I am a macho guy!

So how many people do you know who can break a finger while running in place?

I am such a dork!

Monday I was working out at the Y doing the 30 minute cafe (similar to Curves). The stations are very close together. It has a machine and then a running mat and then another machine all around in a circle. The idea is to go around 3 times for a 30 minute workout. Anyway, on many occasions I have hit my hand on a machine beside where I am running. But on Monday, I was carrying weights. And the tip of my little finger hit the machine next to me and got caught between the machine and the weight. It HURT! WOW! It bruised up immediately.

So this is self diagnosed, but I think my finger is broken. It is at the tip of my finger so it wouldn't need to be reset. I put a splint on it. I just don't want to spend the $$$ to get it x-rayed when all they would do is put a splint on it.

Today I was looking up how long I should wear my splint on the Internet. And I came to a site that said that all finger injuries should be checked out by a doctor. It said, "Yes, there's probably some macho guy in your neighborhood who says to tape the finger up and it'll be fine, because that's what he did. He's an idiot."

hmmmmm....I must be the macho guy who is an idiot. But at least I used medical supplies and not duct tape.

Summer Vacation

Oh my goodness it must be Summer vacation!

I stayed at home today to try and get some stuff done around the house. I ended up doing a whole lot of everything and not getting anything completely done.

Anyway we have kept ourselves busy, busy, busy, with free bowling (except shoe rental for kids), free movies at the theatre, going to the zoo, and swimming at the Y. Who has time to blog?

Be prepared for some blurry pictures, I'm afraid my camera is dying.

The kids are really loving the bowling! We've been 3 times now and I think we will go tomorrow if I can get some stuff done around the house first.

Mason just got a spare. Way to go!

Ashley is super cute when she bowls. I taught them to follow through with their hand (not that they understand). Anyway, she throws her ball and then puts her arm up. It's really sweet.

Aussie has become pretty good. However-look at this picture. THIS is how he throws his ball. I've tried to teach him the right way or even a less scarier way, but he can't hold the ball with his fingers in the holes and he's doing a pretty good job knocking down the pins throwing it like a baseball. I cringe every time the ball hits the floor.

Dalton is allergic to the bowling alley. You think I'm funny? I'm serious. For some reason when he gets there he goes bonkers. They haven't stayed for a full game yet. But he sure is a cutie. Poor little fella though, he has a crush on Ashley, but Ashley has a crush on his brother, Braxton.

Braxton has got the form of bowling down. He does a pretty good job. I love to watch him. He watches that ball seriously and he might squat down with his arm out and follows through.

And here is Ashley flirting. She took Braxton's lucky hat away and put it on herself. Dana and I looked at each other, "UH oh TROUBLE!"

I didn't really like the kids doing this, but when I saw Dana's boys doing it, I knew it would make a good picture. (too bad I'm not getting very good shots!) That is where they keep the bowling balls.

I thought that Aussie had made this up but later learned that their friend Gabriel said it first. One of the days we ate lunch at the restaurant at the bowling alley. When we walked into the BAR and Grill. The kids started saying OH this is HEAVEN! Over and over and over again!!!!! This is Heaven! That's right a stage, a dance floor, gambling machines, darts, pool tables, nasty food and

let's not forget the bar with various kinds of alcohol. Aussie said, make sure to get a picture of the whole area back there with all those bottles. (the bar) BTW...apparently it's a family restaurant by day and over 21 by night.

Interesting! Not my idea of Heaven, but it sure made me laugh!

I got to bowl with Treyton once. I did pretty good too. I knocked 9 down, I don't remember if I picked it up or not. That would have been a funny picture though had someone gotten it.

And what is really cool, is they give the kids 4 free tokens to play the games in the arcade every time we go. It's really a cool place except for the bar and grill.

AND drum roll please......

I got my 2nd highest score yesterday. My highest score was 198- the day/game I broke my finger bowling. And yesterday I got a 192. Wooo hoo! A few days ago I was making a 78 or barely 100. Maybe I'm getting my groove back?

And here are just a few pictures of when we went to the zoo on members night. They got to ride the carousel and play on a jumpy maze race thingy.

Here is Mason and Aussie racing against each other.

Tomorrow should be interesting! Ashley is having a friend spend the night. I wonder how this will play out. I hope the boys leave the girls alone, but I'm not counting on it!

Aunt Chelle

I got a call from my brother! That could only mean 2 things:

1. He is coming to town and wants to spend the night with me tonight.

OR

2. His wife is pregnant.


YAY! I'm going to be an Aunt again!

Congratulations John and Beth!!!!

I wish I could be closer!

My poor baby girl!!!!!

