it's been like forever!

OK I know it's been like a million years since I posted anything but really there has been a lot going on. There were birthdays, holidays, school stuff, baseball and of course buying a new house. I stole an All About Me thing from Shannon thinking it would be a great way to get back into my blog. When I get more of the house unpacked I'll post pictures of it. I really love and feel like I have lived here forver. It just feels like home!


1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? I took my kids ice skating. I didn't actually skate but I got to watch them.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn't make one last year or this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? yep 3 very close friends including my best friend ever

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully no.

5. What countries did you visit? Same as always...none!

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? More time with Jeremy. Even when he was here he was too busy with work.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? August 24th Alissa's first day of kindergarden. The whole week of Christmas cuz were busy moving.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Getting my kids through the year (half of which we didn't even see Jeremy) happy and healthy and with my sanity still in tact...mostly.

9. What was your biggest failure? Somedays I would say everything. I have self esteem issues.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?I was sick with something flu like the whole week of Christmas and then had a fridge fall on my wrist. :)

11. What was the best thing you bought? A home!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My kids. Even with all the bad days counted I think they do really well considering their Dad is never around. They hate that.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? My big sister Brandi's.

14. Where did most of your money go? GAS!!! haha It truth it was either spent on the kids or the dogs. There running a close race.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? My new home. Have I mentioned I love it?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? happier I think b) thinner or fatter? thinner by about 10lbs c) richer or poorer? richer...Come feburary anyway after they stop taking out the money for the stock Jeremy bought

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? reading there's never anough time

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? arguing with the kids and Jeremy

20. How did you spend Christmas? In our new house unpacking and installing a new stove and dishwasher.

23. What was your favorite TV program? The Biggest Loser. Weird I know but I think it's cuz I can relate.

27. What did you want and get? A home that I own. Well, I will in 15 years.

28. What did you want and not get? More quality, happy family time with Jeremy.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? My Mom and sister came the weekend before to spend time with me since Jeremy was across the country for the 3rd year in a row. My actual birthday was a Monday. I spent it just me and my kids.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Jeremy getting to be home the whole year and actually being able to spend time with us without talking to a million people from work the whole time.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? I actually started buying me new cloths and got rid of most of the too big hand-me-downs.

33. What kept you sane? The kids, my Mom and my few friends.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. In the end you are in charge of your own happiness. If you choose to be happy you can make it through anything.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Today I'm gonna keep on walking
I'm gonna hold my head up high
I'm gonna leave it all behind
Today I'm gonna stand out in the rain
Let it wash it all away
I'm gonna let it go

Skeletons and Ghosts are hiding in the shadows
Threatening me with all the things that they know
Choices and mistakes, they all know my name
But I'm through holding in an holding onto all that pain

today i'm gonna keep on walking
I'm gonna hold my head up high
got no more tears to cry
today im gonna stand out in the rain
let it wash it all away
I'm gonna let it go

Don't get too comfortable

You know how we were all excited about the teacher we got? You know how I said Cass loves Mrs. Miller? We'll she no longer has Mrs. Miller as her 3rd grade teacher. :( They had to add a teacher because they had too many 3rd grader for the 4 teachers they already had. The new teacher hired on as a 5th grade teacher but they didn't have enough 5th graders to need 4 teachers. They said they did a blind draw from the other calsses to form the new one. Cass was one of the ones who has to move. Mrs. Miller was so upset that she couldn't even talk to me when I saw her at lunch yesterday. She told me she was having a bad day. She told me she was disappointed but she couldn't tell me why because she was on the verge of tears. The counselor called me later to tell me about the change. Of course, I cried too. We love Mrs. Miller. Then when we got home Cass cried. Her new teahcer is Mrs. McRoy. She came from Dallas. Everyone says she's a great teacher. Thing is she's no Mrs. Miller. It's gonna be a tough switch.

School Days!

School started Monday! Yay! My baby girl is in kindergaden. I was a big girl though. Teared up a little but didn't cry. Until I got home of course. :) Then I spent the rest of the day being a basketcase.

Chey started middle school this year, too. I got a double whammy. Tried to convince her to stay at home with me but she would go for it. She's in the band. Plays the saxaphone. So far she loves it. She tells me that middle school is awesome. That definantly puts my mind at ease.

Dyl and Cass are in 3rd and 4th. They both could not be happier with the teachers they got. Dyl's teacher was his 2nd grade teacher and he absolutly loves her. Cass got Mrs. Miller who was Chey's 3rd grade teacher. She has sons Dyl and AJ's ages. Her oldest plays ball with D and the youngest plays with the girls at the ball park. We think she's great, too.

