little Miss Katie will be spending our last year together :-(

As summer is upon us, I am feeling like we need a little more organization in our house. Thank fully we had a very successful family council tonight where the kids had some great ideas for the summer.

On Saturday.. after all jobs were done, Liza asked to get her hair cut.... She has been growing it out to donate to "Locks of Love" for the 4th time !!! I tell you if she wouldn't cut her hair it would be taller then her right now!! This ability to grow hair quickly did NOT come from my side of the family! So here she is, with her cute new doo..

The best part is.... I have neglected to send in the past 2 ponies so they are now all together and pretty much the same color and texture. I hope that they can use it all on one wig.. that would be super cool to see. She was SOOOO happy to have all that heavy hair off her neck, she always complained about how hot it was! I believe it was hot, cuz that hair is SOOO thick!

Since Liza got a hair cut, the little girls wanted theirs done too... Now, if you see my girls.. don't judge me. LOL I couldn't find my hair cutting scissors, so their hair was cut with a pair of fiskars scissors. LOL Doesn't look too bad either... I don't think. Now keep in mind that they are tucking that one side behind their ear, so you're seeing one side shorter than the other. :-)
Katie and Tori wanted Pony tails of their hair too. It is certainly not enough to donate, but they NEEDED it in a pony too. SO up in the pony their hair went and then I just chopped those suckers off, and cleaned up the edges. I thought they all looked pretty good considering the circumstances.
I told my mom that I would take a pic of my new Miche cover!! I love this one. I think it's right up there in the Favorites!!! It's SOOOOO cute. (as you can see) LOL
Liza's 5th grade promotion was on Friday. Here, she and her class mates are singing a song. It was funny, when Liza came home from school she was so excited because she was going to be aloud to sing.
Here she is getting her piece of paper from Mrs. Vaughn. Big day for these guys.
Here is Liza and her friend Cheyenne.
Liza and her friend Brook
And SHOCKINGLY enough, I believe that Liza is taller than both of these friends. :-)

And here she is with Mrs. Anderson. Mrs. Anderson was a wonderful teacher. I enjoyed working with her this year. I did Math Superstars for Liza's class and she was always SO grateful and kind. I appreciate her for all the conversations we had concerning Alex, and for her friendship. She was SO good for Liza, really helped open her eyes to the "middle school ways".
And LOL!!! These are some boys in her class. She wanted a picture with them, but was too embarrassed to ask them. I went over to them (since I know them from working with them all year) and said.. "hey boys, I need a picture of you guys" They reluctantly consented, and at the last second... I made Liza slide in the side. LOL Tricky eh? I LOVE being that mom... how embarrassing, but cool at the same time.

Well, Now I am off, to forge forward into the Summer.... I will try to keep posting all the fun stuff we're planning to do! I LOVE my job as a Stay at home mom!

My Week In a Giant Nut Shell

Wow what a week... after a week of birthdays, I was ready for a break. Boy was I off on that one! Last Sunday was mothers day... so after church I headed off to take some sunset pictures around dinner time... of course the one day I get to go out and take photos at sunset the clouds are covering the sun... and the sky performed poorly. :-( TN has the most beautiful sunsets, yet that one night... not a whole lot! I would show you the pics I took, but I haven't had time to work on them yet because of my week. I just downloaded them off my camera today because it was the first chance that I've had to do it.

On monday I went out and taught water aerobics in the morning and as I was headed home I called my friend Amy to see if I could take her kids while she and some other sisters in the ward painted. Now, I've known for a week that she needed help with painting, but that was the week that the kids were off school... yeah, didn't think that the 5 of us would be much help, in fact I didn't think that Katie and I would be much help, that is why I wanted to help out with baby sitting. Amy told me that I was welcome to bring katie and come and paint, the baby was sleeping, so we could get some stuff done. I went over and painted her dining room and surveyed the land.... Oh dear was there a lot of work to do. It was time to call in the troops. I went home, made some calls to some wonderful friends and rallied some ladies for a "painting party" that night. But first I had to go to the Court House..... There is a proposal to put a HUGE subdivision across the street from ours. We joined with a few of the neighbors in standing up against the massive subdivision. We love our area out here and think it is already being over run w/ housing. That meeting went well, but we don't find out till this monday if we made a difference or not.

