We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!

I love our basement!!

2010-12-26T18:16:00.001-08:00

We finally have our basement finished to how I like it, for Christmas the kids got a computer and a game table so I had to rearrange a little but LOVE it. This corner is the board game/computer/game table section.

This is our couch/wii section of the basement.

This is our main computer and my craft table(little but perfect.)

Of course Lucie has a "baby" corner of the basement!

For my Lucie!

2010-12-26T18:10:00.001-08:00

I was at a rummage sale this summer when I came across an adorable little dollhouse that just needed love. I so wanted to give it to Lucie for Christmas and repaint it. I think I spent a good five hours painting it. I painted the outside purple because she is 100% girl. I used the leftover paint from painting the house so her dollhouse is a little like our house. I painted the main bedroom the same color of hers-green and pink, the kitchen yellow, etc. I am so happy so totally loves the dollhouse!

Homemade because I Love You!

2010-12-26T17:59:00.000-08:00

I decided that for Josh for Christmas I would fix something he LOVED! About 13 years ago when he was on his mission his mom made him a quilt and sent it to him. He loved it so much that he tore a huge hole in the back and of course kept using it and continued to rip the back. It was fragile so we didn't wash it and it was just put on the shelf for the last five plus years. I secretly took it out of Grants room(he knew it was in the closet so I had to do it a little at a time and put it back just right so that if the closet was opened he wouldn't notice anything new about it.) I tore and cut the back off, cut all the yarn ties, put a new back on it and retied new yarn ties, I think it turned out nice and I wasn't quite sure if it was worth all the time I put into it, but just seeing how much he LOVES it-it was no waste of time, he will just lay in bed and hold it to his face, smell it(of course it has been washed) and smile.

CHRISTMAS!!

2010-12-26T17:24:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas-I love the feel and the smells, the homemade gifts and the overall spirit and excitement in the air. Everything about it I LOVE!!

Two weeks before Christmas we made sugar cookies-which I only make because of the experience they are probably my LEAST favorite cookie-but the kids love it.

One of my family traditions is to have the "Brownies" came Christmas eve and leave pj's and we added a Christ gift to that tradition!

Christmas morning Grant woke up at 4:30(which isn't horrible since he usually wakes up at 5:15) he wanted so bad to wake up Lucie but we wouldn't let him, she woke up around 6:30. I don't have many pictures because we video taped everything but in the picture of them waiting on the bed if you look at Murphy-he totally doesn't want to open his eyes! The only pictures I really took were when they were opening the water park tickets and the "wii" game pack from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

My mom, dad, Grandpa and sister Alana came over in the morning for breakfast and so my parents could give the kids their big present from them and the one picture I took is priceless of my dad and Grant playing- I love the look on my dads face-it is so childlike!! It is sweet!

What is a Christmas without a handmade outfit by grandma for Lucie and her baby!

First BIG snowstorm of 2010 winter!!

2010-12-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

We got our first BIG snow of the 2010 snow season in the begining of December, which wasn't THAT much snow and it wouldn't have been bad BUT it started with rain. It down poured for about six hours and then it DROPPED quick to below freezing, which meant it was freezing-and when it turned to snow it just put a pretty layer of snow over the ice. The final result ended up closing church, power lines down(we were fortunate enough to keep our power on)and about TWO inches of ICE under TWELVE inches of snow!!! HMMMM, not so nice and we were on the border of the storm so two days later I went to work and it didn't even look like it had snowed at all!! In the one picture Josh is brushing/scraping off his car with a shovel, and about five minutes later the plow came and plowed him in the road-hahahaha-I guess even if you've lived here for five years you can still forget that no matter how hard you try to clear something-the plow is ALWAYS just around the corner waiting to strike!!

Lucie's baby sleeping bags

2010-12-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

Lucie decided to make her babies sleeping bags so we tied all of them, then they got to open them and lay down in them. Lucie was soo cute when she did that-I got the whole thing on video, here are a couple of cute pictures!

Lucie's Nativity!!

2010-12-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

I had Lucie draw a picture of the Nativity scene on some fabric and we bordered it and added loops to it for a super cute Christmas decoration!! I love homemade crafts-they are so super special!

Christmas Parade!

2010-12-26T15:39:00.000-08:00

It was freezing cold on the day of the Grafton Christmas parade so everyone chickened out on going except me(and of course the kids.) I wouldn't have gone but Grafton is so my favorite place to see the parade, they have a bunch of marching bands and all kinds of floats and stuff. I am so glad we did it-the live walking nativity was awesome!! Very fun, and it wasn't even that cold, probably in teens and then a wind chill on top of it!!

Ouch!

2010-12-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

Lucie was playing with dumbells one day and left them on the couch. A few days later she was bugging Grant and he pushed her down on the couch, very quickly we learned a lesson about putting things back where they belong-poor baby!!

Is it REALLY that bad?

2010-12-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

We went up north with a friend and their family and it was a little bit of a drive so the kids were getting a little bored, we were about 10 minutes away from home when we here hmmmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmm coming from the backseat-so we turn around and this is what Grant was doing, hahahaha!!

School Projects!

2010-12-26T15:13:00.000-08:00

Grant and Lucie both had an October school project due around the same time. Grant had to find one place in the community and make a model of it, since we live around the corner from an ice cream place we decided to do that-Mickey's. We took a picture and he had such a blast making his own little ice cream place, we then took a picture of the kids to be the workers-he got an A+ on it-Yeah. Lucie's project was to do a poster of herself-which she just LOVED. The first question I asked her was "What do you love?" Her first response was "BEEF", so of course we had to put it on her poster. Ha Ha Ha!! She is my beef and cheese princess!!

Smore's in September

2010-12-26T15:07:00.001-08:00

A neighbor of ours gave us a fire pit and we have had so much fun this summer making hot dogs and s'mores on the fire pit. Grant can finally make his own s'mores, but does struggle just a bit putting the marshmallow on the rest!!

I Spy!

2010-09-20T18:35:00.001-07:00

So we were driving in the car playing I spy and it was Grant's turn and he goes "I spy something green" after a few guesses I said "the tree" and he goes "which one" and this is the view I had at the time!!

Lucie's First Day of Kindergarten!!

2010-09-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

Lucie has been prepping for this day for years. The day before kindergarten we picked out her outfit, and as we laid down to go to bed Grant fell asleep right away and Lucie on the other hand really struggled to fall asleep, I put them down at 7:45 and finally at 9:30 I cuddled with her and rubbed her back so she would go to sleep and she did right before 10. Then at 5:15 in the morning I hear "Mom, I am up for school" Umm no, that wasn't good. So we packed her lunch and she left her sandwich out because there wasn't room in her lunchbox for it, so we rearranged it. We went to school and she loved it. After school she was draggin' really bad while we walked home, the minute we got home she put on her pj's and was ready for bed!

Grant's First Day of First Grade!!

2010-09-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Grant started first grade and I am soo proud of him, his teacher said he is the best reader and math student(unfortunatly his handwriting needs a little work.) He is so proud to be on the first grade playground and off the kindergarten one!! He of course was mister cool in all the pictures but I did get one of him making his sandwich-he asked me not to take one of him at school! So I didn't!

