Inkin' & Thinkin'

Sunday Slowdown - September 16, 2012

 

Oh what an emotional and crazy week this has been.  I'm thankful for it to be over and slept in pretty late today which felt really, really good!  We started off our Monday morning with the most beautiful sunrise.  I dropped Lexi off at school and was pulling in to drop Kaylee & Izzy off at the grade school when the sun hit the mountain just right and I was kicking myself in the butt for not bringing my camera with me.  But I was hopeful because I only live a couple blocks away from the school and surely I could get home and grab my camera and race back and grab that shot.  Just as I was thinking that, Kaylee pipes in from the back seat, "I need to go home.  I forgot my trumpet."  WHAT!?  Okay, breathe because that means you can grab your camera too.  So I rush back to the house and send Izzy in after my camera and Kaylee in to get her trumpet.  Kaylee comes out with the phone and the caller id says it's the school.  Lexi forgot her spandex for gym class (her 1st class) and wants me to bring them up to her.  So much for capturing the sunrise.  LOL!  So I take Lexi's shorts to her and drop the younger girls off at school.  By then the sun had shifted and it wasn't nearly as pretty but I did grab a couple of shots anyway. 

Same sunrise...different angles...very interesting how the color is so different in a matter of a couple of blocks.

I came in and settled down to work on a kit but my mind was busy thinking about Andy's best friend.  He had tripped down the concrete stairs going to his house and smashed the side of his face in and was having surgery that morning.  He is like an uncle to my kids and has always been known as Uncle Chris at our house.  So I was worried and hoping his surgery was going to go well.  That afternoon, another of Andy's friends (who works at another mine) called me to ask if I'd heard anything from Andy because there had been an accident at the mine.  Oh man, that was the end of my workday for sure.  I remember when Andy first started working at the mine, there was a cave in and one of the guys on Andy's crew was killed.  The first call I got that day was from his brother who called and said (this is a direct quote...I kid you not.), "Did you hear that Andy died today?"  Oh yeah, that's exactly what any  miner's wife wants to hear from her brother in law.  Logic said that if Andy was killed, someone surely would have notified me before it hit the rumor mill.  So I said, " No, I haven't heard anything but I'm sure it's not Andy and I'll call you if I hear something."  All day that day, the phone rang over and over with relatives and friends and people who were tuned in to their scanners calling to see if I was okay and asking if they'd been able to get Andy's body out.  I tell ya, I never let it get to me until he was late getting home and my kids started asking where he was.  Then I thought, how in the world am I going to tell them?  That pretty much did me in and I stopped answering phone calls until Andy called me 2 hours later. 

I have this weird 6th sense when it comes to Andy and if he was hurt, I feel like I would know something was wrong.  The day his work truck was run over by a semi truck on a mountain road, I begged him not to go to work that morning.  I just didn't feel right about it.  And the moment it happened, I knew something was wrong because my entire body was covered in goose bumps and I was on my way out the door when the phone rang with his boss calling to tell me what had happened.  So, I told his friend that I hadn't heard anything but would let him know as soon as I heard something.  I know now that if he was involved, I would have been notified so I'm a little worried but not over the top.  But, the not knowing part is really hard too because it's such a small town and whoever it is has family too and it affects us all. 

It turned out to be Chris's partner who was hurt.  So I said a little prayer that Chris had to be out for surgery that day because obviously, this wasn't the time for him to be at work.  God had it worked out whether we all knew it or not and for that I'm so thankful!

I also said a little prayer of thanks that night as I listened to this snore while I worked into the wee hours.

Of course, I comforted myself with a whole bag of these....:(

The next morning was a beautiful foggy morning and Kaylee said it looked like she was going to school at Hogwart's when I dropped her off.  LOL!

This is what my street looked like as I drove back home.

I wanted a picture of the high school mascot in this fog too but I was on the wrong side of the school this morning.  So I pulled up on the other side of the school the next morning but the fog wasn't nearly as good.  Oh well...I'm sure I'll get another shot another day!

I did a little scrapping this week while playing along with some digi challenges and speed scraps.  I also finished up a couple of new things you'll see soon in the shop.

Credits:  Temptations Vol 2 by me, Wynken Blynken & Nod by Busy Crafting Mommy Designs

Credits: You Play Like A Girl by Scraps N' Pieces

Credits:  You Play Like A Girl by Scraps N' Pieces

Credits:  You Play Like A Girl by Scraps N' Pieces

Credits:  You Play Like A Girl by Scraps N' Pieces

Credits:  Ginger Scraps Buffet:  Reading Room

Credits:  Serenity by me

My  mom called me on Thursday and said she was going to have a load at her house to unload on Friday so we moved some stuff around and worked through the night to get stuff done that I had planned to do on Friday.  LOL.  Lexi had an orthodontist appointment on Friday afternoon though so we had to stay in town long enough to take her to Idaho to have that done.  She had some Halloween colors put on this time and then was a little bummed to find out that she has to wear those colors for 2 months!  Bummer!  Maybe the purple will fade to brown by Thanksgiving, ROFL!  Poor kid!

After her appointment, we came back home and the girls packed up their stuff to take with us while I squeaked out the Saturday blog post and uploaded a few things to give away.  Andy came home and we loaded everything up and headed to my mom's to help her unload the trailer full of schtuff she brought with her.  On the way down we saw some of the most beautiful skyscapes.  Unfortunately, Andy was in a bad mood because we were leaving a lot later than we had planned to leave and probably a little irritated that we're doing this in the middle of the rut (hunting season) so getting him to stop so I could take pictures all the way down there was pretty much out of the question.  I did snap a few from the window though.

After a quick stop at Taco Bell to grab the girls some 9pm dinner, we arrived at the place I called home from 6th grade through my senior year in high school.  Technically the place I still call home even though my family hasn't lived there for 16 years.  I am so happy to be calling it home again and to know that my parents will only be 3.5 hours away soon!

Of course, it wasn't such a bad thing to see my nieces and nephew and their mom too!  LOL  Izzy and Makalyn were happy to see each other again!

