Don't put that on the blog! Insanity! BLOOD!

Sitting at the table eating dinner and I look up to see Alissa doing this... looking a bit more serious and focused (I grabbed the camera to document so in this shot it's more posed). Anyhow.. back to the point. What do you think she was doing? That's the million dollar question. This little girl wearing the "I Believe in Magic" shirt, eating a "daddy burrito" and looking out the window. (By the way I told her I was taking a picture to document this momentous occasion and she yelled, "MOM! Don't put that on the blog! hehe). Before I tell you.. here is the guy on the other side of the table -

What he is doing is a bit more obvious. Can you guess? Okay okay.. that's too obvious. Jon is just being a boy.
Today we went to Costco. On a Saturday. I think that has to be the definition of insanity. Apparently half of Salem and all of our neighboring towns are insane. They were all there with us. We went with Grandma Adams and had lunch of Costco pizza and hot dogs - YAY! Then back to her house for some R&R and my new favorite show - "Chopped". Loved the heck out of it. At some point during the show Jonathan was on my lap and I notice his hand is red.. hmm..then one glance at his face and holy cow we had a bloody nose. Cleaned him up and life was good. Alissa was busy decorating a giant box in the living room and turning it into a house.
You want to know what Alissa was doing? I didn't forget.. just got side tracked. Anyone guess by now? I doubt it. You see Alissa was looking out the window like that and... *drum roll* controlling the trees with her fingers. Yep. Making the branched move back and forth just like her finger. Magic. Beautiful. I am glad to have this blog at my fingertips again.. because I never..ever..want to forget moments like these.

And while you have the camera out Mom..take a picture of this!!

Mom! Mom! Over here! Take a picture of this!

<3

Success, waiting games, knocking on wood, community support, and midnight lovin'..

Not much exciting to report.. but I'm afraid if I leave this idle too long I will fall back into old habits and my poor little blog with get neglected again. Since my last entry, I finished editing the wedding photos and delivered them. The family was happy - SUCCESS!

Matt has narrowed down his Harley choice to one or two bikes now it's just the waiting and searching game. .waiting he doesn't like, searching not so bad. The fun part of the process is test riding all these fun bikes. I am so happy that he will be able to ride again.

As for me, I'm on round three of antibiotics as of today - ARGH. Didn't help that I have a cold on top of all this other crud, but I think I'm on the mend. *KNOCK ON WOOD* Ya I know I said that before.

Went to Walmart today with the kidlets to get their "back to school" supplies.. which basically meant looking at a couple different school lists and giggling.. then picking whatever the heck we wanted. There was a lady who asked me if Jon was starting school this year, and when I told her yes and it was home school she was very encouraging. And another lady apparently overheard because she walked by, grabbed my arm, and said "Good for you" with the most kind look. Getting so much support and understanding from the community is really neat. Everyone knows how bad schools are getting. I asked Jonathan while we were out, "So, we gonna pack your lunch for school?" He said, "Yes! On wait no we can make what we want can't we we will be HOME!" hahaha.. I love those moments. We will be home.

And this one is for Alissa so some day she can look back and remember.. how every night her cat Kisses came into the house to sneak under the covers with her. This is not an uncommon sight in the middle of the night here.

Empty cameras, early mornings, and Harley's.

Matt took the kidlets out fishing this Sunday in the Detroit area.. I stayed home to get some R&R. I sent him with the little point and shoot camera to document their adventures for me.. and when he came home I was all excited to upload them. And much to my surprise this is what I saw -

Yep...that was ALL I saw. Two pictures. LOL! Okay.. I should give him a bit of credit, at least he remembered he had a camera. Note Jonathan's outfit.. guess who likes to dress himself? Hehe.. they had a ton of fun and came home with 7 fish. We ate them all.

This week has been pretty laid back. The kidlets have had VBS (Vacation Bible School) from 9-12 every morning. Alissa is NOT happy about that by the way... "But MOOOOOOM I wanna sleep in." Ya, well.. we can do that when school starts. Sleep in?? When school starts?? Oh man life is good.

