Peace in one's beliefs..

What a beautiful weekend we had. It was very busy, but so full of wonderful things.

My eight year old nephew Orion had his first Communion. It was a wonderful ceremony and it felt so great to see him so proud of his love for his religion and to take the next step into accepting a life of Christ. My brother(his father) just finished Catacism and was baptized into their Catholic Church last month and it was a blessing to see him go from not truly believing in God to giving himself completely to Christ.





There were 21 kids in Orion's class who took their first communion and it was so great to witness. As I have said before, I am still trying to find the religion that I feel most comfortable and believe the most in, so to see the rest of my family find their calling it is such a blessing, but at the same time kind of frustrating, as I have yet to find the beliefs that seem right for me and my family.

On Sunday afternoon my parent's and older nephew Bishop, came to visit us and we went to the state lake here and fished for a while and enjoyed the beautiful weather. While we were there we saw tons of geese with babies and a few pelicans that were nesting. It was so lovely to be out in the sunshine and warmer weather watching all the new things popping up with Spring upon us. I left home without my camera that day and was so upset with myself because I found so many interesting things that I would have loved to photograph. We saw a log sticking out of the water and there were 16 turtles sunning themselves on the log. I had never seen that many turtles in spot before. It was neat. The afternoon ended with a short drive through the country and a peak at the new baby calves we have. We are up to 56 calves now and have another 40 Cows left to calve. It is such a beautiful thing watching those cows take care of their little ones. And they all watch over the other mother's calves as they are resting or eating. It is amazing that animals that have such little intelligence seem to have such good mothering skills.

What a lovely weekend we had. I am trying to get caught up on all the blogs now. Have a great Tuesday!

Angelina Needs Help

Pic from OMG.

I really like Angelina Jolie, but have you seen her lately? She is looking very frail and in need of some nourishment. She is carrying a baby and needs to give that poor little thing some food. Her legs look as though they will break under the weight of her body. I am all for being thin and know there has to be a tremendous amount of pressure put on Celeb's to stay thin, but how thin is too thin???

Horrific Dreams..what causes them?

Image from yahoo photo's.


I have been pondering all day what causes us to have horrific dreams. Dreams that are so vivid and real that when you awaken the images are etched in your mind, as though they were so eerily real.

I had such a dream last night. The kind that makes you wake up sweating and gasping for air and it takes a few moments to get your mind working enough to know that it was just a dream..thank goodness. One that is so horribly bad that you want to forget about it and never think about it again, yet it is all you can think about. It was so terribly bad that I won't even share it, but if something like this should(God forbid) EVER happen. I will not spare any rage on the person who did it.

Why does our mind allow such bad things to come into our dreams and make us endure such pain and agony and then allow us to remember it so vividly? It is a mystery to me. I just hope I NEVER EVER EVER have another dream anything like that one.

Sorry for the ramblings, but it has weighed so heavily on my mind today I just had to share.

Pouty McPouty Pants!

You have to love a boy who is not to proud to pout! Awww.. I am such a bad mom for posting these and calling him McPouty Pants. ha. But isn't he adorable in all his poutiness?

Thankful Thursday!

1. Naps. More so my four year old who STILL naps. It is a nice break for me in the afternoons.

2. Family. I am so thankful that I have family who I can count on.

3. Blogging. It is such a treat to relax and read my friends blogs and to post my foolish ramblings.

4. Cell Phones. I couldn't or I guess I should say, wouldn't want to live without mine.

5. Digital Cameras. I am so attached to mine and LOVE taking pics of my kiddo's. I am so glad to not have to buy film, take it to be developed and wait for my pictures. Then scan them to share with people. Awww..love modern technology.

6. Rain. Without it the earth would be such a dull blah place, without beautiful flowers and green grasses. And the smell of a soft spring rain-shower is just so invigorating.

Another salute to Earth Day

I have finally got on board with the Re-usable shopping bags. I now have four for Target and four for Wal-mart and I am slowly investing in some generic ones that I can use anywhere. It is such a great thing we can do for our Earth. It is unreal that Plastic bags will be here thousands of years from now. They will never disintegrate. Also reusable bags are not dangerous to children like plastic ones can be.

Visit this site for a look at some statistics on plastic bags.