We chatted a while and headed to bed so we could get up and get to work the next morning.  As we unloaded and put boxes and furniture in rooms, we assigned the kids to removing some grass from the irrigation ditch that cuts through the property.  The renters hadn't left it in very good condition so I'm sure there will be a lot of groundskeeping to catch up on next spring!  Iin the meantime, the kids were pulling the grass out of the ditch and it was so funny to watch Luke & Izzy working together as synchronized grass throwers. 

Until they spotted me, that was.  ;)

They were pretty excited about getting to get up in this fort too!

I love this look I got from Luke while taking his picture later that afternoon too...

You think a boy would smile at his aunt after she was nice enough to pull his tooth the night before, eh?  But no, this is the look I get (he was hamming it up for me).  It's a dang good thing I love him like crazy!  ;)

After we got everything unloaded and moved in, we were going to go pick out some carpet for the basement and then have lunch together before we parted ways for the weekend.  Well, we had all of the kids with us and the rest of the adults (and Addy) were in my mom's car with all of the cell phones.  We head downtown and it was never really communicated if we were going to look at carpet first or go to lunch so we were following my mom.  Were, being the operative word here.  We got held up at a stop light because, let's face it, Andy is not from the city and has no idea how to drive in the city.  You should have seen him in Vegas...it was hilarious!  But that's another story for another day.  On this day, my mom turned right and Andy sat at the light for about 50 cars before he decided to jump into traffic.  By then my mom was long gone and we had no idea where the carpet store was she was talking about or if she went to lunch somewhere.  So we drove this way and that way and the kids were in the back saying, "I guess we just have to go home with you, Aunt Wendy."  and I was thinking, maybe we should get a cell phone.  ROFL!  So after driving around and looking for about 20 minutes, we stopped and asked someone where the carpet store was and decided to just go sit there and wait and hopefully they'd show up sometime soon.  If not, we would just head back to the house and wait for them there.  Thankfully they were at the carpet store and all was good again.  Apparently they had pulled over and waited for us at one point and then had turned around and drove back looking for us but we had gone in the other direction so we had missed each other completely. 

After we had picked out carpet and gone to lunch, we went back to the house and said goodbye and they headed back to West Yellowstone and we headed to the car dealership.  Andy had his mind set on trading in my car.  The car I have loved ever since before I got it.  I fell in love the first time I saw an advertisement for it and told him it was the car I wanted.  Bad news...it was a $40,000.00 car and that simply wasn't in our budget at the time.  So no biggie...I loved my mini van that I had at the time.  It could wait.  Well, it was about 5 months later that he was driving by the car dealership that we've bought several cars from and thought he'd just stop in and see if they could find me one.  It was our lucky day because the owner had been driving one as a demo car for the past couple of months and was ready to sell it.  We picked it up for less than half price with only 408 miles on it.  Not a bad deal!  I've loved that car from day one.  Everything about it makes me happy except for the fact that there just isn't a lot of room in it for going on trips.  We replaced the brakes last year and it went through tires pretty quickly.  But I still loved it.  Lately though it's been pulling suddenly to the left out of nowhere and it's started to really vibrate when I'm driving on the highway.  Not exactly comforting.  Andy has been hinting that it's time to trade it in but I love my car and I'd rather fix it and keep it since it's almost paid for.  Well, on the way to Missoula, the car jerked really hard to the left and we narrowly missed another car so Andy said it was getting traded in, no debate.  I get it, but I still would rather fix it.  But when he decides he wants a new vehicle, he pretty much always gets his way.  It's one of the few things I've learned isn't worth arguing about with him.  So off to the dealership we go.  He had already been talking to a salesman and they had a vehicle there for us to check out.  So we took it for a drive and really liked it and the fun of negotiating began.  They came back to us with a price that was about $5,000.00 more than what we had researched and decided we would be willing to trade for.  Not good.  So we told them no thanks because we had already been talking to another dealer in another town who had the same vehicle for $5,000.00 less.  Of course, that sparked the "Let me talk to my manager and see what we can do to match it." conversation.  So while we were waiting, the girls and I got goofy in the car with the camera...

And when I saw Andy coming out with this look on his face after taking Izzy in to use the bathroom, I knew he was excited and I was going to lose my car...

and as it turned out, they had already found a buyer for our car the day before when Andy had called to find out some information from them.  Apparently the manager's friend had just wrecked her pacifica and wanted a new one and ours was just what she was looking for.  So he wanted to make the deal and actually came down another $6,000.00 on the deal.  Which put our price $1,000.00 less than what we had anticipated or wanted to spend.  Bonus!  But I was still pretty hesitant because, dang it, my car was only a couple of months away from being paid off.  We started the paperwork process and while it was all being written up (when did this process become so dang long and complicated?  Sheesh!) we walked around the dealership and took some "I'm bored" shots...

Some of use weren't as good at acting as the others but I'm not naming any names!

While we were waiting, we took some walks and Lexi found her dream car...it was only $70,000.00 so I told her that if she could come up with half I'd pay the other half.  ROFL!

I found this great purse but couldn't quite choke down the price so settled for taking a nice picture instead. 

And after 3 hours of waiting around to do the paperwork (which only took about 30 minutes), we said goodbye to my pacifica...

And hello to my Ford Expedition...

Which despite these happy faces and excited nonstop-talking voices, almost got returned within 20 minutes of taking ownership of it.

Why?  Because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the dang stereo system.  My last couple of cars would never pick up radio so I have religiously put all of my CDs onto my Zune and always used it with a casette adapter in my car.  Well, this expedition has no casette player but it has a USB and a Line In spot.  Cool, so I should be able to just plug in my Zune and have my music library at my fingertips, right?  WRONG!  I plugged it in and it synced up and when I told it to play something (because you can't just push a button...no good for me!), it said that everything on my Zune was protected and it wouldn't play anything.  WHAT?!!  I was so frustrated.  I am a music loving girl and I want to be able to listen to my music.  So we sat in the parking lot at Target and I read through the books and we still couldn't get it to work so I told Andy we needed to go pick up a CD because I couldn't do 3.5 hours of driving home without some music.  The radio never even came to mind because, like I said before, the radio never really got a station if I wasn't in a bigger town in my last couple of cars.  So after perusing the music selection (when did these become so small in stores?), I still didn't find something I didn't already have on my zune that I wanted to own.  So disgustedly I gave up and went to work shopping for my niece's birthday presents.  Andy disappeared and came back with a cable that would be a go between for the zune and the expedition, bless his heart.  Because seriously, that would have been a big deal breaker for me (and I think he knew it).  And I may have stomped my foot a little and probably pouted a lot to spark his motivation to make it work. 