Alissa's teacher seems really nice. Alissa really likes her. She also informed me after her first day of school that she would no longer be taking a lunch to school because it was so much cooler to get a tray. Then yesterday we had a talk about a little girl in another calss. They all go in the same room to be dismissed. This little girl has no hair. Alissa said some of the kids were laughing at her. That upset Alissa.

Me: She probably has no hair because she's sick.

AJ: You go bald when you get sick?! (Can you tell she hasn't been sick much?)

M: Some sicknesses make you lose your hair. She probably has cancer.

AJ: (Holding my face between her hands.) Momma, I feel sorry for that little girl.

M: Me, too. Just make sure your nice to her. Be her friend.

AJ: Momma, I'm gonna be her friend and make her happy. And I'm gonna save her.

Very profound words for a 5 yr old, I think. It made me very proud to see my little girls beautiful heart going out to another child. Maybe I am doing a pretty good job of being her Mom.

So, while I cry, yes I'm a sap, I will leave you with pictures from the first day of school. The last one is the only one I actually got to take at school. Chey wouldn't even let me get out of the car and Dyl and Cass didn't think it was cool to have there Mom taking pictures of them in class.

The chicken was good!

I ended up making the chicken Saturday night. If I do say so myself it was really good. I made some steamed mixed summer veggies to go with it. I didn't add the mushrooms to the rice but I did throw in a little cilantro. It was really good.

Friday we just had pizza cuz time got away from me. Then we met or bestest friends who moved to Virginia last year at the mini-golf place that we love so much. It's really cool and ran by a hippy. They have live music on the weekends and he plays oldie's music the rest of the time. We had such a good time and it felt like they had never left. Of course, we're sad again now because they leave tomorrow to go back home. :(

Then tonight because it was a lazy Sunday we had burger's. We also got Guitar Hero Aerosmith and spent some time kicking the kids butts. That was fun and the closest I will ever get to actually jamming with the legendary Aerosmith. It's nice when you know all the songs. We did a little Rock Band too but now of us play the drums to save our lives. There harder then they look.

Tomorrow it's back to the normal house cleaning and cooking. I think I'm gonna cheat and make spaghetti though so it won't really be like cooking. That's my diabolical plan anyway.

Someting to do with my chicken

I have some boneless, skinless chicken to cook for supper tonight. since I had no idea what I wanted to do with it I headed to the web. I started with kraftfood.com because there recipes are simple. I found this http://http//www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/creamy-chicken-cranberry-pecan-wild-107255.aspx. Forgive me I have yet to figure out how to add a link without putting the whole thing on here. Anyway, this creamy chicken & cranberry-pecan wild rice sounds really good to me. I plan on adding some mushrooms because I love them. Then I'm thinking some grilled veggies to go with it. I'm not sure about it though. Watermelon for dessert would be really good, too. That is if my husband were ever off early enough to go to the store and get one. I always make him pick the watermelons. Then I don't have to carry the guilt in the instance it's not a really good one. :)

I did it again....

I went to Oklahoma to pick the kids up from Mom's and decided to stay a few days. While I was there I had plans to go lose some money at the casino which I did. I also had plans to look for a good local tattoo artist. Now honestly I really didn't think that I would find being that I was in oklahoma and all! On top of that I didn't actually plan on getting a new tattoo just yet. I was just browsing. My Mom and I had talked about getting new tattoos. I had even found something I wanted. I also wanted to find someone to fix my Mom's first one. She got it about 10 years ago and it was suspose to be a yellow rose. Sadly it looked like a piece of popcorn. We did some searching in the phonebook and found the myspace page of and artist I was actually pretty impressed with. His shop is in a town not too far from my Mom's so we decided to ride over there and just see how much things would cost and if his work was as impressive in person. so my Mom and I go in and look around. Then we talked to the tattoo guy, John is his name, about price and time and such. I'm thinking, "Ok so we'll come back when I come back for July 4th." That's when my Mom says, "Ok lets do it today!" I'm thinking sure we'll get her's fixed and I'll come back for mine later but Mom said no! So we have a new tattoo and I personally think the tattoo guy did a pretty good job considering the picture came from a tee shirt and I had him change some things. My Mom's tattoo is now a red rose instead of a yellow one. And the kicker? It ACTUALLY looks like a ROSE! I don't have a picture of hers but I can give you a look at mine. :) The first picture has a glare and the second picture makes it look crooked but it's not.



