Our Sweet Tucker

We will miss you so much, our hearts ache...

In loving memory of our sweet Tucker.

They will not go quietly,
the cats who've shared our lives.
In suptle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a meow at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them. . . and always will.

Bathroom is Complete!

I love it!  1st Choice Home Improvements does an amazing job!

Mission: Bathroom Remodel

Almost complete.  Pictures to follow soon.

Sooo....Excited.....

What a day!

To improve my weight loss efforts, I have, yet again, joined weight watchers.  I make an attempt at attending meetings on Wednesday mornings...with Carter.  When I 're-started', Carter was potty training.  It makes things interesting...for example, today he insisted he had to 'poop', so we walked down the long cold hallway to the bathroom, only to figure out he didn't want to poop.  Twice.  Needless to say, I missed about half the meeting.  Oh well.

On our way home, my mind was scrambling.  Here I have a 2 1/2 year old who needs to 'poop', I have to get home, try to get him to take care of business, then book out the door again to pick up Mason from pre-school.  I had 10 minutes to get this accomplished, and I still needed to get home.  So as I was toodling up Keats Ave, a police officer coming from the other direction quickly and swiftly made a u-turn in the middle of Keats and ever so perfectly ended up behind me.  My stomach sunk.  Crap.  I was, indeed, speeding.  I took a left onto 80th to head home, and sure enough the blueberries and cherries lit up brightly in my rear-view mirror.  I followed protocol, pulled over, put my hazards on, put both hands on the steering wheel and waited for the officer to approach.  I rolled the window down, he took my license and insurance, went back to his car...and then it happened.  I lost it.  Completely and utterly lost it.  I took 2 kleenexes and held them up to my eyes, purely humiliated.  I was embarrassed and ashamed.  All of a sudden, he was back at my window, handed me my license with a warning; and with a gentle smile, told me to take care and watch my speed.  I said thank you sir, and cried harder.

I made it home, only to sit in the driveway, crying.  It was a pathetic moment.  I don't cry often, but holy smokes, all I could think of was, geez - get a hold of yourself!  I sat there for a few minutes, then put the car into reverse to head to pick up Mason from pre-school...only as Carter said, he has to go potty.  Oops.  So we quickly unbuckled, ran into the house, took care of business, ran back outside, buckled back in, and slowly and carefully drove to pick up Mason....

We get home shortly after the pre-school pick-up, only to come home to sucker gank all over our newly cleaned carpets.  AWESOME.  The dog got into a zip loc baggy of dum dums that I kept in the diaper bag.  The stinker.  However, I multi-tasked well and was able to clean the sucker gank, get two children organized and ready for lunch, and lunch was made successfully.

The day continues, the kids were good, I was in a fog from the morning events.  Brian gets home, we quickly eat dinner then head out to the paint store for some products to work on home projects.  The boys are fascinated with the 'paint-making' process, and love to be allowed to push the buttons to 'color' the paint, then to 'shake' the paint.  They were so proud of their paint making skills and proudly carried out their paint stir sticks.

The day wound down, and here I sit, with a drink in my belly and a compter and cat on my lap.  All I can think about is how blessed I am.  A great marriage, three healthy and happy boys, two cats, one dog...and a partridge in a pear tree.

Good night.

Almost a year?!?

It has been almost a year since I last blogged.  I miss it, and I am going to try to keep up again!  TTFN...ta ta for now.

Kid stories are so funny.

Evan story:

At dinner the other night, the boys and I were sitting around the table and they wanted to discuss pretty girls and getting married. So I told them, when they graduate from high school, then from college, get a job - they can get married. They told me who they already have in mind for said marriage (Mason - his babysitter and Evan his girl friend from kindergarten). We all agreed it sounded like a good plan. Then they asked about 'girlfriends'. Yikes. I said when they're old enough to drive, and promise me they drive safely, they will be at the age for girlfriends. Evan then replies...'I really want to drive!!!' Good grief, he's only 6!

Mason story:

This morning Mason had to use the bathroom for the 2nd time, within an hour. He, of course, trips and stumbles onto the floor. He told me that he was ok, got up and proceeded into the bathroom. I asked him what happened, and he replied, 'I lost my foot energy'.

Mason's Prayer

"God, thank you for my life, thank you for my friends and me. Now, make sure everyone's ok and don't move. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit. And all of God's children say - Amen."