In Honor of Earth Day

We have been waiting and waiting for one of these bad boys to be released..and Finally..they are out in limited numbers. With the height we have in our family and how fast the kids are growing, we are quickly outgrowing the old Mini-van. We have been looking at getting a Suburban or Tahoe extended for a while. But have anxiously been waiting on the Hybrid Tahoe to come out, as we want to save our Earth..and our fuel costs. With gas prices skyrocketing, it is unreal to cost $75.00+ to fill up the Montana. The cost to keep a bigger vehicle gased up would be astronomical. With 22 miles per gallon on a big vehicle, that is unheard of, until now. That is about what we get per gallon in our Minivan. So we wouldn't be losing anymore on the gas prices, and we would be gaining on a vehicle which will hold it's resale value. Anyhow..it will be a while before we will be able to get into one, as there aren't enough to go around for demand right now. So we will save and scrape until one is available for us. And just maybe the price will go down and little bit!

Finally...

Spring is back. It is a beautiful 80 degrees here today and I couldn't be happier. Thank you mother nature for bringing back Spring.


The kids went yesterday with their grandparents to the Shrine Circus. It is a yearly event with them. My father in law is a Shriner and they so enjoy taking the kids to see the circus. This also gives Tom and I the chance to have a date with each other without kids. Heavenly!



Last night we went out to eat and then spent some quality time together.....are you ready....truck shopping! Yes that's right, we went looking at new Pickup trucks. Boy do we live an exciting existence. ha. Since he works ALL the time, it is hard for him to get away and do the things he wants and needs to do, so I let him choose what he wanted to do, hence the pickup shopping. But we were together and a good time was had by all, so I am not complaining.

It was nearly 10:30 when the kids arrived back home, wayyyy past their bedtime. Needless to say, we had some very tired children. They went right to sleep and I prayed they would sleep in this morning, but no dice. Trevor was up bouncing off the walls bright and early, he has a knack for waking EVERYONE in the mornings.;) Kinda like the adage, " If mama ain't Happy then no ones Happy" Trevor's is "If Trev's awake, then EVERYONE is awake!" Gotta love his energy!



Well.. the lawn beckons, so I must go mow. Did I mention I LOVE Spring? ;)

Walgreens photo Sale

Walgreen's is giving 33% off all photo purchases through April 19th. Enter coupon code ACTION at checkout. Nothing like getting good deals on our darling pictures!

Thankful Thursday!

1.Green grass. I am so happy when I look out the window and see the green lush lawn.

2.DVD Player in my van. We have spent a lot of time on the road as of late, it really keeps the kids occupied and keeps the fights to a minimum.

3.Birds Chirping. It is such a lovely sound to hear the birds chirping about again.

4.Tax refunds. With the amount of Dr. bills we have had recently, it is wonderful to have the money to pay them all off.

5.The Military men and women fighting for our freedom. Whether we agree with the war or not, they are risking their lives each and everyday to protect our freedom.

6.Children's Mercy Hospital. The Dr's and nurses are so wonderful there and truly care for their patients.

7.My life. Each and every day that I get on this earth is an incredible blessing and I am thankful for having my life.

Anyone seen Spring?

Image courtesy of Cartoonstock.

I think someone is Kansas has ticked off the keeper of the seasons. It is crazy around here. One day it is 45 degrees and raining and the next it is 70 with winds around 40 miles an hour all day. That would be today actually. We can't have a beautiful day without terrible winds. It is wearing on the nerves.

So for those of you who live in Texas, if you see a bbq cover or a stray sand toy flying by, could you send it back to Kansas? It belongs to us!

April is Autism Awareness Month...

Autism (sometimes called ���classical autism���) is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and unusual, repetitive, or severely limited activities and interests. Other ASDs include Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS). Experts estimate that three to six children out of every 1,000 will have autism. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females.

For more information, or signs of Autism visit the site here.

Trying to catch my breath.....

It has been an extremely busy week around our house. My Monday without the kids was spent at the Dr's office all day. I have had a knot in my lower leg that has been there for a couple of months and it really started bothering me this past week, so I went to the Dr. and found out it was a blood clot. He then sent me to a bigger town about half an hour from here to have a sonogram done on my leg to see if it was a deep vein thrombosis, or if it was in the outer veins. Thank goodness it turned out to be a Superficial vein Thrombosis in the outer veins, which is not nearly as serious or deadly. Although it still doesn't make it hurt any less. I have been trying to keep my leg elevated and keep off of it as much as possible as directed, but it is so very hard when I have three little ones and my husband works all the time. Add to that the numerous appointments the kids have had this week and it has been a doozie.

The knot hasn't gotten any smaller and it still aches all the time. Guess I am going to have to do a return visit in a week if it isn't gone. Talk about a wake up call. I never realized how deadly a blood clot could be until I heard all the horror stories from the Doctor and the sono-technician. Scary stuff.