Mt. Olympus!

2010-09-04T13:56:00.001-07:00

We went to Mt. Olympus in the dells with grandma and the kids had tons of fun!! They went down so many water slides, Grant was actually just tall enough to do most all of them, and Lucie was just tall enough to do them with a parent.

Bay Beach with Grandma!

2010-09-04T13:43:00.001-07:00

We went to Bay beach with grandma and they had a nature walk that was so fun. The kids were able to pet their pet skunk that they loved, the only downfall is that it is in Green Bay. It was soo fun, I think the kids enjoyed the nature walk more then the rides! During the nature walk a chipmunk kept coming up to Josh's foot, for a while we thought that it might climb up his leg!! Grant was a little bored on the drive up and decided to wear the pink innertube that was in the car!!

Lucie's Blessing Dress!

2010-09-04T04:41:00.000-07:00

So my mom needs this picture to make another dress for someone else but I want to blog it because it is sooo cute, she made Lucie's blessing dress out of the back of my wedding dress and it looks just like my wedding dress only my dress has a lower waist line!! What a talanted momma I have!

Zoo!!

2010-09-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

One of the things we did with grandma was go to the zoo in Madison, which was tons of fun, it was a free zoo so it was a little smaller then other zoo's but it had most every animal you could want, alot of interactive things and it was the perfect size so you weren't exhausted when you were done!

Aunt Alana at McDonald's!

2010-09-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

When Alana comes home from college she likes to take the kids to fun places this time she took them to McDonald's with their cousin Addi!!

Basement-Before and After.

2010-08-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

So when we moved in we had all hardwood paneling in the basement, I decided to paint it and I love it, here are some pics-even though it isn't super clean yet-I wanted to put pics up because i love it!!!

I can't find the before pics but I am sure if you go way back to a post last aprilish it would be there.

Saturday and the Hot Air Balloons!

2010-08-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday I should have cleaned-instead I spent all morning and afternoon with mom-it was great. So saturdaynight I should clean-and I went to the balloon rally with grandma and grandpa and great grandpa and erika with her kids. Sunday I went to church which leaves me Sunday late afternoon and night to clean. I REARRANGED the basement-hahaha, finally at 8:15 at night I decided to make salsa and can it. Going great and then I hear a yell from the basement....MOM I THREW UP!! Not a super big deal because he is great at throwing up in the toilet-EXCEPT when grandma is due to fly in in less then 24 hours.hahahaha funny!

I did make 12 jars of salsa-yeah.

My Family Home Evening Craft!

2010-07-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

I really wanted a Family Home Evening board-but didn't really want to pay $40 for it so I tried to find ways to make it. I have to explain it because i am so ridiculously proud of it.

I spent 2 hours shopping with mom-who gave me the idea to use a picture frame(I found the frame at home with an old picture in it.)

I then spent 40 minutes in Michael's with Lucie and spent $5 on scrapebooking paper for it.

I used knobs from a rummage sale I had bought for the kids dressers and had extra of so I painted the front wood part a cream color, cost .25

I bought the tags with names on them for $5.

I spent 4 1/2 hours at my Ruthie's house saturday morning making my masterpiece with her, she is very good at the cricut and was such a help I credit her with it looking sooo cute.

Glue and decopage(sp) $4
I think this is the cutest thing I have ever made and it cost less then $12!! I am way to proud of it. Here is the final result!!

Our First official Flood!

2010-07-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

We have been in our house a little over a year and we had a lot of pretty strong storms last night. We woke up and went outside to let the dog go potty and our side street is horribly flooded. The strong winds knocked over my gladiolas-most of which are broke and I will need to pull them out. The kids were amused by the street and thought it was hilarious. We have been told that behind our house has flooded in the past so we went to look and sure enough it flooded, but then I noticed my GARDEN!!!

Almost all of my corn was blown over and broke. My cherry/grape tomatoes that were as tall as I am are blown over and I can't tell yet if they will make it. Some of my normal tomatoes are tipped and their wire cage was pulled out of the ground!! Oh I am so sad!! I love my garden, I am a little sad because this was my first year gardening and I had great plans for my garden!! We were however fortunate with no tornados that we could have gotten!!

Bedrooms

2010-07-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

So my neighbor gave me a dresser that was painted red/white/blue/yellow and wasn't very cute. That gave me a great idea to repaint the dresser, Grant's room and Lucie's room. I painted the dresser a light brown and two of Grants four walls light brown. Eventually I want to do a blueish gray on the other two walls but he loves green so we will leave it for now. Lucie's room I painted two of her walls green and left the other two pink, I repainted just the cute flowers and got rid of the ugly ones. I love both their rooms.

4th of July!

2010-07-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

For the first time in years we decided to go to Milwaukee for their lakefront fireworks. Josh didn't want to go so it was just me the kids and my whole family. There were so many people there but we got there around 2 in the afternoon and the kids rode scooters, sidewalk chalk, squirt guns, we walked all over, played uno, etc. They also had a firetruck the kids could explore. Lucie loved it but I think she enjoyed being lifted up by the cute fireman more then the truck! it was tons of fun. those were on the 3rd, on the fourth we went to my sisters house and then saw our local fireworks. That was nicer just because they shoot them off 1 block away from our house so we left our house 15 minutes before they started, sat in the front and had a great seat with almost no wait time!! I think next year we will just do the local ones but it was fun spending time with everyone on the 3rd!!

Just funny and cute

2010-07-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with my dog,at times he is adorable-like when these pics were taken, at other times-like when I just chased him a round the neighborhood I really don't like him.

ANY BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF FOUR AND EIGHT LOOK OUT!!
I know I have said it before with lucie being wedding crazy-like the time she was looking out our big front window humming here comes the bride while a bridal party was across the street doing pictures BUT this may take the cake. I was making my jam and lucie was playing at the table and she got out a body wash bottle (the groom) and a body spray bottle (the bride) wrapped a tissue around the bride and proceeded to give them a wedding. Oh I love her.

Our Local Pool!

2010-07-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

While my sister was in town we all got together tons and it was lots of fun. A couple of times we went to the pool by my house. It has a bunch ofroped off areas one is shallow enough for both kids to touch, there is also a waterslide that the kids can slide down. it is tons of fun. We go at least 4 times a week, it is only one block away from our house. We love it.

Strawberry Picking/Jam

2010-07-15T04:45:00.001-07:00

Back in June-ish we went strawberry picking and I made so much Jam, strawberry lemonade and strawberries in syrup(which I use to make the best strawberry shakes) The funniest part was that Lucie doesn't like strawberries so she refused to help with any of it. The one pic I got of her helping was totally staged!! It is so fun to do something yourself from beginning to end, I can't wait for my billions of tomatoes to be done so I can start canning those!!

Grant's first TBall Game!

2010-06-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

Grant was so excited for his first tball game, he brushed his teeth(without his shirt on so it didn't get dirty.) He then proudly posed for a picture with one of his biggest fans. He did great, I kind of think he may be in the wrong league. Out of the first four batters he got three of them out, but in his tball league nobody gets out and everybody bats until they get a hit. After he realized outs don't count he actually walked the ball up to the tee and put it back on for the next batter. He was soo cute. He loves tball and it is a blast watching him.