Merry Christmas!!!

McDougall's Apple Junction

Every year we have gone to McDougall's Apple Junction, and I guess it's sort our family tradition. We absolutely love it there and the kids have a blast. This year was just as fun, beautiful weather and we went to the actual pumpkin patch to let the kids pick out their own pumpkins. It was a very fun morning, again, at Apple Junction! And as always, we bought our home-made peanut butter...it's the best peanut butter you'd ever eat! I can't wait to dig into it! Here are some pics from our morning. Enjoy!

Hey, why not?!

It's October 12th, why not build a snowman?!?



We ended our fun in the 'snow' with snow angels!



And a sneak peek of why I really don't have extra time on my hands ;) This is when Evan is in kindergarten...

Wow.

Yep. Wow. Things are going too fast, too much is going on, and it's raining. I sure hope to getting back into blogging, I miss it! I hope to get some recent pictures up and explain what we've all been up to lately! It's been nuts!

Well, here's a quickie update:

Evan = kindergarten = he loves it. He will be turning 6 the end of November and we have a fun birthday planned out! He's learning a lot of new things from school and its been a lot of fun to watch him.

Mason = preschool = he kind of likes it. He's just Mason...what else do I need to say?!? He's goofy, he's funny, he's whiny, he's 3 1/2. He makes up stories, sings to himself and he loves to play. He whines. Did I mention he whines?

Carter = home and ECFE = he is explorative. C can climb, he's starting to figure out his legs can move faster (running) and he climbs as high as he can. He's into throwing tantrums, throwing toys, throwing puzzles, throwing books, etc. He also enjoys hitting Mason. I don't know why. It's weird. He has a total of 6 teeth at the moment, and we're hopeful for more so he can actually chew more food. He wants our food, and we feed it to him, but depending on how chewy it is, he usually chokes. Other than that, he's a bundle of fun and all boy!

Brian = headache still = still doesn't like it. Ugh. Need I say more?

Me = lots of stuff = yep. I'm going to be opening an in home daycare in my home and I'm looking forward to it! It should be interesting... I've had my first home visit, and the fire inspection visit and both went well. My next step is receiving CPR and First Aid training (which will be October 17th), the 2nd and final home visit from the daycare licenser, and working on my contract. Oh, and getting families! I'm giving myself one full year of this daycare stuff to see if I really enjoy it or really cannot handle it. We shall see, I'm sure I'll be praying a lot!!!

Well, that's the quickie update. I hope to be back blogging regularly again soon!

I have a goal

My goal of the day is to try to update this blog!!! Hopefully I'll be back later...life has been so crazy busy!

Okie dokes...catch'ya later.

Wow, it's been a while!

I didn't realize how long it's been since my last blog! I guess I've been very busy lately...anyways, here's a quick update...

Kids are doing good - Evan is done with preschool, he had his little preschool graduation and it was adorable :) He'll be heading to kindergarten this fall! Mason is done with his ECFE class and he'll be headed to preschool at our Church this fall. Carter is almost 1!!! Yikes, where did that go? He will be turning the big 1 on June 30th...the day after we get home from Grand Marais! Yippee!!! We are headed up this Thursday and coming home Monday and we could not be more excited. It's a much needed getaway, and we're super excited to see family up there (every year we have a little 'reunion' there with my side of the family).

Brian's doing pretty good. He had his afib heart thing again, and we went to ER a couple weeks ago - we actually went due to extreme back pain for him. Anyways, he ended up spending the night due to his heart and they had to shock his heart the next day to get it out of afib. It was the scariest 10 minutes of my entire life. Thankfully, the shock went perfectly, he woke up and felt great, and he's been doing good since. It took a few days for him to recover from that! On the headache issue, we're headed down to Mayo Clinic in early August to go to the headache clinic...hopefully we can figure something out.

As for myself, I am back to attending weight watchers meetings. I really enjoy it, it helps me a lot with staying on track and 'attempting' to lose weight. However, this past week has been so crazy I haven't tracked very well. Oh well. It's a work in progress.

We had our Strawberry Fest in Cottage Grove this past weekend and had a great time! We also celebrated Father's Day and 'I think' Brian had a nice day! At least I hope so!!! He sure deserves it. He is such an amazing father and husband, we all adore him to pieces! When I have more energy, I will post pictures later...as for now this is all I can handle :)

Garage Sale, Birthday, Biking, Garden, etc!!!

