My oldest

Last day of 6th grade for my oldest... She took her camera to school and came home with a full memory card... Here are just a few :-)

We want to know Wednesdays: Musts

I am linking up for the very FIRST time with Shawn, Impulsive Addict, Mama and Janette for this week's We Want To Know Wednesday!! :-)

1} What must you do before you go to bed at night? Before I go to bed every night, I must check my Iphone for any last minute news, weather or emails.. I also have a habit of if I hear my phone go off in the middle of the night and it wakes me up, I must read the email or whatever comes thru.. I don't know why I can't wait until morning but I can't.. It might be an important email at 3am...(its usually a coupon from The Childrens Place or American Eagle) to be honest!

2} What is one thing you must snack on at the theater? I have to have a soda and cookie dough bites.. I like nachos too, but only if my hubby gets them do I have 1 or 5.. ;-)

3} Before going on vacation what must you do? I must charge ALL of my electronics before hitting the road and make sure all clothes are done so I don't come home to mounds of laundry on top of the things I have to wash from vacation!

4} What is one thing you must do every day? Hmmm... that one is hard, my husband would say I have to do some type of facebooking, twittering or blogging but I would say thats not true, I do it every day but its not a MUST.. ;-) A must would be um...brushing my teeth. . ;-)

5} Is there something you do that must be done in a particular order? I am guessing that it would be my bedtime routine again.. I must go to the little girls room, brush teeth, take my hair down (if its up), crawl in bed, fight with my alarm clock to make sure its set ( I am OCD about my alarm) then set my alarm on my iphone and then off with the lights. I like that order.. It makes most sense to me.. My husband says I need 10 minute head start so that we can go to bed together. :-)

5/21/11

Sooo... I have had this topic on my mind to blog or not to blog about for days now.. I don't want to offend anyone and while I think of all the things I have to say, I can't imagine it to be necessarily offensive, I am sure that someone might think otherwise.

I have struggled with this blog and what its content might or might not be. I enjoy blogging and reading others blogs about their thoughts and experiences far too much to "sugarcoat" my writings, so I hope you understand that while this is a "family blog", I will from time to time voice my thoughts on certain subjects.

Ok, now that the *disclaimer* is over. ;-) Whew..

5/21/11. We are all still here. Well everyone I know is anyway, my entire family, my co-workers, all of our friends and even the 350+ peeps I know on facebook still seem to be updating status's even moments ago that makes me pretty sure we are all still here.

Do you know who else is still here? All of the people that said just last week that they would be gone and we would be going with them if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior. We are all still here.

No one was raptured into Heaven on Saturday @ 6pm in any of the different time zones. We are all still here.

I feel sadness for each of the people that invested emotionally and financially into a belief and following that left them brokenhearted and broken financially. I feel for each of these familes that thought they were truly bringing good to people in trying to save them from an impending doom. I believe that most of these people had good intentions and meant not to bring harm to others with thier message but only love and hope to strangers. I pray they do not grow bitter because of the emotional wounds that they must carry. I hope they receive comfort and welcoming from others and they are loved on by people instead of being ridiculed. They each have a story. They are someone's mothers, brothers, daughters, uncles and grandparents. They are real people that were swayed by another person or persons and that is truly sad. We don't put our faith in other people, we put our faith God. I pray that these people can rebuild their lives to the fullest and are truly "loved' on by people close to them.

What does that tell you about the fact that we are all still here. Does it tell you that all of this is made up? No, not at all. Just that no one can predict the day or the hour. Not the year or the minute. Not who is going and who is not and until it happens... We are all still here..

Matthew 24:36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

This is...

how we roll on the weekends.. Acting silly while riding the carousel with our 1 yr old.. :-)

Chaos, cupcakes and clean babes....