On a much more sad note we were watching his game and a little girl ran from the playground(right behind us) with a blood curdling scream for her mom, her sister(about 8) was going across a rope monkey bar thing and fell about ten feet headfirst to the ground, the ambulance came and took her to the ER-it was super sad!!

Rain, Rain finally went away

2010-06-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

We signed up for tball 2 1/2 months ago and counted down, all the way to the day of his first practice, but the rain beat us to it. It was cancelled and he was devastated. They rescheduled for last night an dhe had a crazy BLAST. He did great, he caught the ball, ran, hit the ball-he was adorable, I must have taken at least 50 pictures and it was only his first practice. He has a game tomorrow and we are super excited.

My neighbor has a rhubbarb plant that has been there since she bought the house 40 years. The stalks are bigger then the kids, Yahoo, super excited.

After much whinning from Josh's mom and myself he finally had the bump on his face looked at. The doctor cut it out right away and is testing it for cancer!! He will get a black eye the doc. said, too bad he doesn't have a mullet, a black eye and mullet would be adorable. We will keep you updated on the findings!!

For the record!

2010-06-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

I am going to call this when my daughter is only five-she will be the craziest girlfriend/fiance/bride. She is obssesed with weddings. In the store while I am checking out she will find the bridal magazine and sit on the floor and read it. She LOVES watching "say yes to the dress" and just about any other bridal show on tv. She always talks about marrying her daddy, and today I found her...... Looking out the window across the street(we live across the street from a huge building that is now used for weddings and receptions.) and she was humming "HERE COMES THE BRIDE" while a wedding couple was taking pictures outside!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA it is way to funny! Lucky for us she won't even be able to date until she is 28 and then just group dates with her father and I!!

OUR HOUSE PICTURES!!

2010-05-09T17:21:00.001-07:00

So I do think that our house is more yellow then I wanted(I wanted more of a very light tan) but I love it so much-it is beautiful!! We have changed tons about our house and not for a minute do I wish we hadn't bought this house, the house is perfect, we love our neighbors and the city!! It is all wonderful!!! My next project is to update the basement a little bit-I am not sure how or when but I will do it.

This is the front of our house
BEFORE

This is our house
AFTER

This is our deck BEFORE

This is our deck AFTER

This is our kitchen and unfortunatly I don't have a before picture but the wall by the window was bright white and the border around the whole kitchen was a really ugly orange and yellow, we took down the wallpaper(scraped and used a wallpaper steamer and it still took us 4+ hours) and I painted it all yellow. Before it was an old kitchen, now it still looks old but with a fresh coat of paint(hahaha.) This was never my favorite part of the house because of the size, but I absolutly love it-it is the most well thought out kitchen ever, it has everything, my kids even sit on the table and eat on the counter just like barstools. It is great.

A little while ago my sister in law made these pictures for me in black and red and it looked great in my old house but I thought that I could paint it brown and yellow and put all black and white pictures in it and use it in our kitchen, so I did and I love it!!

This is one of my many gardens, this is my vegetable garden, my rhubbarb and strawberry patch is next to the house, I have raspberries and melons in a garden that is connected to this one and I have an herb/flower garden in the back!!

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Grant was so excited to bring me breakfast in bed for Mother's Day-which was super since it was a bowl of special K(his favorite) at 5:45 in the morning. So I got breakfast in bed but didn't get to sleep in. He was excited. Then we took Murphy for a walk at a state park that is 5 minutes from home, we tossed some rocks in our neighbors dumpster(he said we could toss whatever in their)I picked some fresh rhubarb from my garden and made strawberry rhubbard pie, my sister and her kids came over for awhile to play. We are all exhausted now-but it was a great day the pictures are in no specific order!!

OVERALL I am so grateful to have such a wonderful family, I have two amazing children and a wonderful husband who loves me so much and has great patience with my projects!! I love them so!!!

This is Josh's favorite picture of Murphy!!

You did what??

2010-05-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

At Grant's school he has a color system for behavior, on Friday he was on yellow(it goes green yellow red and purple.) Yellow is not acceptable so we asked him why he was on yellow. His answer was that him and two other boys were balking like chickens when it was quiet time. I tried so hard not to laugh but of course I did because it was hilarious but then I made him write an apology to his teacher. It said....

Lucie's Party!!

2010-05-09T16:37:00.000-07:00

So my baby girl is turning five and we threw her a birthday party at my school. The kids had a blast, I made lucie a little 8x8 cake so she could blow out candles and then we made ice cream cone cupcakes for all of the kids to decorate their own. My mom made all of the girls who came tutu's and I made them matching hair flowers. Lucie had sooo much fun!!

Here is Lucie enjoying some of her presents.....

Time stood still and wasn't so important!!!

2010-04-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

I had to work 7-3 today, come home 30 minutes to pick up 4 kids and drive another 45 minutes to go to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. I need to wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning for work, the freeway I would normally take was shut down so I had to take a back road, I was enjoying the company of a friend, her son, my two kids and my sisters two kids, while the kids were singing in the back I came upon an intersection and I could see a firetruck, an ambulance and about 10 police cars. I thought what most people probably thought-OH GREAT HOW LONG WILL THIS SET ME BACK. We got closer and all of a sudden time didn't seem so important. Amongst the lights of all the emergency vehicles there was a lady sitting on the curb by a broken bicycle holding in her arms a small child while the rescue workers were bringing over a stretcher. It gave me goosebumps, made me want to cry and squeeze both my kids tight and never let go. My heart goes out to the family that doesn't wake at 4:30 to go to work but instead stays up all night in a hospital! Sometimes we take so much for granted, when the important things are right in front of us the whole time!

Oh the things my lucie says!!

2010-03-11T17:24:00.001-08:00

We watched the little mermaid last night and when it was done Josh said he was a mermaid, then Lucie said "no dad to be a mermaid you need to have red hair", hmm is she thinking mermaid or leprechaun????

A couple of nights ago I made melted cheese on a plate for the kids, when I was a kid I ate it all the time-it is just shredded cheese on a plate in the microwave and you cook it for 30ish seconds, I call it melted cheese in the microwave. Tonight I was making dinner and Lucie asked for a CHEESE CASTLE, ahh I sound like a much better mom for making my daughter cheese castles as appossed to melted cheese in the microwave!!

I love her!!!

Beautiful matching little girls!!

2010-03-05T16:51:00.001-08:00

My mom sews so many adorable outfits for Lucie and LuLu, all of these pics are of just a number of the many matching outfits(except the flower pj's-those I bought) Lucie loves the outfits, she is so talented. I wish I could sew like her but sadly I don't think it is worth it when she can make a beautiful dress in 3 hours and I would make a borderline wearable dress in 3 weeks!! It is so funny because whenever a button falls off or something gets a hole in it Lucie says we need to take it to Grandma even though I could totally do a simple thing like that!!

Thanks mom for all your hard work!!