Whew, it's been a while since my last blog! Woopsie daisy! We've been very busy with, well, life! Here's an update of our past couple weeks...

We survived our first garage sale and it was awesome! It was totally worth the hard work and we're glad it's over. I'm still working on the 'clean-up'...sorry about that hon...we'll get it done and get your truck back in the garage soon!

Brian's 30th birthday was May 7th (along with our nieces 5th birthday!) and we kept the day low key...which was sneaky...I threw him a surprise birthday party on Saturday the 9th and I pulled it off! He was actually surprised! We had a fabulous time with family and friends! Thanks to all who could make it! It was a gorgeous evening, perfect for the kids to play outside, and we ended the evening with a perfect bonfire. It was so fun!

Then Mother's Day was that Sunday and I have to say, it was the best Mother's Day I ever had! Brian asked what I wanted, and I told him that I want to stay in bed and relax all day :). I woke up around noon, got an amazing brunch in bed, opened fabulous gifts from the kiddos and hubby - they made flower pots and planted flowers that they picked out - how cute is that?!? Then we got my favorite for dinner - Papa John's pizza...oh yum! It was a perfect day! Thank you honey!!!

Evan has a new trick - he can now ride his bike without training wheels! As of yesterday, May 14th, he just took off! It's really fun to watch him and he absolutely loves it! He's doing so great and growing up so quickly! He graduates from preschool on Tuesday...I better get the kleenexes ready!

We are also working on our garden 'plot' in the backyard! How exciting is this...we are going to hopefully grow some food! Yippee! The boys loved helping out and we're hoping to get it tilled up today and get the plants in soon!

I tried to make this as short as possible! I think for myself I did fairly well :). Enjoy the pics!

Evan and Mason selling pop at our garage sale:

Brian's Birthday:


Brian's surprise birthday yummy dairy queen blizzard cake:

The boys with their Mother's Day gifts:

Evan riding his bike:

Happy Birthday Maverick!

8 years ago, our first born arrived into the world! Maverick Turbo Darling was born April 26th, 2001. He was purchased a few months later as an absolutely adorable puppy, and he grew into a wonderful dog. He's always been fun, mischievious, silly, and when the kids came into the picture, he became more fun and very protective! He is such a great dog, and we absolutely love him to pieces! Except for when he drags mud into the house and onto the carpet ;). Or throws up on our comforter... But we still love him :) Happy 8th Birthday Maverick!!!

Overwhelmed

Wow. I'm having my very first garage sale...hopefully next weekend...and I'm realizing how very overwhelming it is. Brian and I worked on cleaning out our 'laundry room' last night and it took almost 2 hours. 2 hours?!? Yikes. I still have to work on our bedroom, guest bedroom, guest bedroom closet, kids toys, kids clothes, baby clothes, our crawl space, the garage, the shed...not to mention taking care of 3 kids while trying to attempt this! I'm a little overwhelmed. We have so much stuff it's crazy. I'm looking forward to hopefully selling most of it! I hope we earn enough money so I can buy myself a new pair of tennis shoes!!! That's my goal :). We shall see.

So I want to get this all done by next Wednesday, so I can open the garage up to friends and family to take dibs on stuff they may want, then I want to open the sale on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On top of that, Brian's turkey hunt is this weekend. So he'll be busy trying to get a turkey.

This is very overwhelming. I'm glad I have goals, I just hope I can reach them! I've received some good advice for holding a garage sale...any more advice would be greatly appreciated!

Ok, that's my thought of the day. It's busy around here. :)

Fun weekend!

We had such a great weekend. Saturday was spent with a couple of my friends doing an 'Open House' for our direct sales companies, and we had such a great time. It was nice to 'hang out' outside of my home for a day :).

Then Sunday, today, is Mason's 3rd birthday. 3 years ago, at 5:54pm, our 2nd little man came into this world...pink in color...then red in color...then jaundice in color...and he had this sweet little whimper cry. He was so quiet we could hardly hear him in the hospital! I remember laying there in the hospital bed looking at him, and thinking 'that's all you got??'!

