Playtime

These are the cutest pics I wanted to share with you. Ashley loves sitting on daddy's lap while he plays guitar and then Ashley with her brothers helmet and sword. So cute. Also one of her playing with a new toy she got for Christmas. :D

Christmas Day

We had our very first real Christmas morning at home where the kids

looked forward to waking up to a surprise in the morning. It was pretty awesome. They didn't even wake up till 8am! LOL. The picture you see of my feet on top of a box, is of Charles putting together the truck for them at 3am Christmas morning. It took us several hours. I'm showing you my view of sipping hot cocoa watching him do all the work. LOL! My sis, Jodee, sent some gifts down from South Africa and the kids loved that. Like the fridge magnets where you can dress the girl in different outfits on the fridge. That is really neat and

cute. Thanks Jodee! I also found out I finally get to be an aunt on my husband's side! I'm can't wait to hold the little one. I absolutely love all my niece and nephews and love being an auntie. :D I hope you had a great CHRISTmas! We got to celebrate Christmas Eve in God's house the night before. A great way to bring in Christmas.

Extreme MEAN Parenting

I was at an appointment today and as I was sitting in the waiting area, I unfortunately got to observe a grandma with her grandchild. This grandma was probably around 45-50 and had her grandson sitting with her while mom was taking care of something. I saw her son reach over to push my daughter's play stroller. He was probably 2 years old. The grandma snatched him up, spanked him, and started calling him a "faggot". All for pushing a stroller. Then he started to cry and she kept calling him a sissy over and over. Then she said she was going to tell daddy what a sissy and faggot he was. Good grief! She just kept yelling, "shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. No one said anything. I think we were all just shocked and staring. I hope his mommy isn't like that with him. I really felt for the little boy.

Christmas Season

For Christmas my hubby got me a long awaited laptop. Since Ivy destroyed my laptop, have greatly missed it. However, I still do not want internet at home and I wait to go on the internet till I am somewhere where they have Wifi. I’d rather just keep it that way. That way I’m not tempted to write constantly because that is what I love to do. :D So I write stuff during the week on my laptop and then transfer it later with the pictures onto my blog when I can use Wifi. Works for me! So much is going on. Such a beautiful and wonderful season. I also just celebrated our 10 anniversary. We love how our anniversary is in December because it’s such a romantic season. I love how much more joyful people are in this season. I know there are the grouch’s out there but sometimes even the grouches lighten up! LOL. That’s the magic of Christmas.

Friend's Bday Party

Yesterday was Ivy’s best friend’s birthday so we headed to McDonald’s and had yummy cake and gave her the cutest little present. I loved collecting Cabbage Patches growing up. In fact, Charles’ mom passed down his to our kids from when Charles was little. J Let me say, those are durable dolls. LOL. Charles tells me stories of what he used to do to his little sister’s dolls. Thankfully my kids take really good care of their toys. I’m serious! They get really upset if something happens to them or if they accidentally break. They have toys that are several years old because they take such good care of them. That’s totally awesome. One time we had a huge collection of GI Joes till a boy came over and tore all the arms and legs off. We had about 30 of the little guys destroyed. Now they don’t make those anymore so I’m bummed we can’t buy them.

Quit Acting Like a Chicken!

Seriously. Well, just being punny. Almost every time I go to my garden, I found now about 6 chickens in it, eating the leaves off my vegetables. There is a gate in between the chicken pen and my garden. So, if I don’t feed them fast enough each day, they just fly over and help themselves to the garden. So, I said, “that’s it” and I went into the house to grab my scissors. Now catching chickens is another thing. They freak out and run. So I have to be slow and sneaky. I had 10 chickens to catch so I could cut their wings. I only cut one side, their flight feathers, so if they try to fly, they’ll go off balance. If I cut both sides, they could just flap their wings harder and sometimes still make it over the fence. So after I cut one side on a chicken, I would gently throw it out in front of me to see how it flew. Yup, they can’t fly. I have really enjoyed raising up chickens and I am thinking about making money from it. I have sold a few to friends. None of mine are mixed either. So, finally I found something that I really enjoy doing make some money from it.

Our Christmas Photo

To my blogging buddies.... I hope you have a Merry CHRISTmas!!!

Ivy Girl

Ivy grows fast! Wow! She is 3 1/2 now. My boys have been loving their new school and I have been really impressed. When Ivy turns five I think I'll start taking turns homeschooling the kids. Especially since I will want another child someday. Hopefully not for another year but I'll welcome any little ones God blesses me with. :) They are all so much fun and make life so much more adventurous. :D

Having Fun in Garden

Wow! My garden is doing well. I'm definitely going to expand it. It's way too small. The tomatoes are way overtaking everything. I use miracle grow on it every few days and I have like 20 tomatoes growing on it. My corn is doing well. Some stuff you can't see yet because I just planted. So I think I'm eventually going to take all that out and take another part of the yard and make a much larger space for a garden. You see my new duck? That's Daffy? The yellow one (turning white). :D Hee hee. Okay, so this week we've been doing a study that we'll get paid for. All we are doing is testing vapor rub for a week and we get almost $700. Awesome huh? Especially before Christmas. :)

Sweet Holy-days!