So we swung into DQ and grabbed a late dinner again and then headed home where we arrived just before midnight.  We unpacked everything and crawled into bed not to be disturbed for at least 12 hours.  We were all that tired.  By the way, the radio in my expedition not only picks up Spokane stations but Missoula and Kalispell too...right from my driveway.  :) 

And that was my week.  What a week.

I hope you had a great one!

Sunday Slowdown - September 9, 2012

Ahhhh, it has been a very productive week for me!  I love those kinds of weeks!  My kids have settled back into their school routines smoothly for the most part.  Izzy has picked up some serious attitude and has decided that throwing fits is a good way to get what she wants.  Poor thing doesn't realize that this mama has been there, done that before and it doesn't phase me one little bit.  LOL!  Her latest rant has been, "I never get to do what I want!" followed by a stomping to her bedroom, an almost slam of the door and then a muffled scream into her pillow.  I just smile because secretly I'm a little proud of her for fighting for what she wants (she's so giving and is always trying to please someone and her general personality is just a happy one) and because I know that I'm raising another strong woman to be!  Yes, she's only 8, but coming from a line of women who are strong minded, it's good to see it continuing.   I also smile because I know it will pass.  Granted, I may not feel this way in another 8 years when she's really teen-ing out.  LOL! 

I have spent my entire week in these...

My feet have been so cold.  Since school started, I moved my computer stuff back into my room at my desk so that the kids can use the living room table for their homework.  That means I spend the the day in slippers with a blanket over my lap because my desk is set in front of a huge window in our room and it's an old house so that means it's drafty and cold!  So I nestle into my sweatshirts and blankets and slippers and fingerless gloves (yeah, that's kind of a scary mental image...LOL!) and work the day away.  I haven't left my house even one time all week this week.  I've been glued to this ...

Notice my handy enevelope for note taking and my Kindle and Zune sqeezed under my laptop.  I listen to pandora all day while I work but if Andy's sleeping or I'm working late into the night (which I did do all week this week...I think the earliest I climbed into bed all week was around 5:30), then I put my earbuds in and crank up some music on my Zune.  What have I been listening to lately?  A few favorites have been the Eric Church station on Pandora...great mix of music, Bruno Mars, Pitbull, Now 43, Justin Moore, Jason Aldean, Phillip Phillips, Blake Shelton, Eden's Edge, Shaun Groves and of course, Eric Church.  I think the only music I can't really get into is metal.  Everything else is fair game. 

I had this crazy creative spurt this week.  I think mostly because I just haven't had time to really concentrate on being creative all summer with all of the things we were busy doing and having the kids home.  But with the kids being in school and after spending last week organizing and cleaning, I think my mind was just really finally at ease enough to get creative.  So, I took full advantage and whipped out 3 kits and a ton of layouts!  These three kits will be released within the next week.  One will be my regular release, one a blog train freebie and the other a facebook fan freebie.  I didn't have plans to make 3 full kits but it just worked out that way and I went with it. 

Now I'm working on finishing up another kit that will be a collab with a friend of mine that is making her first kit!  I'm so excited to see what she's created.

I also went through the forums where I like to participate and put all of the speed scraps from them on my calendar so that I'm sure not to miss them.  By far, one of my most favorite things about the digi world is speed scraps.  I love being pushed out of my comfort zone and I love that almost every time I do a speed scrap I do something I would have never thought to do on my own. 

In my quest to scrap more about myself and to capture the every day things, I made this layout for a fb speed scrap I hosted on my fan page at the beginning of the week...

This next layout I made for a speed scrap at STS this week.  I totally forgot about this one even though I'd gotten a reminder via goocal and jumped in at the very end and whipped this out. 

Then Facebook treated me to two speed scraps I didn't know were even happening.  I just happened to see a "Step #X" on my wall and popped over and played along.  I love it when that happens! 

This first one was created for the SO Mega Make It Snappy.  When I was in West Yellewstone last month, my mom shared a disc of photos her cousin had sent her and I fell in love with a few of them right off the bat!  I'm sure you'll see me use those photos a lot.  I just really love them!

This next one was for The LilyPad.  I was scooting along all fine and dandy and then thought I better check their gallery requirements and you have to use at least 50% of their products for your layouts in order to post them there.  UGH!  So I trashed the layout I was working on and started over with just 15 minutes to finish and post.  Bad news, I didn't have that many kits from TLP and what I did have didn't really fit the feel of what I wanted so I was really struggling with this one right up until I had to get it posted. That's the other good thing about speed scraps for me.  I have to make a decision and just go with it.  I can't toy with things and talk myself in and out of things like I usually do.  I think I used 6 or 7 different kits for this layout to make it work the way I wanted.

And to finish off my scrapping week, I played along with Tammy's speed scrap at SNP last night and created this fun layout with one of my new kits. 

I got an email from Izzy's teacher this week and I was like, oh crap!  I don't know why...probably because of the previously mentioned tantrums.  LOL!  Seriously though, my kids are pretty good at school or so I'm told.  ;) It was a great email...she sent me this pic for my scrapbooks!  Thanks, Miss Grose!  YOU ROCK!!!  This totally made my day and just makes me smile!  I told you all last week that she was a diva!