So much misc. fun!!

2010-03-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

Murphy loves Grant and always tries to sneak into his room to sleep with him, right now Murphy sleeps in bed with us-which is so much great fun, and when he sleeps or even sits by you he has to have some part of himself touching you.

One day I woke Grant up how I usually do-at 5:45am by opening his door, turning his light on and saying "Grant-honey it is time to wake up" on this particular morning I came back 5 minutes later and he was gone, after looking around the house I went back to his room and found him laying uner his bed-I asked him what he was doing and he said it was dark under there!!!

Zoo!!

2010-03-05T16:40:00.000-08:00

I just took the kids to the zoo with a friend of mine whose son is Lucie's age, the kids had tons of fun-I on the other hand enjoyed watching the kids have fun BUT am really not an animal person-oh what mothers do-you never know until you are one!!!

Disney Princess on Ice!!

2010-03-05T16:31:00.000-08:00

I decided to take Lucie to Disney Princess on Ice, so I went with a friend of mine and her son. Then it turned out to be Josh and Grant too, I was so super excited for this.

MY MOM EVEN MADE BABY LULU'S MATCHING DRESS TO GO WITH LUCIE'S SNOW WHITE DRESS WITH NO PATTERN. I LOVE IT SOO MUCH.

Of course since I was so excited things had to go wrong!! We got dinner on the way there, but of course we were there and the whinning begins(keep in mind it started on a Thursday night at 7 pm and my kids always go to bed at 7:30.) The first part of the show was great, and then it was intermission, and then IT STARTED. Lucie started whining because she was to far away, she was hungry she was, thirsty, she wanted the $20 twrilly wand, she wasted to be cinderella-AHHHHHH, Grant on the other hand was great the second half because he fell asleep!! Next time I think I will pay a little more to do a Saturday show during the day!!

Snow Fun!!

2010-03-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

This winter wasn't too bad, our new house is a corner lot which meant more snow to shovel/plow, we did have tons of fun in it!! Murphey is big enough that we could attach a rope to his collar and he pulled the kids in the snow-which was a blast for Grant, there were also snowball fights and snow angels!! I took the pic of Lucie in her hannah montana hat because it is so hidious and she loves it-thank you aunt erika.

Christmas!!

2010-03-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Christmas was tons of fun(even though it has been over two months ago) Grant and lucie got two brownie pj's this year since they had two different xmases. The brownies also made baby lulu matching pjs. We went to the waterpark again, gigi and grandpa both made it so it was fun for them. I got a new vaccum and carpet cleaner for xmas-yahoo, i love it!!!

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

2010-01-29T07:27:00.000-08:00

Bucks game/JAIL

2010-01-24T17:21:00.000-08:00

We got free tickets to the Bucks baskeball game from a parent at my center so we took the kids last night. It was so much fun. The players were laying on the floor stretching and they had people helping them at which point my dear sweet Lucie goes.....MOM ARE THEY GOING TO JAIL. hahahahahahahahahaha. I guess that is what you get when quality time with dad includes Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Grant's reindeer!!

2009-12-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

Grant brought home a folder of what all of the kids in his class would do if they had a pet reindeer. Most of the children said they would ride it, play with it or feed him. Not my son, Grant said he would give it a shower. Which is funny because last week in the middle of our first snow storm last week Grant wanted to give Murphey our dog a shower with him. While Grant was trying to get him in and I was trying to get him out Grant slipped and fell causeing him to bite his tongue a few times and cut his chin, we took him to the ER where they glued it, the next day he woke and it had split open again, so the clinic glued, butterfly bandaged and then bandaged after that. less then two days later we were back at the clinic because they had all come off and it was open again.
I guess all he really wants are clean animals. Hmmm!!

Family Pictures!

2009-12-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

We had our family pics taken in arizona, these are a few of my favorites. I have a lot of favorites!! We had them taken with Josh's family-I have only seen 75 of over 300 and I probably love at least 30 of them. I am so excited and glad we did them. Grant and Richie had tons of fun and Lucie with the girls had a lot of ridiculous fun as well!

Arizona Part Two!

2009-11-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

Lucie was so excited for Tobie to come over and play that one day she stood by the door for over 20 minutes waiting.

Grant fell asleep with Grandpa on Aunt Carol's couch. Lucie and her cousin Maycie had a sleepover at Grandma's house

The were beat for quite a bit of the trip.

We went to an indoor play area that had rides and everything was covered in one cost and since there was no one there the lady just followed us around and let us ride whatever we wanted as many times as we wanted to. All of the pics that are on rides are from here.

This is Josh, his dad, his two uncles(his dads brothers)and the two Grants(one is ours and one is uncle Rick's.)

This is Josh and Grandma Penny-his dad's mom

Madie, Tobie, Maycie and Lucie-all of the kids spent most of their time at Aunt Carols house-and the trampoline was there favorite.

Our Super Fun Arizona Vacation!

2009-11-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

These two pictures should be at the very end, but it is 11 at night and this is where they showed up. This is a picture AFTER our trip when we first got home and Josh was unloading the car. What is significant about this picture???? It is the man I love, coming out of the house I love, to carry in the kids I love, in the city I love. I LOVE IT ALL!!

This is Lucie eating a cookie/ice cream dessert that Maylinn made and it was so good I came home and made it myself.

The first picture I took of Lucie and Tobie I asked them both to smile and this is what they did. The freeways in Arizona are HUGE, 6 lanes going in each direction.

All the smith boys

Grant, Grant, Lexie and Lucie (Grant and Lexie are Rick's kids.)

Aunt Maylinn in the jumper with the kids

This is the first time my babies have ever flown. They were sooo cute.

Awww, she LOOKS so angelic.

Lucie and her baby buckled in.

With 45 minutes to go on the plane Lucie finally fell asleep.

she did however need to sleep with her feet up on the plane window.

For the first time in 5 years we just went back to Arizona to visit the Smith side of the family. We have seen Josh's mom and dad and two sisters a couple of times when they have come out here but we haven't seen most of his family in five years and they have never seen Lucie-and Grant last as a baby. There are soo many pictures that I won't even try to put a caption on most of them. I do have to apologize to Aunt Carol because we spent soo much time at her house and I don't have a single picture of her(I am sure however that you don't care.) Grant and Lucie loved getting to know there cousins, and I had alot of fun with Josh's mom, sisters and aunt. I do want to deeply thank everyone who made our trip to Arizona enjoyable!! We will never forget the times we had.

Halloween Fun!!

2009-10-25T17:38:00.001-07:00

We just made Jack-O-Lanterns. It was fun, dad opted for the potato head face-which quite honestly isn't a bad way to go!!

Last year my mom made these halloween outfits for Lucie, her baby and matching ties for Grant and Josh. Lucie's didn't really fit her anymore but I really wanted halloween outfits so I put some lace tight things under her dress-which is now more like a shirt. Next year it probably will be a shirt and I will pair it up with a skirt!! The first picture is a silly face, the second is this year(unfortunatly due to the love she has for baby lulu her one eye is permanantly in the blinking position and will need to visit the hospital some day soon) and the third is last year!!

