A gift

For christmas, my brother Pat and his wife Lindsey sent me a bulb to plant. They must not know that I am terrible at growing things and also keeping them alive. I thought I would give it a shot though and miraculously I have had LOTS of these blooms and this time 2 popped up and they happen to be in my wedding colors. Does anyone know if it will just keep on keeping on or do I have to spot it one of these days? I know NOTHING. I get a bloom, it starts to fall, I cut it off and put it in a vase and then another one grows and I repeat all over again.

Safety first!

For some reason, whenever daddy drives, both boys INSIST on wearing some form of head protection. :o)

Baby Shower for Ruthie and Baby Elee

Sue and I hosted a baby shower for Ruthann and Baby Elee. It was a lot of fun....Here is Ruthie in her new homemade wrap with Elee resting peacefully inside.

The cake I made...supposed to be a baby bathtub with rubber ducky and bubbles. It had a chocolate layer, yellow cake layer with white chocolate strawberry ganache filling and fresh strawberries and buttercream frosting.

More pictures

Brandon dressed up as an old geezer...we got the mask at Walmart and the clothes at a second hand store. His best buddy Atillio dressed up as an old lady. I wish I had pictures of them together, but I don't.

Here are my super heros. Austin in the sweet shades dressed up as Batman and Logan was spiderman. They had a fun time getting candy from the few houses we went too.

Sharing some life in pictures

Brandon has wanted his hair dyed of some sort for a long time and I finally agreed...AFTER school pictures were taken. He wanted to do some blue spikes but decided to keep it the way it was after I bleached out some.



While I was working on his hair, his 2 brothers fed him spaghetti that we had on the table after dinner.

Thankful for Every day!

I am going to try and get back into posting and sharing pictures....I know I have been slacking. I have been struggling lately with life in general and trying to keep up and keep sane, LOL.

We had a big scare with Austin on Saturday and it reminds me of how precious life is. I was actually just trying to try and "live in today" before this happened and I almost wanted to throw that out the window and keep on worrying over what could happen, always thinking the worst case scenerio when it comes to my kids, but I turned it around and am trying my hardest to just live and let my kids live and enjoy every minute of the time I have with them. Doing this I have found that I am calmer and actually do enjoy the little things more. Taking my kids to the store, joking around, just being with them and spending time, hugging, kissing, interacting, etc.

Austin had an episode where I thought he may be in serious jeopardy of actually dying. I hate to sound so dramatic, but that is what it was. We still are not sure of what happened, but are thinking it may have been a seizure. He was white as a ghost, turning blue and on and off unresponsive for around 15 minutes. We had no idea if he hit his head, ingested something or what was going on so it was a complete mystery on why this was happening. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was awake but dazed looking and by the time we got to the ER he was alert and talking again. Bloodwork was normal, x-ray normal, etc. We will be going to his regular doctor today to try and brainstorm and possibly schedule some more testing to see if we can get to the bottom of it. I was frantic, begging him to stay with me and at the same time wondering what the hell I would do if this was the end.

Anyway, always remember to enjoy life, live every day, tell those around you that you love them, hug them and try not to worry about tomorrow or the next day or next month. Live IN today.

I am so grateful that I have this time with my children and my family. I am grateful that I had so much time with my Grandma Ione who passed away on September 25th. I am grateful that I was able to make it to her funeral, and spend that last little time seeing her off on her journey. I am grateful that I got the opportunity to talk to her on the phone just hours before she passed on. I am grateful that she was ready, calm and had lots of family surrounding her. I am grateful.

More pics

Where's Austin?

Logan in the leaves

Austin getting ready to throw leaves

Putting the trusses up on the roof

Our newest Swingset/playhouse for the kids

More pictures

Gypsy trying to get a drink of coffee

Logan doing some measuring

Austin measuring

Our horse shelter in progress

Horse nostril

Pictures

A few pictures I have taken recently....