As for me.. I am on the mend slowly but surely. Been busy editing photos from the wedding and...and...and.. ya not much else. I am looking forward to returning to the land of the living.

Oh! I do have big news before I close. Upon much soul searching and prayer we have decided to start shopping for a motorcycle for Matt. We want to start an Oregon chapter of BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse). And you can't start that without a bike.. Matt will have to suffer through his first Harley..poor guy I know. I am excited to start that journey.. Most of the praying is that we find the right bike that we can afford. If it is meant to be we have faith it will happen.

Until next time..

Jugglers, parades, and infections - OH MY!

On Wednesday I brought the kidlets to the library to see a juggling show. Little did know it would be hil-ar-i-ous. The guy was a crack up and an amazing juggler. The kids loved the show.. and more then once Alissa looked at me and asked what was so funny. I love when they can mix adult humor in that goes way over the kiddos heads.

In other news.. yesterday was Alissa's long awaited parade. As in - she has been planning this for about 6 months. So we dug the o' wagon out of the garage and the kids decorated it. Alissa also insisted that we throw candy.. so Matt went out and bought a bag full for them. We headed out to Bush Park bright and early and met up with Ali and Jon's preschool group. Creative Discovery - Best. School. Ever.

The parade was a success.. both kids had a blast. Mom was stinkin tired. Which brings us to my third topic..

I have been fighting a yucky infection that started with a hair folicle. I am sparing the details here but I will say it is no fun. Trying to entertain the kidlets while feeling like poo is not so great. I took them to the theater to see Rio (awesome movie, too cute) and had them running around in the indoor park on Thursday all in an attempt to entertain with minimal mommy effort... I'm just not up to it yet. Went back to the doc yesterday where they piled on more antibiotic and other things.. Is this just part of getting older? All of a sudden a simple thing that my 20 year old body would laugh at and kick its butt.. but my 30 year old self just rolls over and cries. HAHaha.. Anyhow.. today Papa is coming over to entertain so I can hibernate. And on we march in this parade called life.

I give you: "Blog With Video and Picture"

I give you: "Bear Falling From Tree"

I give you: "Bear Behind Glass"



I give you: "Boy Who Tells Goat Who's Boss"

I give you: "Girl Who Whispers To Goats"

I give you: "Sister Protecting Brother From Sharptooth"

I give you: "Girl With Dino Wing Span"

I give you: "Jerks Walking Into Picture"

I give you: "Picture Without Jerks"

I give you: "Boy Who Conquers Lions"

I give you: "Girl With No Fear"

I give you: "What Happens When Girl Has No Fear"

The end.

Fireworks, shrinky dinks, and fostering fears...Moo.

The 4th of July was nice. The kids went with Grandma and Grandpa to Enchanted Forest for the day. Matt and I watched "The Walking Dead". It was an interesting series because although it was about the zombie apocalypse...it was the first zombie show I have seen where they showed some humanity. Remembering the zombies were people once and sort of gave some of the zombies back story. Different perspective. And if you haven't seen it I am by no means telling you it is all fluff..nononono.. plenty of gore and ick..but there are time outs from that here and there. Ok, off my zombie rant.. after we watched the series the kids arrived home (good timing haha) and we headed over to the other Grandparents house. We were assigned to bring deviled eggs and Asian slaw.. they had spare ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, homemade tater salad, chips, baked beans, cantaloupe, watermelon, etc etc... getting the picture? We could have fed the entire neighborhood. It was great as always. Papa came over to enjoy dinner with us and it was nice to have him there. After dinner we had two separate buckets of fireworks - day time and night time.

Alissa was totally thrilled that this year her daddy deemed her old enough to hold the punk and light some fireworks.

Here she is running for her life after lighting a firework. HAhahaha

 Bethany had a blast as always. We are really blessed to have Beth in our lives.. such a sweet soul.

