Atterberry Family

Christmas

2011-12-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

Scott's blade

Jess's pic

snow white doll

GG's plate holder

dad's pic

basketball hoop

Brandon's pic

So Christmas is over. Everyone had a really good time. We went to Chris' house for Christmas eve. He really goes all out with decorating. We ate pizza and then opened a few presents. We tried to start earlier so I wasn't getting the kids home so late but it still was almost ten before I got them asleep. They were up at 6:30 the next morning checking out the presents. They get to open the presents from Santa to keep them occupied until it is time to go to Mom's house for stockings and breakfast. Then we come back here and sort out the presents while Dad gets GG. We open for a while then eat Christmas dinner and then finish. We take turns opening the presents so it takes longer and makes Christmas last longer that way. Some of the highlight presents for everyone were: GG got a new really soft lap blanket, a gift card from Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim, a watch from Avon that she wanted and a paper plate holder that the boys made and I painted. Brandon got a RC monster truck that can go outside and new cowboy boots from Santa. He also got a lot of other cool toys like spy stuff, a basketball hoop that hooks onto the back of a door, things like that. Jessie received a prince and princess doll and a Rudolph doll that sings and the nose lights up from Santa and she got Barbie and princess stuff mainly for her other toys. I gave them both a painting that I painted, Brandon a fire scene and Jessie an ocean/dolphin scene. Every time I was doing a painting Jess would ask me for the rejects. She finally got to the point that she was intentionally trying to make me mess up so I promised her I would make her her own painting for Christmas so I had to make one for Brandon also. Scott's favorite presents were his fleece pants and the chainsaw blade I painted a fire scene on, and his drill. Chris' was probably his ipad Rachel got him. He also got some things for the house and some pretty knick-knacks. Rachel's was her ipod from Chris and her stuffed goat because she loves goats and music. She is really good at making the goat sound. She also received some scentsy stuff that she loves. Dad said his was the pizza and ocean paintings I painted for him. There is a story behind the pizza. My first painting I did was a fall one and it had a basket of leaves sitting on a chair. Chris and Dad have made fun of it for years saying it looks like a pizza. I finally decided to paint an actual pizza for him. I also made an ocean scene because he liked the one I did for Chris' birthday. He also got a plug in mug to keep his soup and tea warm when he is working. Mom said her favorites were all the jewelry she got, her granddaughter statue and the charms I got her for her bracelet. My favorite gifts was the new camcorder everyone pitched in to buy. Also my fuzzy robe and pjs and pretty much everything else I got. The camcorder was the big surprise. My best gift of all was having my family healthy and all together. The kids didn't fight and it was a nice pleasant white Christmas. After dinner we got to play with our gifts and watch a Christmas movie. It was one of the best Christmases we have had in a while.

Christmas break continued

2011-12-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

We went to electricritters at the zoo last Sat. It wasn't too cold so it was fun. We had to park quite a ways away but it was worth it. We make our own hot chocolate to bring and that saves a lot of money right there. It's so cool how they make all the animals out of lights and every year we try to pick out the changes. This Sat we went to the riverwalk to walk around there. We went on the boat one year but it is very cold and they drive so fast it isn't worth the money. It is more fun to walk anyway. This year we took the dogs with us. BJ is better with the crate but he still would still rather go with us. Fearless did pretty good but now he is crabby. It was worth it to see the happy face on him though. Who says dogs can't grin? Chris and Rachel had their Christmas party so they did not go with us. Dad has shingles. Luckily it isn't too bad so he is making it through okay. I hope that is our only bad luck for this Christmas. The kids are getting really excited. Jessie is still questioning Santa occasionally but I think that is because she thinks that if Santa isn't real, then she doesn't have to be as good. Brandon is questioning also but he doesn't want to know the truth so he won't ask. We already had a present issue. Jessie bought Brandon a couple of gifts at the santa shop. There was a teddy bear there she wanted that said love Mom on it. She said she wanted it so she could feel close to me at night when she had trouble sleeping. Brandon was supposed to get it but the person helping him didn't know the story and talked him out of it. We got some stuffed dogs in and she fell in love with a golden retriever. I put one aside to have Brandon give it to her. What I didn't know is that a little boy Joey, who is in her class and his mom was also helping out, wanted to get it for her. They bought it for her also. So now I had two of the same dog. I ended up donating one to the toy drive but I still didn't have something for Brandon. We finally found a little bear that says "Jesus loves me" on it for him to give to her. I hope she likes it as well. Now he just has to do some chores to pay it off since he spent all his money. So the rest of the week is just finishing up the wrapping and goodies and keeping the kids out of the presents.

Santa Shop

2011-12-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

We went to Carmen and Kurt's last Saturday for their Christmas party. It was fine except for we didn't know anyone other than our family. The kids did well considering that they had nothing to do but they were really well behaved. Rachel felt bad that they were bored but we knew that they would be. We had a choice to go to theirs or Chris and Rachels next week and we decided to do Carmen's this year. Next year we might do Chris'.

I worked the Santa shop at the school all this week. It was fun but tiring. Jessie loved helping out for a little while when she got out of school. Next year will be easier because they will both be in all day. All the kids get into buying presents. As predicted, some of course tried to buy for themselves but for the most part they stuck to the lists. It is fun to see what they pick. Many tried to buy toys for their family members and we had to steer them clear of that. They were all pretty good bargain shoppers. I think we only had one child this year that had so many names and only like $10 to spend that he ended up being able to spend only 75 cents a person. That makes it interesting. It was so popular that we kept running out of bags to wrap the presents in. I helped Jessie with her gifts but Brandon was on his own. He did pretty good but went off his list to include the pets, which I told him not to because then he went cheaper on some of the others, namely his sister. He did however put a lot of thought into his gifts and his heart was in the right place. I think next year if I am able to work it, I am going to have them come after school and shop together so we won't have any issues hopefully. They also participated in the blanket drive for the homeless (we did get some blankets) and the food drive and the toy drive. All in all it was a good week. Next week they only have two days of actual school and Wed. is Brandon's school party in the afternoon and Jessie's in the morning. Thursday they have literacy testing so no official school. Then break for two weeks. When they come back they only have one semester to go. Where did the year go? Wasn't it just Halloween? They went to see Santa at the mall last night and we ate Subway and walked the mall and they turned in their letters to the special mailbox in the mall. Tomorrow we do Electricritters at the zoo. More on that later.

getting ready for Christmas

2011-12-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

The Christmas holiday is upon us already. It seems like I was just at the kid's school for their Halloween parade and now to help with Christmas. Where did the time go. The kids started bugging us to put up decorations on Thanksgiving, we agreed to bring in the boxes but didn't start until the day after. Every year we have the kids buy toys for the toy drive and this year when Scott and I were at Hobby Lobby the other day we found $24.00 on the ground in the parking lot. There was no one around that it could have been. We decided for that little of money no one would look for it at the police, so we made the decision to use it for charity since it wasn't ours to begin with. Yesterday we took the kids toy shopping and they were able to buy quite a few presents for the toy drive with it. Brandon was so excited he wanted to put the bags in the box before we even paid for them. The kids are also having a food drive and a blanket drive through the school. The food goes to families in the county so it stays close to home and the blankets are going to the local homeless shelters. We didn't have any old blankets to donate so Mom put in a request at work so hopefully we can get a few at least. They also are having the yearly Santa Shoppe at school that I volunteer at. That is where the kids get to shop for their own gifts for their families. It is fun to see what the kids pick out. Sometimes we need to direct them and a lot of times to keep them from buying for themselves. They can be pretty adamant about what they want to give though. The big problem is when they have $10 and twenty people to buy for. That is next week so I should have some good stories after then. It takes up a lot of time but it is worth it. I just have to work a little harder the week after to get all of my projects done before CHristmas. We are supposed to go to Rachel's mom's for their Christmas party tonite but it is snowing really good so I don't know if we will want to chance it or not. We have lots planned over the next few weeks and I will try to post about all of it as we are doing them. I love being able to blog about our family adventures especially at Christmas it makes me feel closer to all of my extended family and that you all can be a part of our traditions as well as us a part of yours.

BJ

2011-11-07T07:08:00.000-08:00

First things first. We finally were able to get high speed internet. Yay! They finally have service out here and we were able to get it at a discounted price through the school that ended up being the same cost as our dial up. It came just in time too because Jessie has a reading program through the school that they give access to from home and when I went to download it, it was like 487Mb. It took 30 minutes on high speed, I would probably be still downloading on dial up. Since our computer is so old, they said our speed might still be a little slower but compared to dial up, I don't notice. Now I can do more stuff during the day instead of waiting until night because I didn't want to tie up the phone line during the day.

On to BJ. He is the most sweetest loving dog with brown eyes that will melt your heart. That is the only thing keeping him alive. It is like having a hyper toddler around that you have to watch every minute. He has separation anxiety really bad so we had to get a crate for him because he was tearing things up when we left. We got a fold up metal one but we can't fold it up any longer because he was popping the latches and getting out. He managed to open the locks so we put carabiners on them. He broke the carabiners and got out. Once, we aren't even sure how he did it because we came home, he was out and the door was closed. We finally got some latches that seem to keep him in but he keeps destroying his bedding. We give him a toy that you put peanut butter in and we freeze it and he manages to eat most of that also. He is getting better but on Halloween we came home and found he somehow managed to get the mat in front of Scott's chair into the crate and chewed it up. We have to keep all the doors shut because he likes to shred stuff. I can tell when he is not getting enough exercise because that is when is starts to get destructive. The problem is lately all he wants to do is play with Fear, who is getting too old to play. I wonder if dog's can sense another animal's time is short? We are hoping Fear will last through the new year at least. He is getting better at not herding the kids, at least not nipping on them as often. We are still working on that. He is really good on a leash but when you take him off and he gets really excited, then he doesn't listen, so we are really working on that right now. Sometimes I wonder why we were supposed to have him now when our life is already chaotic enough without adding a hyper dog to the mix. I wouldn't trade him though. He has also brought a lot of happiness into our lives and he can really cheer us up. It is impossible to not love a dog who is so happy to see you, even if it was just five minutes ago. He follows me everywhere and just lays down beside me wherever I am. Makes you feel loved, but also guilty if I am moving around a lot. I guess God knew we wouldn't send him back no matter what and I am really getting good use of my mending skills.

Halloween

2011-11-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

The kids took skating lessons for five Saturdays at Skate City to learn to roller skate. We don't have anywhere out here in the county to practice, no sidewalks etc., so they were pretty much limited to just skating at the lessons. Jessie was the smallest in the class and couldn't even see over the wall. She was funny to watch because she took such small steps that she barely went anywhere. Brandon did a little better but he looked like a robot at first. We found him some inline skates at a second hand store for $3.50 and Jessie some of those plastic skates that go over your shoes on Craigslist so they could practice on our kitchen floor. Brandon was getting good at home and then he would fall back at practice. On the last day, the 29th, they had a graduation skate and Halloween party where they could wear their costumes and parents could skate too. Jessie was content to let me pull her around. She has a princess mentality, which means she thinks everything should be done for her, including skating for her. Anyway, I helped her and Brandon was slow for a few rounds and then he just took off. You would think he had been skating a lot longer than five sessions. The school offers discount family skate nights every couple of months and they are looking forward to those skating sessions now that they know how to skate.

So Saturday they went to the Halloween skating party and then in the afternoon we took them to the children's museum where they could trick or treat around the art gallery and they had a magic show. The kids had a great time. Monday Jessie had her school Halloween party in the morning, and Brandon's was in the afternoon. In between I went to the grocery store. Then we went to GG's and Chris' and then went trick or treating. This year Jessie went as half angel half princess, although she pretty much just looked like an angel but don't tell her that. Brandon was a cowboy. We usually go to the mall to trick or treat, but last year didn't go well, they got bored, so this year we went out in the "real world" as Jessie put it. She had us make a separate bag for the safe candy that came from family etc., and a bag for the to be checked candy. They didn't actually get much of that because by the time we got going, the neighborhoods we went to didn't have that many houses that still had treats, but they just liked the experience anyway and we went to Rachel's Aunt and Uncle's house again where they do the spook house and really decorate so that was fun too. The only bad thing, besides constantly running all day, was having to crate BJ several times. If we don't, he tears things up because of his separation anxiety. More on him later. That's a whole story by itself.

Mom's Birthday

2011-10-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

For mom's 60th birthday Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim decided to make a surprise visit. It was hard not to slip up and say something to her. They came in on Mom's birthday, on Thursday. Uncle Jim had the idea to fill up her car with balloons. She also had her office completely covered with 60 stuff. She was really mad at Dad because she thought he did the balloons but then as soon as she saw Jim she knew it was him. They all went out to dinner that night and on Friday we went to see Dolphin Tale at the movies. It was a very good movie. We all got together on Friday night for pizza. We went to the riverwalk on Saturday to see Grandpa's name on the veteran's bridge and had the birthday party on Saturday night. Unfortunately they had to go home early on Sunday but all in all it was a great visit. I am glad that we got to see Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim twice this year. If they really want crazy they should come for Christmas sometime. I think everyone had a good time and Mom had a good birthday surprise.

New Dog

2011-09-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

We have been having disagreements over whether to get another dog before Fearless dies practically since Shane died. With Fear's semi agressive behavior I didn't think it would be a good idea, Scott felt we should get one before to make it easier for the kids especially since Fear has cancer and is 10 we have no way of knowing when his time will come. I finally told Scott that if the right dog came along and it was felt it was meant to be at the right time then that is when we would get one whether Fear was alive or not. Fast forward a few weeks ago. Scott found a puppy along the road and took it to the animal shelter. They asked him if he just wanted to keep it since they had so many but it turned out it was part Mastiff and part boxer, I said no it didn't feel right besides it was only a few months old and Jessie would love it to death. So they tried to get him to take another dog that had been returned. I said no. A week later we went down to the shelter because Brandon wanted to donate money. He sees the abuse commercials and it tears him up. And of course they wanted to look at the dogs. See where this going? They looked at the dogs and were just kinds of saying hi until they got to the last kennel. All of a sudden they both went down on their knees and started playing with a dog. They immediately asked if we could do a meet and greet. I told them to keep looking we weren't getting a dog. They didn't even hardly give some little puppies a second glance and wanted to go back to the other dog. Against my better judgement I allowed them to take him outside. They were already in love with Baja. I started thinking that if both kids agreed on this dog which never happens anymore then maybe it was meant to be. I told Scott we would consider it if he could talk them into giving him to us for free since they offered before and if Fearless got along with him. As you can see we ended up with him. We changed his name to BJ. He is a border collie/shepard mix about 7 months old. Fear is doing great with him and he is making our lives interesting. He has some obedience training but not totally and he has a tendency to nip at the kids and the cat. He also has severe separation anxiety so we have ordered a crate or he tears things up while we are gone. Our free dog is costing us but we love him and he was already returned once so we are committed. Mom who was against this for the same reasons I was is completely in love with him. He should provide us with some interesting stories.

Back to school and other news

2011-08-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

The kids are back to school. They started August 11, went one day, then went back Monday- Thursday and then this week only went two days because they have literacy testing. Jessie is in kindergarten half day. They are offering full day with a tuition price, but we do not have the money and I don't think it is worth it for maybe an extra two hours of class time. She goes from 8:00 to 11:30 and Brandon, who is in third grade this year, goes from 8:00-3:30. Because of the buses, Jess gets home anywhere from 12 to 12:30 and Brandon gets home between 4 and 4:30. They both seem to like it so far. I worked with Brandon all summer a little each day, so hopefully that helped him. He likes his teacher and isn't giving me too much trouble about going to school so far. Jessie I knew wouldn't be a problem. I haven't gotten their results back from the testing but I think they did well. This was the first year Brandon finished his testing on time so I take that as a good sign. I think the teachers were impressed by what Jessie knew but that doesn't surprise me since she has been watching Brandon do his homework since he started school. They are already hitting us up for money. First with school supplies, which ends up being about $20- $30 per kid depending on how cheap you can go, then you have to pay a craft fee of $15 per child and then school pictures and fundraisers are the first part of September. Oh joy! Jessie's teacher said that the teachers have to supply all the classroom stuff like decorations and books out of their own pocket. So where exactly is all the education money going to? Anyway hopefully this will be a good year for all the kids in our families.