When I got there at 8:30 or so, the ladies were already painting! We painted that night till 3 am. It was a night of Dews and M&M's. Fun, but a LOT of work. We got the Kitchen, the hall/ stairs, the master bedroom and the master bathroom. WOW!! It felt so good to see such progress. I was very very tired at our presidency meeting the next morning, but managed to stay awake for the bulk of it. I spent the afternoon making dinner and cleaning up the mess from sunday and monday of not being around. Then on Tuesday night I went to a class at Sister Jann Martens office about Stress and Anxiety. That was a really good class for me. I came home and CRASHED HARD!! So tired.

Wednesday I taught water aerobics and then after aerobics Michelle and I snuck off to Taco Bell for lunch. After lunch it dawned on me that Liza had an Orthodontist appointment that I had to get her to ASAP! I jetted over to the school, picked her up and actually made it on time... slid right in.

After the appointment we stopped at Wal mart for a few essentials, and then quickly ran home just in time run Liza over to the Horses and get home for the other kids to get off the bus. I have to interject here, that I love to take Liza to the horses, cuz there are some horses there that are so sweet and snugly. I didn't think that horses could be snugly, but these ones are so sweet. It was the final "Chick fil a" fund raiser night, and the kids really wanted to go, so we waited for Liza to be done. But it got too late... Liza and Alex had activities at the church, so I took the little girls and Brent stayed home and took Liza and Alex to the church. *divide and concur* After putting kids to bed (late) I had to prepare my lesson for the parenting class Thursday night and got to be early, cuz I knew what was planned for Thursday......

Thursday was 'field day' for Tori's school. She was SO excited to have me there, I just had to go. This field day was supposed to happen last week, but was put off because of the flooding. They kind of improvised here and did what they could to not disappoint the kids too much. I had to find a Sitter for Katie in order to go. So 7:30 kids on bus, get in shower, meet Ryan at exit 11 to hand off Katie. Be at the school by 9:15. It was a lovely over cast w/ a breeze day... so it wasn't too terribly hot standing out on the concrete for hours. As soon as I was done there, I headed over to get Katie and was met at my house by Michelle. She was Ready to work!

This was Chinooks Last Day At Large

Michelle was here to help me install an Underground fence. That's right, a fence that shocks my puppy every time he takes off. I spend a good part of my week chasing this little lad around trying to make sure that he doesn't get into too much trouble. This week he took off and frightened the snot out of a kid that was visiting at a neighbors house. Then he ran over to the new neighbors house and tried to play with their greyhounds... could have gotten beaten up! FINAL STRAW!!

So, Michelle dug and dug, and i pried back grass and dirt and tucked. Four Hours and thirty minutes later, the two of us had laid nearly 300 feet of wire. Now the training begins. Supposed to take about 2 weeks to train him. Every time he needs to go outside, I take him out on a leash, and walk him around the perimeter of the fence, showing him the flags. He got a zap pretty early on, the collar beeps if he gets close, to warn him, then it vibrates, then it shocks. He DID NOT LIKE IT! In fact, he no longer wants to go outside AT ALL! I have to drag the dog around the yard, inside the fence line and tell him that he is okay. get him to potty, and then bring him in. On Friday he thew up he was so stressed out by the fence. AND THEN........ Later on Saturday mroning...... the little turd jumped the fence!!! YES HE DID!!! I don't feel sorry for him any more. Heck, I nearly jacked that shocker up to 10 I was so MAD! So then i had a dog, running around with a shock collar on... would you come home if YOU were going to get shocked coming back??

So I spent yet another hour 1/2 - 2 hours out there following my dog around trying to catch him. I eventually lost track of him, and found him on..... would you believe... the deck, cowering and asking to be let in the house. He is still deathly afraid of the fence when we go walk around the perimeter. He doesn't like to go outside, he doesn't jump with excitement when i grab his leash, he cowers in the back of his crate if I offer a trip outside. Yet, I fear that the minute I let him out w/o a leash he will indeed bolt again! URG this dog!

Then after braking our backs putting in the fence, we (Michelle and I) parted ways for a few hours to feed the families. Then it was off to Parenting Class at the Church. It was the one that we've all been waiting for... the TOKEN ECONOMY lesson. So that was good. As soon as we were done there, we headed back over to:

PAINTING PARTY PART DEUX

This time we knocked out the other bedroom, a bathroom and repainted a very stubborn living room. We had to prime and then do two coats to get coverage! Oh what a night again. Above is Carman and Kelly, working hard.