Our Family!

2009-10-25T17:36:00.001-07:00

Grant had a project at school where he needed to bring in a family picture and since we don't have one I went to my sisters house and had her snap a quick picture of us(I didn't want to be the family that has to bring in three seperate pictures just to get all four of us in it.) I think it actually turned out REALLY cute!!

Murphy and his Best Friend!

2009-10-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Murphy just loves the kids, especially Grant, he loves to cuddle up with him on the couch!! I think they are adorable-definatly Grant and the dog is growing on me. If he were only completly potty trained, didn't eat the kids toys and cleaned up his own poop he would be GREAT!!

First Day of School!!

2009-10-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

This post is REALLY late but it was my babies first day of school and Grant was so proud of himself. He took a cold lunch that he helped pack. I don't know if I am bias but he was the cutest kindergartener there!!

The Biggest Fit EVER!

2009-10-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

Grant threw the biggest fit he has ever thrown. It started in Walmart when I told him he didn't do enough chores to buy a bakugon. He pushed the cart, threw my stuff out of the cart and started to yell. I quickly check out and when we got to the van(where they were saving half eaten lollipops until we were done with walmart)I threw away his lollipop and told him he wasn't listening in walmart. His fit went from bad to WORSE, he kept yelling that he wanted his lollipop and thrasing in his car seat. Lucie(who was eating her lollipop) starts to scream as I look in the rearview mirror I see him with a lollipop. All of a sudden he throws it and it gets STUCK in my hair!! Lucie is yelling because she wants her lollipop, grant is yelling because he wants his, I am yelling because I have a lollipop stuck to my hair!!!! HMMMM. I am glad I had a two minute drive home so I could calm down-Grant however didn't. He spent a significant ammount of time in his room. The day ended like always with a hug and kiss but wow, that was a first!!

Our house

2009-08-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks we have decided that the front of our house needs to be fixed. So we pulled up the trees in front of the house. I then used the existing brick border that they had (but was hidden in the dirt.) I made a new border, planted flowers, and started to plant grass.

My Begonia Bedroom!!

2009-08-22T20:08:00.001-07:00

As promised Lucie's room is done and here are the pics. I actually really like it and I am glad I didn't go the pink and brown route. She still has her baby area, kitchen area, and dancing area. The walls are a decorated a little overkill but I had to tone down the pink and of course Lucie loves it!!! My mom got the headboard and footboard free and I just fixed it up a little.

I have always wanted this.....

2009-08-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Unfortunatly for those of you who voted on my dogs name we have picked one. His new name is Murphy. I told Josh we couldn't wait that long to name him so I gave him some choices and that is what we came up with. Now that he is my new obsession I went to the pet store and they were clearancing out all of their dog clothing. Each item was only $3 so I got Murphy a couple of shirts. Josh isn't thrilled BUT when he got the dog their was no stipulation as to what I could put on him. Therefor he has clothes, not that he will wear everyday but he does get a little chilly sometimes.

He was lookin' pretty cool stylin his new outfit when I took him out to go potty and he happened to run into a fiesty little dog from up the road, the dogs flirted, Murphy turned on his butt sniffin' charm and we were invited to her house for a little puppy play date.

HMMMMMM!!!!

A New Addition to the Smith house!!

2009-08-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

The Smith Family is proud to announce that after 12 hours of thoughful consideration we(meaning my husband mainly)have decided to get a dog!!!!! The little guy is growing on me, we got him from the humane sociaty and he is 8 weeks old. He is a mix between a bassett hound and an unknown dog. His name was Ralph but we have renamed him "Bo Jangles". After 7 years of marraige I caved-I said I would never have a dog let alone a bassett hound and if I did I would never name him Bo Jangles. So meet our new little Bassett Hound named Bo Jangles.....

Begonia!!

2009-08-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was so excited it was the weekend, I had great plans to relax this weekend. Unfortunatly-life happens. Friday (after working 8.5 hours)I made beef jerky, homemade ice cream, and taped Lucie's room to paint it. Saturday, I ran into town to run a few errands, spent 2.5 hours at school re-arranging the baby/one year old room, took the kids to the lake, went to cabelas with hubbie, and painted Lucie's room. Which brings me to 11:45 saturday night. I am exhausted, and all Begonia'ed out. For those of you who don't know what a begonia is-it is a flower(which hubbie knew and I didn't.) it is also the color I painted Lucie's room. Hmmmm, I could picture an outcome for my room, Lu's is a little harder, she picked the color, she LOVES the color-and that is what matters. I will not post the color until it is completly done, but just know it is VERY PINK PINK PINK!!!

Fun Time

2009-08-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

My GREAT decision!!

2009-07-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been following my blog you know I have been redoing my bedroom. I started with blue and green carpet, blue walls, ugly curtains and our bed on the floor.

I painted the walls green, pulled the carpet, kept the ugly curtains-because they were handmade and very expensive(which I now really like) and I put our bed on a bedrail(which we haven't had in five years.) I still need to hang pictures, hang my big mirror, decorate and buy a comforter BUT I am so excited at how good my bedroom looks that I had to post it right now. I love my bedroom-I feel like for the first time in 7 years we have an adult bedroom. Yeah!!

Our new Patio set.

2009-07-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Some of my parents friends are moving to Florida and sold us alot of their outside stuff. we got a patio set(with six chairs), two recliner chairs, a storage box for the cushions, and a grill-and all for a great price. It is beautiful and I am so grateful.

Relaxing Fun.

2009-07-11T18:39:00.002-07:00

Today we went to our favorite park. It is about 10 minutes north of West Bend and 40 minutes north of where we live now. We haven't been there yet this summer but there is something magical about it. There are so few people there and the kids love it. It always seems like as soon as we get there I forget about life and my concerns and it is always so fun. Of course fun isn't fun unless my sisters kids are there! The kids even caught a tiny little frog which lucie held in her hand.

Fourth of July!

2009-07-11T18:31:00.001-07:00

For the fourth of July my parents, grandparents and little sister Alana came over for the parade and a bbq. It was a blast, the parade was 1/2 a block away and the fireworks were about 4 blocks away. These are all pictures from the fourth, and fifth. Grandpa and Josh tried to fix a rocket launcher, grant pushed alana on a bike, etc.

Lucie's first time riding with no training wheels!

2009-07-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Josh put lucie's pedals back on and lucie rode her bike pretty good. I warned her that pants and the right shoes would make a big difference BUT of course we don't listen to mom so she wore a dance leotard, sandals, and her undies were stickin' out. It was hilarious-but cute.

Fishing with Dad!

2009-07-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

I don't usually take pictures in black and white but last minute we decided to go fishing and my kids didn't match and they looked dirty so I figured black and white made it look a little better. They had a blast-they both love fishing with dad.

Pool fun and Party!!

2009-06-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

We went to Lucie's best friends four year old birthday party. It was at a bowling alley and the kids had fun!!

I put up our little pool and the kids loved it.

My Garden!

2009-06-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of pictures of the Garden that I am oh so proud of! I do need to weed again so these pictures do have some weeds but there is also.....