Onto other news: Chris is doing well in his job. His bosses are sending him to different plants to observe and they trade ideas about how to run the plants more efficiently. He just went on a quick trip to Nebraska with four of his bosses in a car to check out one of the plants. He wasn't exactly looking forward to being stuck in a car with his bosses for 8 hours both ways but he sees this as a good sign that they aren't looking to let him go anytime soon. He was even offered an opportunity to travel the world for 6 months visiting other plants but he had to turn that down since he is married now. Then in September he flies to Florida for 5 days to do more of the same.

Grandma was in the hospital for a few days this weekend after my birthday party. She was having trouble with some new medication so the doctor switched it but her blood pressure started spiking and going all over the place. Mom took her to the emergency room on Sunday evening and they kept her there for a few days to figure out what was going on. In the end they think the medicine that she was allergic to was not out of her system before she started taking the new meds plus her neuropathy is starting to spread to more than just her feet. The hypertension is messing up her kidneys a little so she has to go on a low sodium diet. I guess her age is finally starting to catch up on her body a little. She is doing much better now though and is back home. Nobody at the hospital could believe she was 96, they kept checking her records and asking her if she was sure she is 96? That made her feel pretty good.

Brandon Birthday

2011-07-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

Mom took her vacation the week of Brandon's birthday so he got extra fun, plus Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim coming out, so he also had extra family. We had some coupons from the kid's summer reading program so we were using up some of them up. We went to Bingo Burger for lunch. We had never been there before. It was kind of expensive but the hamburgers were made from grass fed cattle from Colorado and the fries were homemade so I guess that helps. Then we went to the children's museum. The kids have fun but I would not go unless I had the free coupons for the kids. It is a lot of craft making stuff which we can do at home for much cheaper but the kids enjoy doing something different so they liked it. On Thursday we went to the zoo and spent most of the day there and then Scott and Dad got back that afternoon. On Friday, Scott's family came over to give Brandon his gifts and then we ordered pizza for dinner since mom and dad went out to eat with Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim. We had Brandon's birthday dinner on Saturday and he wanted silly string so we had a silly string fight after dinner. Everyone got into it except GG and Rachel. Rachel doesn't like the smell so she volunteered to do the picture taking. We would have stayed out longer and did the presents outside but the mosquitoes were eating us alive so we had to go in. He had a great birthday. I will send pictures later. Sunday we went to the Riverwalk to see Grandpa's name on the veteran's bridge but it wasn't there yet. At least Pat and Jim and GG got to see what it looked like and what the tag will say and they got to see the awesome Indian bronze statue that looks like it has a real blanket. It was so hot that we didn't stay very long. We went to dinner at Chris' house for our final family dinner. I swear every time I go over there he has more statues, plants etc. in his yard. It was really fun getting to see Pat and Jim again. I wish we could see them more often but at least we get to see them once a year. So that was that week and only a few more weeks left before school starts on Aug 11.

4th of July

2011-07-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

Dad and Scott did get called out to another fire and are in New Mexico now. So far they have been gone 8 days this time and haven't heard they have to come back yet. This should help us with our expenses a lot.

Since we couldn't do fireworks this year because of the fire ban, we had to come up with alternatives. We still had Grandma's birthday party. I can't believe she is 96. Then we played with silly string. We thought we would have some left over since we bought extra for Scott and Dad and since they aren't here, but Chris and the kids went crazy and used up all of them. Oh well, they had fun. We also bought some glow sticks to play with and they had some light up stuff. Then we were going to go to Grandma's balcony and watch the fireworks from the Riverwalk but they started early and we missed them. We still saw some from Pueblo West and the few illegals that people still set off. I think every one had a good time.

Brandon is going to drive me crazy. I have been trying to help him get on track with school work before school starts. He is behind and it will be even worse in third grade. I know he is very smart but his brain just doesn't work like the rest of ours. I think he lives in a higher plane and the simple stuff just doesn't compute. For example, I asked him what number is right before 40 and he was randomly throwing out numbers like 12. I don't know if he really doesn't get it or he just doesn't care. He stares at me with a glassy eyed stare like he is not even there. If you give him multiplication he gets it though. Some days he does much better than others. Rachel says she is going to nickname him Random. He just spouts off stuff completely randomly. For example, at the party he said, "Too bad Bill is missing this since he is dead." and then a few minutes later he said "I bet Bill hated homework." Things like that. I love him more than anything but I am sure glad Jessie doesn't seem to be going to have any issues with school. At least not yet. I just have to hope that when school starts it suddenly clicks. In the meantime I will keep working with him and try to keep my patience.

Scott fire

2011-06-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

CWFS finally got called out on a fire. After we agreed to go, he got offered an engine boss job with another two companies who were trying to get out also. In some ways it would be easier to not do the business, especially since we are operating in the hole, but anyway we figured that this is what God meant for us, at least right now. Then Scott just called and said the fire was almost out and they will be lucky to get two days out of the deal. Sometimes I think God is messing with us. We are praying that this will open the gates for other things to happen and I am trying to stay positive. If he can get more, longer jobs and I can hold off all the bill collectors for a little longer than maybe we can buy some time for us to figure out a more long term solution. Some contractors in other states have been out for four or five 14 day rotations at at least $1000 a day, if not more. You do the math at how good the money is when you are working. Of course we have to live in a backwards region that doesn't like contractors and will call on every one else in the United States before they will call contractors. I won't get into the politics of firefighting, it is too depressing and I am trying to stay positive. Brandon is fine with him being gone and happy he is on a fire, but Jessie is having trouble, she is too used to him being home all the time. By the time they get used to it, he will be home again, but hopefully not for long, or if everything works out, he will get transferred somewhere else and won't be home at all for awhile. I know that sounds bad but anyone who knows the situation understands what I mean. Keep you posted.

Memorial Day

2011-06-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

For memorial day we decided to stay home. We thought about going to the mountains, and forget about we can't afford the gas but it was too soon to go without Shane. It made us sad just thinking about it, he loved the mountains so much. Hopefully later in the summer things will be better financially and it will have been long enough that we will be able to go without it being quite so sad. Chris, Rachel and GG all came out for a picnic. It was too windy to eat dinner outside but we were able to go out after dinner and eat dessert out there. Our new patio table we got last year shattered from the wind so we just huddled around the one in the front. Dad BBQ'd hamburgers and had the usual picnic foods and Mom and I made a jello cake. It's kind of cool because you use white cake mix and mix two kinds of Jello into it and then use whip cream for the frosting. It was pretty good. Chris brought Tiko and Sandy (their new dog) and the kids had a blast playing with them. Sandy is still kind of shy around us but Tiko fits right in. He loves to play with Socks, our cat. He started playing playing ball and the kids loved tossing the ball and chasing him. It was funny because Fearless decided that Tiko needed extra watching while he was wandering around and so Fear followed him everywhere and herded him away from the fence if he got too close. The shepard was coming out in him I guess. We have to be careful with them because they are so small they can slip through our fence and gates easily. I think everyone had a good time and GG always loves being able to sit outdoors and relax.

last day of school

2011-06-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

Brandon's last day was actually only a few hours long. They have an end of the year assembly and then can go home if the parents are there to take them home. Brandon got certificates in spelling, science, social studies, music, PE, perfect attendance for the last quarter. He also got a certificate for completing the whole 6 months of a program called bookit which the student had to read at least 400 minutes every month. He also got the most Raz-kids login. Raz kids is an online program to help with reading. Then we went home and took lunch to the park and met Mom for lunch. Then the kids just relaxed while Scott and I prepped the back yard for the pool. Mom splurged and bought us all a new pool. Our pool was on it's last stand last year. Mom decided since we can't afford to go on vacations or anything, this is our only fun we can afford. Brandon is doing a title 1 program at the school for a few hours a day for the month of June and we are working on some online programs to try to get him caught up before 3rd grade. I am worried that he is just going to fall more and more behind otherwise. To make it fair I am also working with Jessie, which she doesn't mind because she wants to read very badly so she is all for it.

Off the subject but I thought this was cute. The other day were getting ready to eat lunch and Mom asked the kids what they wanted to eat. She had leftover spagetti and Jessie said she wanted the Pasgetti. Brandon said " Get it right Jess, it's Basgetti". Well we thought it was pretty funny anyway.

Field day / Jessie's Preschool Graduation

2011-05-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

Jessie and Brandon in their South Mesa Tshirts on field day.

This was the first year that preschool got to participate in field day. I don't know how field days work in other place, or if you even have them, but I am not too impressed with how it's run. All the grades gather together and each grade runs the 50 yard dash to get a ribbon. Then they break away into groups to go to their designated games, every 20 minutes until lunch time. Most of the time by the time you figure out where your game is and figure out how to play, it is time to switch again. Or there will be someone else playing the game and so you can't play and you end up only playing a few games. After lunch the kids, especially the younger ones, have down time until the big kickball game between the fifth grade and staff that lasts an hour and the rest of the kids are supposed to sit and watch patiently. Then they have more down time with a popsicle party until school is out. This year Jessie was done by eleven so we signed her out and Brandon had another hour so we watched him until he was done. Then we found out they were just going to read and play quietly until the kickball game. We decided we weren't going to make Jess sit around because she was getting bored and tired and Brandon decided it wasn't worth it either so we ended up taking them both home. We ate outside at home and the kids played and we made a memorial stone for Shane to put in the garden. I think they had more fun than if they had stayed. The kids seem to enjoy field day even if it is chaos so I guess that is what matters.

Jessie's diploma

Jessie graduated preschool. They are so cute. They do a musical program that includes the zoophonics song. Then they go up to get their diploma and they got punch and a snack after. The kids are all a little confused by what is going on, but they enjoy it. Jess decided she wanted to visit Grandma at work and then we picked up chicken sandwiches and played the rest of the afternoon until Brandon came home.

I thought her kindergarten was all set with her new teacher, who is much better than the one Brandon had, but now they decided to do all day and half day kindergarten. The teacher they have now is doing the all day and we don't know who they are going to get for the half day. We have to put her in the half day because they charge for the all day and we can't afford it. Luckily she is smart enough that if she doesn't get a great teacher it shouldn't affect her skills but it tends to make school not as fun when you don't like the teacher. She is out of school now but Brandon still has one more week so I get broken in to having kids around all day.

Mother's Day

2011-05-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

For Mother's day the kids gave me some presents they made. Jessie made me a purple bracelet and gave me some flower seedlings she started growing at school. She also painted a ceramic flower but gave it to GG. She painted it dark purple and brown with a little green. For a girl that loves bright colors for some reason she likes to paint with dark colors. Go figure. Brandon gave me a hats off to mom poem and made me a matching necklace and ring that he made with his rock polishing kit. They also wanted to buy me some flowers to put outside. I also got a drain mat to put under my dish drainer, a new swifter because mine broke, a cake frosting spreader, and GG gave both me and mom some money to buy flowers for our outside. It was a nice day and mom and I went to GG's and had a nice visit and then we had a family dinner. It was a good day with no fighting from the kids so that is always a good present.

Jessie also had her first field trip for preschool. They went to the city park rides and zoo. They got to ride the rides for about an hour and then we had lunch in the park and they played for a short time then we went to the zoo. They were broken up into groups because the kindergarten was also there and no one would be able to see the animals otherwise. My group was just Jessie and a little girl named Emily. Emily used to be her best friend but now they aren't quite as close and now I know why. She is a very nice girl but pushy and likes things her way. We spent about a total of ten seconds at each animal. Jessie wanted to watch some more but we had to stay together and it was easier to go with Emily then try to keep her there. She also kept trying to throw her hat into the water and wanted to go home. I think the parents were more tired than the kids by the end. The kids were more intrigued by the bat that peed on itself, the skeleton in the fake boat, and dandelions and a lady bug, then the actual animals. Oh well they had a good time and the weather was good so that is what matters. Then Jessie and I went back to the school to pick up Brandon and we all went home happy and tired.

Shane

2011-05-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

One of the last pictures with Shane. Jessie gave him a stuffed dog to lay with him to keep him company

We lost Shane today. (Shane was the golden retreiver). On Friday, he went to jump up on our bed and fell. We thought he hurt his hip again (not the first time) but he wouldn't get up at all which made us suspect it was worse this time. Jessie sat in our bedroom and "read" stories to him to keep him company. I tried massaging him but it wasn't working so we decided to take him to the vet. Scott took him so I could stay with the kids because we didn't know how long it was going to take. I thought maybe he tore something or dislocated something, but when I moved his leg he would jerk toward me so I knew it hurt but I never suspected his leg was shattered due to bone cancer. The tumor ate away the bone until it was so weak it just shattered. There was nothing they could do. They splinted it and sent us home with pain meds and said to see how the weekend went. Our options were to amputate the leg to buy time or wait it out until it was time. It was decided that amputation would not work for him and we gave him a few days for all of us and made the decision. The vet came to the house so we didn't have to move him and he went peacefully. Jessie didn't really understand, especially since he was still here, but it is starting to sink in now that he is actually gone. Brandon told me yesterday that Shane's soul was not happy and he wanted his body to let him go so he could be free. Every time I try to think of something that drove me crazy about him I realize that is one of the things I will miss the most. Like him stealing things and "happy butting" around with it. Or the fact that he was always in the way because he was so big. He had the biggest heart and those big brown eyes could melt you. I want to share some memories but I will have to do it later because I can't see the screen very well right now. We loved Shane with all of out hearts and he will be greatly missed.

Easter

2011-04-26T18:44:00.001-07:00

Brandon had his second grade music concert. This year's theme was Earth day. They did several songs in which they combined sign language and singing and they also did some square dancing. I am not sure where that fits into the Earth theme but it was cute. Brandon was partnered up with a boy twice his size but he didn't seem to mind. They also did recycle projects where they made projects totally out of recycled materials and showed them off that night. Brandon's robot was made from water bottles for the legs, a cardboard box for the body, a juice bottle for the head, TP rolls for the arms, paper mache to hold it all together, pop bottle tops for decoration, and used foil. He was very proud.

I took Jessie to GG's to see the Easter bunny. She was afraid to sit on the bunny's lap so I had to sit with her. GG also sat with Jessie and the bunny but my picture didn't come out very good. If I get a better one I will send it.

The night before we decorated Easter eggs. I think the kids got more on their hands than on the eggs. They had a great time though. Then on Easter morning we had the egg hunt. The kids know we hide the eggs but they think the Easter bunny hides the baskets and magic keeps them invisible until it is time to hunt. We had to do the hunt inside this year because of the weather. Then we had the family lunch with everyone. We do lunch instead of dinner because Chris and Rachel have to go to Rachel's mom's for dinner, but we have a big meal with ham and the works. Brandon got this little balloon pump with balloons in his Easter basket you pump them up and then let them go and they dance on the ceiling and make obnoxious noises. Everyone (big and little kids) played with those for quite a while and it got rather crazy but fun. And that was Easter. It was a good day.

Job

2011-04-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

Scott didn't get the Oregon job because of the bankruptcy. I am glad we don't have to move but we are back to square one. The government sure doesn't make it easy to get jobs when everything requires good credit to work. There was a custodian job that wanted five years experience and prefered a bachelor's degree. How can anyone find jobs with these kinds of criteria? Anyway I wanted to thank everyone for their support and prayers, especially Rebecca and Uncle Jim for your responses. I know that everyone has their own problems also and I am grateful that we have a close family that we can share our problems with. There are so many people that have no one to turn to and I am thankful that I am not one of them. Keep the prayers coming, we need all the help we can get, and I will pray for all of you too. Brandon says that we need to get rich so we can help others since we know what it is like, from his lips to God's ears.