Then we went home, only to come back to the hospital for 3 more days due to his jaundice. Poor kid. He got to lay in his 'tanning bed' for 3 whole days, with funny little glasses on. It was horrible at the time, but now that I look back I just thank God for the medical advances there are! We are so lucky he was ok...he had jaundice really bad. He even had a jaundice buddy laying in a 'tanning bed' across the room. Although the other baby actually looked like a baby because he only weighed 6lbs and some ounces. Mason, on the other hand, looked like a toddler in his 'tanning bed' weighing in at 9lbs 10oz. It was funny to compare the 2. Anyways, the nurses were fantastic and Brian and I were lucky enough to be able to stay in the hospital because they had a lot of extra rooms. Plus, we were so lucky to have Grandparents to help with Evan so much while we were in the hospital.

3 years later, we now have a typical goofy 3 year old that loves to laugh, dance, sing, play, jump, climb, and make us laugh. He is so hilarious and he is so sweet. He loves to share stories and be read to. He also loves his cartoons and to play outside. We have our hands full with him, but I can't complain. We have 3 healthy and happy boys and it couldn't get any better!

Happy Birthday Mason!!!

and off go the training wheels!

Evan's been begging us all winter to take off his training wheels this spring. So, we did. Well, Brian did (some things are difficult when you have a baby attached to your hip). It's been a whopping 2 days now and he's 'starting' to kind of get it. We're working on teaching how to balance and helping push him along. He's also been doing a lot of the work by himself, he does really well with that, plus he relies too much on us to hold him up. Last night he went almost half way up the driveway by himself and he got so excited, he stopped. He'll go about 2-3 pedals, get excited and then stops. Then he screams with excitement. It's been fun to watch him and he's loving it. He's doing a really good job! We're getting excited for future family bike rides!

Crawling and Sprouts!

We are proud to announce that Carter is now mobile! He started crawling yesterday at lunch time. I was in the kitchen getting Evan and Mason milk for their lunch, I look down and there goes Carter across the floor! I was so excited, I grabbed the camera and got some blurry shots (you'll see the pics below), he's very proud of himself and his big brothers are just as proud!
On another exciting note, we have sprouts...lots of sprouts from our garden! Although, now we're in a predicament, we think we may have planted too early. This is our first year, and the plants look like they're already running out of room! I was just going to be happy if we actually grew something...and I guess we were successful! This picture was already taken a couple days ago, and there are now green sprouts in almost every spot and they're getting taller and taller! Yikes! Is there a 'transitional' pot or something?!? Hmmm...we may have to figure something out :)

We did it!

I'm proud to announce that we have sprouts!!! If you're a follower of my blog, you'll note that a while back I talked about our garden. We have decided this year to tap into gardening, and low and behold, we actally have some sprouts! We are very proud of our new little green sprouts, here is a pic of them:


On another note, we now have a 9 month old. Carter turned 9 months old on the 30th of March. His newest endeavor is attempting to crawl. He hasn't gotten it quite yet, but I'm sure it'll be soon. He is, although, rather good at scooting around and sitting up from laying on his belly. We have still been attempting food with him...and well, look at the pics. He still thinks it's hilarious.





We were able to enjoy some of the nice weather a weekend of two ago...I can't remember, it's just been too long since it's been nice! Here's a pic of my 3 stooges.


On the 'headache' front, there is a new update. Brian saw his neurologist, told him the meds aren't working, so he increased the dosage, he'll take those for another month, if those don't work the neurologist will try another medication for a month, if those don't work, we'll be looking at getting a referral to the Mayo Clinic. Let's hope and pray the meds will work...please.

That's about it for now, I'm sure I have a lot more to blog about, but that can be for another day :)

What a day.

Brian left at 5am this morning for St. Louis to go to a 'Haunt Show'. For those who are curious...it's this Halloween convention thing. Yep. Halloween. It'll be interesting to hear about it. Yep.

Anyways, Carter decided he wanted to join the 5am party and wake up to be cranky and eat. So, as Brian left, I got Carter back into bed about 5:30, he fell asleep about 6:30, my alarm went off at 6:52am, I climbed out of bed at 7:20am, got Evan taken care of with morning cartoons and breakfast, went downstairs to shower in Brian's shower (for those of you who don't know, my shower was broken and I've been using a needle nose pliers for about 6 months, Brian fixed it but it now leaks), came upstairs, got ready, got Evan dressed and ready for preschool, woke up Mason and then woke up Carter about 8:30am, got them dressed and barely fed to leave by 9am to get Evan to preschool on time. Got Evan to school, went to the post office to mail a package, then went to the grocery store to get some much needed food, headed home, got the groceries put away the kids fed again and then left again to get Evan from preschool early because we had a Doctor's appt for Carter's 9 month check up.