Raspberries on the outsides and peppers down the middle.

This is our Strawberry patch(hopefully next year it will be bigger. The big plants on the right are four huge tomato plants.

This one has a little of everything. Suger snap peas(grant and I have already tested these and they are great), tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and more peppers.

HOT! HOT! HOT!

2009-06-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

Today I was VERY hot, it was humid and HORRIBLE! After Lucie's recital we decided to buy a slip n' slide. It was so much fun, JOsh and I even had a few slip n' slide races with the kids!! We then had some friends over for dinner, I got more great gardening tips!! It was a good day!

This first picture is my favorite because this is how summer should be. Grant was sooo happy. A hot day, slip n slide, and his best friend Havi(my sisters little girl who is 2 years older then Grant) holding his hand while they run in the water. Life doesn't get any sweeter then this!! The look on his face is so sweet, it makes me want to cry, this is how happy every kid should be! Havi will probably never read this but thank you so much Havi for being Grants best friend. We love you!!

My Little Ballerina!

2009-06-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

Lucie had her second and last(for awhile) dance recital today. I was VERY pressured into signing her up but got some aggressivly harrassing phone calls about doing it. So I finally signed her up-at which point my little sister(who is her teacher) stopped the phone calls. I am glad that I signed her up again because she does LOVE it, and it gives her more time to spend with Lana before she goes to school out West. Last year a week before her recital she came down with chicken pox. Three days ago I took her into the doctor and she has a double ear infection and is sooo uncooperative that he tried to do a strep test and she wouldn't have anything to do with it, her throat was red and what he gave her for her ears would take care of that as well!! So anyway she has been in a HORRIBLE mood. To make a longer story short when she got up to dance she came on stage with her arms crossed and pouting, she danced a little and then at the end she layed on the ground and she was picking at the floor! It was a long day, it is over, and she was beautiful!!!

This is Lucie who is ready for dance!

This is Lucie, Paige, and her cousin AVA!

This is Lucie with Gigi and Grandpa

This is Lucie with Grandma!

This is Lucie with her Daddy!

This is Lucie with grandpa!

This is Lucie with her cousins Ava, Talitha, Havalynne, Aunt Alana, and gigi and grandpa!!

This is Lucie with her sweet Aunt Alana who was a great teacher, beautiful dancer, and wonderful Aunt-who she will dearly miss when she goes to school!!

Our Master Bedroom!!

2009-06-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

So our house came with curtains that are a little outdated, but in great shape and rather expensive to replace, SOOOO I decided to try to change the paint color to make the room look better and still keep the curtains. The paint was a light blue and I changed it to green(I am NOT a light blue person.) HMMMMM!!! We still have to pull our carpet and get a bedspread-I can't decide if it was a good decision or not. It is one of my least favorite colors-but when all is said and done, I may like it!!

This is a picture of the blue paint that was there when we moved in!

This is the blue paint and the green paint around the window border!

This is the green paint. Again HMMMMM!

My First Garden product!!

2009-06-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

I can't really consider it a complete garden product but it was sooo good and really fun!! Last weekend we picked Rhubarb from our garden(the people who lived here before planted it.) Then we made a strawberry rhubbarb pie(strawberries from the store.) It was so fun having the kids help us pick the rhubarb and then see a finished product! We have three gardens this year, a raspberry patch-a strawberry patch(with four tomato plants)-and a garden with cucmbers, grape/cherry/and normal tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and pumpkins. We are super excited for our things to start growing!!

Fishing down the Peshtigo River

2009-06-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

Josh and some of his fishing buddies went fishing down the Peshtigo River on Friday. He didn't put suntan lotion on his feet so they were burned. On Saturday night he went fishing for a couple of hours closer to home, he came home and about 3 hours after he was home he put lotion on his feet and pulled off a chunk of what he thought was DIRT from his foot, it turned out to be a leech that was SUCKING his BLOOD. His foot was bleeding and it was so gross. Anyway these are some pics from the Peshtigo River trip-not the leech one!!!

Misc. Fun!

2009-05-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

These are just some misc. pics of the kids having fun!!! For Lucie's birthday my parents gave her the little house that I had as a kid. I wish I would have gotten my dad in the pic. to because he had to redo all the pvc pipes on the inside. Grandma made Lucie's baby lulu a matching dress from her dress last year that still fits. It is really cute. Then the kids had a circus train in the driveway. It was adorable! A friend from church came over to help me with our compost pile and in it were raspberries so we rotatilled the area and made a new raspberry patch that Grant is watering!

A Play on my day off.

2009-05-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

I was at home cleaning on my day off and the kids were being good, I could here them so I knew WHERE they were-but I didn't really know WHAT they were doing. It was really cute they came to me and said the play was ready to start, so I followed them. They had set up a play inside the house and the audience was outside the house(which is where I was), then they had me sit in my chair, pulled the curtain open and put on a play. It is a nice break from life to sit and relax and see how imaginative kids can be!!!

Extremly LONG post!

2009-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

This post just didn't come out right but I have so many pics I don't want to fix it so you kid of have to piece the pics together!!

We were huge overachievers with moving, we filled two huge uhauls. The first few things we did upon moving were doing a little gardening and Lucie has loved dancing on the deck out back!

They left us an old record player that works and my mom saved some records from when I was a kid and the kids have loved dancing to them.

The one place in the house I want little to do with is the crawl space and the kids LOVE to play camping in it!!

The kids didn't have Easter outfits this year so I had them wear the same ones as last year, they were super cute!!

Well, we are finally almost getting settled into our house. It is great, we love it!! At this point in time things are still rather orange(but we are slowly fixing that.) The first two rooms we put together are Grant and Lucie's. We tore up Grant's seventies carpet and this is the hardwood that was under it! We also put up Diego stickers-which is a quick fix until we have time to do more!

In Lucie's room we are keeping the carpet and we just bought daisy stickers for her room to girl it up. I also made her a "dancing" corner with her dressup stuff and my old mirror from when I was a kid-she loves it!

Our little half bath(in the salon/mud room/playroom) was a horrible blue but to quickly fix that I decided to make it a Nemo bathroom and we put up Nemo wall stickers and I actually think it is adorable! The only problem is the wall stickers don't stick great and I followed directions, I hope most can stay up awhile.

Our biggest project is our main bath, we are retiling and painting it, it is coming along great and I love it but pics will be coming later! We are so happy with our house and we are glad we bought this house!!!

Our Move!!

2009-04-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Well, we closed today and we move tomorrow. We are so busy but so excited to start a new chapter in our lives. We will have no internet until May 2nd so this is the last post for awhile. The next post should have pictures of our house and some of the adventures we will be having in the next few weeks. We have already flooded our old basement and today Lucie had an "accident" and didn't make it to the potty in the new house on time(and of course her clothing hasn't made it over yet) so we have to drive home 20 minutes with a naked little girl in the car. With kids there is always something-but it is always fun. Take care everyone and we will see you in two weeks.

Easter!