2011-04-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

Since Jessie's birthday we have had one bad thing after another. Fearless (our dog) has had a mass on his chest for awhile and it finally started causing too much trouble for him and we had no choice but to take him back to the vet. It was cancerous, which is what we suspected even though the other vet we took him to earlier said no. We had the choice to put him down or do surgery to remove the tumor and hope for the best. Because we couldn't face trying to explain to the kids how we couldn't afford to try and save him, especially when I tell the kids that money, or the lack of it, doesn't matter and God will take care of us, we opted for the surgery. Mom got us on a care credit plan that the vet suggested so we can make monthly payments. He got through the surgery and is doing pretty well. The cancer doesn't appear to have spread for now. Shane (our other dog) is eleven going on 12 this year so we could potentially lose both dogs around the same time. We have had to file bancrupty because we can't get jobs, the business is pretty much done for and we are going to lose the fire truck to the bank since the government is so messed up and they aren't hiring contractors for fires. Most all the contractors are in the same boat we are. We got approved for the home modification loan but the finalization has been put on hold and we could potentially lose it because of the bancruptcy. And now the only job Scott has been offered is in Portland, Oregon. It doesn't pay very well considering the cost of living up there and I doubt with the bancruptcy so new we could even sell this house and get a loan for a new one there. We have until Monday to make a decision but the only way we could do it is for Scott to go there for a year and work and then we join him. I am not willing to move there until he is sure the job would work out. I have seen too many people move, the job doesn't work out, and they are stuck. I also just plain don't want to move. I wish I had the adventure gene that some of our family possess but I don't and neither do the kids. We don't take change well. They said they would help with relocation and rental until we could sell here and find a place but that would mean more moving and transition. Oregon isn't even close enough to travel back and forth easily. It is about a two day drive. I can't see how this job is the answer to our prayers but we are also running out of time. His unemployment and our tax refund are running out. I know that God has a plan for us but I can't help wondering if his plan is for us to lose everything. I am trying to stay positive, especially for the kids, but you can only be positive for so long when every time you turn around it is more bad news. About the only thing good that I can think of is Chris had a good birthday and none of us have too bad of health. Jessie got to be babysat by GG while we went to the bancruptcy hearing and she and GG had a good time together. The ladies at the Villa love hearing grandma's stories about the princess and this will give them something to talk about for awhile. GG is doing well and I never thought I would be able to leave my daughter with her almost 96 year old GG to be babysat even for a little while. So there is some good. Sorry to be so negative but I just needed to get things off my chest. Hopefully I'll have a more cheerful blog later.

Jessie's 5th birthday

2011-02-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

Jessie's balloons from Applebees

Her new dress up outfit with matching doll

I can't believe she is already five. We had her party on Saturday before because it seemed cruel to make her wait a whole week for her party. She had a great time but Brandon had a little trouble dealing with the fact she is big enough to not need his help opening presents anymore. He kept wanting to be reasured that when it came time for his birthday that he would get all the benefits she did. On her actual birthday she got to go to school which with the weather lately we weren't sure, (more on that in a minute) and she got a crown and was leader of the day. Grandma took the afternoon off and we took her to Wendy's for lunch and played makeup and doll house and watched her new Tinkerbell movie. I think she had a great birthday. We took the kids and mom (Dad had to work late) to Applebee's on Wednesday because it is kid's night and they have a magician and on Brandon's birthday he got a bunch of shaped balloons so she was hoping for the same. She did finally get them but the place was packed and I had to practically drag him over right before we left. I wasn't about to leave without those balloons. Jessie got a flower and a purple poodle and Brandon got a dinosaur. I will send more pictures soon over shutterfly but it takes so long to download with dialup. Some day maybe we can get into the future where we live. Of course then they will have something even better.

As for the weather, this is the craziest winter we have had in years. With all the two hour delays and school cancelling Jessie has only been to school twice in the past two weeks. The temperature has not been over twenty for like two weeks and it was 70 degrees right before all this hit. Last night we had hurricane gust winds and it destroyed our trampoline. We are waiting for warmer weather to see if it is salvagable at all but the frame is completely trashed. Hopefully the weather and our lives will start to even out in the near future. This week is supposed to be nice and dry out everything in time for the next storm. I am so ready for spring.

Christmas Day

2010-12-28T09:36:00.000-08:00

GG visiting Santa

Santa at the Villa (GG's apartment)

New Leapfrog Book

We spent Christmas Eve making the Jesus cake and watching Christmas movies and finishing up last minute stuff. Dad went to help the SRDA hand out presents and baskets. At night we went to Chris' s house. We had dinner and then opened up the presents from Pat and Jim and the kid's gifts to everybody. Carmen's (Rachel's mom) boyfriend Kurt dressed up like Santa and visited the kids. Brandon almost blew it because he kept saying he knew it was Kurt but I had a little talk with him about playing along and he got better. He still believes in Santa but he doesn't believe he will actually meet the real one so everyone else is fake. I think deep down he is realizing that there isn't really one and he isn't ready to bring up the subject yet. They were on overdrive they were so excited and I didn't get them to bed until 10 pm. Then I still had to do my stuff. I thought they might sleep in but they were up by 6:30. I heard them whispering in the dark living room so I got up before they started opening everything up. Brandon got a new bike and a toy ATV from Santa and Jessie got a sparkly toy horse and a little porceline angel doll and a purple sparkly dreamcatcher. The kids got pretty much everything they wanted so they were very happy. I think we all got what we needed this year too. Everything went smoothly, no tantrums from grownups or kids, so all was good. We managed to stretch Christmas out for most of the day and then Chris and Rachel went to her mom's for dinner and we spent the rest of the evening looking at the gifts and playing with the kids. I couldn't have asked for a better day. Of course the kids had trouble going to sleep that night because they didn't want it to end. I don't blame them, the let down can be intense. You plan so long and then it's over. But they are still having fun playing with their toys and Jessie is already talking about her birthday.

Christmases to remember

2010-12-25T18:51:00.000-08:00

They were having a thing in the newspaper where you write in about your most memorable Christmas and it made me think about mine. I have had a lot of memorable Christmases in the past and hopefully many more in the future. Here are some of my more cherished Christmas memories. Brandon and Jessie’s first Christmases are a few of the top choices for obvious reasons. The Christmas I was pregnant with Jessie is one of my favorites because she was so excited even inside me. I remember she was active all day which wasn’t unusual but when Scott gave me the white tiger as a gift for her and I held it to my stomach she settled down like she knew it was for her and was happy to be included. She still loves Christmas with a passion even at her early age. It’s not even the gifts she looks forward to but just the season itself.
Another Christmas close to my heart is when grandpa died. Since we knew it was his last, the season took on new meaning. Everything seemed more special that year. The lights were brighter, and it all just had a special quality. I spent days looking for the right present to give him and finally found it, the music box, I still put it up every year in honor of him. I can still remember the church service only in that it meant so much to grandpa.. My only regret is he didn’t get to see the presents we all got for him. Later that day, Grandma opened Grandpa’s gifts and handed them out to us, giving us back the ones we gave and splitting up the others among us. I am not sure of the right description of emotion for that but even though it would seem morbid, there was a kind of tranquility, maybe it was knowing that he was knowing he was no longer in pain. He even left us the final gift of family since the Cooks came in and we spent the rest of Christmas together.
He loved Christmas so much and it was only fitting that he left us on that day. Grandpa instilled that love of Christmas to mom who in turn passed it on to us kids. Every year Mom tries to make Christmas special. She gets into it and wants everyone to get lots of gifts because she loves giving and never asks for a lot. Every year she is surprised by how much she has because she doesn’t expect anything in return. Even when we were little, we never went without no matter what the circumstances were. We have lots of traditions and some are the same as when I was a kid, some have changed slightly and some are just getting going. I only hope that I can carry on that passion for the true meaning of Christmas to my kids and teach them what I have learned. No matter how much you receive, it means nothing if you don’t have close family to share it with. I hope I can instill that same Christmas passion that Grandpa and Mom have.

addendum to pre christmas

2010-12-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

I forgot a few things when I posted earlier. We also went to see Santa at the mall and had dinner there. Brandon told him what he wanted and also told him what Jessie wanted because she couldn't remember. I think she got nervous. Then Brandon told Santa that he knew he was only an assistant to Santa so he wouldn't be seeing him on Christmas Eve. This Santa even has a real beard but we told the kids some Santas are only helpers because he couldn't be everywhere so Brandon figures that they all are the helpers. When Santa said he would see them Christmas Eve, Brandon told him they would be asleep so he wouldn't see them. I think Santa was very glad to move them on. Jessie has been the one questioning Santa more than Brandon so we will be lucky if we get a few more years out of either one of them. At Brandon's Christmas party, there is a boy that is in kindergarten named Daniel whose brother is in Brandon's class, they ride the bus together, and Jessie has a crush on him. She got all giggly when she was talking to him and Scott freaked out because he got a preview of what is coming and wasn't expecting to have to deal with boys already. It was funny. The kids also made gifts for Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim because they felt bad that they were going to be home by themselves for Christmas and wanted to remember them. They also made gifts for some friends of ours that have given the kids stuff over the years. The kids overheard Mom telling me that they weren't giving themselves gifts this year because they are also having financial problems and the kids didn't think that was right for them not to have something to open. Yesterday we went to GG's apartment where they had a Santa, and we made sure they didn't tell anyone they thought he was a helper. Brandon was going to ask if he came by car or sleigh but decided against it. I got a picture of them and I also got a pic of GG sitting next to Santa that I will post later, I haven't downloaded it yet. Then they went up to her apartment and we hung out there for awhile. GG introduced the kids to her friends that hear all about their antics so they were glad to finally get to meet them. I think that is finally all so far.

Christmas so far

2010-12-23T08:28:00.000-08:00

I kept meaning to do this earlier and time keeps getting away from me especially now with the kids home. I am trying to stay positive in the face of Christmas so I refuse to write about all the problems and stick with the good so here goes. We went to see the Electricritters at the zoo. That's where the put up a bunch of lights and animated lighted up animal figures. The kids love it including my light freak brother. We dress up like eskimos and drink hot chocolate and walk around the zoo in the dark with all the lights. It's beautiful and fun and when it snows it has a magical quality. Another weekend we walked the riverwalk at night and looked at the lights. They have the boat going with Santa on it, which we did one year, but we waited so long for the boat ride to start we froze and then it is even colder on the water, it is not worth the price, so now we just walk it. We saw the new veteren's bridge and the indian statue. The statue was beautiful and so intricately detailed. The blanket looked real. So we walked the whole riverwalk and drank hot chocolate. It was great. Then last weekend Chris and Rachel had a party at their house for friends and family. They wanted to show off their decorations. You may all remember that Chris is a Christmas decoration freak. I mean that in a loving way. Every room except the bathrooms have decorations. Three big trees and two small, two villages, and lights and lighted figurines everywhere. It could have looked junky but he has a flair for decorating and it looks beautiful. I will try to get some pics of it on Christmas Eve. The kids have had their parties at school, Jessie's in the morning and Brandon's in the afternoon. Oh and the kids did the secret Santa shop at their school which I helped out at. The get to go in and buy their own inexpensive gifts for everyone. The kids all have a good time doing that and it gives them some independence. Since we don't have a lot of money this year, I have been making our gifts to everyone so I have been busy doing that in my spare time. Also making the Christmas cookies, every weekend is a different kind. Today I am making banana bread for gifts and Christmas Eve we make the Jesus birthday cake which has been a tradition since Chris and I were kids to make sure we don't forget who we are really celebrating. I think I got the kids too involved in giving. They donated to the Thanksgiving food drive, money to the school Christmas drive, toys for the toy drive and now they decided they need to make gifts for everyone along with the ones they bought. Which is great except guess who gets to come up with the ideas for the gifts? They are so caught up in the Christmas spirit it is like a constant sugar high. It really makes me grateful to have these loving generous kids to spend Christmas with. And now I have to go because they are trying to make the banana bread without me.

school troubles

2010-11-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

usually I don't have time to write on the blog during the day but I have both kids home sick with colds. I was trying so hard to get them through this week without missing because next week they are off for thanksgiving break and Brandon has a field trip to the Nutcracker on Thursday. Instead I kept Jessie home today and then ended up picking Brandon up. Now I can't send them tomorrow either because they are running slight temps and the school policy is no fever for 24 hours. So I go for no miss and end up with two instead. I guess I should have listened to Scott and kept Brandon home also but Brandon wanted to go and since he is already having trouble in school I didn't want him to lose any more than he has to.
He has started title 1 for reading because he is behind. He is having difficulty in almost every subject. When I sit right down with him he does better but he can't have one on one attention all the time. He gets distracted easily and can't finish his work on time. His teacher has begun the process of trying to get him into a funded program for help but by the time he gets through the red tape he will probably be in third grade and even more behind. I have been trying to do my own research to figure out how to help him. The other problem is Jessie is so bright that she is going to quickly out do him if we are not careful. She is always asking to do homework. And when I am working with Brandon on Fridays she is always listening and learning. For example when we were working on adjectives and I was reading sentences and he was supposed to tell me which word was the adjective, Jessie was answering before him and getting them right. Luckily Brandon thought that was cool, but how long before he feels threatened by that? Oh well I guess I will just have to take it a day at a time.

Chris and Rachel’s New Addition

2010-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Chris and Rachel got a dog. They didn’t really plan on getting one right now, especially because they are both working extra hours right now so the timing wasn’t great, but a friend of theirs found a Chihuahua mix dog and after lots of searching, couldn’t find his owner. The friend has two pit bulls and the little stinker always got them riled up and he was afraid the little guy would get hurt so he asked Chris if they wanted him. They named him Tiko and are very attached to him. He is a real cutey. They think he is around 4 years old but are taking him to the vet just as soon as they have a chance to be sure. They bought him a coat and a sweater since that breed of dog gets so cold, but the coat is heavy enough that it almost knocks him over. The kids get a real kick out of him since they are used to just having big dogs to play with. He loves to give them kisses. They brought him over for dad’s birthday party so we could see how he gets along with our dogs and cat and it was a wild night. Fearless didn’t pay too much attention to him but Tiko and Shane kept sniffing each other and Shane got so excited at having a new playmate. He didn’t seem to notice the size difference and neither did Tiko. Then Shane decided to give Tiko a bath with his tongue and he was soaked. Tiko really liked Socks the cat though. They are about the same size and they would play tag with each other. By the end of the evening Tiko and Shane were lying side by side exhausted and Socks was just as tired. Chris picked Tiko up and put him in his lap and Tiko’s little head just fell against Chris and he went fast asleep. It was quite lively, but fun.

Halloween

2010-11-15T12:15:00.000-08:00

We started the Halloween season with our annual trip to Pantleo Farms. It’s a farm nearby that offers free hayrides pulled by a tractor (Brandon is in heaven) and they always have ponies to ride and an inflated spook house and slide and a bounce house. The kids love going there every year. We grew pumpkins in our garden this year so we had a new pumpkin to carve every week in October, plus Jessie got one when they had a field trip to a pumpkin patch at school.