 Jonathan was happy because he got to hang with his buddy Andrew. Andrew is only a couple weeks older than Jon and lives right next to Grandma Davis. We got home at around 10:30 and everyone was pooped. It was a great 4th!

In other news.. yesterday was our Grand Vines opening for our bovine themed photos. Matt and I got to show up for a little while and say hi but had our foster parenting class so had to leave fairly soon.

My talented mother made these cool shrinky dink name tags. If you have never played with shrinky dinks..do it. And here is Matt with Elvis and Priscilla.. The Little Red House was in a different location.. didn't fit with these two fun loving cows. The Little Red House is actually a very disturbing picture.. to me anyhow. But it made the statement it was meant to make.

I might write about The Little Red House and post it another time..

After the Grand Vines we went to our fostering class #2. At one point during the class Matt looked at me with concern and stated, "Not sure you are cut out for this." And what an accurate statement THAT was. I had an idea this would be hard.. but boy was I underestimating it. I will get through these classes. I have to. I already have learned enough where I feel I will be a better parent.. more able to meet and recognize the needs of my own kids. The part that is killing me is I want so badly to help these poor kids and hearing the things that people..no parents..do to their own kids is making me sick. Like physically ill.. the part that makes it the worse is I feel so powerless. I would in a heartbeat adopt them all.. take them in.. love them. And all they want is their parents love and attention. I better stop here or I could go on and on and on. I am afraid for humanity, lets just leave it there. And am I cut out for this? I am seriously questioning that now. But I will hang in there until the end and see where this takes me.

I think that's it for now.  Oh! I also changed the comments settings so you can leave a comment even if you don't have an account. So if you have something to say, well.. go ahead. Make my day. (Hear the Clint? Ya, I was impressed too)

Until next time...

The joys of inducing vomit 101. Read at your own risk..

"PUKE PORKY PUUUUUUKE!!!" .. ok so maybe that's not what this kid was saying, but it is pretty darn close to what I was saying about an hour ago. So I made it through two babies and seven years of having children without ever needing to induce vomiting. Pretty good track record isn't it? And how you might ask did this track record get broken??? I am pleased to announce it was not my children. Came home from church today and instantly noticed something just wasn't quite right about our Dachshund Pancake.. she was flippin HUGE. As in, bloated.. massive.. what the hay?? I look over and see that her buddy and partner in crime did something I don't believe she has EVER done in her 9 years.. she knocked over the trash can. And lucky me.. we had chicken last night. You see where this is going don't you? There was also an assortment of who-knows-what in that trash can and frankly I had no idea what Pancake did or did not eat. So, trusting my gut I go to my medicine cabinet.. dig WAY in the back.. and found my "POISON EMERGENCY KIT" that I bought when Alissa was born. Ya.. that was 7 years ago. I checked and it says it expired in 2005. Well heck.. 6 years expired.. whats the worse thing? Ipecac doesn't work? It's just the dog lets give it a try. So I go online where it tells me to administer 1 tsp per 10 pounds of body weigh. That means 1 tsp for our little Pancake. So Matt holds her and I use a baby medicine dropper to squirt it down her throat....and then we wait. And wait.. and wait. It appears Ipecac does indeed expire because although she snorted a few times..no vomit. Next I hit up the ol' internet where it tells my to put 1/2 teaspoon salt on the back of her tongue. I went and grabbed the salt, and poured out 1/4 teaspoon. I mean lets get real here that's a LOT of salt! I would puke. So again Matt holds her, I dump the salt on the back of her tongue. And we watch. And wait...and wait...aaaaand.. no vomit. REALLY?! Ok.. time for the big guns. Last option (per my handy resource) is hydrogen peroxide. If this doesn't work we are sunk. So I grab the bottle, measure out the 1 teaspoon instructed.. Matt holds her down.. I squirt it down her throat..aaaaand... INSTANT success!!! VOMIT!!! I do the happy vomit dance (ok not really) while we watch her hark up stupid amounts of bread and..yep..chicken. A whole pile of chicken bones. Now in hind sight that may not have been the best thing having chicken bones come back up as we risked the whole sharp object coming up the esophagus.. but under the circumstances I'm glad we did and all that isn't going to make it's way through her intestines. Did we do the right thing? Jeez I hope so.. Was it a cluster? Yes you bet. But Pancake looks much better, and can now run properly. She was so fat, I kid you not, that she would run and then roll over because her short little legs couldn't hold up her girth.
Moral of the story = Big dogs helping little dogs into trash cans is bad. Syrup of Ipecac does expire. Salt doesn't do squat. And hydrogen peroxide is the most useful substance on the planet. Oh, and chicken bones should go into the trash outside right away. I have learned a lot this afternoon. Thanks Pancake.