2009-04-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

The Easter Bunny came last night and hid eggs, I have to admit it must have been difficult since 95% of the house is packed-not very many hiding places, but the kids had fun! Grant got a ball and glove and Lucie got Hannah Montana light up hair. It was funny she saw it and got all excited and said-Yeah I got hair! Enjoy the pics and Happy Easter!!

Did YOU know.....

2009-03-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

We were eating dinner tonight and this is what Grant said...
"Mom do you know what happens if you don't have bones?"
I said "no honey what"
He goes "You fall to the earth in a big puddle"
Hmmm, I guess I never thought of it that way!

Family of Five-DON"T get excited, just read!

2009-03-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Lucie is always drawing family pictures, well today she drew a picture with five people in her family. I asked her who

everyone was,

I am the one with the brown "flower"hair

Daddy has long green legs.

Lucie has long "Hannah Montana" hair.

Grant is the short little green brother with a big head.

The person in between mom and Lucie(which is much darker before I scanned it) is........

Our Mermaid sister??? Hmm, that is a little wierd, but I guess we are a family of five(one mermaid included.)

Really Cute!

2009-03-23T04:47:00.000-07:00

Grant and Lucie just got dressed for the day and Grant comes up to me holding his bottom and goes. "Mom you know what these are?" I said "what are they honey?" He goes "Bummchicks they are bummchicks mom."

A Really Nice BBQ!!

2009-03-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today we had my mom, dad, grandma and grandpa over for a bbq. It was really nice having them over and talking with them. They also got to see Grant and Lucie playing, after dinner we wathed TV and took some cute pics, unfortunatly my mom was doing research on the computer for me so she isn't in any. The one of Grant and Grandpa was a reinactment because as soon as Grant saw the camera he moved. I love that picture-they are all really sweet. I am a little bummed because a few of the pictures I took I thought were really good but turned out not to be. I am so glad we had them all over. I also just gave my dad a haircut-I think it is really good!!

Update on the house!

2009-03-20T17:14:00.000-07:00

Here is an update on the house! Our offer was accepted, it passed the home inspection with a minor problem with the electrical that is getting fixed and we our now just waiting for final financing to come through and we close on May 1! The house is one block from the elementary school and two blocks from the city pool. The house is a three bedroom 1 1/2 bath(and a toilet under the stairs in the basement), a bonus room that I will use as a daycare room(which is where the half bath is) the house is on 1/3 of an acre, a huge deck, 70% finished basement with pool table, and the most exciting part is a "TORNADO SHELTER" in the basement. All of the main things have been done recently-roof, windows, siding. There are alot of cosmetic things we will be doing but only a few things we want to do right away with the house...
-we will pull the carpet in the bathroom
-we will pull the carpet in two of the bedrooms(hardwood underneath and the other rooms are fine)
-the deck will be pressure washed and weather treated
Besides all of that we will do the normal painting, etc. but the above will be more immediate.
Hopefully all will go well with financing and we will have us a new home in a month.

This is the deck out back.

Below is the front of the house
(there is an attached garage)
This is Grants room(carpet will be pulled)

Below is the toolbench area of the basement and the finished area with the pool table. There is also a much larger finished part of the basement

This is my tornado shelter and the toilet under the stairs(we will eventually add a sink)
This is the upstairs full bath and half of the "bonus"room and below is the other half of the bonus room.

Not really what I meant!

2009-03-13T16:30:00.001-07:00

Lucie was running around the house with the TV remote using it as a gun, while she is doing this she is saying, "This is my shooting gun, this is my shooting gun,etc." So I tell her, "Lucie we don't play shooting guns(thinking she would put it down)" She continues to run and says "This is my shooting remote, this is my shooting remote,etc" I don't believe she understood what I meant!!

We're on our way!!!YEAH!!!

2009-03-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

We put an offer in on a house last night and it was just accepted. We are sooo excited!! More to come!!!

Heaven!

2009-03-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Lucie always plays Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. She has said some really sweet things lately but I think this one takes the cake! I was in the kitchen today cleaning and Lucie was coloring on her easel that is in the kitchen. This was our conversation.

Lucie: Mommy me am coloring heaven
Me: Oh, what is in Heaven? What are you coloring?
Lucie: Me am coloring Jesus, Mommy-you help me get back to Heaven? This is you!

She drew a picture of me in Heaven with Jesus and then asked me if I would help her get back. Hmmm-that is really sweet, what do you say to that. So I said "of course Mommy will help you get back to Heaven!"

The Circus!

2009-02-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

Josh got some buy one get one free tickets to the circus from a girl at work on Friday, so today we took the kids! We got there about one hour early and got GREAT seats, we were right in the front row but on one of the ends. We just so happened to pick the end that almost everything happened at! It was a VERY long circus-it went from 10:30-1:30 with a half hour intermission!

For the first half hour Lucie was a little unsure and had a deathgrip on my hand!

Always an optimist!

2009-02-23T05:41:00.000-08:00

I think most children are much more optimistic then adults. Today I am getting one of my wisdom teeth pulled. I have really good teeth, never a problem and maybe three cavities in my life-so I am a little nervous. We were eating breakfast and I told the kids they were going to grandma's for a little so the dentist could take my tooth out. Grant immediately got REALLY excited and goes "WOW mom, you get to put it under your pillow and the toothfairy will bring you a quarter or fifty cents." How sweet-how can you be nervous when the toothfairy is coming( I am hoping for fifty cents)!!

First Trip to the Zoo this year.

2009-02-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

So on Friday I took the kids to the Zoo, I have felt like a deadbeat mom because my last couple of days off I have stayed home and cleaned so no matter what-we were going to the Zoo! It was a balming 20 degrees out, but that didn't stop us. There were almost no animals outside so we had to go inside. We did have two memorable animal experiences. We were in the lion house and two lions were fighting/playing and they would run up to each other and jump at each other, etc. It was AWSOME(like Grant says).

Grant was helping Lucie pull the "ARE YOU AS STRONG AS A BABY GORILLA" thing.

Lucie went up to an exhibit and she couldn't see anything inside so she put one hand on the glass and her head on the glass and then she turned and looked at me with the back of her head on the glass. Just then a baby monkey came up to the glass where she was and put his hand right on top of hers and pressed his head to the glass right on hers. I was so excited I told Lucie to turn around and it scared her so she ran away. When I finally got her to go back the monkey was just peering over the edge. I am NOT an animal person but this was sooo sweet!!

SOOO EXCITED
Do you remember being a kid and getting something you had wanted for a long time, as soon as you got it you wore it/used it/etc. even if it didn't make any sense to at the time. Well on Saturday we went to the outdoor outlet mall about 45 minutes away. Grant had been asking for sunglasses for quite awhile since he lost his last ones. We went to Childrens Place and they had killer sales-including there sunglasses!! So I bought him a pair and he was in heaven. He had to wear them the rest of the time, so there we were outside, with a windchill of close to ZERO, it was snowing and we had HORRIBLE blowing snow-and this was my son, you can see the JOY on his face!!!

I have had ENOUGH!

2009-02-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

I am sick of cleaning up messes I don't make, so I take it upon myself to give the kids a five minute headstart to clean their toys. Then in five minutes I went upstairs with rubbermaid bins and I started "CLEANING" my way. This is what Lucie said-it was hilarious!!