Jessie had her first school Halloween party and had a good time. They did the traditional costume parade and played games. Jessie was Cinderella again (of course). Then we went back to school in the afternoon for Brandon’s party so Jessie got a bonus of two parties. She walked in his parade too for a short time. Brandon was a wildland firefighter again. Big surprise but he is a cute one. Maybe next year they will decide to be something else. That was on the Thursday before Halloween since they don’t have school on Friday. Then on Halloween day, we went to the mall around 4:00 to trick or treat. The kids got a little bored this year doing that because there were big gaps where stores were out of candy so they were just walking and not trick or treating so we may have to try something different next year, but they still had fun and got a lot of candy. Next, we went to GG’s apartment to trick or treat with her. We visited there for a while and then went to pick up pizzas to take to Chris and Rachel’s house. GG had decided not to go to their house; she didn’t feel like tackling the stairs. So we moved on to their house and had dinner and met their dog for the first time (more on him in the next blog). Rachel’s Aunt and Uncle have a house nearby and always do a spook house for the neighborhood so we all went to that. It was quite spooktacular (get it?). The kids thought it was great, not too scary, and they saw kids trick or treating in the neighborhood and wanted to do that too. It was getting too late to do anymore trick or treating but next year if the weather is nice we might just go around Chris’ neighborhood and Rachel’s Aunt’s neighborhood instead of the mall. We had two very tired but happy kids but I sure wish Halloween could always be on a Friday or Saturday night so there wouldn’t be school the next day. Jessie was over tired and had a melt down and wouldn’t get on the bus the next day so I had to take her to school. Her teacher said that is pretty common for her age group after so much excitement. Brandon was upset because Jessie was upset and didn’t get on the bus and I was worried about how he was doing but he seemed to get by ok, fortunately. We pay the price for having a lot of fun sometimes but it’s worth it.

kids

2010-09-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

In preschool the kids are starting to learn their letters. Every week the learn a new letter and have show and tell bringing a small item that starts with the letter. Jessie informed me yesterday that they were starting it but no note was sent home so I didn't really give it much thought. I was trying to decide if I should give in to paying a dollar for PJ day. (more about that in a minute). Anyway I forgot all about it. This morning Jessie wakes up and asks me if smile begins with the letter S (the letter of the week) I said yes it does and she said that is what she is bringing for show and tell, her smile. I can't think of a better one can you?
The school has pajama day as a spirit thing every year. This year they decided to charge a $1.00 for every student to wear them. If you don't bring a dollar and you wear pjs you get a trip to the principal's office and a call to your parents. I gave in because Jessie was so excited even though I don't think that is right but Brandon decided not to do it.
Speaking of Brandon, my son is so full of empathy it literally hurts him sometimes. He cries when they have the commercials for the abused animals and now they are doing a fundraiser for St. Judes hospital. Yesterday they brought in a video to show the classes and are doing a math a thon fundaiser. Brandon came home all excited but I thought it was because of the prizes. The problem is we don't have the money for another fundraiser, I told him that and he said he understood but then he couldn't focus on homework which is nothing unusual so I didn't give it much thought. But then I started seeing the signs. He almost cried when I lectured him about staying focused during homework which is a daily lecture, and when Scott came home Brandon showed him the fundraiser but said he didn't care about helping stupid cancer kids. That is when I realized what was bothering him. When he started crying he said he just really wanted to help them out. I told him we would try and find a way to donate somehow but the fundraiser looks like they want a minimum of $10 pledges. How do I help keep his ability to want to help and his passion for it when we can barely help ourselves right now? I try to show him everything is good with us but then I turn around and say we can't give $10 dollars. He is getting confused and I don't know how to help him. I am trying to think of other things he can do to help but its hard to find things for an eight year old to volunteer and everything costs money anymore. I feel like I am letting both kids down.

state fair

2010-09-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

We went to the state fair on Labor Day weekend. The kids got free tickets for back to school day although Jessie is free anyway. Mom gets discounted tickets through work also. This year since the food is so expensive and Scott doesn't get off work until 4:30 we decided to pick up some chicken sandwiches from Wendy's and eat before we left which worked out well. When we got to the fair, we did the usual wandering around. There weren't a lot of shows the kids wanted to see by the time we got there. There was one with dogs that did competition water sports that we watched for a few but people kept standing in front of us. People have no respect for anyone any more, especially to stand in front of little kids. Anyway they watched a poor puppy whose owners were trying to train to get into water before the show started and the poor puppy was not happy. It was a German Shepard and shepards do not usually like water. Once the show finally started, the kids got bored of course. We went to the petting zoo and they rode the ponies, a tradition. We wandered around the booths and then we went to look at the tractors and sheds. They also had a manufactured house you could check out. I think the kids had more fun in that area than anything else. Brandon had to sit on every tractor, Jessie for some reason was scared to, and they went in every shed. There was one that was almost the size of the kid's room and looked like an adobe house. The manufactured home was pretty cool also. Scott took the kids in first while mom and I stayed with the wagon and then the kids took us on a tour. Brandon should be a salesman. It was really nice, a little smaller than ours but I really liked the master bath and closet, they took up almost one side of the house. The kids got some light up souveniours and then we went to head home. We were taking the shuttle to the parking lot where our car was parked and standing in line and the people from the back of the line jumped on first so we had to wait for the next one. When the next one came, the kids jumped on and we almost didn't get on with them. Mom had to yell at some people to leave us room. The couple behind us commented that they didn't think we were going to make it and schools must not be teaching people how to wait in line anymore. (Most of those line cutters were adults sad to say) Brandon started to talk to them and said we were on a space shuttle heading to Mars and the couple could push us when we got there. Then the lady said something about driving home and Brandon told they had better not have had too much to drink. She told him no they only drank Gatorade so they were okay. They were getting a kick out of him. Chris and Rachel were going the next day so I called him Sat night and told him to make sure they went to see the house. That night I got a call from Chris and he told me I stank. I asked him what I did and he said they fell in love with the house and were mad at me for making them see it. (Not really mad but they did fall in love with the house.)
any way that was our adventure for a while.

Here are some Jessie sayings that I thought were cute:
She fell asleep on the bus coming home from school but she said she wasn't sleeping just her eyes were. They got tired and needed to close for a while but she was wide awake.

Jessie:" Grandma if I got married will you come to my wedding?" "Yes of course I will" "Will you wear the dress you wore to Chris' wedding?" "Sure if you want me to" "Well you know you will need to wash it first!"

Chris and Rachel's Wedding

2010-09-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

Chris and Rachel's wedding went pretty well considering the minor problems they had getting everything together. Thursday night we had dinner at Chris's house with just our side of the family, Rachel's side went to her mom's house for dinner. It was nice getting to visit with Pat and Jim and Rebecca and Mary before it got too hectic. Mary has sure grown up since the last time I saw her. The kids all got along great. On Friday we went to the mountains with both sides of the families. It was a lot of fun and then everyone had fun playing in the water and wandering around. Some of the family went to Bishop's castle after but we took Mary back to our house so the kids could have some quiet time before the rehearsal dinner. They played play doh and tried to see who could outdo themselves in the gross category by making pizza with nasty stuff on top. At night we went to Country Buffet for the rehearsal dinner and then to the church for the rehearsal. The rehearsal was certainly interesting due to Carmen (Rachel's mother) wanting to make sure everything was perfect. Brandon and Jessie felt better learning what was expected of them as ring bearer (barrel as Brandon calls it) and flower girl. Mom and I reminded Jessie she would have petals in her basket tomorrow at the wedding and she said, "Oh year, I'm supposed to throw them at the people in the benches." We had to do some fast explaining of what she was really supposed to do with the petals. I took the kids home and the rest went to decorate the hall.

The wedding went really well and it was a beautiful ceremony. The kids looked so cute and did great standing up there the whole time. They only started getting a little upset after taking tons of pictures after and Chris finally told Jessie she didn't have to do anymore when she looked up at him with her big blue eyes and pleaded with him to make them stop. Brandon said that Chris owed him one, which Chris will happily repay given that they did so well. I took the kids over to GG's after the wedding while they did a few more pictures at the park. They at least got a little rest before going to the reception.

The reception hall was decorated really nicely, Chris did a good job with the center pieces. The food was a little spicy so some of us couldn't eat very much and Chris and Rachel forgot to get plates and forks for the cake. Some things always have to go wrong at a wedding, it's tradition. When they were called up to cut the cake, the DJ was supposed to stop the music and announce the cutting but for some reason he didn't so they just did it anyway and not everyone got to see it. They will laugh about it one day. Jessie was upset for a little while because she didn't catch the bouquet but Brandon was upset because he did catch the garter and when Joey, the best man, told Brandon that he was next to get married, Brandon marched right back up to Chris and gave it back. Chris wore it on his arm the rest of the night. We took the kids home shortly after because they were just getting too tired to go on. Mom and dad stayed there to help clean up once everything was over. All in all it was good and Chris and Rachel had a great wedding and everyone is happy.

School start

2010-08-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Brandon started school two weeks ago and Jessie last week but I am a little behind with all the wedding stuff. This is the first week they will go the full week though. They are starting four day school weeks this year. The bus picks up my kids at 7:30 to be at school by 8. Jessie gets off at 11:30 but it takes her an hour to get home so she is here by 12:30. That is a long time for a four year old and yesterday she was sound asleep on the bus. If I pick her up from school then Brandon will want me to pick him up and that is just too much gas going back and forth ( we live about 10 minutes from the school). Brandon only has about 20- 30 on the way home so it is not as bad. Jessie seems to like school so far but she can't remember what it is she does there by the time she gets home. Hopefully once she gets into it more she will start remembering more, this was only her fourth day today. She looked so tiny getting on the bus and her backpack is as big as she is. Brandon took his responsibility to get her to school a little to hard and he thought he had to watch her there also and got upset when he couldn't keep an eye out on her during school. He was so cute though taking her to the bus for the first time. He enlisted the help of the other boys on the busstop to help her and she was surrounding by three big boys and then little her. It was funny and kept me from crying to see her go.

Brandon was all ready for school and liking it until they did testing last week and he didn't do so well. Now he thinks he is the only one in his class having trouble and that he is dumb. Getting him to go to school now is like pulling teeth. Of course he had a lot of excitement this weekend that could be making things more emotional for him on top of everything too. I am trying to convince him that he is not the only one and that it will get better. I know the four day weeks are hard on a lot of families that all work but I am grateful that I am not working right now even if it makes things more difficult financially but this way I can homeschool them both on Fridays and help get Brandon back to where he needs to be. His kindergarten teacher was not very good for him and he has been behind ever since. Luckily there is a new kindergarten teacher so Jessie hopefully won't have the same issues. I think Brandon is looking forward to homeschooling. Of course I had to promise a lot of field trips, play time, and science experiments in addition to regular work but whatever works. We will see how that goes over once we really get going on that.

kids gone crazy

2010-07-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

The kids are driving me crazy. They had trashed their room for the umpteenth time and this time Brandon asked me help clean up the room because he was finding all kinds of toys he hadn't seen in a long time. Now keep in mind that I have tried to make it as easy as possible for them. They have a big toy box for the big toys, and lots of plastic boxes to organize the rest. I have even tried mixing up the toys in the boxes and bringing out a box at a time so they would have different toys all the time, but they always wanted something that was put away. I used to have a rack with different boxes to put their shoes in but they always threw them in front of it and it is right by the door so I couldn't shut the door, so I gave them and old laundry basket to put them in. All they have to do is throw them in but they still put them in front of the basket. Or throw the toys in front of the toy box. How hard is it to put them in the box, even if it is the wrong box. So yesterday we set about cleaning the room. I told them that I would help but they had to do it and decide where they wanted the toys. I figured that if they did it they would be more likely to keep it that way. After the first hour with me yelling at them to help, I finally took a break and told them that when we started again they better help or I was done. By that time you couldn't even walk into the room. I quit after we had the majority of the stuff in the boxes and all that was left was to put the leftover toys that was on the floor in the proper boxes and throw trash away and put Jessie's doll stuff in a pile so I could put them with the rest in the other room. The final straw for me was when they were sitting on their beds eating fruit snacks while I was digging around the closet pulling out toys. I told them what to do and left. When they said they were done, they had shoved everything in front of the toy box so you couldn't get to them, the doll stuff was nowhere to be found, and they just threw the stuff where ever, they even stuffed the trash places instead of throwing it away. One of the bags I had started Brandon threw in the toy box and it opened up so now there is trash in there again. So after a whole day of room cleanup and yelling and Scott trying to smooth things over and mediate, their room is clean if you don't look too closely and it is sort of in order. They seem to be happy with it and I can walk so I guess I should be satisfied. I should be happy that they at least put their dirty clothes in the hamper so I at least don't have to go searching for that. I am not sure if it will be better when we can get a garage and separate them or if I will just have two disaster rooms. At least then it will be more spread out. Maybe all the stress is just finally getting to all of us. Only three more weeks until school starts and I am not sure if that is good or bad or just a new stress.

4th of July and Brandon's birthday

2010-07-20T11:15:00.001-07:00

4th of July was like most of our others. We picked up fireworks and had GG's birthday party. GG got a cushion for her outdoor rocking chair, some candy she likes, and a gift card to Walgreens. It was a good day and everyone had a lot of fun. Towards the end, the wind starting blowing really hard and shortly after everyone went home it started to rain. At least it waited until the end. We had a really good heat lightening show too.

Then mom took a vacation the week of Brandon's birthday so they had lots of activities last week. Monday Scott's sisters came out and gave Brandon his gifts. Tuesday we went to the library where the kids got their books for the summer reading club and their next prize, then we went to to the park next to the library and ate lunch and played for a little while. Wednesday we went to Applebee's for dinner because it was kid's day and kid' dinners were only 99 cents and they had a special thing with pony rides and a magician called Mister Magic. They rode the ponies and then while we waited for dinner, Mr.Magic did magic tricks and made a balloon dog for Jessie and a motorcycle for Brandon and also 4 swords. He did extra stuff in honor of Brandon's birthday. Brandon also got a free ice cream sundae. On Thursday, Brandon's actual birthday, we went to the zoo. We spent the morning there and the kids bought some small toys and we ate snacks and then I made homemade chicken nuggets for dinner. We also did lots of swimming that week. On Saturday we had his party. He had a lot of fun. He picked out a GI Joe cup, Transformer napkins, firefighter cake toppers,and Power Ranger dessert plates. The dinner plates were green and our glasses were red. Quite colorful. He was hoping to eat outside but it was too hot and windy. He was really happy with his gifts, especially the scooter we got for him. We don't have a lot of places he can ride that is not really rough but he doesn't care, he rides back and forth between the houses and in the house and everywhere around. He even wanted to take it to the store. We will try to get 8 year old pics done soon, hopefully this weekend, and send them out as soon as they are finished. Once I get my house back in order, I can start focusing on other things. It's close to being done (inside anyway).

Brandon With Scooter

Balloon Toys Made by Mr. Magic

New Bike Helmet

Opening Gifts

Wild Birthday Cake

wedding update

2010-07-18T09:17:00.001-07:00

Chris and Rachel should be finally getting their invitations sent out this weekend. Two procrastinators planning a wedding is an interesting challenge. If Mom doesn't go crazy by the time the wedding happens it will be a miracle. We finally took Rachel shopping last weekend to get flowers for her bouquet and look for bridesmaids dresses and next weekend we are going to take her again to get some stuff. Scott took Chris tux shopping this weekend so at least everyone should be dressed. Rachel keeps adding bridesmaids, she's up to five, because one she thought was going to bail so she had a backup and then they all confirmed, so now Chris is trying to come up with groomsmen. Then last night Rachel mentioned she wanted to write their own vows and they keep adding to the invitation list. Hopefully it will all come together soon. Mom and I are trying to help out as much as we can without interfering and it is hard on them because they only have the weekends to do wedding stuff plus yard work etc. Chris is so excited to have a yard to fix up again that he is having trouble focusing on other things besides that.

Scott finally got offered a job. It doesn't pay much and is clear out at the reservoir but at least it is some money coming in and maybe our luck is finally changing and good things will start happening. We are hoping one of the other jobs he applied for will still come in but it is a start.

We are still fighting the insurance company for repair work done on the house from the May hail storm. Hopefully everything will be done by the wedding. The carpet and floor will be done Monday. I am starting to wonder if it is worth it now that we have to move everything out the way to replace it. I will like it once it is done but right now I am not.