On Tuesday, Kaylee's orthopedic Dr.'s office called and asked if we could bring her in for a foot tracing because they weren't able to order her the inserts she needed by her shoe size.  We had an appointment for the next day to pick up the inserts so I just asked if we could do it then.  It's in another town so it's not like we're just driving across town.  They said sure and that we wouldn't need to keep the appt because obviously the inserts weren't going to be in.  Great.  I'll just bring her up after school.  Well about 2 hours later another person calls to remind me of the appointment we have the next day.  LOL!  So I once again explained that we didn't need the appointment since she was just supposed to come in and have the inserts fitted and that I had just talked to someone else and they were supposed to cancel the appointment.  OH YES...a lot of laughter and duh-ing from the receptionist (gotta love small towns for this reason, right?).  Well, Andy picked the kids up from school the next day and took Kaylee to the Dr. to have her foot traced.  He was gone a crazy amount of time for that and I was beginning to wonder where they were when Kaylee came in with a cast on her leg.  Apparently, the tear had gotten worse last week instead of better so he casted her leg to hopefully prevent her tendon from snapping and to allow it time to heal.  Once the cast is off, she gets to do some physical therapy to try to stretch her tendons because apparently the tendon on her other leg is just as tight and he's worried she's going to tear or snap it as well.  So not what we wanted to hear. This kid loves to play soccer and is so disappointed she isn't going to play this year since it's her last year to be able to play here.   She looks forward to it all year and spends crazy amounts of time in the yard with a soccer ball.  So that means that next spring we're going to have to make a tough decision or find a way to make everything happen for all of our girls (not so easy when their dad works a rotating shift).  She wants to play spring soccer (a traveling league) and softball.  But they happen at the same time so she'll have to choose.  As much as I love to watch her play soccer and as much as she loves soccer, I hope she chooses softball to make it easier for me.  We will be coaching two softball teams next year (Kaylee & Lexi will be in the same age group finally!) and all 3 of our girls play softball (plus Lexi will be playing on the high school team in addition to the community league) so it pretty much has to be the priority but I have a sneaking suspicion we're going to have to figure out how to do all of the softball season stuff and fit in some weekend traveling for soccer games.  My head hurts just thinking about all of that running!  But, there's only so many years that they're kids, right?  So we will have to figure it out so she has the opportunities she wants. 

She was especially glad that she'd just given herself a french tip pedicure the night before so that her bare toes look nice while she has to show them off.  LOL!

Oh and I almost forgot to tell you my scary story of the week.  Andy has worked night shift pretty much our entire marriage so having him gone at night rarely bothers me.  We've only ever had one time that I was scared to be home alone and that was the night someone tried to break into our house right after he'd left for work.  Thankfully they didn't get the door open when they rammed into it.  That night I called the cops and they did a drive by and left.  About 20 minutes later, someone tried to ram in the front door again.  So I called the cops again and they did the same thing...slow drive by with a spotlight on the yard.  Great.  So I brought my big old dog in the house and parked him in front of the front door and slept in the living room chair with a gun on my lap (don't mess with this mama and her babies!) until Andy came home the next morning.  That night someone broke into the high school (just across from our house at the time) and the bus barn (behind our house at the time).  I'm so thankful they didn't get into our house.

This week I had my first ever scared to be home alone moment since then.  It was around 3:00 am and I had been up working and my muscles were sore so I thought I'd grab a quick shower (no judgements on my scheduling...I just don't sleep a lot.) and work a bit longer.  I had a weird feeling as I was getting into the shower but shook it off.  I tipped my head back under the water and all of a sudden the lights start dimming in the bathroom.  We don't have a dimmer switch...kinda weird.  Then they went out completely and there was this loud smack against the bathroom window.  You can laugh.  I was standing in a pitch black house, naked in the shower and a little freaked out.  I'll admit.  I froze.  I stood there listening and waiting.  The lights came back on and went off again almost immediately.  What in the world is going on.  I pull the shower curtain back and reach across to the bathroom window and pull the curtain back.  I don't know what I was thinking at that point but I figured only two things could happen...there could be someone scary outside my window and I would simply scare them off with my naked body or they would murder me.  LOL!  Thankfully there was nothing there and I still have no idea what hit the window that night.  So then the lights come back on and I wash up trying to look through the shower curtain just in case anyone is in my house.  The bathroom door looks out into the hallway and across the pantry to the kitchen where the back door is.  So in order for anyone to get anywhere in my house, I can see them from the bathroom.  Well, all of a sudden there's this weird light in the pantry.  I freeze again, listening hard for any kind of sound.  Nothing.  I'm straining hard to see through the curtain, not wanting to rip the curtain back just in case someone really is there.  Okay, I'm a chicken when I'm naked and helpless.  LOL!  As I'm concentrating hard and listening for any noise, the shower curtain suddenly flies in at me and hits me in the stomach.  I swear I had a heart attack.  I had the shower handle in my hand and I was swinging!  Then I catch movement in the corner of my eye and my stupid precious cat, Sebastian is walking along the edge of the tub.  He had just jumped up and scared the bejeezees out of me!  Needless to say, I quickly finished my shower and ran walked calmly back to my bedroom.  I immediately shut the door and got my pjs on.  I grabbed a gun and went to investigate.  It turns out the lights in the pantry were simply the pantry cabinet knobs reflecting the bathroom light.  After a quick search through my house for the boogie man and a quick search outside for the source of the window smacking, I came back in and went back to work.  I still have no idea why the lights dimmed and then went out or what the smack against the bathroom window was.

Ah, yes...that was my week in a nutshell.  I hope you had a great week!

Sunday Slowdown ~Sept. 2, 2012

In my quest to be a better mother, wife, designer and blogger, I have been spending a lot of time this past week getting things organized.  It seems like I have had no time to get anything done these past few months.   Why?  Well, here's a little recap of our summer...

First we had softball season and if you know me, you know that it pretty much dominates our lives.  This was the first year we didn't coach a team in a long time so it was kind of bittersweet but I have to tell you it was nice to be able to watch both kids' games and to be able to take pictures of Lexi playing!  I don't think I have but maybe five pictures total from the past 5 years since we started coaching her team.  Kaylee sat this season out with a bum ankle.  So she helped me cheer and was an excellent camera bag babysitter.  :)

While that was winding down, we were busy clearing our yard for the new fence to be installed.  That meant a lot of lilac and tree removal and some of those trees were filled with concrete both in the trunks and roots.  Whoever did that ... not cool!  Poor Andy's chainsaw got a real work out this summer.  The neighbor graciously allowed us to remove all of his trees too before the fence was installed.  Yeah for us but it sure was a lot more work than we anticipated and we spent every waking moment working on this project for a couple of weeks.