It has been such a neat month, a closeness together. Since ridding of the extras in our life. My days feel longer, more sweet things, things that matters most, cared for. :) I spend more time with my kids, in my garden, or being more involved in other things. It's been pretty cool. My hubby and I have never spent more time together. Now we really have no excuse to say we don't have enough time to read our bible and pray! LOL. I've been able to read more which has been great. I know I talk about this a lot, but it's meant so much to me that I don't know if I even want my internet back at home. I will be getting my laptop fixed so that when I take the kids to McDonald's once a week, I can hook up to their Wi-fi for an hour while watching them play. :) I just don't want it at home. I'm an information lover. I love to look up everything that I am wondering about. So, if I'm in my garden and I want to learn about something, I head for my computer. Or if I'm with my hens and I need to learn to clip their wings, I go straight for the computer. Or I'm cooking and I decide I'd like to try something new, I go straight for the computer. Argh! I love to learn about things all the time. However, it can get excessive. I'm sure lots of people aren't like that.... but I am. So, I decided to play it old fashion and stop being hooked up to everything. I haven't had a TV for years so that's not an issue. If I did, I'd want to watch information shows! Ha ha! (Like about the Duggar Family, John and Kate Plus 8, Baby Story, Trading Spaces, What not to wear, etc. Basically TLC.) Those shows are all ways of learning about things. So, it's good I don't have a TV at home! At first it was hard because I kept wanting to go look something up on the computer and I'd head for it. Now I just keep a list in my mind and the next time I go to the library, I remember to look it up. :D I hope all my blogging friends are doing awesome and I'm going to sit and look you guys all up soon. I miss you guys too! Merry CHRISTmas!

Library Haven

Getting rid of my internet has been wonderful. I love it! Let me count the ways:

-My house stays clean! (Huuuuge bonus right there)
-I get to visit the library once a week to use their computer. (Plus check out a good book)
-Did I mention that my library has a cafe where I can sip coffee and be on their computer?
-My husband and I play boardgames together now.
-I don't have to reply to emails everyday.
-I tend to look forward to phone calls now when before I felt "chased down".
-I look forward to being more involved in ministry now.
-I can read my bible and pray in the morning rather than feel that pull to check my email first.
-There is no "dangers" that my family could fall into while being on the internet. It's scary what my boys stumbled upon by accident one day while I was right there. By the time I could shut it off, it was too late, their little minds had been violated.

I could go on and on! I don't think I'm going back. "Killing my internet" has been the coolest decision we have made in quite some time.

I'm sitting at the library in their awesome Cafe using the free computer while sipping my morning coffee. My kids love it here because they have kid computers downstairs where they are monitored carefully and I can hang out close by in the toddler play area. My girls can play with toys while my husband checks out books. It's just a great place. :D

"Christmas"!

That's what Ivy said as soon as she saw the first Christmas lights go up. "Christmas"! We will definitely have a smaller Christmas this year but I am so incredibly grateful that we have each other and most importantly our hearts are right with God. Material things are not what matters most, but our Lord Jesus and each other. This year, I really feel the importance of putting souls first. Not "buying, buying, buying". I feel like I am waking up out of a deep slumber. Thinking only of myself and what I can buy next. I pray that my little ones can understand the importance of the real meaning of Christmas and what critical times we are in. There are "hallowed walls" being built made up of false promises, but Christians know better than to be seduced. Hopefully. I think slowly people are waking up to what really counts. Our hearts before God, and family. Careers, money, cars, fame, material things, they all are temporary and it is like feeling a bag with holes in it. It doesn't all really matter. When my kids shout "Christmas", I hope they know it's more than being about "Santa" and "toys". :D

My Internet

You know, I decided to shut off our internet since it seems to be on a lot. So, it has actually been very fun! My hubby and I play board games almost every night, if we are not at church or visiting friends. Yesterday we hung up Christmas lights, put up the tree and decorated the house. It's been great! So any blogging I do or emailing is done at the library. :D Since I love the library, it works out great. We don't have a TV either so we don't waste time on that. I love all the time we having together as a family. And...oh goodness! My house is always clean now! Ha ha! I will share some pictures soon of our fun decorating stuff.