Congratulations Alissa!!

Alissa received the following letter today:

She has been absolutely beside herself with excitement. Can't wait to see her up on stage! Am I a wee bit proud? You betcha. Way to go Alissa!

Until next time...

We are goin' to the fair!!!! WOOHOOOOOOO

A post in which I balance precariously on my soap box...

I was just reading a friends posting about her new tattoo and it really got me thinking. I wonder why we are always so worried about what others think about us? How much power do we give the opinion of our peers when it comes to the decisions we make in our own lives? It should be that we make our decisions based on our own values and belief systems and we should be PROUD if these decisions are made for the right reasons. But it's not that simple is it? We are constantly calculating what we do and say for the benefit of how we appear to other people.. instead of just being TRUE to ourselves. On the flip side of that coin, do you often find yourself judging others? What a vicious cycle.
This morning I hung my photographs at Grand Vines downtown. I watched my friends and fellow photographers as they did likewise and was so proud of each and every one of them. They are putting their creations in front of strangers knowing that every person will be judging what they see. Good, bad, or ugly. Those photos now hang there as an open invitation for admiration, critique, or indifference. And all those who put their work on the wall know this. And they did it anyway. I applaud that, especially because I know it is more difficult for some then others.
If only we could hang our decisions, our thoughts, our opinions, our lives..all of that.. if we could hang all of that up for others to see.. with the same acceptance that it will not always be admired.. sometimes critiqued.. mostly go unnoticed. And who really cares? If it is something you feel to be the right thing, hang it up for all to see. Be proud of who you are, what you have done and what you believe in. And allow others that same courtesy. It's the right thing to do.
Oh.. and come to Grand Vines first Wednesday, July 6th some time between 5-8 (shameless plug hahahaha).

Moo.
Ya, until next time..

What the HECK am I thinking?????

I mean really... I must be off my rocker. An idea has been bouncing around in my head for years.. every now and then it whispers to me. Every time it whispers I laugh it off and run for the hills. Not this time. How could I just yesterday give a friend the advice - "if it scares you it NEEDS to be done for this is how we grow"..and then ignore my own words? I am standing at the door of the airplane, altitude has been reached, this is MY time.. solo.. no one strapped to my back to push me out. I have to make this step. Only this step isn't one that will take me down to free fall to the earth, this step will take me back in time. To places I have long tried to forget but that still whisper to me. To my past.
I am going to write a book. Oh my.. just typing those words makes my chest tight with fear. You see, I love books. I treasure books. I idolize those who can write books. I have said countless times that I count NEVER in a million years create such an amazing thing.. as a book. Short stories? Sure. A book? Forget it. So here I go.. I think in reality I have been writing this book in my head for some time. Oh and if you have been a part of my life don't worry. You won't see your name in the story.. or mine for that matter. Will I even try and publish? Not ready to think about that. But there is a story in my head that needs to be written. And God willing it may some day earn the distinct honor of becoming a real honest-to-gosh book.
This really does scare the heck out of me.. so here I go.. I'll try not to pull the cord too early.

Until next time...

I have some writing to do.