Here is Amy... she is chatting with her hubby. I do believe he told her not to stay up too late. LOL!!!

And RYAN, surely wiping paint on her tennies, while chatting on the phone! BUT .. while doing the DEW, we finished! (at 3 am mind you, but we did it!) The house looks amazing, ready to sell, and we were happy!!! SORE, but happy.

So since staying up till 3am and all the physical labor I did, wasn't enough, I got up and taught water aerobics on Friday morning. Phew, I can't tell you how happy I was when they made us get out after 1/2 hour because there was lightning outside. SO nice! That was my own little tender mercy right there. I took advantage of a big chunk of time and headed into Nashville to Costco. (I love costco) I was looking for a few things, so it was worth the drive. Apparently I missed a big old storm here in Clarksville tho. That was a fun little trip, but had to really try to stay awake while driving cuz I was exhausted. I got home on Friday to Brent and the Kids all home. We all took the night off. The kids watched a movie and had a "sleep over" they stayed up way too late and I was very tired. Of course they weren't and they were up at the crack of dawn bugging me! Brent was on Call this weekend, so he had to go into work on Sat. Morning. This is also when the dog took off. The kids were NOT doing their jobs like they were supposed to which lead to mommy melt down. NOT a fun day here either. Brent got home in time to mow the lawn before the sun went down. While he mowed, I slipped over to Jimmy Blackmons Author Signing doo da, at Borders. I wanted to see which picture they chose for the poster and also wanted to take a pic of Jimmy signing books.Liza asked me "mom, how did Brother Blackmon get to be so Famous?" I said (laughing inside at the famous comment) "He wrote a book Liza." "So all I have to do is write a book and get it published and I'll be famous?" Smiling to myself... "As famous as Brother Blackmon!" :0)

After the book signing, my sweet husband took me on a date to one of my most favoritest places for he and I to go to. We love Back Yard Burger. YUM!! SO not good for you.. but YUM! It was a lovely date, a quick date, but lovely none the less.

Here is a random photo I had to take:

Do you see the heart? I have a few friends who photograph hearts that just appear.. in nature and what not.. and I found this little heart and thought of them, so this picture is just for them. :-) I was thankful for the moment where I slowed down, and looked at the little love note in my eyeshadow. :-)

So oddly enough after this crazy week, as I stood in the shower this morning, I couldn't stop thinking of all the balls that I dropped this week. The missed meetings, the unfinished emails, the photography that needs to be completed.

I got a backdrop and a stand this month... haven't had time to drag it out and try it yet. :-( Man life is crazy. So there you have it... my week.

photos of painting stolen from Michelles blog.

Alex 9 already

Happy 9th Birthday Alex!!!!!!

Alex wanted a "lego" party for his 9th birthday. He told me that he just wanted lego, not lego star wars, not lego indiana jones, just lego. Well all the lego plates etc were either specific to a set or were kind of 'babyish". We went with square bright colored plates and a home made lego cake, surrounded by lego candy.
Alex at 9 yrs old. Alex loves to play x-box and ds games, but the big thing that he wanted this year for his birthday was.... you guessed it... lego! He was after a lego city jail. It is one of those really big sets and is actually really cool.
From the family he got a lego police helicopter that goes with the set that he wanted. We also got him a 'sky ball' and outlandishly expensive ($8) bouncy ball. Something he has been looking at for a really long time, but just couldn't bring himself to pay for with his own money.
Brent had the idea to get him a remote control helicopter, I was skeptical.. I thought it looked like a toy for dad, more then a toy for Alex. As you can tell from his expression.. I was wrong. He LOVES it! He then collected a pile of cash from Grandmas and Grandpas which was quickly taken to Toys R Us where he purchased said lego set.
Alex seems to have a knack for finding friends in two's. Just up the road from us there are some twin boys, Brandon and Clay who are one year older than Alex. And he is also friends with the Webber boys, Zack and Zaden, who are bookends of Alex's age, so one is in 2nd grade and the other is in 4th. He is also pals with another boy who lives in the neighborhood (Jackson), and he doesn't come with another boy, but he does come with a little sister (Hayden) for Tori to play with. And So these friends were invited over for some Lego fun, lego cake, and root-beer floats.
We played a few games that involved lego... one was guess how many legos are in the jar.
Another was a pictionary style game, except they were to build the item rather then draw it.
The next game they were to build a certain object w/ in 5 minutes, with just the 1 cup of lego pieces that they were provided. Then they were to build any thing they wanted with their one cup of pieces, in 5 mins.