Question: So what do these 3 pictures have in common?














Answer: One little girl who shouldn't have been playing on the outside railing!





Yesterday, while I was cleaning out the car in the driveway the kids were playing nearby.





Ashley climbed up on the railing and couldn't get down.





Aussie said to me Ashley needs help, in a tone much like he would say if she needed help with a craft.





Then Mason said, she needs help getting down. I get out of the car and look up to see Ashley on top of the railing and she says, "I'm OK Mom I got it."





I was mad. What was she doing up there?





I was on my way to help her when she lost her balance. Her legs still on the top rail, she grabbed a hold of the rail with her hands and did a flip much like the gymnast above. Except instead of being on the uneven bars, she was on the railing where her face went smashing into the rails.





It was horrible!





Blood was dripping everywhere. As bad as it was it could have been much worse if she wasn't hanging on. Her head could have hit the cement and well...it couldn't have been much worse.





Greg wasn't home and I wasn't quite sure if I should take her to the emergency room or not. All I saw was blood, she could have had a broken nose or who knows what?





So I tell the kids to get in the car and I text Greg to call now! He was at a play. I feel terrible that he had to leave. I just thought I would meet him somewhere and we would decide if I need to take her in. As I was on the phone with him I saw a policeman at a gas station. I told Greg I was going to ask him. I pulled in and got the police man's attention and asked him to look at her. He said that I probably didn't need to take her in. He flashed his flashlight in her mouth and I could see the big cut up on her gums. She still had all of her teeth. He said that mouth injuries heal fast and they couldn't stitch her up there anyway. So I took her home and put ice on it.





The pictures shown here are from today (the next day). So she actually looks much better than the night before!

We were at church and Ashley was looking at a book of World Animals. She saw this mandrill and pointed to it and then pointed to herself. {{{PITIFUL!!!}}} It's sad but true, I think there is a bit of a resemblance. Poor baby girl!!!!



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I had to apologize to the kids today for saying a bad word last night over and over again when this happened. I told them I had already asked God to forgive me and I hoped they would forgive me too. And of course they did!

Ashley said that yesterday was the worst day ever for her. The beginning of the day was fun, but after knocking off 14 ticks off of her before we even got home and pulling out 6, she may be right. (That story for another day.)

Please pray that she heals quickly!

Memorial Day Weekend

Last Sunday for Memorial Day Weekend I had all of us dress up in red, white and blue. We rarely are dressed to go together, so I tried to get a family shot. This is the best out of the TWO we got. And of course what kind of a day would it be if I didn't get resistance from somebody? Look the other two are trying to get him to smile.

So I finally get the smile and he is not looking.

Oh well!

Then Monday Greg had off work. I can tell you without even asking him that Greg doesn't like days off. He will be OK when we go on vacation, but on any other day it makes him very tense! (Even on vacation I'm sure he will call to make sure everything is OK, check his voice mail and possibly even his email IF someone hints at needing his help.)

Anyway, back to Monday. Greg had plans to make a movie of the kids, work on his writing stuff and I don't know what else. I had plans to have a picnic. The kids fiddled around and Greg decided to do a cooking show with Mason around 12:00ish aka lunchtime. But OK I can go with the flow. I get our lunches packed, we wait for the brownies to finish, and off we go to some unknown place to have a picnic. I picked a place close by, which was fairly packed. No picnic tables were left. That doesn't stop me though, I'm determined to have this BEAUTIFUL picnic. I put blankets down on the ground. I pull out our lunches. I finish my lunch and am enjoying the beautiful weather, and snapping pictures of my family. Then it started to rain. OH it's just a little rain. I could sit there, because DAGGUM it this is our Memorial Day Picnic and I am Happy! But Greg grabs everything and we are in the car before I know it. We went back home and finished our lunch. Greg was tense to say the least and so I told Greg in probably not so nice of tone to go to work. (probably more like get out of here.)

***Hey I never said that I was a saint!*****

So the rain stopped and I got the kids in the car and off to the YMCA to swim. WhooooHoooo we are excited! We get there and it is closed. UGH! So I promise the kids I will take them Tuesday and I take them to a nearby playground. Mason fell off the play dinosaur and hurt his back, and Ashley stubbed her toe and Aussie hit his head. So I declare it movie night. Off to Blockbuster to rent a movie. I thought we all agreed on Teen Titans in Tokyo. We go in and I get it and then one says, I didn't agree to that. Let's see one we haven't seen yet. OK- 3 movies later, one for each and a handful of movies on sale for half price (for our trip to Florida) and we are on our way home. They ended up watching 2 Pokemon movies. They begged for that second movie. I gave in knowing that it is summer and they don't have school the next day and I let them START the second movie around 9:30.