And in case you couldn't tell it's on my left shoulder.

It's time to update, you say!

Ok so I missed a few holidays! To make it up to you I have tons of pictures to share. Finally, baseball is over, school is out and we may actually have a little time to breath..... Ya, right!

The last week of May was the last week of school for the kids. Alissa graduated pre-school. Yay! No more paying for her to go to school. I have lots of good pictures. Fake graduation or not she was totally adorable! The man she's with is Mr. Oz. He was her teacher half the year and he and his wife own the daycare. Alissa just loves him. She was always talking about the silly things Mr. Oz did. So now in just a few short months my baby will be a big girl in "big school". :(

Then we had all the other kids awards. Of course, everyone gets at least one award which I think is kinda crap and sort of demeans the whole awarding accomplishments process. Of course this was a rough year for Dylan and he went from winning every award the last 2 years to only getting the flunky award this year. I know I'm a bad mother but it did disappoint me some because I know he could have done so much better. Chey got a couple of awards too but not as many as usual. The best part of the whole thing was that Cass finally got more awards then the other two. She got 5 in all. Poor girl is always up staged by her brother and sister so it did my heart good to see the look on her face when she realized she had won more then the others. Now we just wait for next year when my Chey will be in middle school, ACK!!!!, 6th grade, Dyl will be a big 4th grader on the other side of the school, Cass moves to 3rd and Alissa will be in kindergarden. What in the world am I gonna do with my time? Here are some pics of the kids field day and awards.

We also had Cass' 8th birthday on the 21st. We had a party at the mini golf place. Of course, hardly anyone showed up. Then to add more excitement we ended up getting rained out. The up side? We have 10 raincheck tickets. The owner of Play Faire park is a hippy. He has hula hoops at the front and plays great oldies music. He also remembers us every time we go and always lets us play both courses when we go and only charges us for one. Very nice guy. I think he went above and beyond for Cass' party with very cool sidewalk chalk art he chalked himself. Jeremy and I made the cake, it's suppose to be a pair of flip flops, can you tell? It was so hot the icing started running everywhere and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

We also had a family reunion for Jeremy's family last weekend. We had good bar b que, the kids played with beach balls and such in the back room and we got to see Mr. Tumness from Narnia thanks to Uncle Johnny who has grown a goatee and now bears a huge resemblance to Mr. Tumness. Sadly I didn't take my camera out at the reunion and have no pictures to show for it but hopefully someone who had a camera will pass some along to me so I can share.

Now the girls are in Oklahoma at my Mom's, Jeremy is in Iowa and it's just Dylan and I at home this week. Dyl's team made it into the city tournament. Their first game was Saturday and we happened to be in Borger so Dyl missed it. Sadly it is a one game elimination tournament and that was all it took to eliminate Dyl's team. Dyl didn't even get a chance to play in it. Sadly my little baseball had such a rotten season (he's not the only one either, there was a lot of coach/parent drama this season) that he was just glad it was over. They have closing ceremonies next Sunday. Dyl's team gets a trophy for 2nd place. they also have all star announcements that day but Dylan wasn't one of the golden boys this season, there were too many coaches kids for anyone else to get a chance. We will go get the girls sometime Sunday or Monday and Jeremy is suppose to be home Saturday but I have learned not to hold my breath when it comes to Jeremy comming home. Next week our friends who moved to Virginia last year will be here so we will be spending lots of time with them. Not sure what the summer holds after that. I will try much harder to post on here on a regular basis though. :)

I missed St. Patty's Day!

I had every intention of being a better blogger whether there's anyone out there to read it or not. I fell down on the job though. We're gonna say life got in the way. I don't remember what was going on last time I posted. Jeremy is home now though. For a while anyway. It's been really hard to incorporate him back into our lives, on our part and his. Dylan has been having issues with his temper again since Jeremy has been home. I finally decided it was not something that we would eventually work out. So I get Dylan in with a counselor. In the course of trying to get Dylan help it was decided that Jeremy and I needed some marital counseling. Like I didn't know that already. As the counselor said, in order to help Dylan we need to fix us. So off to counseling we will go. I have admitted to myself for the first time that I do think I am actually in a depression that I can't get myself out of so here's hoping my life and family get back on track with the help of professionals.