And why, after 10 years, did we decide that now was the right time to put up a fence?  Because we wanted to bring this sweet little guy home.

In the meantime, this cute little guy came up for sale and because this girl is a sucker for a siamese, I just had to have him.  This is how he sleeps even now when he's bigger...notice my laptop on my lap...he sure makes it hard to get anything done but he's such a sweetheart and such a cuddler that I could hardly resist just letting him sleep like that all the time.

While all of this fence preparation was going on, we were told to prepare for a flood.  UGH.  That's about all I have to say about that.  I mean, really, there's so much to do and trying to make sure everything was ready in case we needed to evacuate was not much fun.  We decided to take a drive up to the dam to check it out and to help put Kaylee's mind at ease.

While we were there, the eagles were really active and we watched one grab a fish from the dam but he must not have held onto it for long because we found it just down the road.

As we were checking out the dead fish, two eagles started fighting over the dam too!  That was pretty cool to watch!

And then it was the 4th of July and well, it just happens to be one of my most favorite days of the whole year!  This is the thing I love the most about our town.  We start the day off with an awesome parade that has everything from veterans, clowns, volunteers, firemen, miners, loggers, old cars, pets, horses, bubble blowing cars, boys on stilts, four wheelers, tractors, and this year there was even a dragon!

Oh and did I mention one cute puppy and a traditionally striped husband?

and when the jets fly overhead without warning and you do a backbend in the middle of the sidewalk to try to catch one tiny little picture, you get something like this...

After the parade was over we ambled down to the park after a very nice visit with some friends that stopped by from out of town.  After we'd taken in our fill of local booths and amazing food, we came back home for a nap and to let the girls light some of their fireworks.  *I swear their mother taught them to never point a firework at anyone and to never light more than one at a time!*

But I will admit, it makes the prettiest smoke!

Of course nothing beats catching a parachute!

Except maybe being old enough to supervise your little sister as she lights her fireworks.

Especially when she lights what we nicknamed the "can o' poo"

When the sun starts to go down, we head back down to the park with our blankets to buy kettle corn and watch the firework show.  Oh and we are so excited we scream and scare the bejeezees out of our moms when we finally find our friend we've been looking for all day everywhere and tackle her to the ground in the happiest hug ever!

And then for the rest of July, Kaylee and Izzy spent their days doing things like this which made this mom so happy!  Izzy almost drowned at the lake a few years ago and has been really scared to get her head wet ever since.  So we worked in the bathtub to get her to put her face and then her whole head under the water and then the very next day, this is what she was doing...

Oh yes...flipping and diving and back flipping into the pool!  It was awesome and in between her trips to the ladder, Kaylee was sneaking in some awesome dives and flips of her own!

And all the while, my two kittens were basking in the sunshine happy to be left alone for a few minutes.  LOL!

And then the birthday curse that has been following us this year hit us again on Kaylee's birthday and a storm took out the one and only tree we left standing!  Can you believe that?!

And even worse, it landed on the new fence that had only been standing for 3 weeks!  OUCH!

Luckily, Andy's cousin is a monkey and climbed up to the top of the tree to help us cut the rest of it down.  Notice the chainsaw on a rope being pulled up to him?  Now that's not something you get to see every day!  Nor would I want to.  I was about stressed to the max watching them climb that tree like it was 2 ft tall!

We spent the rest of Kaylee's birthday cleaning up the mess until it was too dark to clean up anymore and then came in to eat the birthday cake she'd made for herself.  In my defense, the power had been out almost all day and we were a bit busy with the tree.  Thankfully, she's a go getter and made one herself.  She even combined two different cake mixes and made her own frosting!  LOL!  All's well that ends well, right?

And then it was birthday gift time and we bought her an ipod touch this year.  Normally this is far beyond our birthday budget but we've had a pretty rough year in our house so we wanted to treat the girls a little for their birthdays.  I think she liked it...

She may have screamed between giggles...

and possibly jumped up and down a little...

She may have tackled her dad in her excitement...

and hugged everyone a lot!

Yes, I think she liked it...maybe.

The next day we finished cleaning up the mess from the tree around 6:30 and it only took 12 truck loads of debris and about 10.5 hours of Andy and I busting our butts!  Boy were we wiped out!  But his family was having a family reunion out at the lake so we showered and headed out to the lake for some much needed water fun!

Kaylee got to go fishing and that made up for having to spend the last two days cleaning up the tree!

And there was a mighty fine sunset that night too!

Speaking of night skies, we did a lot of night swimming this summer and on one particular night, the moon and clouds were playing so nicely together!

We ended our July by taking a quick weekend camping trips with some great friends and while the kids and boys played and fished and floated the river, my friend and I lounged, read some books and had some amazing conversations!  By far one of the most enjoyable weekends this summer.

Kaylee found her muscles...

Andy found a big tree *and I found he needs some new shorts or a belt.  ;)*

The kids did some panning but in the end used the pans for keeping some shiners they caught with their hands.

The boys assured us that the water wasn't too cold, but I think I can see them shivering behind those grins!

I think I'll take my river this way...

Kaylee, on the other hand, prefers her river full of fish!

We did spend most of the weekend in this position...

Unless those pesky children did something like this...

A great weekend was had by all.

You may have noticed that Lexi has been pretty absent from these pictures.  That's because she spent the summer at my sister's house in West Yellowstone taking care of her little cousins (and checking out cowboys at the rodeo.  LOL!).  Boy did I miss her!  She came home a couple of days after our camping trip but just long enough to unpack her suitcase, go to the orthodontist, pack her camp bags and leave again.  So that brings us to the first week in August when we dropped Lexi and Kaylee off for their very first ever camp experience.  It was Lexi's birthday but she decided to wait and celebrate after camp was over.  They went to a camp hosted by Provider Pals and I have to tell you I was more than nervous about leaving them there because let's face it, I'm a very overprotective mother and no matter how tween and teen they are, they're still my babies!  LOL!  But I have to tell you that they had the best experience!  They still haven't stopped talking about it!  That makes this mom so happy!  They were so happy to see these friends from our area already there!