Austin in his cast

Logan, Brandon and Austin posing

Logan with a straw in his mouth

Austin with donut glaze all over his face

Brandon and some weird freak

Another broken bone...

Austin has a broken leg. He broke his right tibia in 2 spots. It happened Saturday night and we go tomorrow morning to see the ortho doc for a cast. I am hoping it just needs to be casted and that it won't require surgery or anything "harsh" to fix it. It was a bad accident. Brandon was jumping off of the trampoline and tried to jump over Austin but instead landed right on his shoulders and crumpled him to the ground. I know Brandon feels really bad about it...as he should. We have had a talk about being more careful and slowing down and thinking before he acts. He has a tendency to be pretty rough with his little brothers and this time it had bad results.

Austin had an awful day yesterday cause it was so painful but today was a lot better. He was able to sit up on his own and play in the recliner with things that he yelled for all day. He has a bubble machine that blows bubbles and lots of other "lap" stuff that works out great. Plus he gets extra treats like push-pops and popsicles.

Back to School

The kids started back to school on Monday and so far everyone is doing great. Its only the first week though!!!

Autumn came home exclaiming how awesome high school is. She apparently as TONS of friends and all the teachers are nice and the math teacher said there won't be much homework. We will see.

Brandon had a good day and said he liked his teacher, she was nice. His friends are coming back. He has a few in his class and the others he gets to see at recess and lunch time. So far he is doing good....he still has a bit of trouble remembering homework and will often jump right in playing games after his chores if I don't remind him. He will get better at that though since he can't use the games anymore unless he remembers his homework.

Kristen only has 3 classes in the morning and then gets let free around 10:30. She is working but doesn't start each day until 12:30, so she has some time to come home for lunch and a quick nap before heading out to work.

Logan and Austin are, of course, doing great at home with me. We work on art projects like painting or coloring or using glue sticks!! Plus I am trying to work with Logan especially on shapes and colors and numbers and letters. He knows some of the stuff, but I am trying to make sure we learn a little bit each day about something new. Today he had an issue with our squares. I cut out a bunch of different sized squares to learn what a square was and I let the boys color and decorate them as they wanted, well Logan did not really like this activity cause he couldn't do something specific with it and it wasn't turning out how he liked so we went on to something else before we had a major melt down. He is pretty dramatic at times.

Salmon

A few weeks ago, my friend Jessica informed me of an emergency opening for dip-netting in Fish Creek for Red Salmon. I have only been dip-netting once in Minnesota and it was a lot of fun so I decided to give it a try. I was dog-sitting for Jessica so she left out her waders and boots and dip-net gear to go. I took Kristen, Autumn and Logan (should have left him at home!) with me and we headed out on a Friday morning at 5:15 AM. I wanted to be there and ready to start fishing at 6 AM.

Never have I worn waders in my life, so am sure I was styling in those things. The dip net is HUGE and barely fit in the back of my van. We got all ready and trudged down the steep hill to where we saw others vying for a spot. We went right into the creek (low tide and shallow at the time) to start fishing. It was shallow enough initially so you could see the fish coming downstream and watch them either totally avoid your net or swim right into it. As the tide came up, you couldn't see anything so you had no idea when a fish would hit until you felt the weight pulling on the dip net. I caught 10 fish in all, threw 5 back and then Logan was NOT having anymore of this watching his mother whack fish heads. He got crabby and whiney and wanted me to hold him (probably so I couldn't whack fish heads!) so it was time to pack it up and leave. It was fun though. The girls didn't catch any, even though they did hold the net for a little while...they are not as tough as me and couldn't hold it for long.

We are still enjoying our salmon. I smoked most of it after soaking it in a brine and it turned out great. I have some in the freezer and just pulled out a few pieces to make a salmon cheese ball that is currently chilling in the fridge. Can't wait to break out the crackers and devour it! Logan and Austin sure like the salmon, they kept bugging me for more bites when I was pulling it apart for the cheese ball.