SO much has changed since Easter. We had a terrible outbreak of tornadoes on April 27th. I was at work that morning and got off at noon. I ended up staying @ work until almost 1:30 for a break in the storms to make it home. The power was out at home ( my husband was off with 2/3 of the kids at home too) I got home and we had several more rounds of bad weather before we got the all clear about 8pm that night. We already knew from the radio reports that it was going to be awhile before power was restored, so we loaded up and headed to my husbands hometown about 90 minutes away. We got there and ate at a local McDonalds. The TV was on in the dining area and all you could see was devastation across parts of Alabama. We left and went to Wal-Mart, we bought batteries, bread, peanut butter, jelly, (little did I know that jelly had to be refrigerated after opening) chips and snacks for RC. We headed home and about 3 miles before we needed to turn to go to our house, we were re-routed due to flooding on the highway we were traveling on. We went down back roads and ended up in some of the hardest hit areas close to us. There were power lines down all over the roads, dead livestock in the roads and trees down everywhere. It was truly mind blowing. After riding around in the some of the hardest hit area for almost an hour, we finally made it home. The next day, my husband went to work, his business opened up for people to be able to come in and charge their cell phones, buy car chargers etc. I stayed home with the kiddos and tried to find things around the house to do. My hubby's work, sent home items for their employees and their families. They sent batteries, ice, flashlights and more. On day 5, I went back to work, because power in that part of the county had been restored. I walked in the back door of the clinic and broke down. It was hard, I have to admit I was emotional and probably feeling sorry for myself. It's amazing what something like that can do to your psyche. I worked that day and when it was time to go home, my boss and his wife called me to the side and told me they were bringing a generator and an electrician to my house to get us power!!! My boss's wife had made us a home cooked meal and dessert along with a cooler full of ice and drinks to enjoy. I was speechless. All I could do was cry. I know emotional. It was such an unexpected "gift"! I was so happy. We got home and after an hour we had POWER and warm homecooked food. :-) I'm not sure I can ever show how much we appreciated that kind deed. :-)

The trees looked like toothpicks


The pharmacy I used for years
Grocery store I used for years.


On day 6, we got POWER!! Not the generator kind either!! I was so darn excited! I got off work and my husband wanted to go to dinner! What?!?!?!? I wanted to go home and soak up the electricity! I wanted to go turn on light switches and use my microwave and even wash clothes! Yes, I missed my washer and dryer that 6 day stretch!! We went to eat and I came home and washed clothes and just relaxed! The girls were pretty darn happy too!

We were so lucky to have only lost some privacy fence and power during the storms. I rode through some of my old neighborhood and it was so sad. The grocery store and pharmacy I used for years are gone. Many homes and lives lost. It makes you thankful for whatever you have big or small.

On a brighter note, school is coming to a close and its time for end of year parties and programs. My middle child has been in the drama team this year and has been practicing for months for their Spring play "It's a jungle out there"! I was able to go see her first performance on Thursday! I am so proud of her and all of her hard work, learning all of the songs!

Emma discovering the true meaning of Happiness.. "stopping to smell the roses"



I recently tried a recipe from a fellow blogger over @ Randomosity. They are called Cheeseburger cupcakes and they are DELISH! :-) They were a big hit at our house. Check out her blog for great recipes and other RANDOM stuff!!


After icing.. :-)


My little munchkin after a bath and covered in baby oil especially her head. I wish I had known how HARD it was going to be to get the baby oil OUT of her hair after I doused it to get a terrible case of CRADLE CAP under control.... Ugh! Let's just say, she was greasy headed for a few days. :/





During all of the power outage and craziness, My husband and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! I had no idea we would have a "candle-lit" dinner that night. We just enjoyed being together. We were able to celebrate a week later with dinner and walking around at Bridgestreet. We love that place. We had our 1st date there. Its just special to us. I am happy to say that when I married my husband after 2 months of dating,and 2 months after my divorce was final, some people thought I was crazy. (I thought I was a little crazy myself) but I am happy to say we are still absolutely crazy about each other! :-) I can't say enough about him and his wonderful qualities, except the one that he has picked up recently which results in Pringles single cups in my bedroom floor beside the bed after his midnight snacks!



;-) I love you honey!

4/27/11

Just some of the video from the day that changed our community forever made by one of our local tv stations..