Pieces Of Us.

Taking a break...

From my regularly scheduled Laundry Day, to share some thoughts.
This is what I am seeing today.

And lots of it.  For some reason, I have a hard time keeping up with the laundry during the week.  Maybe because there are 6 of us that I am trying to keep up with, but it makes me crazy.  I have been trying to get all the laundry and house work done on Friday afternoon, when I get off at noon, so that I still have two whole days left of the weekend, but it didn't work out so well for me this week..  Oh' well...  Life goes on, right?  So, I am slowly plugging away at it today.   Seeing lots of this:

And this:

And then, finally lots of this:

Gotta love freshly washed and folded laundry.  It smells so good, and feel so soft.  I love that it makes my whole house smell and feel fresh when I am doing laundry.

Hoping to get to go and scrap at the DB tonight, when I am done playing Cinderella.  I am getting there though, just gotta keep movin'.

And...  Last but not least... Some good, some bad and some ugly.
The good:  I found the snake.
The bad: He was alive and not a very happy camper.  I scared the crap out of him, just as bad as he did me.  He was striking at me, and hissing.  I almost had heart failure.  I screamed SO loud, that I made Ashlyn cry.  Poor little thing.  Then, I got the phone, called John and begged him to come home and get rid of the little beast.  So, he came, but refuse to kill it.
The snake is now living in the garage with a BIG heavy object on top of it's cage lid.
The ugly:


NASTY!

I am off to finish my work, so I can go and enjoy a fun evening of scrappin'!

Happy Saturday to you all!

My Baby Girl...

My fourth child.

Isn't she beautiful?

I love her!

Missing

Do you know what this is?  Yep...  An empty snake cage.
No, the snake didn't die, much to my dismay. 

We came home from school today and there was no snake in the cage.  How in the heck he got out of that cage, is beyond me, I guess he is a strong little sucker to push up the top of the cage.  We have searched high and low.

So, I guess what I am saying is...  Can I move in with YOU?

{ Some Specs }

I got some new glasses today...  Thought I would share, for lack of anything better to post.  :)  It was a Good Monday today. 
Hard to believe we are already almost done with our first month of school. 
Time flies! 

Hoping these new glasses help me get rid of the headaches.  If not, well...  at least they help me see better.

Happy Monday night.

P.S...  Photo's are from Madi Hofbauer Photography :)

A happy Saturday

Indeed!

Madi had her little friend, Martee spend the night last night.
We rented movies.  They watched Pink Panther, while we watched Flight 93.
WOW!  It was an intense movie.  I didn't know what to think of it.  It was so real, and that freaked me out a little bit.  But, it was good.  It made me think, and imagine, what I could never, ever truly imagine going through.  It made me feel sad and mad and thankful.  If you get a chance, you should watch it.

We got up this morning, and Madi, Martee, Deven, Ashlyn and I went for a walk and picked some blackberries from down the road.  It was a beautiful, crisp, cool morning.  I loved it.  We didn't get too many, a little bucket full, but, it was just enough for blackberry pancakes, so we came home and made blackberry pancakes.  They were seriously...  Oh', So Good!  It was fun.  So, now, I am off to clean up our mess, but, I wanted to say Happy Saturday!  And share these pictures!

Be Careful

What you wish for.

Remember in my last post when I said that I wished Ashlyn would STAY sick, so I could hold her and cuddle her?  Well, I guess I wished too hard, because I picked her up from the babysitters sick yesterday.  She had the same thing as she did over the weekend.  So, it is Thursday, and I am home.  Home to snuggle my baby girl, and help her get better.
Here she is today, all snuggled up on the bean bag, with her favorite blanket and a good episode of Clifford:

It is officially fall.  It is dark and cold outside.  I love it.  Fall is my favorite season.  If only we could have the fall off, instead of the summer.  I love the crispness of fall.  I love the colors and smells of fall.  I love sweatshirts and jeans, and I love that things feel more relaxed in the fall.  I also LOVE to take pictures in the fall.  I love leaves on the ground, and cooking in the crock pot.  So, I am feeling happy, and excited that we are coming into my favorite time of the year.