End of School

2010-05-31T19:13:00.001-07:00

Okay it has finally calmed down a little so here is some information on Brandon's last days of school. First they had field day. I hope it gets better as he gets older, because they don't put much effort into the younger kids. It was chilly and the kids froze during the water sports but they seemed to have fun anyway. Scott and I took Jessie and she did pretty good but got cold and tired towards the end. Then the next week was their final field trip. They went to City Park to ride the rides for an hour, then ate lunch in the park and played around for awhile. I stayed the whole time but Scott just took Jessie to the park to meet us for lunch and she played on the equipment for awhile with Brandon. He was so worried that she was going to get hurt playing with the other big kids. After the park, Scott took Jessie home and I went with the kids to the library for a tour and story time. Trying to keep 56 first graders quiet in the library is real fun by the way. They split us into three groups and we took a tour of the library, visited the Infozone, which tells the history of newspapers, and then had story time. The kids got very bored because they were tired and it wasn't enough action for them. Last year the first graders got to go ice skating and we got the library. I think the best thing for them was the glass elevators. The final day, the kids had their final assembly in the morning where they got awards. Brandon got awards for spelling, knowing 200 site words, and the helping hands award for always being willing to help everyone out. He also got a special award for the AR reading program for being in the top 3 in his class. The first grade also was noted for helping to get the most chain links on the Rachel's challenge. Rachel's challenge is when the kids are challenged to do acts of kindness. When they do an act of kindness a paper chain link is made. The chain was pretty big by the end of the year. The teachers seemed pretty sad to lose this group. After the assembly we could take the kids home, so we met mom and dad at the park for lunch and fed the ducks and played around. When we got home, shortly after is when the storm hit. Nice ending to a good school year. Also Jessie got into the preschool program at school so she will be starting school next year also. It will be interesting because they are going to a four day school week and also contracting out the bus services to a company instead of the school district, which will add re to the usual start of school year confusion. I guess I'll worry about that closer to time.

hailstorm

2010-05-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

I was going to do a blog about the end of the school year and all of Brandon's activities, which I will still do soon, but yesterday we had a massive hail storm that did a lot of damage and it is too hot to think much right now. We had everything from pea to golf ball size hail. It not only trashed the trees pretty good but mom and I both lost most of our flowers we got for Mother's Day. (Everyone buys us flowers to plant in our planters for Mother's Day). A few may still survive but most didn't. Our roof is going to have to be replaced and the siding on the house as well as the gutters and the worst part was our skylights broke and allowed water to gush into the kitchen and bathroom. Today some guys came out and put in giant fans to dry out everything so it won't mold and we can't run the air conditioner and of course today was almost 90 degrees and about a 100 in the house. It is really miserable right now and everyone is sleeping in our room because we have a window air conditioner to try to cool down that room at least. And of course everyone thinks I am some super mom that can do six things at once and do everything as soon as they ask and with the heat I am not handling that as well as I probably could be. Mom and dad had a lot of damage to their roof also so now we all get the fun of the insurance and roofers game. I will try and do the end of the school blog as soon as we get the fans out of here and some coolness back in.

Easter

2010-04-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

We had a really nice Easter this year. It started with egg decorating the night before. The kids love decorating Easter eggs and so do the “big kids”. Dad and Scott really get into it. They have their traditional decorating they do every year. Dad always makes one look like a green olive with a stuffed pimento and Scott always makes an elaborate fire scene. I enjoy it too and mom usually ends up taking pictures and video instead of coloring eggs.

The weather was nice enough for once to hide the eggs outside (plastic ones, not the real ones). It’s so much more fun doing it outside where they have more room and there are more places to hide them. After the egg hunt Grandma, Chris and Rachel showed up for dinner at around 1:00. We had a really nice ham dinner with our traditional deviled eggs and then we all went back outside and the kids had a treasure hunt for another Easter surprise. We had gotten them some audio books that have the book with it so they can read along and it was too big for an Easter basket so we thought we would do a treasure hunt. A couple of years ago for Brandon’s birthday Mom and I made up pictures of various places in the yard that we use for clues and had bought a box that we used for his birthday gift bags that was the treasure, but we like to play this game with the kids in the summer and bought some small dollar toys that we put in the treasure box. They get a kick out of it. Anyway…we used the clue cards for them to find the books. They had fun with that and then they hid some eggs for their Uncle Chris to find. After that they played with the toys they got in their Easter baskets. It was so nice out no one wanted to go back inside, but we did finally go in for dessert because Chris and Rachel were due to go have dinner with her mom soon too. It was a very memorable day and I hope all of you had a great Easter too.

Chris wedding

2010-04-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

Chris and Rachel have finally found a hall and a church available on the same day so they are officially setting the date for August 28th. Invitations will be sent out hopefully soon but I figured I would give everyone a head's up since I don't know when they will get them sent out for sure. It should be interesting because they want Brandon and Jessie to be the in the wedding. I will put in more details when I have them.

cute story

2010-03-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

The other day Brandon found some matchbox construction cars that none of us remember him getting. I kind of remember he got a set a few christmas' ago but I didn't recognize some of the cars. Since neither of the kids ever put anything where it belongs it doesn't surprise me that they have been lost. Well after a while, when he was done looking to see if anything else appeared, he came in all excited and said he figured out where they came from. He said, " God was having a yard sale and loves construction toys and since he loves Me so much he decided to give them to me." Then yesterday he found a nickel and said he was rich and that God must really love him for letting him find that nickel. Remember the days when things were that simple and a nickel made us rich?
Spring break is here and of course the weather is only going to be nice for like one more day and it wasn't nice on Friday or Saturday so we will be lucky to have three days of going outside.
Chris is still tentatively set on the wedding date of August 28th. They are having a really tough time getting anything set. Carmen (Rachel's mom) is not helping much she keeps promising them stuff and then backing out. They thought about postponing the wedding but her grandma isn't doing well and even though she wouldn't be able to come to the wedding they were hoping to visit her after and be able to show her the pictures and video but I am not sure she will even make it to then. Hopefully everything will finally come together and I will post the date as soon as it is set for sure but the 28th is the date as of now unless they have to postpone. The only thing they do have is the dress.

Jessie's 4th birthday

2010-02-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

I know I am a little late in writing this as her birthday was on the 7th but better late than never. She had a good birthday weekend. Brandon and her both usually get two birthdays out of the deal because we do the birthday dinner and party with my family and then Scott's family comes out for their presents on another day. Anyway we had my family's party on Saturday and she had a great time. It was princess themed of course, half general princess and half Cinderella. She chose all of her decorations and then told me where to put them up. She even tried to tell me how to decorate the cake. Brandon was a little upset because she is now old enough to want to open her own presents and he didn't like that. He liked it better when he had to do things for her. On Sunday Scott's family came out to give her their gifts. She started to come down with a cold that day so she was a little under the weather but she still had a good time.

She is finally able to reach the doorknobs enough to close doors but she can't open the doors because she is just short enough that she can't get a good grip on the knob so she is always locking herself in places and then hollering to get out. She can also now turn lights on and turn them back off if she is standing on something, she needs about another inch to reach the top of the switch when it is turned on. So now when I put her in her room for her "nap/ quiet time" (which almost nevers actually happens, as she is usually knocking on the door asking if it time to get up yet) she turns the light back on after I leave the room. I don't think I am going to have any trouble with her in school because she is picking up a lot from Brandon and is constantly wanting to read but she gets bored quickly with anything that doesn't involve reading. She is quick to learn though and I think she will have no problems.

Brandon on the other hand is still having difficulties with numbers. He seems to have a block when it comes to math and he does not like to write. I still think he was supposed to be left handed and it is messing with his brain but he was adament about using his right hand because everyone else was. He is doing really well in reading though. They have what they call accelerated reading books that are different levels and when you get three 100%s on the tests, you move onto the next level. He is breezing through the books, one of them he only had home one day and he passed the book and is on to the next. He just moved into a new level so he has two more 100's to go but I am very proud of him. We have resorted to bribery to try to get him to work harder and it is helping to a point but he is only earning his stickers towards a prize for the books and site word lists that he passes not for any of his other homework. It is still a work in progress. I still get amazed when I hear him read to me it just doesn't seem possible that he is old enough to read and to see his progress as he masters it. I forgot how hard the English language is until I started helping him with spelling and phonics. We really do have a difficult language. I am so proud of both of my kids and they are growing up way too fast.

Chris's graduation and engagement

2010-02-04T17:40:00.001-08:00

Chris graduated from college again with his bachelor's degree in October. This time it is a Bachelor of Science for Technical Engineering. Anyway we were waiting for them to mail his diploma to him before we celebrated. They wouldn't give it until everything was paid. (His employer helped pay for his degree). Mom and Dad received it at there house so we gave him a surprise party and he didn't even know that he had his diploma yet.

It was fun. We made him wear his old cap and gown from high school and Dad presented the diploma. He also got some gift cards and a frame for the diploma. I think he appreciated it. It was also sort of a double celebration because he finally asked Rachel to marry him. He waited for their two year anniversary to propose. I guess he was pretty nervous but made it pretty romantic. Rachel was surprised he was nervous because it wasn't like she was going to say no. They are tentatively setting the date for August 28th. We'll see though because they haven't decided where they are having it yet so the date may change. I wasn't sure about their relationship at first but she has really changed and I think they will be happy together.

As for the latest on Scott, he is still having issues. I swear the doctor is just trying to milk the insurance. Anyway they are finally going to blast the kidney stone next week and if all goes well he can get the stint they put in over a month ago out a week after they blast it. Hopefully that will be the end to all of the major problems and things will go smoother. I am not sure how much more I can take. Scott can't even really try to get work because he is on pain pills all the time. We have been looking but there is just not a lot of options out there right now. Please keep praying because we need all the help we can get.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-31T13:02:00.000-08:00

Grandma (GG) opening gift from Cooks

Jessie helping GG open her electric lap throw

Kids with PEZ from Cooks

This years "famous" socks from Jim

Chocolate orange from Cooks

GG with books from Cooks

Jerky from Cooks

Jenny with Chocolate Orange

GG opening sandart from kids.

We started our Christmas season with our traditional trip to the zoo for the Electric Critters. Chris and Rachel joined us and everyone loved walking around looking at all the lights as usual. It's always cold so this year we got smart and brought hot chocolate to drink while we walked. Jessie wanted to go back to the zoo she loved it so much but it's too expensive to do twice so we settled for walking the River Walk and looking at those Christmas lights. That was a lot of fun too (and free). The kids were a little disappointed that we didn't do the boat ride with Santa this year but we had already seen all the lights while walking and we didn't want to spend the money. Maybe next year. Next was our annual trip to the mall to visit with Santa and mail their letters. We walked around for awhile and Brandon played games in the arcade while Mom took Jessie on the little rides they have. Scott and I did a little shopping while mom watched the kids in the play area. Then we ate dinner at Subway. Last year Grandma went with us but this year she already had plans to go out with a group from the Towers to look at Christmas lights in the van. She really enjoyed that.

Christmas Eve we went to Chris' house (as is our fairly new tradition) and ordered pizza. He cooked chicken wings and made breadsticks and sauce and cookies to go with it (he's quite the male version of Martha Stewart) and then we had hot chocolate later in the evening. We opened some gifts then. We like to open the gifts that Brandon buys at his school Santa shop and the things that Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim send us on Christmas Eve so we can really spend time looking at them when it's not so hectic. The socks and poem Jim sends to dad need special attention. Brandon bought Jessie some lipgloss in the shape of the word LOVE. You would have thought he gave her diamonds the way she carried on and thanked him and kissed him. He gave Scott a sports mug that says DAD on it, me a pin that says MOM and is heartshaped, mom a bookmark with a heart and beads on it, and dad an ornament that says, "I love Grandpa" on it. They were having problems keeping a good supply of items to shop for this year in the Santa Shop so he and Jessie ended up making sandart vases for eveyone else. Jessie got it into her head that she had to give Santa a gift too and kept wanting to buy him a gift at the Santa Shop, but she settled for "writing" on a Christmas card and leaving that out for him on Christmas Eve along with the cookies and milk.

Christmas day won't go down in our memories as one of the best we've had but it was still nice. First Brandon's gift from Santa was a metal detector and it didn't work right. Then Chris had car trouble and they were late getting here. Scott wasn't feeling well (more on that in a minute), Chris forgot my gift and one of Rachel's, grandma (GG) was still tired from the Christmas Eve party, and we just couldn't seem to get organized. Inspite of all that, we still had a nice dinner and a nice day.

To elaborate more on Brandon's Santa gift, mom and I ran out the next day to try to replace it and the plan was to have Brandon write a letter to Santa to let him know it was broken and then Santa would make a special trip to drop off a new one, but they were out of them so dad had a metal detector he hadn't used in years and he cleaned that up and we had Brandon write the note and Santa delivered the "new" one with a note that he felt so bad that the other one was broken that he gave him an even better one, but this metal detector was very special to him so he needed to take really good care of it (since it is more expensive we wanted him to be more careful). Brandon was so excited and assumed that meant the metal detector belonged to Santa and he was giving him his own instead of making a new one. That's kind of true. Aren't grandpas really Santa anyway? He loves it and is very happy.

Now our latest medical issue, Scott. He had gone to the doctor a couple of weeks ago suspecting he might have a bladder infection but his brilliant doctor didn't put him on antibiotics and it ended up getting worse. I ended up taking him to emergency room the day after Christmas and he has a very large kidney stone and an infection, which probably wouldn't have happened if he had gotten the antibiotics in the beginning. He was supposed to have an ultrasound on Monday that would break it up but it was too close to the bladder so they sent him to the hospital for same day surgery to put in a stent. So he is still in pain and trying to pass it and is taking a bunch of different kinds of medicines and has to go back next Monday to see if all is well. I'm the only one that hasn't had surgery recently so I sure hope it stays that way. We're REALLY hoping 2010 will be a better year. Hope everyone reading this blog has a wonderful New Year.

Brandon's Glasses

2009-12-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

Forgot to mention that to add to all our medical dilemmas, the nurse at Brandon’s school sent home a note that they thought he needed to have his eyes checked because they said he failed the far sight test so after all the surgeries were over and I could face dealing with one more thing, I took him in and big surprise, he needs glasses for seeing far distances, like seeing the board. He can see fine reading and only seems to have problems with reading far away, he says nothing else looks blurry. So like his cousin Mary, he now has glasses. Also like Mary, he looks really cute in them. He doesn’t seem to mind wearing them, thank goodness. We were worried that he would be upset about having to wear them, but his teacher says he wears them all day at school, even though he really doesn't need to. So far the worst he has done is to leave them at school and Scott had to go and pick them up, but we’re waiting for him to completely lose them at some point. Hopefully not somewhere we won't find them, you were so lucky Rebecca that they sent them back to you. That was amazing that they found them. Hopefully that will be the end of our medical issues and we can move on to more fun stuff.

Jess's Surgery

2009-12-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry it took so long to post about her surgery. Everything went fine. If anybody has had their tonsils out recently you know what it is like but if no one has don't let anyone tell you that is it is just a simple procedure and they will up and running in a couple of days. You have to worry about bleeding and accidently pulling the scabs off the throat for at least ten days. You can't eat anything but soft foods for ten days, and especially for the first few days have to keep drinking fluids, Jessie's size four oz every hour to keep her hydrated and her fever down or they have to go back to the hospital for an IV. Try explaining to a three year old, a stubborn one at that, that you have to drink even though it hurts and you have to take the yucky pain meds to make it stop hurting. Oh and they also don't tell you until right before just when they are starting to feel better, the pain comes back and this time in your ears because the nerve is connected to the throat so your ears and throat hurt as the scabs fall off. Nothing makes a mom feel useless and like a not good mom like when your child is in pain and you can't make it go away. I couldn't even bribe her. She is finally doing better. She still has a few bad times but they are getting fewer. The worst thing is I just got her to sleep through the night a few months ago and now she is falling back into the pattern again of waking up and she wants her binky again which I just about had her weaned from now that she was sleeping through the night. Now I have to start all over hopefully not taking another three and a half years to do so. The surgery was quick and she did really well except that they wouldn't let us be with her until she was back in her room and when we got there they said she was emotional from the anethestic, it had nothing to do with the fact that she woke up in a strange place with strangers and we were no where around. that made me a little angry. Once I got to hold her she calmed down and when we took her home three hours later she was in pretty good spirits because she wasn't feeling any pain at the moment. I think she ate more that day than she had in a week. I hope this makes sense and is not jumbled, I am not used to no sleep again and Jessie is trying to hurry me up so I have to write this quickly but I wanted to let everyone know how it went.