Oh yeah, and the fact that our friend, Allie, brought her light sabre to protect their cabin made me feel better too.  ROFL!  Love this kid!

They made a lot of new friends and reaquainted with some old ones.  Lexi found her long lost twin sister and Kaylee found her new bff.  They also thought this guy looked like Justin Bieber and that probably didn't hurt their camp experience.  LOL!

At the closing ceremony, I got to meet all of their new friends and hear all about camp.  They were absolutely bubbling with excitement!  They were given awards at the end of the night from their counselors and Lexi received the most likely to make you smile award.

Kaylee received the most likely to become a bug-saving contortionist award...

It probably has nothing to do with her ability to do this...

Izzy didn't think that being home alone without any sisters was such a bad thing either.  This was the look I got when I asked her what she thought of being an only child for a week.

She spent her first night out with her dad and the puppy looking at deer and on the way home they stopped by a friends house and she got to check out a mountain lion they had killed that evening.  It had been coming in and eating their livestock and was the second one they'd killed that week.  She was very excited about that but thought that it stunk really bad.

On their way back into town, Wyatt, our puppy, started throwing up and Andy thought maybe he was car sick so we babied him all night and took him to the vet the next morning because he wasn't feeling any better.  The vet gave him an anti-nausea shot and put him on a restricted diet for a few days but he just kept getting even more sick.

Through the week he just kept getting worse and I moved him into the bathtub to make cleaning up a little easier on all of us.  We nursed him and loved him and Izzy even crawled into the tub with him and fell asleep at one point.  She thought he might be too lonely without anyone to cuddle.

In the end, despite our best efforts, he died on Izzy's birthday (the birthday curse continues) and that left all of us feeling more than sad.  As Izzy says, "Me and mom just cried for over 4 hours and just cuddled and cried some more.  We were so sad."  And it's true.  I just unplugged and she and I curled up in my bed and watched some movies and did our best to make each other feel better about it.  Andy was at work and the girls were at camp so we had lots of time to digest it all and to just let the sadness take it's course.  Thankfully, we had to get up and go to the closing ceremony at camp and that helped to make it easier.   However, telling the girls and Andy the next day was just as hard and we all were a little sad again.

The next week, we had dentist appointments and I had a boat load of work to catch up on after taking another weekend off so I buried myself in my computer and the girls got busy packing to go to Grandma's house.  One morning we woke up and there were these magical colorful dots on our living room floor and we couldn't figure out where in the world they were coming from.

Well, it turned out it was the light reflecting from a candle holder.  Apparently, we were never up early enough to see it this summer.  LOL!

And then we were off to my mom's house to help her pack some things up.  We may have been a little distracted by these cute kids and watching my brother ride in the rodeo!  I just wish they'd let the bull riders ride a little earlier because I can never get a good picture of him riding!  I did get a lot of other great rodeo pics that week though!

And nothing makes me tear up at a rodeo like seeing all of those tough cowboys take off their hats when the flag is brought into the arena except maybe when the national anthem is sung.  That can bring me to tears anywhere, anytime!  LOL!

Okay, maybe there's one more thing at a rodeo that can make me tear up...

Since I can't ever get any bull riding pictures, I take a lot of the bronc riders!  The action is almost as good.  ;)

I also managed to get a good shot of a friend of ours calf roping that I really like.

Speaking of calves, one of the best things at the rodeo is the calf chase!  I love watching the kids trying to get the ribbon off the calf's tail.  Izzy was so determined this year and she outran everyone every time but I'll be danged if she could ever get that ribbon!

My sister and I thought Izzy and her cousin, Luke, were holding hands as they crossed the arena...we were oohing and so cuting until we zoomed in and saw that they weren't.  LOL!

But just look at those faces...bring on the competition!

In the end, Luke got the ribbon and when he came back to where we were standing, he says, "Aunt Wendy, I'm gonna take you to lunch tomorrow!"  The winner gets a gift certificate to a local restaurant.  Well, the next day my sister took all of the kids into Yellowstone Park for a hike while mom and I packed so we didn't go to lunch.  That next night at the rodeo he won again and I asked him, "What happened to us going to lunch today?  I thought we had a date."  Without blinking an eye, he put his arm up on the fence and looked at me with the most serious look on his face and said, "Well, you know, sometimes I just get caught up in things.  Like we went for a hike today and that was that."  LOL!  Have I mentioned that I absolutely think that kid hung the moon?!

He was pretty excited to get to take part in the rodeo intermission act that week too!  He got to hide inside a washing machine and the clown and my brother did a little act about trying to fix the washing machine and the clown climbs down into the machine to fix it and after a few minutes, my brother (his traveling companion in the skit) opens it up to check on him and out pops a shrunken version.  This week, that shrunken version got to be my nephew.  He was eating it up!  We weren't hating it either!  ;)

Luke was so excited about working with the clown that when we got home that night and were eating his special order dessert, he says, "Aw, we should have invited Richard Wilson (the clown) for some dessert."  I told you that I loved that kid!

Of course, Makalyn (my niece), had to get in on the action too and she mesmerized Richard Wilson with her great conversation skills.  LOL.

And it's become a tradition over the years that the kids always take a picture with Uncle Mark at the end of the rodeo.  Mark never poses for pictures and I have so many pictures of his hand or the side of his head that I could kick his butt for all the money I wasted on getting film developed!  LOL!  But at the rodeo, he always poses and smiles so this big sister takes advantage whenever she can!

Isn't he such a handsome guy?  He even posed with his new puppy, who has captured all of our hearts and was an awesome puppy therapy after losing Wyatt.

And have I mentioned the sunsets in West?  GORGEOUS!

And after being there for almost 2 weeks, we had to get home so the girls could go to school.  HOORAY!  We stopped to do a little shopping on the way home and I had to laugh a little when all of my girls picked out the same outfit for their first day of school.  Once they saw what they'd done, they quickly determined who would wear which color and made it so that they weren't completely matching!  Not bad for a freshman, 6th grader and 2nd grader, huh?  LOL!