Isaiah now has his splint off his arm. We took him back to Kansas City on Thursday for his six week follow up, can you believe how fast these six weeks went? His shoulder is healing well and we are gearing up for lots of Occupational and Physical therapy for him. I am so glad that we had this done while he was so young. Kids his age bounce back so very quickly. What a blessing he is.

So that's just a few highlights of what has been going on in our little corner of the world. Seems like there is always something brewing around here. ;) At least the beautiful spring weather has reappeared today. We got into a horrible storm while in KC on Thursday and my poor van got beat up from the hail. It was raining so hard and the wind must have been blowing 60 miles an hour at one time. I didn't think we were going to make it home. Thank goodness it all worked out. But talk about scary. The rest of the 3 hour drive consisted of barely outrunning more storms. It was fun. ha. What an adventure for the books!

Love this..

The very best reason parents are so special . . . is because we are the holders of a priceless gift, a gift we received from countless generations we never knew, a gift that only we now possess and only we can give to our children. That unique gift, of course, is the gift of ourselves. Whatever we can do to give that gift, and to help others receive it, is worth the challenge of all our human endeavor.~Fred Rogers~

I came across this quote and it really hit home with me, this speaks to me in a few ways. The first of which being that it is so very important to teach our children that the best gift they can give someone is the gift of time from ones self. It can make such a difference in someones life and it is so easy to give. It also talks to me because of the line that says, "Whatever we can do to give that gift, and to help others recieve it" this is special to me because without someone giving I would not be a mother and I wouldn't feel the incredible love and gratitude I feel each and every day when I awake and realize that my home is full of beautiful children and I am so very blessed.

We as parents can make such a difference in our children's lives by just making ourselves available to our children. This along with unconditional love is such a gift.

New Addiction

Image from uppercase living idea book.

I was invited to a Uppercase Living party a while back and ever since have been addicted to their products. They are so much fun. They sell vinyl quotes and images for your walls or whatever surface you want to place them on. So cute. To date I have purchased four of them and am in the process of getting some more for my kids rooms. Check out their website and if you get invited to a party go. It's fun.

Thankful Thursday

Things I am thankful for this Thursday in no particular order.

1. Laughter. It is such great medicine.

2. My Dad. My dad just had a surgery on Monday and came home today from the Hospital. I am so thankful that he is doing well and that he is in my life. I am such a daddies girl.

3. Our Freedom. With so much on the news these days about other countries and their trials, I am so very thankful I live in a country where I am free to make my own decisions and walk down my street fairly safely.

4. Faith. Couldn't survive without it.

5. Adoption. Without someone being selfless enough to give me a blessing I would walk through life without my beautiful little kids and wouldn't ever know the blessing of being a mom.

6. Tiburon. Who started this whole Thankful Thursday post and has made me stop and take notice of the beautiful things in my life each week. Thank you Tiburon.

Silly kids and this and that!

Trevor was playing in the dress-up clothes and came walking out of his room in this getup..charming isn't it? The black and purple thing he has on his head is actually a purse and the feathers used to be wrapped around the top of the opening. Oh what fun my little ones are. Note the beautiful black and white bow on the heals and the skeleton hand gloves. This boy can dress..hahahaha.

Just when we were getting used to the new spring weather it had to go and get cold and yucky on us again. I tell ya, this weather pattern we have been having lately is for the birds. I am so ready for some dry heat, and I am not much on the heat, but I will take it at this point. Now mind you in a few months when it is 105 and the humidity is at 90% I will be changing my story..lol. Oh you gotta love Kansas. ;).

Being a stay at home mom of three little ones and having a Farmer for a husband who works 12-16 hours a day, I don't get a lot of time to myself or away from the kids, so when the opportunity presents itself and it works out that I can find a sitter, I jump on it. Tomorrow evening I am going to go to a Scrapbooking party at a friends where we bring all our scrapbooking stuff and work on it uninterrupted by children, for several hours. It will be from 5-11 and she will be cooking us a great meal. I just recently got back into my scrapbooking, so this is going to be so much fun. I can hardly wait. Boy..I live such an exciting life huh? ha.

Awesome Deal

I was at Sam's today and was looking through their marked down section and came upon these outfits. Each one was under $3.50 a SET, with two of them being $2.59 a set. Outstanding deals. Of course there weren't many for the sizes I needed, but lots for all the sizes I didn't need..lol. If you are in your local Sam's Club in the next few days check out their markdowns.