I leave you with a few pictures of my day.  Nothing special, just had some time and decided to capture today, just for fun.

We got up, and this was the temperature:

Brrrrr...  And the wind is blowing really hard, so it felt extra cold outside.

That is another sign that Fall is here:  The kids were all bundles up in sweatshirts and jeans today.  Ashlyn and I took Madi and Deven to school and dropped them off and headed to Starbucks, for a warm treat, for Mommy and some chocolate milk for Ashi.  A grande, mocha latte with caramel.  YUMMMMMMY!
And then we came home, snuggled up and drank our "coffee".
And, I took this picture:

And then...  I took a nice warm shower and put these on:

Ahhhh...  Nice warm, fuzzy sweat pants and nice, warm, fuzzy socks.

Looking forward to Survivor tonight, and off to bust out the crock pot, some pork roast, and some Yummy brownies, in honor of Survivor night.

Hope you are all having a good Thursday.

Until later,
Me

It was a weekend of...

FRIENDS!

On Friday, I went to lunch with my pal Whitney.  It has been so long since we have gotten together.  I miss her and am always so happy when we get together.  It was fun.  It was nice to sit and chit chat.  It was awesome Mexican food and good margarita's.  We need to do it more often.  We again agreed that we need to get together more often.  Hopefully this time we will stick to it.

Madi spent the night with her pal Savannah.

These two girlies have been pals forever.  I love them together.  Savannah has two older sisters.  She is so, so spunky.  She is crazy and she keeps Madi on her toes.  They are so silly together and it makes me smile.

Deven went to a Birthday party at his friend Keaton's house. 

Deven has been friends with Keaton and his older brother Kyler since he was born.  They have grown-up together and are very good friends.  Deven went to Keaton's birthday party and had a blast.  When I went to pick Deven up, and take his picture with Keaton, Keaton had left to go and take some of his other friends home, so I took his picture with Kyler, instead.

Ashlyn spent the night with her friend Riley.

Ashlyn and Riley have been friends since Katina and I took them to Dora.  Ashlyn likes to call Riley on the phone, and always looks forward to getting to play with her.  She was so excited to go and spend the night with Riley on Friday, but then called me Saturday morning, very, very sick.  Poor baby was so sick all day on Saturday.

So, that is how my Saturday was spent.  Taking care of my sick baby.  Remember my post about all the stuff I was going to get done on Saturday?  Well, I didn't get much of it done, but I wouldn't trade that day for any other productive day.  My baby girl needed me.  She wanted me to hold her and to rock her ALL DAY.  I was in heaven.  Of course it was a bummer that she was sick, but hey, if that is what it takes for me to get to hold her and rock her all day, I will take it.  :)  So, I did.  And I loved every second of it.  It seems these days, she is so busy.  Busy playing, busy doing her own thing.  I cherished the time I had to spend with her on that day.  I will take it, any way I can get it, sick or not.   ( Sadly, I just talked to Riley's mom and she has a fever tonight. )  Sorry Katina and Riley.  :(

It was a good weekend.  Ashlyn woke-up Sunday morning feeling better, and ready to go.  No more cuddles for mommy, just a busy toddler, heading into another busy, fun filled day.  Well, at least I was smart enough to leave the house just like it was and soak up all the love I could from her.  It was so worth it.

So, now it is Monday. 
Full swing into another week.
Looking forward to the weekend, but also knowing that we can take whatever comes our way in the mean time.

Happy week to you!

Wedding Photo's

I think I am officially done editing wedding pictures from the first wedding that I did, earlier this month.  Here are a few...

I had planned to post them in color, but for some reason, decided to post these, instead.  At least for now, maybe I will post some more in color later.  I still can't believe I did this.  I am such a huge chicken.  But, it was fun, and I am happy with the results.  Practice makes perfect, so I need all the practice I can get.  I could tell a difference in my pictures from the first to the second wedding, so hopefully they will keep getting better and better.  And, so I will leave you with one of my favorite shots from this wedding, I hope that they like it too...