We arrive at the Doctors office, I get the stroller out put Carter in it, fought with Mason about riding in the stroller and I quickly gave up, got into the clinic, checked in and was told the Doc had to rush up to delivery. Since it was 11:40am already I decided it was a good time to catch some lunch and wait for the Doctor to come back. It was his last day and our very last appt with him, I was NOT going to miss it! So we head over to the cafeteria, which was pretty crowded with lunch rush, with a double stroller and 2 kids running around, figured pizza was a good option. So we had a very healthy lunch of pizza, french fries and milk. Well...after I purchased it which is another story. I had the tray, 2 loose kids on the run, and the double stroller. I got into line, the gentleman figured out my total, I tried to hand him my visa only to find out it's cash or check only. Crap. Cash??? Who carries cash anymore?! Luckily I had a few bucks in my wallet, but of course not enough. So I had to dig for some change...in this time, my wallet dumped out all over the floor. My credit cards, business cards, change, pictures, etc. Can you picture this?! Anyways, I had enough cash to pay for our lunch. We sat down and the kids enjoyed the food. Well, Evan did at least. Mason of course didn't eat much because the pizza looked 'icky'. Whatever. Eat or be hungry. Also during this lunch time, I get the table set up and everyone arranged and I hear the words - 'mom, I have to pee'. Seriously?? I can't just leave all our stuff there. Anyways, this wonderful couple sitting at a table next to us offered to watch our stuff while we take the bathroom break. God bless them! So we get into the bathroom, and Mason, who had to pee, didn't pee. He said he didn't have to. So I made Evan pee so at least we had a successful trip. Another woman had come into the bathroom also, obviously, it is a public bathroom. Anyways, as she was taking care of business, my boys decided it was time to laugh and ask what that was. I heard her break out in laughter and I almost died. Then Mason 'tried' to peek under the stall (I didn't let him) and he waved and said 'hello' to the other lady. Good Lord, are we done yet?!

Oh the day continues if you wish to read on...

We go back to check if the Doc is back from delivery and he is, so we patiently wait to be called back. Luckily it was only about 5 minutes of wait time, so not too bad. We cram into the clinic room, the wonderful nurse brings in toys for the boys, we get Carter arranged and ready for his check up. He weighs in at a whopping 18 lbs 3 oz and 27 1/4" long. The Doc comes in and we chat for a while which was wonderful. Today is his last day working in the clinic as a clinic Doctor. I am so heartbroken that he's leaving. He delivered all 3 of our boys and has helped us for the past 7 years. He was the most wonderful Doctor I have ever had. Anyways, he tells me they have to take Carter's hemoglobin. Ok. So the nurse comes back in and pokes his little finger, does what she needs to do then places a bandaid on the finger. I put him in the stroller so I could put Mason's shoes back on (we had to go take his weight because he has an ear infection...ugh). Then Evan starts freaking out saying there's blood everywhere. What?!?! I look at Carter, and sure enough, there's blood everywhere! So the little poke from the test is bleeding like crazy and I take the little bandaid off, and try to get it under control. About 20 kleenexes later I couldn't get it. The Doc came back in and took care of it. So I have a very tired and bleeding baby at this point. The Doc then chatted some more and got Mason's prescription sent to the Target pharmacy for us to pick up.

At this time it's now 1:30 and we leave the clinic. I have a heavy heart due to the fact that our Doc is leaving and Mason is sick. It didn't take long for Carter to fall asleep in the car, so we ventured to Target. The visit went well, we got our prescription from the 'crabby' pharmacy tech. How fun really...not what I needed was some crabby tech. Anywho, we got some junk food to snack on for the weekend since Brian is gone. On top of this, my key remote thingy for the car doesn't work all the time and the only place to unlock the car is from the drivers side door. Use your imagination, it's just another frustration.

So we finally got home about 3:00pm. Thank God. I hope the rest of night will stay peaceful and I'll be able to work on some projects around the house I have in mind while Brian is gone. We shall see. Oh - and chocolate has been purchased.

Motherly duties are calling, so I better run. Good day.