ME AM SO NOT HAPPY RIGHT NOW
ME AM POUTING MOM
MOM MOM ME AM POUTING
ME AM NEVER GOING TO THE WATERPARK
ME AM NOT THINKING ABOUT IT
ME DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT
ME NOT HAPPY BOUT IT
ME IS NOT GOING TO GROW UP AND NOT GOING TO BE A MOM
ME SERIOUS

Grant then goes, wow she is a GRUMPIS-HUMPIS(he is into the rhyming thing)

I can't wait until she is a teenager!!

Funny Conversation!

2009-02-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

This story was soo funny so I hope it is funny to just read it. This is a conversation between Grant and Lucie on our way to Piggly Wiggly.

Lucie keeps singing "you get the best of both worlds" song from Hannah Montana

Grant: Lucie stop singing

Lucie: You get the best of both worlds....

Grant: Lucie stop

Lucie: You get the ..........

Grant: Lucie you can only sing "You get the best of both worlds" if you sing ABC first.

Lucie: AB

Grant: NO BACKWARDS

It was soo funny, I wonder where kids get things like that.

My poor baby!

2009-02-11T02:41:00.000-08:00

Josh picked Grant up on his way home from work and I went to watch Lucie dance, then came home. As soon as I got home I commented on how pale Grant looked and his eyes were dark, he wasn't lathargic but he wasn't himself. He sat at the table for about 2 minutes looked at his food and said he was done, he ate about 2 bites of an apple-he loves fruit. I continued to make comments about how awful he looked-I blow alot of things out of proportion so Josh kept saying he was fine. At 7:45(three hours after I got home)he started to throw up. Poor guy, he was up all night throwing up. He is such a trooper, I hope he feels better SOON!

Messing with it AGAIN!

2009-02-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

I am trying to change my blog again, so if things look funny or come down they will be up agian in a few days!

Every action has a consequence!!

2009-01-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

As every mom has probably done I left my children unattended while I cleaned and tried to regain sanity. They were upstairs playing TOGETHER and not fighting, I check on them after half an hour(just cracking the door open a little), Grants room was somewhat messy, but at first glance not bad and they were playing a VERY intense game of I spy. So I let it go! By this point I have already made MULTIPLE mistakes! Oh what's one more-so I go downstairs for another half hour. So it has been one hour of happy bliss in a quiet house with children who are getting along sooo well(I also lost my phone so I don't hear that ring either-very quiet house.)
So we now have to answer

WHY are they getting along so well????!!!!????
Let me tell you!
After one hour I actually walk into the room to check on them

I find
-every book in their room on their floor
-every toy bucket dumped out
-3 broken toys
-2 empty sippie cups(that is alarming-WHERE is the water)
-Grants 400 ish piece diego game on the floor
-everything from on top of his bed bookcase on the floor
And then I see IT!!!
-2 bowls
-1 EMPTY BOTTLE OF DORA LOTION(OH NO!!!!)

They had taken the dora lotion and put it into two bowls, with the water, mixed it with some spoons AND GIVEN SOME OF LUCIES BABIES A BATH(IN GRANTS ROOM).
Water and lotion are all over the place.

So due to my action of ignoring my angelic children for one hour I spent 45 minutes sitting in Grants room watching them clean-making sure to put everything away.
I am exhausted-I need a long backrub and a longer nap!!!

Therefore tonight I am treating myself to...

A fun filled family fun night at the ymca with a lot of people, even more kids, NOISE, NOISE, NOISE! Just what I need right now...I don't mind passing up a backrub and a nap for 2 hours of watching my kids laugh and play.

In my life a backrub will never come and I will probably get a nap right before my backrub!!

Happy Birthday to my precious little boy!

2009-01-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

Grant turned five today and I am so happily sad it is unbelievable. My baby is officially a BIG boy. I was looking through our photo album to find pictures of him through the years and I almost started to cry because he is so sweet and he has filled our lives with so much joy over just five years! He is always so happy and fun to be around, he plays with everyone and loves to have fun and explore new things. It didn't really hit me until I wrote the word FIVE-WOW, that is such a huge number when you are talking about your little baby. I am going through major baby withdrawals. I think it is going to be soo much worse in 4 months when Lucie is 4, I will have a 4 and 5 year old, but what about my baby??? I know Grant can't read this but I want to thank him for being the best little boy EVER!!! I love you!

Reunited!

2009-01-24T14:31:00.001-08:00

So about a year ago I remembered that my mom made a bear for Grant and a Bunny for Lucie for Christmas three years ago, I couldn't find them and I swore I gave them to my mom to fix!! So I have just been waiting because SHE had them. Well the Sears in town had rubbermaid bins on clearance so I picked up some(actually alot) and started organizing all of our JUNK!! In the basement I found a few boxes of toys, I opened them to sort them and sure enough there they were. They must have been in there for almost two years. I am so excited I found them it made my day!! I called my mom and apologized and told her that she is always right-just like my kids mom(ha ha ha.) Anyway I found the picture I took of the kids when they first got them, and I just took a picture again. They are getting sooo big-it actually makes me want to cry a little bit!!

Fun with an old friend!!

2009-01-19T04:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we met up with an old friend of Josh's(he was up visiting his brother in IL), since we all have kids we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese so they could play while their daddies caught up and reminisced about old times. Lucie loved playing with their daughter Eliza-they danced, played games and ran around like crazy little three year olds do. It was fun getting to know Dale's wife, Raina-the kids were all really good so we actually got to talk a while(which usually doesn't happen with kids.) Lucie figured out how to put her tickets in the "ticket monster" and get a receipt for it so she did it a lot, one time she only had one ticket!!

What is COLD???

2009-01-15T03:52:00.000-08:00

This is for all of our Arizona friends and relatives who wear a winter jacket when the temperature reaches 60.

I was born and raised in Wisconsin and I don't have the best memory but I can't remember the temperature EVER being THIS COLD!! I took a picture of the computer screen this morning. Just a note, the -15.5 is WITHOUT a wind chill. It is -35 with the windchill. School is canceled for the FOURTH time this year and tomorrow isn't looking any better then today!! Even though this winter is HORRIBLE-I have another day home with the kids-so it works out to my advantage!!

So grateful!

2009-01-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

I am so grateful that Josh's job at Chase took a turn for the worst and he was forced to get a new job. Thanks to his new job and my mom and dad being willing to watch the kids 2 days a week I am a part time stay at home mom. I work tue-th 6:30 to 4:00 so I am off Friday through Monday. I love staying home with the kids. Today I took them to a place called Family Fun Land which just opened in the beginning of December (famfunland.com) They had a huge jumping tent, a smaller one with blowup animals in it, a huge indoor playground and an arcade. The kids got $1.50 each to spend in the arcade and the rest of the time was spent running around, we were there 4 hours. We are all beat, we don't have anything like this in our area so I was soo excited when I found the add in the paper!! We took Lucie's little friend from school(Jayden), he loved it to, we will be going back lots!! The picture of Lucie and I was taken by Grant-I think it turned out super cute.