tractor time

we've got great neighbors... really nice, friendly, awesome neighbors...

look how happy my kids are! all from a riding lawn mower!

fantastic!

and the picture is ella's person! i love when kids draw like this... makes me think she is quite the little artist!

where have i been?

i cannot believe that it has been sooo long since i posted! again! sorry to mike and charligne!

okay... so here is what is going on!

i have been helping out our neighbors (jess and jason) by keeping their kids a couple times a week. i've only done it four times now... but they are doing great! ella loves having molly girl here... ALL DAY! it's like a daytime slumber party!

and payton who is 6 has entertained fisher more than i ever thought possible!




i'm not going to lie to ya... it's hard work having 4 kids under my care... but, they are all really doing well! i made a mini water park one of the days that they were here... it was crazy, hot, fun, and a lot of wet kiddie! they all seemed to really enjoy it, pizza was ordered after and i needed a big ol' glass of wine--

the start of something special

cornhole... it is not what exactly what you think of when you hear the name...

it sounds gross and horrible... but, it's not.

it is the obsession sweeping the southeast. and our neighborhood.

chris got cornhole boards for christmas in 2007... he had played with some of his friends before requesting some of his own. in march 2008 he and our neighbors started playing every single weekend. it became an obsession...


now, it's a gang.



our new neighbors next door (just renters until their house is finished being built) are also cornhole players. back in late april they came over for a dark party. we all got along really well and they are great people. and the husband is a sh*t talker just like chris and our neighbor jason. our new neighbor husband (jeff) and his brother in law belong to the Boone Lake Mafia (BLM) it sounds like a fraterity for lake goers... they wear t-shirts and hats, have stickers on their cars supporting the BLM. well, last thursday jason (who works night shift) took the night off to start the weekend cornhole throwing early. the rivalry began. we live in the subdivision Crystal Springs... so, now jason and my husband are the founding members of the Crystal Springs Mafia (CSM)

chris and jason started their sh*t talking with the BLM and the rivalry formed and the obnoxioushness as well. chris and jason needed tshirts made... fast. so, being the handygirlywhirly that i am, i got to it. jason is an overhand thrower, so his shirt reads "death from above" and chris' says " king cornholio"

jeff put a sign in his front yard saturday morning stating "tonight, the professional BLM -vs- the ameature CSM" chris later went and spray painted over it CSM 4 Life-

it's obnoxious, hilarious, and ridiculus.



as for the game... the CSM won... they have not yet released their summer schedule... but for those wanting to attend-- i will post about where to purchase tickets in advance.

memorial day wrap-up

we spent a wonderful weekend being very busy with some very wonderful people!

the only bummer is that i never brought out my camera... not even once... the whole weekend!

this makes me sick to my stomach!

friday-- first dark party of the weekend! full of friends, neighbors, sister and bro-in-law-- we ate drank and were very merry!

saturday-- second dark party of the weekend! full again of friends, neighbors, sister and bro-in-law-- we ate drank and were very merry!

sunday-- house guests leave and we have the third dark party of the weekend! full again of friends, neighbors, and neighbors friends which are now our friends.... we again, ate drank and were very merry!

monday-- the bummer comes... i watched jon and kate plus eight and i am now offically heartbroken for those two! oh, and the kids!

but really our weekend was busy, but it went by slow enough that we felt like we had a whole weekend! we loved having kels, jopo, beau, kendra, weiss, farley, sandler and plus 1 at the house! arnold, shonna, kaylee, and renna... next time you will have to stay the night!

thanks for all that came and played at the house!

in need of a pity party

so... i am having a rough week... i don't know what's up... but here are the things that are going on...

- the kids don't listen to me or chris
- when we need to come inside the house at night they start screaming, kicking, throwing themselves on the ground, and acting like we are crazy people
- bubba is still limping-- he is fine, he doesn't have a ruptured ACL, he just likes to limp (i'm convinced of this)
- the house is staying a mess
- i have no motivation to clean, keep up with laundry, i hate unloading the dishwasher with a passion-- i can load it like a champ
- gracie and her ruptured ACL
- fisher keeps yelling at me "no momma!"
- ella won't stop back-talking
- chris is snoring at night... so i am moving to a couch at 3-4am every single night
- the trim still needs to be painted
- i feel like a crappy momma b/c i don't to art projects
- ella needs to start preschool this fall... i haven't the slightest notion to enroll her or even look at possible schools
- i have my praxis test coming up and i am scared out of my mind that i will fail it!

okay... i think that's it.

my poor gracie

last night we were all in the backyard trying to be all "family" like... chris and i were talking about gracie's weight and how much she needed to start getting rid of the extra pounds. chris and i think up this fantastic way that he and i are both going to make efforts to get gracie slim and trim again... so our plan involves of course the kids to stop feeding her from the table, me running with her in the mornings, taking evening walks, and chris throwing ball with her at night in the backyard. we also were talking about getting the dogs and the kids back out on the lake this summer... the dogs always went till we had kids...

so, after all the chatter amongst us, we were throwing ball with gracie and on the last throw of the night... she stops using all four legs and goes to three... remember bubba all of three months ago???? and she cannot walk. she is in really horrible pain. chris has to carry her into the house and up the steps. i take her to the vet this morning... she has ruptured her ACL. surgery required. pain meds and low activity for the next few days. and then next week we need to start getting the extra weight off of her by taking her swimming in the evenings...

chris and i are so heartbroken! she was our "first baby" and i started thinking of all the horrible things that could come from the vet's appointment this morning. my biggest fear was that there wouldn't be much that they could do with her being this overweight (she's 60lbs and needs to be about 45lbs) and that she would have to be put down. but, she doesn't and we are just hoping that we can get some weight off of her before her surgery. we are thinking that she will need surgery in the next couple of weeks... keep her in your thoughts... thanks!

random-ness

we seem to have been keeping ourselves really busy... doing a whole lotta nothing!

i love this time of year where we aren't scheduling things in or friends to come over or weekend getaways- our backyard and cul-de-sac seem to be working pretty darn good on their own.




there isn't an evening that goes by where there aren't kids in the circle, parents watching, people walking, neighbors out talking, it's been a great place to live and have our kids growing up. we like all of our neighbors. we have actually befriended all of them quite nicely. i never wanted to live where we didn't know our neighbors, or where all we did was wave. i want to really get to know the people around us, for our kids sake, as well as ours. we have been so lucky to have neighbors that really care about us, our kids, and our family... as we do theirs.

i have also a slew of girlfriends that don't live around us that are really important to me as well. the little girl and boy are drew and eli-- drew and fisher were due on the same day-- drew came 10 weeks early... but you wouldn't have any clue-- she is cute as a button! fisher really took to little brother eli and i was glad to see ella like him too. she is usually funny about babies-- nice turn of her personality.








we also had a really hot saturday! we got the slip-n-slid out, sprinkler, and a couple of baby pools... it didn't look dangerous enough so we also put the kid slide into a pool... that's just how we roll.

fisher, who doesn't seem to fear much, took to the pools, the set up, and the danger like a pro- full belly sliding, jumping, and running from one end of the yard to the other-- ella was cautious, but really is doing much better this year. she loved the water, the hose, and the slip-n-slide as well. we had molly come down and play for a while as well.

chris took a break from mowing to come and slip-n-slide for a minute too.

there isn't anything that i love more than this little family of ours playing in the back yard.