Roomba Driver

Roomba Driver @ Yahoo! Video

How Obama Got Elected... Interviews With Obama Voters

This makes Democrats look really, really, really bad. Whether they admit it or not, they watch too much TV. It's crazy how they bought into all the stuff about Palin but knew nothing about their own candidate. Crazy, crazy.

Changing Schools...Again.

(I like this back shot of Ashley. It just reminds me how little she is.)

You know, there is this academically great schools that I drive my kids to everyday. The teachers are so awesome, as I said, academics are awesome. But... the kids there have a lot of behavior issues. During the time that I homeschooled my kids, my boys were doing chores, helping me cook, didn't have other negative behaviors influencing them. They really made a big turn around. Since I enrolled them back in the school, they went completely backward again. It wasn't right away, just slowly as the months went on. There is excessive bullying on the playground and my boys are getting punched almost daily. Enrolling my kid in another school around me has almost been impossible. I live in an area where the schools are mostly Hispanic. The teachers are really behind just trying to teach the kids the English language. I went looking in my area and happened to find 2 charter schools. I found a small one that's only been opened 1 year. It's brand new. It's small so there is no playground, but it is culturally diverse which is what I like. The other school I found was big and gorgeous. It looked immacullant and I had high reviews from one person. However, when I looked them up on www.greatschools.net, there were so many negative reviews that I had to give that one up. A big complaint was that there is a high turnover rate with the teachers and staff. That is a bad sign. Sigh. So this one school I'm considering is my last option and I'm gonna go look at it today. If it doesn't work out, I will be pulling my boys and homeschooling them again. I really do believe outrageous, bullying, and rebellious behavior that is not dealt with in a classroom or playground only rubs off on other kids. I DON'T like Chaz getting punched everyday and on the bus. I don't like how BADLY their behavior has turned since they attended the school. So something has to be done. I need my boys back. For the sake of me, and for the sake of their little souls. They are in a very moldable stage right now. I'm not gonna wait till their teens to start figuring it out.

Spirit of Antichrist

My dad went into Walgreens yesterday and saw a lady who was crying that was working there. In order to in some way comfort her he asked her if she was okay. He then shared the love of Christ with her. Just told her that Jesus loves her. The next day he had to visit Walgreens again, and happened to run into the same lady. He saw that she was smiling and happy again and talked to her a little as he checked out. He again told her that Jesus loved her and he walked out of the store. Away from the store and about to get in his car, he heard a lady calling after him. She was the manager. She said, "Sir, you are no longer welcome in this store for harassment". My dad said, "for telling her that Jesus loved her?" Angry and without answering she walked back into the store.

Is this what America is coming to? Doesn't it strike you odd that this country was founded upon Christian principles yet you cannot tell someone that Jesus loves them in a public setting? Doesn't it seem odd that you would not get kicked out of a store for dirty language or even from words of hatred spewed at someone? What is so great about America is that we have the freedom to not only express what religion we cherish, but also share it through our rights of Freedom of Speech. That's part of what makes America so beautiful. This is the spirit of the Antichrist. No joke. People who don't think times are changing either have their heads stuck in a TV or are so blinded by Obama's white tooth smile that they don't know up from down spiritually speaking. All they know is America is gonna "change". For the better? That's not what the bible says. We are truly in the last days.

Bows and More Bows!

So detail. I just finished a study group that we were doing for 3 weeks. I would go every Thursday and stay all day for 14 1/2 hours. Torture. That's when my new friend Cynthia and Amie saved the day. They brought their crafts. I have to admit. I've never been crafty. Only in the bad sort of way. Before I became a Christian. Ha ha. While Cynthia did her own crafts, Amie showed me how to make bows. I did a few at home after I went to the Ribbons and Lace shop. I was bummed that I didn't get a chance to visit the store again before going in to my last day of the study. 14 hours? Oh man. I had nothing to do. Once again, Amie saved the day. She brought in her box of ribbons and let me get to work. By the time I was finished, and several hours had passed, I had made quite a few bows. I have a total of

29 bows. I always make them in doubles so Ivy can have pig tails as an option. To top it off, I got the idea from another store to make the headbands for Ashley but leave out the bow. I just wrap a little bit of ribbon around the center and use it to stick one of Ivy's bows into. So they are all interchangeable. So I made a black, white, and pink one. So instead of making 20 headbands for Ashley, I just have 3 base colors. Then I click Ivy's bows on them according to what Ashley is wearing. Such a sweet, sweet idea! So the headbands you see in the picture of of Ivy's bows on them. Then I changed it out and put other bows on them. :D