Jess surgery date

2009-11-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

Jessie's surgery date is Dec 1. She was so funny at the doctor's office telling everyone that she is Cinderella and a princess and making sure that they didn't forget that she was to get a sucker and sticker when she was through. The doctor told her that they needed to get the monsters out of her petite princess's throat. She was a little surprised by her size but most are when they realize how old she actually is especially when she speaks because she talks very grownup for her age but looks like a two year old. Any way when we went to set up the surgery date she told the nurse her name was Cinderella and I told her that they needed her real name or they would be confused so she huffed and said " fine. My name is Jessie". Unless she freezes at the hospital, she will be very interesting while we wait for the surgery to start.

halloween

2009-11-10T19:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of the kids' Halloween costumes. Jessie was Cinderella, which is currently her favorite thing, and Brandon was, of course, a wildland firefighter. The one of her alone was to show her Cinderella shoes. We went to the mall for trick or treating and then we went to Chris' new house for dinner and brought GG to see his house and see the kids' costumes. This year the kids made us dress up too. Mom was a witch, dad and Scott were firefighters and I was Red Riding Hood. The picture of Brandon with the wild hair is from when his school had "Crazy Hair Day" and that's how he wore his hair for school that day.

Alphabet song

2009-11-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

Jessie was singing the alphabet song the other day and when she got to the lmnop part she sang "a lemon and a pea". Brandon informed her that was wrong that it was lmnop and she said " I know that is what I said a lemon and a pea." After arguing about it for a few minutes Brandon finally gave up and told me " I give up she is impossible."

Jessie's turn

2009-10-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Now Jessie is going to have to have surgery. She keeps getting strep throat, she'll be off the antibiotics for a few days and then it comes back. She is on the third round of antibiotics and the doctor is setting her up with an ENT to have her tonsils taken out. At least that can be done here in Pueblo so we won't have to keep going up to Springs. Brandon is taking it harder than she is. He started crying and said he didn't want her to have surgery because she might die. Of course he was also very tired at the time and he is feeling the stress of all the problems we have been having. I wish I was better at keeping things away from him but he is way too perceptive and he worries too much for a kid his age. Jessie takes everything in stride and unless it hits her later, she isn't worried and is just happy that she can have popsicles after. I guess I should be happy that nothing catastrophic has happened and we are still making it so far but they say God only gives you as much as you can handle and I think he has forgotten to check up on how we are doing because I am not sure how much more I can take this year.

surgery update

2009-10-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

The first few days after the surgery Brandon was doing well with only a little pain if he tried to do too much. He had a slight fever after the surgery but it went away and there was no other sign of infection and we had to keep reminding him to keep calm. It is amazing how such a little incision and still cause a lot of pain if you move wrong. Any way on Monday we sent him to school and he didn't even want any tylenol or anything for pain and he was fine. About 10:30 while we were on our way to the grocery store the school called. They said Brandon was complaining that his incision was hurting and they took his temp because they had already sent several students home sick that morning and he was running a slight fever so we had to bring him home. Now when I got him home and took his temp it was only 99 and I figured it was because he was hurting. Other wise he was feeling fine but the school policy is you can't send the child back to school for 24 hours after the fever is gone so we knew he would be out Tuesday for sure. On the way to get Brandon, Jessie started looking like she wasn't feeling good and she was running a fever also. So on Tuesday, Brandon was acting fine except for a runny nose and a cough and a slight fever, and we had to take Jessie to the doctor because she was complaining of a sore throat and strep has been going around. She was confirmed with strep. The doctor said Brandon just has some virus and it would just have to run it's course. Scott then made me a doctor's appointment because my throat was hurting and I suspected that I had strep also ( which I do). By Wednesday, Brandon was finally feeling lousy enough that I wasn't regretting keeping him home and his fever spiked and we were all just feeling lousy. Poor Scott was the only one not sick. Brandon's nurse from the surgeon called to see how he was doing and she said that sometimes it happens that if a child has a virus that is in incubation that sometimes the surgery sets it off and the kid gets really sick right after the surgery which is what seems to have happened to him. Anyway everyone is feeling better now and we were able to have mom's birthday party on Saturday and enjoy it and Brandon will be going back to school tomorrow and hopefully won't pick up something else. Yesterday was the first day Brandon was off of surgery restrictions and he felt really good and ran everywhere. I don't think he walked anywhere.
On a brighter note here are a few cute things the kids said and did. When you ask Jessie why she is so cute she says it is because everyone loves her. And if I am getting on her about something she tells me "now mom, mind your manners". The other night I went to check on them because they were having trouble sleeping and Brandon was leaning over her bed singing to her and stroking her hair. I told him he was such a good big brother and he said "I know". Last night I was trying to get them to sleep and they kept talking and laughing and Brandon said that there were just too many jokes in their heads and they had to get them out before they could fall asleep.

Brandon's Surgery

2009-09-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

Brandon had his surgery yesterday. We had to get up at 4 am and be up in Springs by six. We did okay until we got to the hospital and then couldn't find where to go and there wasn't anybody on duty at the front desk. A flight nurse happened by and showed us where to go. It was a good thing we took into account for getting lost and left enough time. Once we were checked in, Scott's brother-in-law Louie and the assistant pastor at his church, who had driven up, came into the room and said a prayer for Brandon. After they left we sat around the room for a little while and watched tv until it was time for the surgery. The surgery was scheduled for 7:30 and they came and got him right on time. They only allowed one parent in the operating room so Scott went in with Brandon until he was asleep, which took like five minutes, and then he was back in the room to wait with me. They told us the surgery was going to take about an hour because the doctor thought there were two small hernias. Scott had taken off to go find some food and he hadn't even gotten back to the room yet when the doctor came in and said they were done. It had only been maybe a half hour. He said there was only one hernia after all, just a lot of fat pushed through. The hole itself was probably only maybe a few centimeters big. So I went to recovery before Scott even got back to the room. The nurse said that Brandon would probably sleep for awhile because they gave him twice the amount of anethesia since they thought he would be in longer, but Brandon started coming around when he heard my voice. At first he was okay and was drinking some juice but then he started getting sick. They gave him some medicine for the pain and nausea but he just wasn't tolerating anything well. Since his vitals were good we left recovery and they took us back to the room where Scott was waiting. There we tried to get him to hold some liquid down. He was just so tired and had so much anethesia in him, plus running a slight fever, that he just felt crummy. He wanted to go home but we knew he would be so miserable riding home for an hour when he was feeling so sick. They finally gave him some different medicine that they use as a last resort because it causes the patient to fall asleep but that is what he needed. Brandon was afraid that if he fell asleep they would do more surgery. The meds kicked in quickly and he went to sleep. The problem was that as he slept his oxygen stats kept dropping below 87 which would set off the alarms and a nurse would call and see if we needed something. I spent an hour watching the monitor and waking him up enough to take deep breaths to keep his stats up until he woke up enough to stay awake. Besides the kink in my neck from looking up at the monitor, it worked wonders. Once we got him to stay awake and get dressed, he said he felt much better and he was acting more like himself. The nurses had given him a blanket and a bear to make him feel safer and he told the nurse he was going to give his bear to Jessie when he got home so the nurse gave him another one to give to her so he could keep his. Once we hit the car, he immediately wanted to go get food. Amazing because an hour ago he couldn't even stand eating a popsicle and now he was starving. He ate two fruit bars on the way home and half of a chicken sandwich when we got home. Jessie was so happy to have him home she couldn't stop watching him and mothering him. Then they both took naps. Jessie woke up at 5:30 when she realized brother was gone and made mom put in Shrek to watch because there wasn't anything good on tv that early so she was pretty tired too. He was still feeling a little bad last night with a low grade fever but this morning the fever was gone and he is just stiff and sore. The incision is only about 3/4 to a half of an inch long and covered with steri strips. The fun part is going to be keeping him calm and only doing quiet activities for a week. The surgeon told me good luck with that. He has to avoid gym and recess for a week and he is worried that he will get into trouble with the teachers for not taking gym. We keep telling him we have a note from the doctor so they won't be mad. All in all it went as well as it could have and at least it is all over and hopefully we will never have to do something like that again. I am so proud of him. He was so brave and strong through the whole thing. The nurses said they wish all their patients were like him, he never cried or anything, he just did what they told him to. Thank you for all the prayers. They were greatly appreciated.

North Pole Trip

2009-09-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Mom had a little money set aside for summer family trips so this year's vacation was going to the State Fair and the North Pole in Colorado Springs. The kids got to see all the free shows at the fair and the petting zoo and ride the ponies, which they always like. When we went to the North Pole, we didn't tell them where we were going so it would be a surprise. They were so excited. The first place we went was Santa's House. They were still a little overwhelmed and didn't talk much to Santa. Jessie said she wanted another doll house and Brandon wanted a real horse. Then we started on the rides. It is a good deal because you pay one price and can ride the rides all you want. Most of the rides are pretty mellow, which is the way the kids like it. Jessie and Brandon were able to ride on all of them together or with me and Scott. They were really liking it. There was only one ride they didn't like. Scott talked us into going on the Tilt-a-Whirl. They were not impressed with that one. Luckily that was one of the last so it didn't make them not want to ride any more. It did rain on us a few times. The first was no big deal. We just went into some of the gift shops while we waited it out. We told the kids one more ride and then we were going home and then it started to rain a second time. It downpoured on them during the ride and they had to stop it early. It wasn't a big deal because we were ready to go home anyway but the problem was that everyone in the park decided to go home also because it was an hour before the park closed anyway. It took us forever to get out and onto the main road because traffic was so bad. All in all it was a good day and a good way to end the summer and forget our troubles for a little while.

Brandon's surgery

2009-09-16T20:08:00.001-07:00

Brandon had his preop appointment today. His surgery is set for next Friday, September 25 at 7:30AM. We have to be at the hospital at 6AM and since it is in Springs, we have to leave here at 5 which means getting up at like 4AM. Maybe we will be so tired we won't be as worried. Mom has offered to watch Jessie for us, and I am sure if she knew the time before hand she might have had second thoughts. At least she only has to walk over and hopefully Jessie will stay asleep for awhile so mom won't have to entertain her that early in the morning. The good thing is that Brandon should be released by 10:30 so we will be home for lunch and with any luck naps. I'll send another blog after the surgery and let everyone know how it went. lots of prayers.

Jenny’s Special Birthday Gifts

2009-08-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

I’m sneaking into Jenny’s blog to write a story I think is cute. I thought it would be fun to take the grandkids shopping so they could pick out a birthday gift for their mother. I gave them free reign (within a reasonable price range) of what they thought would be the perfect gift for their mother. I was really curious to see what they would come up with. So the three of us set out for Wal-Mart. Before we left on our shopping trip Brandon told his mother he wanted to get her flowers, those pretty cut flowers in the case by the front door of Wal-Mart he said. Jenny talked him out of those because she told him although she loved flowers, once they died she wouldn’t have anything to keep forever from him so he decided he would rather give her something she could keep. They both decided jewelry was what mommy needed so we headed for the jewelry and I figured I would start them at the first aisle and let them look at everything on the racks and then decide which one they wanted. I didn’t realize the first aisle was the children’s jewelry. Jessie wanted to get some Tinkerbelle bracelets that would only fit a child and I don’t think she really had mommy in mind at that time. I told her we were shopping for mommy and not her and maybe she could get those later so then she liked a Hannah Montana necklace that would fit her mommy. I told her we would keep looking but if that’s what she wanted to get her we would come back for it. Brandon tends to just zero in on something, like it calls to him, and then he is set on that item no matter how many other things he looks at and this time was no exception. He headed straight for a box of earrings and that was exactly what he thought his mommy should have. Jessie is more of a shopper so she looked at everything. She liked the costume jewelry rings and picked one of the largest red stones I’ve ever seen on a ring. It was a huge square stone with a couple of small diamonds on each side. The rings weren’t the kind you can size and I was afraid if it didn’t fit any of Jenny’s fingers then she wouldn’t be able to wear it at all and Jessie would be very disappointed so she decided to keep looking (you’re welcome Jenny). Finally, she decided on a gold and purple necklace. Then she wanted to give her a second gift so I said they could pick out another gift that was from both of them. Jessie wanted to give her a card of earrings but it was very similar to the ones Brandon had picked. He wanted to give an identical box of earrings to the ones he had already picked out but with a different color stone but I thought maybe a bit more variety would be nice so they decided on a card of beaded bracelets. We thought it was a card of about eight different bracelets but it turned out to be all one bracelet and when pulled out, looks like a very pretty slinky. So happy with their purchases we paid for them and some gum that they talked Grandma into. Then we stopped at my house to wrap the presents and they were very picky about the tissue paper and bags we used. They both decided they wanted to give her a card too and luckily I have a bunch of cards I get free in the mail so they each picked one out. Fortunately, I had two with a dog that looked like Shane on it because they both wanted that one. Brandon signed his card himself but dictated what he wanted to say on it to me. It read, “I wish you have a very good birthday for many many years. P.S. I love you very much and we are back from Wal-Mart.” Jessie “signed” her card too and dictated on hers the message, “Dear Mommy, I love you, I want you, I don’t want you to die.” What with Bill, their dog Sara, and several of our special cats dying recently, death is a bit on her mind. They gave their individual presents to her on her birthday, which really helped make it a special day, especially since Brandon had that bus fiasco on her birthday, and gave her the bracelet at the family party on Saturday. Jenny wore the other jewelry they gave her at the party too. Jenny loved the fact they had picked out the gifts themselves, which made them very special, and I have some really special memories of our shopping trip as well. See the pictures below:

1st day of school

2009-08-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Brandon had his first day of all day school yesterday. I was worried about him lasting all day because he always gets tired in the afternoon. He did fine with that though and said that he enjoyed going all day. We will see how long that lasts. He did have problems with the bus however. When he was supposed to get off the bus, he wasn't there. Melody from next door, who was getting her son off the bus and runs a daycare, asked us where Brandon was. Dad, who was waiting outside, jumped into his car and started chasing down the bus. Melody started calling the bus garage, and I called the school. She said they messed up with one of her daycare kids in morning kindergarten too, they had the drop off address wrong, and he was on the bus an extra hour before she finally got him to her house. I finally got a hold of the school and they started tracking him down. Apparently they put him on the wrong bus and he wasn't the only one. Parents were chasing down buses and calling the school and in general panic mode throughout the county. The school finally called and said they had him at the school about the time Scott was getting ready to head down there and I was going to wait at home in case they dropped him off there. Dad returned home after verifying that Brandon wasn't on the bus. Needless to say Scott and many other parents were giving the school an earful. Then they tried to tell us that Brandon was on the right bus and just didn't get off, so Scott let them have it again because we tracked the bus down and he was not on it. I figured Brandon would be freaked out by now but when we got him he was more worried that he was in trouble because they took him to the principal's office to wait for us. He is calling it his great adventure. On the way home I asked him if the bus he was on even went in our direction and he said no that he thought they took him to Mexico because it was a foreign land. I had baked cookies for him to have when he got home from school but by the time we got him home he was too wired to eat them. Every year something goes wrong for him on the bus. In preschool, the bus got the kids to school 20 minutes before all the other buses and they didn't bother to tell the teachers that so his first day he waited outside the school with no teachers and it scared him and the other kids. Last year the bus went into a ditch, and this year they lose him. I can't wait to find out what will happen next year. Great birthday present for me to have my son lost in the bus system. They don't take care of the kids like they used to that's for sure.