Now, I am off to bed.  To dream of a clean house by this time tomorrow night.
Sweet Dreams!

Finally...

I can say, I AM SO HAPPY.  I am not worried.  I feel good.

It has been a rough last few weeks for us.  I have been having horrible, horrible headaches.  Worse headaches than I have ever had in my life, and almost everyday.  The kind where all I want to do is go to bed and sleep until it is gone.  But, I never end up getting to do that, so I just suffer through it.  And whine and cry and snap at people.  I have no idea why, maybe it is just a combination of things, and probably has a lot to do with a huge amount of stress.

But, today... I didn't have a headache. I am happy.  Ashlyn is good.  Madi is good.  Deven is good.  We are all in a good place right now.  We all feel relaxed and excited.  It feels good. 


Survivor starts tonight!  We are all so excited about that.  We all 5 love Survivor.  The kids even get to stay up, an hour past bed time, to watch it.  I try to make a good dinner and often some dessert.  Tonight, we are having ice cream cake, from Dairy Queen.



I am going to get my pictures, at least loaded tonight.  And I HOPE to get at least a few of them edited.  YIKES!  I can't believe I don't even have them loaded yet.  I gotta get on that.  I hope to have both wedding all done by next weekend.  And then, after that, I am going to start taking some more pictures of our everyday life.  Our house, kids, family...  the little things.  The little things that will soon be big things.  I HAVE to capture it, before it is gone!

So...  Here is to a relaxing, headache-less, stress-less evening, of family and Survivor.  Tomorrow is Friday, I get off at noon on Fridays, what's not to be happy about?

Until later,
Me

My happiness today...

Picking up one very, very happy girl from the babysitters.
Lesson learned.  Trust my gut.  I have "mommy instincts" and I need to follow them.  She is one happy little girl, and I am so thankful for that.
We went to the old daycare place to pay my bill and pick up Ashlyn's stuff, she would NOT even get out of the car.  She was so weird about the whole thing.  So, I didn't make her and I left there feeling more sure that we made the right decision, than ever.  *If you are looking for daycare in this town, call me and I will tell you where NOT to go.* 
Things are going well for her.  She is happy.  I am happy.

Had a nice visit with the parents last night.  They came down to bring some stuff, and we had dinner.  KFC, and LOTS of it.  It was a good visit.  Thanks for dinner, love you guys!

I have decided (again) that I want to start scrapbooking again.  It is a weird feeling to not even know how anymore.  There are so many new product that I don't even know about, or have a clue how to use.  Maybe that is why I quit for so long.  It is hard to keep up with the ever changing scrapbooking trends.  Am I scrapping to be trendy?  No, of course not, but I guess it was one more thing to overwhelm me, so I put it on the back burner.  I miss it though, and I want to start going again.  I want to be better at taking pictures, and making them into pages, that we will cherish forever.  I miss having that outlet.  That out time.  Maybe I will start going again.  Next week. 

For this week...  I am so looking forward to being home.  It has been crazy busy around here on the weekends, and I am needing some home time to organize, clean, burn candles, listen to music and make my house look like a place where people live and not like a dump.  I am looking forward to getting my house clean and then sitting down to look around and enjoy it.  I hope it happens.  It will, I will make it. 

I have pictures from 2 wedding's that I need to get loaded, edited, burned and to their new bride's and groom's.  I also have 2 more weddings that I am going to do.  One in the spring and one in the summer.  I am looking forward to them.  I really like the pictures that I took at the second wedding that I just did.  I am excited to share them, I just have to get them loaded.  There are so many, and they are such huge files that it takes some time, so I will get to it soon.

I am off to bed.  Hoping to make it through tomorrow without a migraine.  Seems to be an everyday occurrence lately.  That is a whole other story, but I won't go there now. 

Hope you all have a great rest of the week.

Until later,
Me