My Girl

Grace amazes me everyday with how smart and intuitive she is. It's amazing the little things that she picks up on that you wouldn't think about. She always speaks in complete sentences and understands when you talk to her like an adult and not like a baby. Although, sometimes it's not always a good thing. I was cleaning house all day today and I had just swept and mopped the hardwood floors downstairs and washed the kitchen rug when I walked into the kitchen from my bedroom to find a white powder on the freshly washed rug. Oh boy. Grace had managed to reach the carpet deodorizer that I used on the area rug off the counter and proceeded to pour it onto the rug. I called her in there and got onto her for it telling her that I had just cleaned these floors and she was not supposed to be messing with the cleaners. Uh huh. She gave me a sad look, turned around, and proceeded to say EXACTLY the same thing I had just said to her....to Layla....our dog. Oh Lordy. I laughed. But I walked away from her before I did it.

When I was born I was given this pink teddy bear in the hospital. I have no idea who by! Anyways, I started sleeping with Teddy (that is her creative name) at a very very young age and continued to sleep with her until I was married at the age of 21! Anytime we travelled...she went. I even took her to sleepovers, at least until I was about 19 and then I think I started leaving her at home. She was definitely my "security blanket" and I loved her so. Well, now Grace has developed a love for Teddy as well! I love it. She had been in the mix with the rest of the stuffed animals in Grace's room until a couple of weeks ago when Grace discovered her. I'm pretty sure it was love at first sight. ha! Ahem. So, Grace plays with her quite often now and I just so happened to snap some pictures of her loving on her the other day! So precious!

I guess I've done a few things right in regards to motherhood because my child does know how to put on a diaper. On her baby dolls anyway. She got really quiet one afternoon and I walked into our bedroom to find her caring for her baby doll! Of course the diaper is as big as the doll, but ya know.

I guess she decided the baby was ready for some potty training because the next time I checked on her she had upgraded to a pair of panties! ha! I just giggled and grabbed my camera!


I would also just like to say now that Grace is pretty much potty trained and has been for a couple of months but I hadn't mentioned it because I didn't want to be jinxed! She wears a diaper only at nighttime and wears panties all day long! It happened so quick and the minute we put her in panties it was like she just got it and knew what she was supposed to do. She really didn't have that many accidents either. So...she's a big girl now!!

the good with the bad

What a crazy world this blog world is. I just never realized how negative people can be and so deceiving too. I'm not even going to justify the whole situation with going into a big spill about it, but I will say that I truly appreciate anyone/everyone that reads my blog and I really love having this as an outlet and a way to share the love I have for my life and my family with other people. I also pray for those that are hurting right now and need some shelter and guidance and I hope that they eventually find whatever it is that they are looking for.

doggy baths & trampoline tricks

Last week Gene decided that it was time for Aros (K9) to get a bath! Oh boy. He is not a fan of bathtime...at all! He's got so much hair though and sheds so bad Gene thought the bath would help some with it.

He had to tie the long leash to this tree to tie him up to and while he was bathing him Colt and Grace searched for frogs. They kept finding little bitty ones and Grace just thought that was the neatest thing!

Note the muzzle on his mouth...I told you he doesn't like baths! If he didn't have that thing on the hose would be no more! He actually did really good and stood still the whole time just whimpering. I felt bad for him but he sure smelt better afterwards! I dread having to ride in Gene's patrol car because it smells so bad of dog, but I suppose it's a little hard to avoid when he rides in there 5 days of the week and you can't exactly bathe him everday!

Oh so much better! Once he was off the leash he took off shaking out through the yard and playing with Layla.

Once Aros was back up it was Layla's turn. She looks so small after seeing Aros there! She didn't have to have the muzzle and she did really well too by just standing still the whole time.

She's such a good dog, but she stays outside when nobody is home and during warm weather she'd rather be outside than in. The bad part is that when she gets hot she runs to the pond next door and takes a little dip. Yuck! She always comes home so nasty after doing that then chasing squirrels all over the place! She was much better after her bath too!