Baseball season has started again too. Dylan is now in the minor leauge. That means that instead of 2-3 pratices a week we have 4 pratices a week. Instead of 16 games we have 26 games. It's much more serious in the minor leauge. Of course that means all of our spare time from new till June and possibly beyond will be spent at the ballpark. Not that it bothers me i like to be busy. Keeps my mind off things I don't want to think about.

We are also in the process of trying to buy the house we're living in. All in all the owners are giving us a pretty good deal. All that's left now is getting the loan. Not an easy task when Jeremy's credit sucks. But were working on that too.

Then there's Clover the new puppy. I was going to post pictures with this entry but of course my camera is dead. So as soon as I get it all charged up, hopefully before summer gets here, I will put up pictures of the kids, the puppys and if I'm on the ball Easter! :) Yes I'm trying to push the envelope.

New tradition?

Seems I have started a new tradition of sorts. The last 3-4 times I have posted have been on holidays. Crazy, hu?! Well, today I was taking pictures of my Valentine gift and decided to upload all the pics on my camera finally. I still have chirstmas pics on here. Thing is I only have like 5 christmas pics cuz my battery died right in the middle of opening presents. So any way here are some pics.

First the christmas pics. My Grandparents and Jeremy's Uncle John are the people you don't know from the last 2 pics. Yes I forgot to rotate my Grandparents!

This first one from the spelling be that Chey and her best friends Madison and Makienze all participated in. Chey was out the first round as were over half of the spellers. The twins took 1st and 2nd place. The last 2 are the black and scraped eye that Dylan got while running around with a friend. He tried to jump over a wooden crate and didn't make it. Took the crate right in the eye.

Then there are the pics of Bricktown Ballpark and Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill. This is were Jeremy and I spend our anniversary in Oklahoma City. The roses and bear I got today from my hubby. Aren't they pretty?

Merry Christmas!

We have been really busy! There has been Christmas shopping, school Christmas parties, Christmas goodies baking and Christmas decorating. There has also been a lot of Christmas movie watching. Now it's finally here. We will be doing some more baking today. We're making chocolate covered popcorn, puppy chow and Santa cookies. We also have a Gingerbread house to make. Then tonight we will open our presents, read The Night Before Christmas and the story of Our Savior Jesus' birth and shuffle the kids off to bed so that Santa came visit our house.

This year is bitter sweet because I think this will probably be Dylan's last year to believe in Santa. He is 9 after all.

Then tomorrow the kids will no doubt wake us up before the crack of dawn jumping on our heads in utter excitement. We will gaze upon there glorious haul for a few moments. then we will rush to get dressed, get loaded into the car and head to Wildorado to see my Dad's family. Then we will be off to Borger to see Jeremy's family for a few days. We will then go to Oklahoma on Friday to drop the kids off at my Mom's so that we can spend our anniversary alone together, a miracle in itself, in Oklahoma City. We will be having dinner at the Mickey Mantle Steakhouse on the Canal. Then we will be able to walk to walk the canal and see the Christmas lights that will still be up. Really that's about all I have planned out but I do know they have horse drawn carriage rides that I think would be a wonderful addition. Then we will go back to spend time with at my Mom's. And on New Years eve, my lil' sisters b-day, we are suppose to be at my Uncle's playing some guitar hero, which I must add I am pretty awesome at!

Hope everyone has a wonderful, fun fulled holiday season! Love to all!

It's that time of year!

The time of year when there is no time. We've been busy, busy with birthdays, thanksgiving and Christmas preparations. We had Alissa's birthday and party on the 3rd. Thanksgiving, of course. Then there was Dylan's birthday party on the 25th and birthday on the 27th. We also went to the Christmas parade downtown on the 27th.

We had been fighting a stomach virus here from the end of October till the weekend before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we all ended up with it, except of course Jeremy. I actually think he was gladhe was in Washington for that.





Jeremy did get to come home for 6 days at Thanksgiving. We stayed home and I made a huge meal. We got snow, too! That's a really odd thing here so the fact that we got about 5 inches on Thanksgiving and then about 3 inches that Sunday was just crazy. Jeremy also brought me a month late birthday present, I think it was out of guilt. :) It is a very nice Sony digital camera. It came in really handy since my other one is about 5 years old and half broken. We can now all thank Jeremy for the pictures that are posted with this entry.

We did some Christmas shopping on Black Friday and got a really cool Christmas tree. Yes it's fake! I'm allergic to trees. It's up and fully decorated and looks absolutely gorgeous. I don't have pictures of that yet though. We didn't get all the outdoor decorations up before Jeremy left so I'm not sure how much of that will actually get done before Christmas. Some is better then now though, right?