Brandon has his surgery scheduled for september 25, at 7:30 in the morning, which means we will have to leave here at 6:30 and hopefully not wait for hours until they get him in. At least it will be over and I can stop worrying about it.

2009-08-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

Brandon had his appointment with the surgeon yesterday and he said it was an epigastric hernia. The muscles never closed up completely allowing some fat to get pushed through which is the lump we can see. It must be the only fat in his body because I sure can't find any anywhere else. The good news is that it is unlikely to cause any serious medical problems but it can be painful and they want to do surgery but I don't know when exactly. Probably in the next month or two. They said it was better to do it while he is young and recovers quickly. Brandon was funny though before we left to go to Springs. Mom was babysitting Jessie at our house and Brandon acted like she never been there before. He was showing her where everything was and telling her how to do everything like how to open the door if the dogs wanted out. He showed her the fridge and told her what snacks Jessie liked and where her juice was. Right before we left he showed her the keys to the firetruck in case they wanted to go for a spin and then thanked mom for watching his little sister. It was funny.
Scott's test result came back normal except for a lot of acid and now they want to do a scope. I don't know when he will get around to doing that. I think it is just stress and he hasn't been feeling like working out or anything lately and that doesn't help. At the end of the day Brandon tells me that this was the best day. I was thinking yeah I love driving for two hours for a fifteen minute visit, told that my son has to have surgery, Scott needs more tests to find out what is wrong yeah right this was a great day. We have a meeting set up on Wednesday with several potential investors to hopefully invest in the business so hopefully that will go good. Mom is feeling more positive so that helps. I never realized how much I count on her to help me stay a little more positive. She is on vacation this week which helps break up the monotony too. Prayers are welcome.

When it rains it pours

2009-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last year wasn't our greatest year in terms of finances because Scott didn't get much work. I thought 2009 was going to be better, I was wrong it just keeps going downhill. Not only has our financial situation not improved any, but there must be some life law that when you are down and out everything must break. Our car has just broken down for the third time this year. I am not talking small things, I am talking the cheapest time was $300 to $800. Luckily we do have a back up car that so far is behaving itself. Scott is having to have tests done to see why his GERD is back. He had surgery years ago that was supposed to take care of it, but now he having problems again. We are waiting to find out the results of his upper GI and see where we go from there. Our insurance isn't the greatest so there are our of pocket expenses. Then I took Brandon to the doctor for his regular checkup and the doctor decided that the small lump he has had on stomach since he was like two, that she always told me was a blood vessel and would eventually disappear, decided that maybe is a ventral ulcer and he needs to see a pediatric surgeon which of course are none in Pueblo so we have to go to Springs for. Just what he needs to do right before he starts first grade and is in school all day for the first time. He will not do well if they decide he needs surgery so I am praying that something will go right and they can take care of it right there or decide that it is nothing to worry about. Brandon goes to the dentist next week along with the appointment with the surgeon and I am dreading what may come up then. The only saving grace is so far Jessie seems to be perfectly fine except that she has decided to quit sleeping at night again which she was barely sleeping in the first place which means no sleep for me either. I am really trying to remember that things could be worse and focus on the good things. Every day I wonder what is going to happen today. If my family is being tested on our faith then I am afraid we are failing. Even mom who usually is the one who holds us all together and keeps the faith when we all slip, is having trouble staying positive. I am not sure what to do any more.

4th of July

2009-07-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

Our 4th was definitely memorable. It started with mom finding out she had a flat tire, which of course can't be fixed until Monday. We picked up fireworks while Dad made the traditional homemade peach ice cream. Then the kids, mom and I made Grandma's birthday cake since we celebrate her birthday on the 4th. There must have been some grease left in the broiler from the steak we cooked the other day because the broiler caught on fire and blackened the cake and smoked us out of the kitchen. Luckily the oven was not ruined, only the cake. So Mom and I ran out to the store to buy new cake mix and started over (this time at mom's house). After we made the cake and were decorating it, we put the 94 candles on and the 9 was broken so we had to lay them down on the cake instead. Then the rain came. We ended up eating inside because even though it finally stopped by six, we weren't sure for how long and everything was really wet. After dinner, we took the kids outside to set off the before dark stuff like smoke bombs and snakes and we had bought a bunch of silly string and had a silly string war. The big kids (Dad, Scott, and Chris) really had fun with that and Brandon has requested more silly string for his birthday. Jessie preferred to watch from the sidelines. We went back inside for cake and ice cream and presents so that Grandma could leave whenever she was ready to, and about the time we were ready to go back outside and finish the fireworks, it was raining really hard again. We had also bought some glow sticks to play with outside, and we ended up playing with those inside with the lights out. That passed the time for awhile. Around 9:30 it had died down a little bit and Chris said he had a rain poncho and would light the fireworks so we put up the patio awning and everyone sat under that to stay dry and Chris lit fireworks. Jessie was so tired by then, because of course neither one took naps, she fell asleep on Mom's lap shortly after they started. Brandon managed to stay awake until they were done but he was zoning pretty hard by the end. Because the air was heavy with all the humidity, all the smoke stayed low instead of rising up like usual and a few times you could hardly see the fountains and all the illegal fireworks the neighbors put off (that you are not supposed to) were staying low to the ground. (We of course were good and didn't have any illegals.) It is a good thing that everything was wet because there probably would have been fires otherwise. The rain held off until we got everything finished and back inside, and then it started up again shortly after everyone went home. Grandma says that even though it wasn't necessarily the greatest 4th, it will be one of the most memorable and we will look back on it one day and remember the 4th of July when we almost burnt the house down, ruined the cake, and it rained almost the whole time. And we will probably all laugh.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Pat's visit

2009-06-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim visited last weekend. It was fun as usual. Everyone really enjoys their visits getting to see family. Jessie invited everyone to her and Brandon's swimming lesson on Friday and they all went. Everyone means Scott who always goes with me, Mom, Dad, Pat, Jim, and even GG. It really meant a lot to the kids to have everyone watching them. Then we all came to my house and had lunch and relaxed outside for awhile. That night everyone came back out for a picnic. We weren't sure if the weather was going to cooperate but it ended up being nice after a short rain and we were able to eat outside. That made Scott happy because he works hard keeping up the yard and he likes showing it off. After dinner Scott lit the fire pit and we all sat in the rock garden watching the fire and listening to the fountains. It was almost like being in the mountains. It was nice sitting outside relaxing and talking. On Saturday, we went to Rye and spent the afternoon in the mountains, eating lunch and sitting around. Uncle Jim even climbed the big rock like he used to. Scott tried to get a picture but Jim got down before he could take it. Mom, Scott and I took the kids to the mountain park for awhile and everyone else stayed at the picnic site and relaxed. That night we had dinner at Chris's house where mom planned a surprise 60th birthday party for Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim. She decided to get even for all the over the hill parties they have thrown and said that they shouldn't get away with spending those birthdays by themselves. Dad had a lot of fun buying joke gifts for the two of them. We had a nice dinner and took some family photos which mom will get out as soon as she is done fixing them up and playing with her new photo software. We then ended up outside and hung around Chris's backyard until it got late and it was time to call it quits. I hope they had a nice visit, I know we did and Grandma always loves having everyone together. There are pictures of the birthday party on shutterfly for anyone who would like to see them. We can't wait until next year.

end of school year

2009-05-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

Brandon had a busy May. First was career day where Scott went to talk about being a wildland firefighter and Brandon got to show off to his class and learn about a lot of other careers. He has decided that he wants to try karate which makes sense because he is always running around pretending to do it anyway. Then he had his field trip to the zoo and the city park rides. He had fun and I went to be with him but it was ninety degrees that day so all the kids were pretty worn out. Scott took Jessie to the park to feed the ducks and play and have lunch so they had their special day. Last Friday was Brandon's first field day. He got third place at the 50 yard dash that all the kids run and they all got ribbons so that every child got at least one ribbon. The other games the kindergarten kids played was egg toss, water race and group dance. The kids didn't play for ribbons, they just got tickets for gumballs. They all had a great time. Today was graduation. The kids have a program called zoo phonics to help them learn the alphabet letter sounds. It seems to really work and they all dressed up in animal costumes and sang the zoo phonics song and then individually came up and said their sound. Brandon was "Inny Inchworm, he wore a green shirt that was supposed to be the leaves of a tree and had a big stuffed inchworm on his arm.

Then they sang the kindergarten graduation song and received their diplomas.

He is now officially a big kid and will go to school all day next school year. I can't believe it. I guess I shouldn't complain too much because I got an extra year since he missed going to kindergarten last year by a month because of the age limit. Brandon is growing up so fast. A few weeks ago he gave me one of his favorite stuffed animals saying that he didn't need it any more and maybe it would help me with my nightmares. Of course he still has blankie hidden under his pillow and the bear that Scott gave him when he was born so he isn't too big yet.

Both kids are excited about summer and all the fun things. The first thing is swimming lessons and this year Jessie is old enough to start the basic program so they will both be in the water which means I can actually watch instead of trying to keep her occupied in the bleachers for a half an hour. Hopefully Scott will be on a lot of fires this summer and will be gone a lot not that I won't miss him but we need to make up for the slow season last year. I hope this summer will be fun for everyone.

Easter

2009-04-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

The kids had a lot of fun on Easter. It was snowing so we had to do the egg hunt inside which they are used to doing as there have only been a few years when it was actually warm enough to go outside although we usually don't have snow. Jessie was really excited because this is the first year she was old enough to really get into decorating the eggs and finding them. She was bouncing all over the place and wasn't even on a sugar rush. We had dinner at our house with everyone and then that night we read the Easter story out of Brandon's Bible that he got for Christmas. It was a good day all around.

Last week I babysat for the daycare next door for an hour or so. I watch the kids for her when she has appointments she has to go to so she doesn't have to try to schedule around all of the kids. (this is the daycare Brandon used to go to) There were seven kids all under the age of five. They all knew me because I have sat for them before but it is like having a substitute teacher or a babysitter at home. They all tried to take advantage of me by trying to do things they normally aren't allowed to do. Luckily the four month baby wasn't there that day or I would have had her also. Melody had put on a movie before she left and they were supposed to rest and be quiet which lasted about five minutes after she was gone. The kept going into rooms they weren't supposed to and getting out toys they weren't supposed to play with. I knew that they were playing me but I wasn't sure exactly how much. The two older ones kept contradicting each other over what was allowed and what wasn't. I finally told them that they knew they would just get into trouble when Melody came home so they should put everything away they weren't supposed to have. They wanted to read books and kept bringing more out but wouldn't stay to read and while I was trying to read to some of the kids the others would take off. When the school bus came, they knew Brandon was on it so they went running out to see the bus and then I had to chase them down and get them back into the house which they thought was a really fun game. Luckily none of them thought of running back out of the house after I put them and and was retrieving another kid. Melody's oldest child came tearing into the house through back door shortly after Melody left, which she was supposed to be in school and took back off but when she had come in through back she let their dog into the laundry room. I kept hearing noises coming from that direction and kept counting the kids to make sure I wasn't missing any, and then I happened to open the laundry room door a little while later to throw a dirty diaper away and found out what the noises were. The dog had got into the trash can and was having a heyday. Right before Melody came home one of the kids announced that the movie was over which no one was paying attention to anyway. Needless to say the kids were all in trouble when Melody came home and I am sure her daughter was going to be too for not only ditching school but letting the dog in. It was definitely an interesting afternoon and she is probably afraid I won't ever watch the kids again but I didn't really mind and it makes good stories.

Brandon's bus accident

2009-03-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

On the way home from school today Brandon's bus slid off the road into a ditch because the dirt road had turned into slippery mud from the brief snow storm we had this morning. The snow had all melted off so I wasn't too concerned with him coming home, but I didn't expect mud to be the culprit. It could have been a lot worse if the ditch were deeper as out in the farm lands the ditches can be pretty deep. The bus had turned partially on it's side but luckily no one was hurt. Nothing stops your heart faster than getting a phone call from the fire department telling you your son was in an accident. I figured that he was going to be either completely freaked out or think it was totally cool having all the firetrucks and police there. It was the latter. When we went to the accident site to pick him up and sign off that we got him, when he came off the other bus they brought there so the kids weren't sitting in the cold and mud, he came off grinning. He told us how he had to walk sideways to get to the back of the bus and a fireman helped him out and his shoes got all muddy. He was more worried about his friends and whether they were hurt or not. All the kids were checked out and no one was hurt thankfully. He hurt his nose a little when it hit the window but that is all. He told me when we got home and I said that he had an exciting day, " It was not exciting. I was in an accident and I was worried about you picking me up that you would get hurt." I will be really surprised if he doesn't go into some field where he helps people when he grows up. I will definitely be thanking God in my prayers tonight that he kept everyone safe and that it was not as bad as it could have been.

Also, Jessie was totally worried about her brother when we were going to pick him up. She didn't relax until she saw him and knew he was alright. She really loves her brother. She was so excited telling the story later to her grandma that she was jumping up and down. You would think it was her adventure instead of Brandon's.

Spring Break

2009-03-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

Brandon was on spring break this week. It was interesting weatherwise. We went fishing at the reservoir on Tuesday and it was a little chilly with the wind blowing, but the kids still had fun. A couple of bites but no fish. There were two geese that kept scaring the kids though because they would come right up to us trying to get food and that was a little too close for their comfort. Then I took the kids to see GG at her apartment on Wednesday and they had a tea party and played over there for awhile. On Thursday we went to Walmart to get some batteries for a flashlight before the predicted winter storm hit and it was chilly but sunny. By afternoon the blizzard hit. Only in Colorado can you have sunny skies one minute and whiteout conditions the next. It snowed really hard all night into Friday. Mom stayed home from work because of the roads and so we all went out to play in the snowdrifts and build snowmen. The kids had a blast sledding and trying to walk in the drifts. Some of the drifts were a couple of feet tall and Jessie got stuck in one of them while I was getting the sled. They haven't had snow like this since before Jessie was born. The dogs thought it was pretty great too and they were acting like puppies jumping in and out of the snowdrifts. Saturday the snow started melting but they could still play in it and by Sunday we were outside wearing light jackets and most of the snow was gone.
Brandon and Jessie's snowman with Fearless

Brandon and Jessie climbed into a snowdrift and I am rescuing them

I included this picture because Mom told me that there was interest in what Chris's girlfriend Rachel looks like. The necklaces are ones that Jessie got for her birthday, Chris put them on her.

Jessie's Birthday

2009-02-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Jessie is already three. Time goes by so fast. She can't decide whether she wants to be a big girl or little. One time she'll say she is a big girl and then she will turn around and say she is not big, she is little. She had a great time on her birthday. It was princess/tinkerbell themed and she loved it. She loves the princess, tinkerbell movies and wants to watch them all the time. I love watching her play and learning new things. It is so amazing to see her learn and grow and discover new things and get so excited over the smallest things.

Brandon is doing well also. He is doing good in school, a little trouble learning to write his numbers to 100 but is doing above average in reading to make up for it. They are both looking forward to spring and getting to play outside more often. Of course they also don't want to take naps either. Brandon is big enough to get by without one but Jessie becomes a roller coaster of emotions when she doesn't get enough sleep and I have enough trouble getting her to sleep at night much less fighting with her during the day also.