I don't think it hit home for any of us that our hawthorne tree was really gone until we went out to take our traditional first day of school pictures.  We have always taken them in front of the tree and the girls love to compare how much they've grown each year.  This year there was no tree but there was what is left of the trunk so we went with it and it really makes me kind of sad to know that next year that won't even be there.

Lexi started her freshman year this year and that has me both excited and dreading the next 4 years and how quickly they'll go by.  It seems like only yesterday we were taking her Kindergarten pictures.  She is turning into such a beautiful young woman and I'm excited to see where she takes these next years.

Kaylee had some really amazing new shoes picked out to wear but the day before (which was Andy's birthday, coincidentally, and continued the bad news birthdays) we had taken her to the doctor because on our last night in West she had this weird bruise on the side of her foot.  Well it turned out that she has torn the tendon in her foot somehow and now has to wear special inserts in her shoes and has to wear only tennis shoes for a while in hopes that it will heal.  If not, she'll be in a cast and well, some things are just more important than fashion on the first day of school, right?

Can you tell who the diva is in our family?  Well, it's Miss Izzy, of course!

And if you've read this far, wow!  LOL!  I was just going to recap the last week but then thought I'd throw in some other stuff and well, as you can see, a monster was born.  I started this post 7 hours ago.  Granted I took a little time to do some things around the house and build the frames and well, then it was too late to stop and so you got a nice 2 month recap!  I promise I won't have that much to update about ever again!  But like I was saying in the beginning of this post (do you even remember where I started this conversation?), I have been busy this week getting things organized so that my house and my blog and my business runs a smoother course.  I have really been enjoying designing but my life has kind of fallen by the wayside as I've been taking it all in and learning and building my business this past year.  So hopefully, I'll be a better blogger for you too!  I have some fun new things planned for my blog and can't wait to reveal them to you in the coming weeks!  One of those things will be Sunday Slowdowns where I can just blog about my life and my family.  When I first started blogging my mom would say, I always know what you're up to now because I can just read your blog.  Now I feel like I haven't really used my blog for my personal life in forever!  So, in order to remedy that and to keep my mom better informed of what's happening in my life, I will be doing a weekly recap each Sunday.  That should also help me to remember all of the little things (like Luke's lunch date excuse and Izzy's thoughts about Wyatt's death) so that I can be a better journaler in my scrapping.  I'm excited about this and hope that you'll enjoy getting to know me and my family a little better. 

PS.  I just realized upon reading this that I didn't post anything about my other daughter's birthdays.  Sheesh...bad mom!  I'll have to catch up on those birthdays another time.  The other two girls got Kindle Fires for their birthdays and were equally as excited as Kaylee was about her ipod.  LOL!

Have a great day!

The Best Anniversary Present Ever!

February 7th is my and Andy's anniversary.  We have been married for 14 years now.  That's all fine and wonderful but on February 7, 2012, I got the very best anniversary present I could ever get.  Of course, it wasn't from Andy, it was from my sister and her husband.  Her name is Adelynn Grace and I already love her so much it hurts!  I haven't met her yet but my sister did send me this one little photo of her from her hospital bed.  You know I couldn't wait to scrapbook her beautiful little face!  So here she is, my sweetest, newest niece...

Credit:  Color My Life by Pretty In Green available at Ginger Scraps

Isn't she amazing?  I can't wait to go and meet her as soon as possible!  Congratulations Brenda and Zach!  Thanks for the greatest anniversary gift ever.  The only thing better would have been if she were my own!  I guess I'll have to settle for yet another awesome niece to love forever!  ;)

 

Random Thoughts...

1.  One of the best things about being a SAHM/WAHM living in a single bathroom house is that I can take a shower at 10:00 a.m. and stay in there until all of the hot water is gone.

2.  When will someone come up with a great supporting sports bra that doesn't roll up in the back when you put it on?  Seriously, I could almost become a contortionist to put mine on....the wiggling, back bending and holding my mouth just right of it all is about enough to make me throw it in the trash!  It's a good thing there are only 6 weeks of soccer season here!

3.  I have been horribly addicted to nerds lately.  I buy the big movie style boxes of them and I crunch on them all day long. 

4.  I'm reading a book by Caitlyn Moran right now called "How to be a Woman" and at times I literally am laughing out loud because I can't believe how funny she is.  At other times, I'm glad no one can see what I'm reading because she is a very direct writer and holds nothing back about herself.  Interesting reading but definitely R to X rated sometimes.  I'm 80 pages in and am curious to see what the rest of this book holds.

5.  I am so relieved to have already purchased my children's "big" Christmas gifts for this year.  What a relief to know that the big stuff is done and now I can simply enjoy the small things. 

6.  On the Christmas side of things...I drew my dad's name for Christmas this year and while I'm not stressed about the girls' gifts anymore, I'm completely and utterly stressed about his. 

7.  I'm getting my hair cut in 15 minutes and I still haven't decided if I want to keep trying to grow it out or if I want my short hairstyle back.  I took a poll last night at dinner and everyone said keep growing it out but I'm not sure I have the patience.  Maybe one more month of trying.  Maybe.  Oooh, my hair magician just called and she's running 15 minutes behind so I have 15 extra minutes to decide!  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

8.  I was going to write 10 random thoughts but somehow the other 3 have left my head (imagine that!) so with this silly thought, I'm only giving you 8.

Have a great day!