Ok, switching gears to a little trampoline time! Grace absolutely LOVES to jump on the trampoline and would stay out there all day long if we would let her. Especially now that we have an outdoor stereo system and can listen to music she really loves it!

She now has a new "trick!" It basically consists of her landing on her bottom with her feet in front of her...as illustrated in the above picture!

A definite good thing about her jumping so much is that it wears her plum out so she usually goes to bed early!! However, last night was not so great. She was still up when I got home from work, which never happens because she is usually in bed by 9 but last night she was. She did NOT want to go to sleep. I took her back upstairs to bed after I changed and got ready for bed and was up there for an hour waiting for her to go to sleep. Finally she gave it up and I went to bed a little after midnight, only to be woken up a litte after 3 to Grace yelling for me. Fabulous. I went up there and sat rocking her for a few minutes then tucked her back in and she was back out within about 5 minutes. Whew. I went back to bed....and woke up again at 6:15 to her yelling for me again! Gene was already up getting ready for work though so he went and got her and put her in bed with me and she was back asleep by the time he left for work. We didn't wake up that time till 9:15. Thank goodness! I'm still a wee bit tired though just because my sleep was all broken. I don't know what the deal was, but hopefully tonight is better! It's my Wednesday at work and the boys will be home tonight from their mom's, where they've been since last Wednesday!! Yay! Of course then they leave on Thursday to go on vacation with my in-laws and will be gone for 2 stinking weeks. I don't know what I'm gonna do without them. I'm already ready for them to be back home!!

Float Trip

Yesterday was our "B" shift float trip down the Illinois River and we had a blast!!! We all met at Harber High at 8 yesterday morning, but didn't actually get on the road until 8:45. After getting lost and making a wrong turn we finally made it to the campsite around 10:15! After then waiting for about 25-30 minutes for them to get our rafts ready we finally made it into the river. Crystal, Allie, Hank, and myself all rode in a raft together and there were 12 other guys that divided up into 3 other rafts. We were the first ones in, but it took us a bit to get a rhythm worked out with the paddles and actually float in a semi-straight line! We finally got though...about the time the others caught up to us and started splashing us so bad we couldn't paddle because we were laughing so hard! It was pretty much like that the first half. The guys were pretty much ruthless to each other and kept knocking everyone off. Then, of course, the girls couldn't stay dry. No way. We were thrown in so many times it's not even funny!!

We stopped for lunch around 1 and they had brought hot dogs and chips so the men gathered some wood and they built a fire. Lunch was yummy and after we had all been dunked a sufficient amount of times we loaded back up and set off. We floated for a while and then ended up tying all of the rafts together and just lazily floated the last half of the trip. Some of the guys spent more time floating on their life vests instead of actually in the rafts!

Sadly enough, this is the only picture I have of the whole day! I was not even about to take my camera out in the water even though several different ones had dry bags. I wasn't taking a chance! Hank was brave and took his and we took quite a few pictures so I'll have to get them from him sometime! The whole thing is 12 miles long, but we tuckered out and headed back at the half way point. We started a little after 11 and stopped at about 5:45 and we only went 6 miles! It was a lot of fun though and I'm hoping that Gene and I can take the boys sometime this summer. We own a canoe so we may just float out here by the lake some!!

I've got some more pictures to share from this week, but right now I'm going to finish cleaning up the kitchen from our yummy steak dinner!!! Hope everyone had a good week!

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

Colt and Grace were home by themselves last night and they played outside alot and Colt took these absolutely precious pictures.

Two of my little love bugs! I just love them to pieces and it makes my heart melt to see Colt loving his sister like he does!

just a tuesday post

I don't really have anything brilliant to blog about so I'll just share a few pictures with you! This week at work has actually gone pretty fast considering I was off for 9 whole days and really did not want to go back! I only have 2 more days this week and then Thursday I'm going on a float trip on the Illinois River with Crystal, Stacy, and all the patrol officers that work B shift with me! All of us dispatchers could go too but me, Crystal, and Stacy were the only ones that ended up really wanting to go. The officers are having a shift change on Sunday so this is just a way for us all to hang out before some of them have to change shifts. We're supposed to leave by 8:30 Thursday morning and just float and relax all day long! We have one female officer on our shift, Allie, that we're good friends with and we're all using rafts instead of canoes and they fit 4 people so all of us girls are sticking together!! I'm really afraid we'll be picked on the whole time though! It'll be a nice change of pace anyways! And actually tomorrow we're having a food day at work and those are my absolute FAVORITE days to go to work!! Haha! I'm making a 7 layer dip and probably brownies and I can't wait to eat all the yummy food.