All the boys seemed to have a good time and Alex was a happy guy.

A little something about Alex. This year has been his hardest year. He often asks if we can move back to Maryland. Although he has made these friends, he struggles with the fact that he hasn't made friends with anyone in his class. He has told me that he knows he has friends, but that they are all friend that I found him, he tells me that he wants to make his own friends. While I understand his frustration, he and Jackson and the twin all became friends w/o any help from me. I think that the summer will help him out a lot. He had a hard time with school this year too. He has become quite emotional and sensitive. He takes offense easily, and gets very hurt. I really feel for him, and hope that he finds a happy place here in TN. He does love things about TN. He loves that he and dad can go fishing any night, they just walk over to the Bass pond. It is really cool that his pal Jackson can just walk over here anytime, and that they can meet at the park to play baseball too. Happy Birthday Alex, I hope that year nine is the BEST EVER!!!

Katie Bug is 4!!!!!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY KATIE!!

At 4 years old... my Katie Bug is still such a sweet little girl. Always out to please others and keep the peace. She is my little side kick during the day, and we love spending time together. Katie gets along with every one of her little friends and also plays very well by herself. She has come out of the Dora phase and is searching for a new favorite TV show. She will still watch it occasionally, but she's not terribly entertained anymore. Katie loves to go to the gym (most days). The ladies at the gym are the ones that started calling her "Katie Bug", which is a name that has stuck, and she doesn't seem to mind it.
Katie loves to play with little animals.. pet shops, puppy in my pockets, ponies, you name it, if it's small and an animal she likes them. Katie also has the ability to watch a show just 2 times and quote a line from it. It makes us laugh so hard when she whips one out. It's too funny to hear her little voice do it, because she gets all the expression in there. She keeps us laughing.
One of our favorite things that Katie says is "scub scouts" this is what she calls cub scouts. She is starting to catch on though and will not be calling it that much longer. :-( Katie loves to pick out her own outfits and can often be found it some pretty wild ones. I take her to the gym in them anyway, and the ladies just smile and tell her what a good job she did. Katie is tender hearted and gets her feelings hurt pretty badly when her siblings exclude her, she is truly pained when they do it. She loves to imagine, and pretend, and can often be heard saying "okay, so in the game....." OR "Wait, Kay, in real life we ___ but in the game _____."

For her Birthday this year she chose "Care Bears". She has never seen a movie or tv show with them, but she does like the colorful bears. She got one out of a $.25 machine months ago and loved it. So we went with it. Just before her birthday Katie found a new love..... She LOVES Jessie from toy story. I bought Toy Story and Toy Story 2, because I realized (heaven for bid) that Katie and Tori wouldn't know what was going on in Toy Story 3, they HAD to be prepared for the new movie right?? She liked one, but she loved 2, because if Jessie. So we bought her Toy Story Toys, which were a big hit. esp the Jessie Doll.
She also got a fur real panda from Grandpa Wall and Grandma Arbra, which she loved because of her love for all things animal. :-) She got a lot of $ from family members and took that money quickly to Toys R Us to buy ....... yes you guessed it.... more animals... and some polly pockets.

Katie chose to go to Chuck E Cheese for her birthday dinner, tons of fun was had by all at chuck E Cheese. The game that Brent wins on all the time was broken, so that stunk, but they got lots of tickets anyway.

I scored the biggest score.... I looked and looked for care bear stuff to do her cake... no luck.. I was starting to worry about how I was going to do a care bear cake.... then I scored this set at a garage sale for $2!!!! YIPEEE, they looked brand new! Washed em up and on the cake they went! So fun, so cute, so easy!
A little game of freeze dance, some trampoline games, a couple rounds of halabaloo, some hot dogs, some cake and some ice cream. Makes for a pretty good 4 yr old party.
Wow! I can't believe that my baby is 4!! Could I really be getting that old??? Could I really be 4 years out of the baby phase of my life? Happy Birthday Katie, we sure love you!