14 Hours In The Pit

That's my version of my research study I am involved in right now. It's testing a vitamin pill. It's kind of heavy duty for how much we have to put into it. It runs for 3 weeks. I go every Thursday and stay all day for 14 1/2 hours. They basically observe us that day. We take a vitamin pill in the morning. Then I go back once in the morning on Friday and once at night. Repeat next week. So, I've done two weeks worth now and next week I'll be done. Then I get my $900. Yup. $900! Very helpful. I'm in a crowd of VERY diverse people. So lesson 1 was learned today. Don't talk politics. Someone brought it up. They found out I voted McCain and, I'm telling you, it got very heated in there. Most instantly became angry and freaked out seriously bad. It got crazy. I tried to calm them down. (I notice that party tends to be like that at protests and stuff. You ever notice that? The Republicans are politely protesting while the Democrats are screaming, fighting, and getting arrested? Interesting). So, in order to calm the room down, I said, "You know, whether we voted Republican or Democrat, we only know what we've been told about them. We don't know them personally, we haven't sat down and had coffee with them. We hear what media wants us to hear". It didn't help. They believed they knew everything there is ever to know about Obama AND McCain. It was pretty funny. So, thankfully they called us all to breakfast and it broke up the discussion before I got shot! Ha ha. So, my new found friends and I all spent time in a separate room away from the group just to get away but also to have something to do. So my friend was showing me how she makes bows for her daughter. So I made a cute headband for Ashley. We all arrive at 6am and leave a little past 8pm so we have a very, very, very, very, very looooooong day. There is really nothing else to do beside watch movies, read a book, or talk. So here is some pics on some projects us girls were doing. My friend made the cute bows and I made the baby headband. I'm gonna totally go out and buy the ribbon to make the bows for hair. So cute. :)

Fun At Home

I hope these baby chicks I'm raising up for a friend will love their kids! I mean, they have to!

Look at what they go through every day. Riding in a wheelbarrow. Sitting in her kitchen in the playhouse. Being pushed around in the stroller. So, she chicks should be set. I wanted to show you my fountain. I always love looking at it and seeing the little girl bend over to catch the water. So, so, so relaxing. The pic of the side yard with my garden is my favorite I go to several times a day. Do you like my nice weeds right in the center? Aren't they pretty?? Ha ha.. I'm gonna work on that today. They are not in my garden though. They is a gate separating the chickens because otherwise they would dig holes in the garden. Speaking of digging. In the cute pics of Ivy and Ashley, you can see shredded stuff everyone from my dog shredding up her bed like crazy. It's a really nice bed so come winter, if she keeps at it, she'll have no nice warm bed. Ivy is sharing her lollipop with Ashley in these pictures. Do you know why my kids always strip down to their underwear? Because we have so much dirt outside they get really filthy fast. So they figure it's just easier. LOL. As soon as we walked in the door when we arrive home, BAM, they all strip. If I don't want them to, I have to say it right when I get home in case we are going somewhere else. Sheesh!

BTW I'm Voting For Mccain / Palin

Halloween Fun!

Halloween was our usual tradition of taking our kids to Grandma and Granddads house for trick or treating in there area. It's a nice time for the kids to be with them and also a great area for going on such a mission. Getting candy. haha. I don't have the actual pictures of Halloween day because I did not have my camera with me that night. Chaz and Ryan were SWAT, Kyle a firefighter, Ivy a fairy princess, and Ashley a bunny. It was so cute. After that they headed to a party in the church annex for kids where they play lots of games and win prizes. It's always crazy, yet fun, and of course they brought home more Goldfish they won. (They are gonna end up in my friends fish tank since mine never leave past 3 days). In these pics, the kids were having fun all exchanges costumes so the girls look so cute in them.

Visit From Grandma & Granddad

This time when my hubby's parents came over, they brought extra Wii stuff so the kids and them could all play together. Charles and Martin had a good time playing and you can see the kids in the background of the picture watching. They played Mario Kart along with them. If you look closely in the picture of Ryan holding Ashley on the bike, there are baby chicks in the basket of the bike. They like to ride them around the house. Ha ha! Maureen visited with me while the guys hung out in our game room.

My Mom's Birthday

Sunday was my mom's birthday so I threw her a small party. We had lots of fun! I fried up some hamburgers and we had some friends over with their kids. Her kids absolutely loved holding the baby chicks and they played with them most the time. I had to keep counting them to make sure none was missing. The other day we had a missing chicken and we had to do a rescue mission to find him. LOL. We looked everywhere. Finally I lifted up a toy in the playroom and there it was hiding. Was sooo cute! We have 10 little chicks and one duck so I have to keep track since the kids play with them so much. Ha ha! The picture of Chaz shows him holding a baby chicken. Oh, meant to say that when it came time for my mom to blow out candles, I didn't know that I had gotten the relighting "magic" candles. It kept relighting. We were all laughing. We had 10 kids here so we gave each one a chance to blow them out and then we cheered for them. Then it would relight for the next kid. So funny!