Ok, on to the more important stuff....like my kiddos! Here's my little artist coloring her Mama a picture! This was before I got her bangs cut so she wanted them pulled back out of her face and Gene fixed her little headband for her!

Corey got his braces taken off last Friday and he was very very excited about it! We made shish kabobs for dinner that night so Gene and the boys were putting them together. They didn't turn out quite like we wanted them to but they were still pretty good. If you have some suggestions I'm all ears!!

Grace is giving her Daddy either eskimo or butterfly kisses! Every night that I'm home and put her to bed she always has to give him a regular kiss, butterfly kisses, and eskimo kisses and then after I read her a bedtime story and turn her light off she has to give me all 3 also before she goes to sleep! It's precious and I so cherish those sweet moments with my baby because I know she won't always want to!

Say "CHEESE!!" Corey and Grace played outside Saturday morning quite a bit while I was doing stuff inside and he loves taking the camera out and taking pictures of her and of random things and this one was one he took! Isn't she so darn cute?

Have I mentioned that I love my husband and that he's amazing?! Well, he is. Just so you know. First of all, he built our whole house pretty much by himself and he built this corner entertainment center out of oak and behind the doors is our satellite, dvd player, stereo, and used to be all of our dvds squeezed in there. I had been telling him that I wanted him to build us a dvd rack because 1) we don't really have a good place for a big enough one on the floor anywhere and 2) I hadn't found one I liked. So, on Sunday afternoon he and Colt went to Lowe's, bought some oak, and came home and built this!!!! Oh I was so excited...and proud! It looks good and is out of the way, plus it's high enough up that Grace can't reach them! He's debating about whether or not to make doors to put on it. We'll see.....

Gene just got back from picking Colt up from school and he is now officially done with his sophomore year!! Corey has to stay the whole day but at 3:20 he will be done with his 8th grade year. It's so crazy to believe that Colt only has 2 more years of high school. I'm very proud of him because he's become very much more aware of his grades and realizing that they are now counting towards graduation and also for college and Thursday night I quizzed him for almost 3 hours for his Civics test. We have already ordered his class ring and before we know it we'll be ordering his cap and gown. I don't even want to think about it. :( When Gene and I first got together he was 12 and now he'll be 16 this year. It goes way too fast. Corey stands almost a whole foot taller than me and I can't believe that he'll be in high school next year. Next thing I know Grace will be starting kindergarten, and that is most definitely something I'm not ready for. I've been praying that God provides a way for me to go back to school and get my degree in education so that I can start teaching by, if not right after, Grace starts school. I've already got several credits, I just need to finish. So, if you think about it, say a little prayer for us!!

I think that's about it for now. I need to work on some laundry and spend some time with my cute dimple-cheeked husband, musically inclined son, and blonde headed toddling daughter before I have to go to work!

A Special Birthday!

This post is actually a day late, but I never had the opportunity yesterday to get on! Yesterday, May 31st was my Granny's birthday and I wanted to wish her a very special birthday!!!

I have the best Granny in the whole world and I'm so glad that she lives close enough that we are able to see her all the time! This picture of her, Grace, and Mom was taken on our girls' trip to Branson last summer with Aunt Cathy and Megan.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Grace and Granny! It's just too precious!

She might be a little proud of her great granddaughter!! And Grace sure loves her Granny!

Another one of my favorites because it's very rare that Grace sits still long enough to cuddle like this!

Aunt Cathy, Granny, and me in Branson.

I love this one too of her and my cousin, Hillary at her wedding! She just looks so pretty!

I hope you had a wonderful wonderful birthday Granny and I love you very much!!!!