$20 Bill

20 Dollar Bill

A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you, but first, let me do this."
He proceeded to crumple the $20 dollar bill up. He then asked, "who still wants it?"
Still the hands were up in the air.
Well, he replied, "what if I do this?"
And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.
"Now who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson," he said, "no matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20."
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.
We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened, or what will happen, you will never lose your value.
Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless ... and especially to those who love you.
The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE.
"You are special - Don't EVER forget it."
Count your blessings, not your problems.
Never be afraid to try something new.

I love this story because it's so true. I think that sometimes life can make us feel "worn down", but we need to never forget who we truly are.

Brother Greg Olsen, the artist who painted this picture, explained that the children represent each of us. "The stream represents the difficult, trying times that we all go through," he says. "We need to do our part, reach as high as we can, and the Savior will lead us safely across to the other side."

The SILVER BULLET lives on!!!!!!

A few weeks ago Grandpa Wall called and asked Alex if he would be willing to share his prize winning pinewood derby car. Grandpas office was having a race, and Grandpa wanted to win! Naturally, he looked to Alex, knowing that Alex had a winner in his pocket! So we wrapped that "silver bullet" up in a whole PILE of bubble wrap, and sent it out to Utah to race.

Grandpa wanted to keep them all in suspense so he brought the car to work in this nifty box. :-) Gotta keep em guessing!
Here the Silver Bullet, is lined up waiting for his race. There were cars that were regulation, and cars that were built for fun and speed. Alex was set to race against all the other regulation cars.

AND HE WON!!!! Again! Fastest little pinewood derby car ever.... At least according to Alex, he thinks it just may be the FASTEST IN THE WHOLE WORLD! LOL He loved that his Grandpa called on him for help. He is so proud of his car, and so proud that it was able to win another prize with Grandpa! This is the best thing that could have ever happened for this boy... thank you Heavenly Father for tender mercies, even in the form of pinewood derby cars, my boy needed it!

3 hours in the ER and 3 stitches

Standing out on the front porch talking to Pamela, my neighbor, Liza comes whipping around the corner on he bike with one of 'the twins' in tow. "Mommy, Alex cut his eye open, and he is crying blood!" Now I know Liza, and her tendency to exaggerate things, so my reaction was actually quite calm. "Okay, is it so bad that he can't make it home?" "MOMMY!!!" "Alright, I'll find my shoes and come over to the park." I get to the park, and he is being cared for by the twin's mom. The boys had walkie talkies with them, and called their mom when it happened. He was doing fine, a little sad, but okay. He had jumped off the playground in a game of tag, and smacked his eye on a different piece of playground equipment on his way down. Pamela met up with us at the park and had a look (Pam is an ER nurse). She figured we should have it looked at, so after some organizing of the other kids here on the home front. Alex and I headed to the ER. Thank goodness Liza is old enough to watch the little ones. :-) Alex and I took our books and basically read the whole time we waited.

With the exception of the waiting time between when the Doc came in and told us what he was going to do, and when he actually came in and did it. The description made Alex very nervous, he mentioned that he had butterflies in his belly and that he was feeling really hot. The Doc was the greatest... once again, point for Gateway Hospital! They were wonderful with him, and He got 3 little books from the nurses there. Lucky boy. I don't know if they were giving one book per stitch or not, but he also got 3 stitches. Putting the numbing stuff in was the worst, and I'll tell you, I almost passed out when they put all the junk under his skin, and that wound opened up nice and wide so they could clean it out.
Phew.. makes me wooosy just telling you about it. The Doc said that glue wasn't a good option because if the location of the cut, he was worried that it wouldn't stay where he put it. so in went the stitches. Not even disposable stitches, again because of the movement in the area of the cut, he wanted the real stitches. So here they are... the white stuff is some cream that I put on it, cuz it was bugging him.
Well now, so far, in his nearly 9 years of life, he has both broken a bone, and gotten stitches... not too bad for a boy who's not so rough and tumble. :-) He was so brave and strong... didn't cry one tear at the ER, and boy did he want to! I was so proud of him, he was so scared and he shook like a leaf and his heart raced, and his chin quivered, but not one yelp and not one tear. That's my boy!