 

Ten Years

Ten years.  It really is still so fresh that it seems like yesterday to me.  Andy came home from working the night shift and woke me up and asked me why I wasn't watching the news.  What?!  He usually came in and went to sleep right away.  I grumbled and went to the living room and turned on the tv.  What was happening?  I sat mesmerized while the newscaster filled me in and then the second plane hit.  I didn't move from the tv for hours.  I recorded 16 hours of news coverage that day and I cried.  I had been in those buildings just 5 years before.  I didn't know anyone there but I mourned and I sat in silent shock.  I held my children on my lap and somehow they knew and they were quiet and just snuggled in for the day.  It rocked my world to put it simply.  I had grown up in this safe world where we, as a nation, were untouchable.  Sure, there was Desert Storm but that was when I was in 8th grade and I had no clue about the rest of the world.  I had grown up in a world where terrorist attacks were on the other side of the world and we were never affected.  As I sat and watched the news that day and as I watch the tribute videos today, my whole body is covered in goosebumps and I cannot stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks.   My two youngest girls sat and watched a few videos this morning and Izzy just kept asking why anyone would do that.  Why would they want to kill so many people they didn't even know?  And honestly, I don't have an answer for her other than making it so simple as referring to bad men doing bad things.  I don't know how to explain it to her but I can see she is trying hard to understand how anyone could intentionally kill anyone else.  Yes, it's been 10 years but I will never ever forget the way I felt that day or how it has affected my life since.  Never.

 

This should come with a warning label!

Today, I stepped into the bathroom unsuspecting of anything.  I reached past the shower curtain and turned on the water so I could take a shower.  All of a sudden, my entire lower half is sprayed with cold water!  That'll shock you!  Apparently whoever was in the shower last left the shower handle in the bottom of the tub and left the shower handle turned on.  Awesome! 

So I pick up the shower handle and put it back in the holder and walk to the back of the tub to get in.  I pull the curtain and step in...right on top of a round conditioner bottle!  Talk about fearing for your life!  I rolled backwards as I grabbed the shower curtain to balance me. 

Do you think I dared even shave my legs?!  I decided that this shower could hold no more mystery and danger so I gave it a whirl.  Guess what happened as I was shaving my first leg.  Oh yeah, someone small flushed the toilet and scalded my backside. 

I think I'm going to sport the look of one leg shaved, one not.  I wasn't taking any more chances today!  ROFL!

Thanks kids!

Holy Crow!

Since I broke Andy's computer screen yesterday, I feel like I should leave my computer home for him while I crop this weekend.  Of course, that totally screws up my plan to digi scrap, organize and knit this weekend.  Now I have to pack actual scrapping stuff and I'm in panic mode since it starts tomorrow morning.  I went to the craft house and started going through stamp sets and I decided to start purging some of them.  I haven't really stamped a whole lot since I stopped being a CTMH consultant and I was surprised at the number of stamps I don't feel like I have to keep anymore.  I went through all of the CTMH sets and I pulled out 207 sets that I'm going to sell.  207!  That's insane!  Now the only question becomes where to sell them.  Should I put them on ebay or should I just sell them here on my blog?  And then there's all the pictures to take...207 of them!

When I start thinking about all of that, I wonder if I'll really want to go through the rest of my supplies.  Maybe I'll do one thing at a time.  Stamps this time and paper another and stickers and rubons and embellishments and chipboard and albums and alterable schtuff and punches and punch holders and idea books and holy crow!  There's a lot to think about and a lot to go through.  But I'm feeling like it's time so maybe next week some time I'll start getting the stamps photographed and ready for sale.  Or, maybe I'll just not pack anything to scrap with and I'll take pictures of stamps this weekend. 

Ugh! 

What to pack?! 

I Get The Award Today

for stupid moves, that is.  I felt like doing some deep cleaning today and decided to scour the floors.  So I moved all of the chairs out of the dining room but when I moved the table, I did the dumbest thing ever.  I didn't check the legs of the table for cords.  There's an outlet on the wall right behind our table and sometimes it has things plugged in and sometimes not.  I didn't even think about it today.  Instead I just grabbed the table and started pulling it towards the living room.  Then, before I could even react, I saw Andy's laptop crashing to the floor.  It landed screen down and when Lexi picked it up, she gave me that look.  You know the look...the one that says, "You are in so much trouble right now."  Yeah, that was the look.  I went and looked and the screen shows up on the right side but the left side looks like someone smeared some bright lights down it.  I am sick to my stomach just thinking about it.  The worst part is that I won't even be home tonight when Andy gets home to explain it to him.  Ugh.  I'm so nervous.  I called the computer shop and they'll replace it for $149.00 which makes me even more sick.  So today, I'm going to continue to scrub the floors and pray for understanding and forgiveness and hope that when I walk through the doors tonight after my class that my husband will have cooled down.  Maybe he'll think about how nice I was about him hitting the deer last week and he'll be nice to me too.  Maybe.  Crossing fingers and toes.

Of course I've set him up with a user acct on my laptop.  His user name is: I'm Sorry and I Love You.  His password is:  I 4give U and I love U.  Too much?  I hope it makes him smile.

What a freakin' day.  The good news is that our newly adopted little fish friend is swimming happily with his new friends, the floors look amazing, and I learned a lesson.  Ugh.

It's Saturday, right?

Aren't Saturdays the day you're supposed to sleep in then laze around the house in your pjs watching Saturday morning cartoons and just relaxing?  Then why in the world was I up so early this morning?  I set the alarm last night before I climbed into bed for an hour past my usual wake up and when it started to beep this morning, I was in the middle of a good dream that I didn't want to end, so I ignored the beeping and tried to sleep.  Soon I was back asleep despite the beeping but the dream was a new one.  The next thing I know, it's 30 minutes later and Andy is shaking me and asking me if I wanted to get up with the alarm.  I was mid-dream again so I simply waved him away and tried to keep dreaming.  But it wasn't long after that when Izzy started to stretch beside me and at that point I knew I was done for.  I laid there with one eye open as I watched her sit up (she was sleeping with her head at the foot of the bed) and look around.  So I lifted up the blankets and she crawled up beside me.  I wrapped my arms around her and asked her if she was ready to get up.  She said she wanted to sleep until it was time to go to the birthday party.  I giggled and said she couldn't sleep that long since it doesn't start until 5:00 pm.  And then she giggled too and I knew the day would wait no longer.  So we climbed out of bed and she and I and Andy went for a walk around the pond and then for a drive along the river. 

When we returned home, the two older girls were still sound asleep and now it's time to wake them up and eat huckleberry pancakes with whip cream and walnuts!  Yum!

I hope you're enjoying your Saturday!