Christmas

2009-01-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a hectic but fun time. This is the first year Jessie really understood what was going on. It was a little sad also as it was the first Christmas without Bill. In some ways it was a blessing that he passed away before Christmas because he wouldn't have been able to be there with us anyway and at least this way he wasn't sitting in the nursing home alone. Grandma did pretty well considering and I think the distraction was good. We took her with us to the mall to see Santa, and Jessie wouldn't sit on his lap, but she and Brandon talked to him. Then we wandered around a little bit, and they rode the kiddie rides. Then we took the kids to the playground where there was a little boy that was the same size as Jessie but probably only about maybe two, if that. He was having trouble on the slide and Jessie was trying to help him. Then he decided that he liked her and they went around holding hands. He took her to meet his mom and then Jessie took him to Scott, who was sitting in there with them. She was running around telling us she had a new friend and Brandon was following them around like a protective big brother making sure that he wasn't going to hurt her. I had to tell him to relax and that it was okay and then he relaxed and went back to playing.
Bill knew this was going to be his last Christmas and he wanted to give the kids a special present just from him, especially Brandon because they always had a special bond. Grandma suggested children's bibles that he could write an inscription in and they could have them always and pass them down to their kids. He wasn't able to hold on before Grandma could buy them, so I took her to the store and we bought them and she wrote the inscriptions for them that she thought Bill might have wanted to say to them. The kids don't completely understand the whole death and heaven stuff yet but they both seemed to understand the importance of the books and got very quiet when they opened them. Brandon especially because he is so sensitive about things. I think they will really appreciate them when they get older. All in all it was a good Christmas with lots of presents, family and happiness.

2008-11-14T13:06:00.000-08:00

Jessie is causing us some interesting problems regarding her and Brandon sleeping arrangements. They have bunk beds with Brandon on the top of course. She keeps coming up with ways to get up on his bed. When we first got them, she just climbed the ladder so we got a ladder cover. That lasted about two weeks before she figured out how to wedge her little toes into the cover and shimmy up. so then we just take the ladder off when he is sleeping and I put it back after they are asleep. He can climb down on his own if I forget. That worked until the other day when I came in because they were very loud during "naptime" and Jess was on his bed with no ladder. She climbed onto the rocking chair that is in their room, onto the dresser next to the bed and then over the railing. We switched out the dresser with the chair thinking that solved the problem but then yesterday she was back up again. Now she is climbing up the headboards. The back of the beds are a metal with openings and there is a pretty good gap between the beds and she just swings up them like a monkey. Now we have to try to figure out how to block those or take the beds apart which then loses a lot of space that they need plus Brandon loses his personal space above. We'll see what happens.

2008-11-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

Brandon's a power ranger. Mom made the helmet for him.
She really worked hard on it. Thanks mom.

Jessie was a angel with devil horns holding up her halo.
A perfect fit for her. She was very proud of her costume.

Halloween went really well. We went to Brandon's party at school and then met up with Aunt Betty to get their treats from Scott's side of the family. Then we went to lunch with mom and dad. Later that night after dinner we went trick or treating at the mall. That works out really well for us because they still get candy but it is safer and quicker. The kids don't get as scared that way either. After the mall we went to GG's and Bill's, well the nursing home anyway and Bill got to see the costumes. We didn't stay very long though because he was pretty tired. The final stop was Uncle Chris. The kids got to wind down there a little and run around and we got to visit with him for a little while. Then we went home and put everybody to bed we were all exhausted by then. Good day all around. Thank you to everybody that gave the kids treats. They appreciate it. More pictures will be posted on shutterfly.

2008-10-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

Brandon and Jessie were playing dressup one day when the weather was cold. He was prince Brandon and she was Princess Binky because she refused to take the binky out of her mouth the whole time. We took a movie of them acting out their "play" and they really got a kick out of watching themselves on TV.

We took the kids to the Pantaleo farms (a farm nearby that does activities for kids) for their annual Halloween thing. The kids got to go on a hay ride driven by a tractor, which of course Brandon loves, and see all the pumpkins. Then they rode the pony rides and there was a petting zoo where they could feed animals. Jessie has no fear whatsoever. There is also a corn maze but the kids are a little too young for that. There is a giant blowup slide that is probably about twenty feet up and last year Brandon got scared so he didn't want to do it this year but Jessie did and Scott said I would need to go with her but I said she is a little monkey so let her try. She started to climb and went up like nothing. All the other adults that were watching were cheering her on because she looked so small climbing. When she got up there I wasn't sure if she would go down by herself or if I was going to have to go up there after all but we were all standing there at the bottom cheering her on and she went for it. About half way down she started not looking so sure of herself and then she hit bottom. Anybody who has seen these big slides have seen that at the bottom it is a big blowup pillow and when she hit that it stopped her quick and when I picked her up she started crying for a second because it hit her then what she had done all by herself and then she was scared. We all told her how proud we were of her and then she was fine.

Brandon got his first report card from kindergarten. He is doing really well. They had literacy testing like two weeks into school and we didn't get the results until the conference. Brandon was afraid he flunked and had come out in tears, so I was a little worried how he actually did but I didn't need to worry because he aced them. He is well above where he needs to be. The only thing he needs to work on is asking for help and he needs to be a little more focused but then what six year focuses on anything for very long. He is having a little trouble with writing but I think that is because he is supposed to be left handed and he refuses to write with his left hand. He is still abidextrious for the most part but he picked which hand to write with I think because he sees more people writing with their right hands. It is coming along pretty good anyway and luckily I can write with my right hand when I am helping him with his work so as not to confuse him any worse. All in all everything is going well with him.

2008-09-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Brandon is doing well in school so far. He keeps asking me why he has to go because he thinks he is already smart, at least we keep telling him so. It's amazing the difference between him last year and this year though. It is like everything he learned last year is kicking in this year and he keeps popping up with little tidbits of info that I didn't even know he knew and showing us stuff that I know he learned last year but wouldn't show us. It is so amazing to watch both of them growing and learning and getting so excited over things we take for granted.

Jessie was making crafts the other day while Brandon was in school and I showed him the picture she made. He assumed it was for him and asked her "you made this for me?" She just went along with it and said yes (luckily). Then he told her that it was very pretty and asked me if he could hang it up. I figured he wanted it on the fridge with the others but he had me hang it in the living room so he could see it from his chair so that he can admire it any time he wants to. Then the other night, Brandon started crying because his sister is not a baby anymore and he misses the baby things she used to do, and because he won't be able to pick her up much longer (he wasn't able to pick her up until recently anyway). I had to remind him that she will always be his little sister and he teaches her things everyday and there will always be new adventures as they both get bigger. He is such a sensitive little boy and sometimes he acts way older than six.

Jessie is as entertaining as ever. She is learning so much from Brandon that I forget that she is only two. She already knows her alphabet and can count to thirteen consistently and higher sometimes with prompting. She is recognizing her colors to a point and her vocabulary is through the roof. It is funny to watch people's reactions in public when they see this tiny blond thing that looks younger than she is and then she starts having these big conversations and saying things very clearly. It tends to take them back slightly. For example, the other day we went to a book fair at mom's work. Mom was carrying Jess so she wouldn't get into trouble and there was a lady looking at books right by us. Jessie all of sudden pointed to her arm and told mom that that was her arm bone and that she has bones in her body and so does mom. The lady had to do a second take because she was so surprised that someone that small would say something like that and it was so clear. The only thing baby about her is she still has her binky. It makes me a little sad sometimes because I feel like I didn't get my baby for very long but I guess that happens when you have an older child teaching them stuff.

By the way dad's 60th birthday is this year so if anyone has any ideas on how to celebrate this milestone that doesn't cost a lot of money, we would appreciate any suggestions.

2008-08-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

Well summer is over and school has started. It is depressing because now Brandon is officially in school and I can't believe he is already six. Summer vacation went by so fast. On Brandon's first day of school, Jessie decided to keep me occupied by sticking a dried pea that she found up her nose. We had to take her to urgent care because her doctor said they didn't have the equipment to get it out. So we got all the way over there and while I was filling out the paperwork, it slid out. She promises to never stick anything up her nose again but we will see. I had my birthday and it went well. As long as nothing dramatic happens and the kids don't fight constantly I consider it a good day. Scott's family came over and we will have my family over on Saturday when Chris can make it. I put some pictures of the fire Scott was on, a trip to the reservoir, and a tea party we had at GG's and Bill's.

2008-07-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Scott is home from California, he got back last saturday. Everything went fine and they had a few adventures but nothing dangerous. Hopefully they will be going out again soon. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.

catching up

2008-07-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a story that all the mom's will appreciate about stubborn children. First, for those of you who don't know the ladybug story, let me summarize it. When I was around Jessie's age I was at grandma's house and she had these ladybug magnets on her fridge. When it was time to go home I refused to put the magnets back. My dad and I fought for over an hour and he finally forced me by taking my hand and the magnet and putting them on the fridge. No one has ever let me forget that. Well now I have one of my own who is more stubborn than me, except this time it was coins. We have a container that Scott and I keep spare change in and the other day Jessie decided to dump the coins onto the floor. Now she has done this in the past and always has picked them up without a problem, except this time I said the dreaded words that she had to pick them up because we were going to go to grandma's for dinner soon. That did it, she refused and the battle was on. Now since I am just as stubborn as she is and the ladybug story was running through my mind, I was not about to let her win. She did the standard run into the other room to get away and I would bring her back in screaming. She is at that age where she thinks that if she doesn't see me she is invisible, so she runs and lies flat on her stomach covering her head like I can't see her now. I told her we would not leave until they were picked up and Brandon would go over by himself. Well she started to pick them up after I left the room for a minute and then I messed up by telling her she was a good girl when I came back in and of course, she quit. Brandon even tried to help her pick them up so we could all go over together, but then I noticed that she had left the room and he was still picking them up. When I asked her what she was doing she said Brandon was helping her. I informed her that she had to be in the same room at least for him to be "helping" her and told him to quit. About a half hour passed and the coins were still on the floor and it was time to go to dinner. Brandon went over by himself (with mom watching for him) and we were still at it. My mom told me that maybe I should do like dad did with me and put the coins in her hand and "help" her put them in. Well after 45 minutes I even tried that but she just laughed, which made me madder. At one point she even told me that she couldn't do it because she didn't feel well, her back hurt. (her exact words) Scott happened to call during this ordeal and he talked to her hoping that maybe she would do it for him, which she didn't. Over an hour later she finally started picking them up while she sat in my lap and as I handed them to her she would stick them into the container with her foot sitting by her hand and say "stinky foot" every time she put the coins in. I thought "I won" because she was basically doing it herself with no forcing from me but after we were all done she said, "Put my shoes on now so we can go to grandma's, I can't wait to tell her what a good job I did." So I am not sure who won after all.

Brandon had his 6th birthday parties. We had one for the family on Saturday and then he had his first friend birthday party on his actual birthday. The parties went well, but he gets a little overwhelmed with so many people around. He got a new fishing pole for his birthday, one of those that cast for you with the push of a button, and Scott told him that when he gets back from California he will take him fishing. Now Brandon is upset because he thought that meant that Scott should take off from the fire to go fishing immediately. He got over it pretty quickly though but I have a feeling that as soon as Scott gets home Brandon is going to make him take him. He got lots of toys and I think he had a really good time. He enjoyed having his friends over for a party also, we just had a few over to the house. Will have more pictures on shutterfly soon.

Brandon has been taking swimming lessons this summer and moving rapidly through the stations. There are ten stations total and he is already on three. He really likes it and then goes swimming in our pool and shows us what he has learned and he is trying to teach Jessie. I will probably put her in next year, you have to be three for the program.

Scott Fire

2008-07-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

I just wanted everyone to know that Scott is finally on a fire. They were sent to California on Sunday. They are considered relief crew so they can be sent anywhere and doing anything from actually fighting fire to running fire stations while the other fire trucks are busy. They could be out for at least 21 days if not longer. The kids are handling it better so far than they have in the past. They are definitely being pistols though and driving me crazy. hopefully everything will settle down in a few days.

summer fun

2008-06-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

The kids are having fun so far this summer. They have swum in the pool a few times so far but it has been kind of chilly for swimming. Brandon asked me when it was going to be "real" summer. I told him it was and he said it wasn't real until it was hot enough to go swimming everyday. We are going to put him in swimming lessons again in a few weeks, but he still remembers what he learned from last year. Jessie is having a ball and is learning from him. She has one of those floatie swimsuit and looks like a turtle. She already swims on her own but drinks up the pool because she is too busy laughing and sucks up the water.

Jessie is almost completely potty trained. She had been going backward instead of forward, but all of a sudden decided she wanted to do it. Both kids are so single minded that it has to be their way, but at least she chose to do it earlier than Brandon did. Guess that is what you get when you have spirited children.

I took the kids over to GG's and Bill's apartment the other day. GG brings Bill up to their apartment to spend some time up there and since the kids freak out at the nursing home it works out better for them. Bill really enjoys seeing them and I think it lifts his spirits a little. Anyway he wanted the kids to have a new toy to play with there so we got a tea set to play with. Mom was off work so we took the kids over so she could see Bill and they could try out the new tea set. They had fun serving everyone. Bill wasn't feeling the greatest so we will try again soon and hopefully he will feel more like participating, but I think he still enjoyed it. We are hoping to have Bill over for either the Fourth of July or Brandon's birthday party. We will have to see how he is feeling. I am going to try to get pictures of the kids swimming and the tea party on here soon so keep watching.

Fire Training

2008-06-04T12:33:00.001-07:00

The boys had a fire training on Saturday. We had a big pile of branches to burn and figured we'd kill two birds with one stone. There is a new firefighter working with us with no experience so they did a training for him. Brandon of course had to be part of it. He looked so cute in his little fire outfit running all over the place telling the guys what to do. He was not even scared when the flames got really big. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures when the flames were really high. If Brandon doesn't become a firefighter when he grows up I will be surprised. He is a natural, he absorbs everything Scott teaches him. Jessica didn't really care about what was going on too much.

Not much else going on. We are still waiting for fires big enough to get sent out on. Brandon got a hold of his scissors and cut Jessie's hair. Luckily it was not very noticable, especially if you haven't seen her lately. He just cut both sides shorter. What is it with older siblings cutting the younger sibling's hair? Oh well.

Memorial weekend

2008-05-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

We started Memorial Day weekend by going to City Park on Saturday evening for a birthday party for one of Brandon's friends. They had cake and punch and opened the presents, then went on the rides. This was Brandon's first birthday party and he was excited. He had fun with the other kids until they started riding the rides he was scared of (the roller coaster and salt & pepper). He got left out then but was just as happy to ride the rides with us instead. Jessie was excited too. While the party was going on we ate pizza and then grandma and grandpa took Jessie to the duck pond while Scott and I waited in line with the kids to get into the rides. Mom was afraid that Jessie was going to fall in the pond because she was chasing the ducks and climbing on the dock. Then we took turns watching Brandon and taking Jessie on the rides. She loves them and laughed the whole time.

On Sunday, we went to the mountains. The kids sang songs, Jessie loves singing. Smokey the Bear and the Alphabet song are her favorites. At the end of the alphabet song, she sings "next time won't you sing with me, night night". We played on the big rock and the dogs played in the water. The kids wanted to play in the water too but it was running too fast from the spring run off. Then we went to the mountain park after walking around a little. The kids played there until they were about to fall down from exhaustion.

On Monday, we went to put flowers on the graves at the cemetaries, then played around the house until dinner time. We had a BBQ with Chris and Rachael and the kids played with Chris until bedtime. All in all I think everyone had a good weekend.

Brandon's preschool graduation

2008-05-18T13:24:00.001-07:00

Brandon had his preschool graduation on May 15, 2008 in the morning. He was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing and can't figure out why he isn't done with school forever. He doesn't do well performing in front of people, especially people he doesn't know well. Afterwards he got really excited because we went out for a celebration dinner at Country Buffet and he got to pick out his own food and everything.

Before he couldn't wait for summer break and now he is upset because he "misses" preschool and doesn't want to go to kindergarten. He hasn't even officially started summer yet until Monday. Hopefully I can keep him occupied for two and a half months. We have lots of things planned. It is hard to make too many plans when we don't know when Scott is going to be in town or away. Moneywise hopefully he will be gone a lot. We usually just switch plans when we know he will be here and do the more mundane stuff when he is gone. Having "grandma" around helps a lot too, especially when she takes vacation or has a day off. It should be interesting at least and with my two, never dull.