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But HEY it's Memorial Day weekend and we certainly had a memorial'able' day!

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Thank you to all of you who serve or have served our country! Thank you families for standing by and being split up for long periods of time so your spouse/father/mother can be serving our country. May God bless all of you and your families!

Lost Tooth

My baby lost his first tooth this morning. He pulled it right out himself. Of course it was hanging there for days and he wouldn't let anyone touch it. Now I know some of you are saying wait a minute, I thought he already lost 2. Well technically, they were pulled by the dentist and were never loose. When this one got loose on its own we were very excited! We didn't know if it would ever happen.

Ticks

I'm sure to those in the south, when you hear the word tick, you probably think yes those are anoying little things.

But to someone from the north.... THIS IS A BIG DEAL!

Aussie had a tick on the top of his head. Greg got that one. I had a small one on my tummy. Greg got that one leaving the head for me to get out. (Thanks honey for sharing that responsibility with me.)

And the next day Ashley had one on her hip. She flipped out. The legs were moving. She was saying call Daddy call Daddy.

But Dad was at work so Mommy had to do her best. I grabbed the tweasers and went to work. When it didn't come off in 2 seconds, Ashley was panicking asking for me to call Dad to come home.

Just be still, Daddy said this could take from 3-5 minutes.

I GOT IT! And I got the head!

She broke down and cried even harder after I got it off.

They are horrible little creatures!

End of the School Year Celebration

Oh wow I'm behind yet again! And it seems the only time I can write is late late at night.

Last Friday, we went to a friend's house to have an end of the "school" year celebration. They have a lovely house with a huge yard that is surrounded by woods. The first thing my kids saw were the precious tiny kittens.
This little kitten had the sweetest mew. I think if my husband didn't have his head on his shoulders then we would have convinced him we needed to take one home.


My kids heard the others talking about the zipline and off they went into the woods.

Ashley had no fear! I on the otherhand was freaking out watching my baby jump. She wanted to go backwards, but I told her I was just not ready for that. Mason is afraid of heights so he would have nothing to do with it. I thought Aussie would do it, but he wouldn't have anything to do with it either.

I tried to go around and get down to where Ashley would end and if not to "save her" atleast get some good pictures. But as I was walking around I saw a huge what looked like an ant pile except it wasn't ants coming out of it. It was spiders. I'm a WIMP! I admit it. I went back to the starting point where some boys were talking about a tick they just saw. UUUUUUGH! And then a girl spoke up and said casually, Yah-we pulled off 5 ticks yesterday from my sister.

OK OK OK OK-- KIDS COME ON! NOW!

I said we had to go back and get bug spray on.
And on our way back we ran into this: It was small-but not something I was very happy about. We managed to get around it and got back to the house. In which I immediately called my husband and asked him to get off work now and come play with the kids, because I am NOT going back into those woods. Thankfully, he has a job in which he can do stuff like that as long as he makes up his time.

I told the other parents of the snake that I found. They said if it is a solid black or a solid green then it is fine. UMmmmmmm.....here look I took a picture of it. EEEEEk! That is not a solid color.

Before I go on with the rest of the day, let me say that I stayed up to weee hours of the night to research and find out just what kind of snake this was. If I would just look at the patterns, I would have said this was a rattlesnake. But I did my research. I enlarged the head. Apparantly, if the snake has slither eyes then it is poisonous, but if it has round eyes like this one then it is not. What I believe this to be is a gray ratsnake. To tell you the truth it doesn't make me feel any better.

So I told the kids they had to wait for Dad before going back into the woods. Which really wasn't a problem there was lots of fun things to do.

Mason asked a boy if he could try the scooter. I was close enough to hear the conversation. Mason just wanted a turn and the boy wasn't to willing to let Mason try.

"It isn't fair"

I just asked the boy if when he was finished if my son could try it.

It's amazing how other children act toward adults so much nicer than when asked from another child.

"SURE" and he immediately got off.

OK- I didn't mean for him to get off at that moment but whatever.

Mason tried it for a little tiny bit, saw what it was like and gave it back to the kid.

I thought this tree stump was really cool! They had hollowed it out. I didn't go in it, but the boys said that there was a dog bed in it. They had put a board on top and a slide down the other side. That must have been SOME tree! I wonder what happened to it.

Then Daddy came to the rescue!

I left to go scrapbooking and gave instructions to take pictures. He did good.
Ashley went back on the zipline.

Here's a close up.

And it appears Daddy let her go backwards.

Then they had a camp fire.
And they toasted marshmallows (or burned them).

And then made YUMMY Smores! In which the boys took one bite and then gave them to Dad.