A world has opened

The sun is shining.
The birds are singing. 

The kids are laughing. 

Seriously folks, it is that good. I learned a new little trick today. Well, I learned via someone else's blog but I was the one who had to do the sewing. That's right, sewing. I am NOT a seamstress. Matter of fact, I suck as sewing! But today I hemmed my pants. YIPPY. Now those of you who can sew don't scoff me for doing such an easy task—there was a bit of a trick involved. The problem with being short is most pants don't fit me. Before children I could check out the petite section, since children—not so much. Not that big of a deal except I hate the look of hemmed pants. Regardless of how you try, you can't make them look as good as the original hem. Well watch out world, I found these instructions and they work like a charm.

Before

After

Bwahahaha petite section, good riddance-unless, of course, I am able to shed this dreaded weight...then perhaps I will come crawling back to you. Not likely though cuz I'm a badass seamstress now!!

There is a cycle

and it goes a little something like this:

Step 1: Look at the bars on your crib. Look at your hands. Grab the crib bars with your hands and start to move your legs. Realize if you stiffen your legs and straighten your knees while gripping the bars with your hands you can stand yourself up. Give it a try...success!!

Step 2: Mom comes in, sees you, says "Good Girl" then lowers you back into your crib to take your nap.
Step 3: Repeat step 1.

Step 4: Realize mom isn't around this time and you don't know how to get yourself back down so you start to scream.

********************************************************************************

lather

rinse

repeat

::all pics were taken at different times::

Can it be true? Is my sweet baby girl really 8 today? I still can't believe it! Eight. Wow. I love that you made me a Mommy. I love that in one breath you complain about being the oldest then in the next you lovingly grab your baby sister to keep her from getting into something she shouldn't. I love that James calls you Oren. I love that you are always willing to open a book and read to someone. But most of all, we love you!

HaPpY bIrthdAy LAUREN 

We're moving on

First a quick disclaimer—any mention of new bff's does not make all previous bff's null and void. It is possible/plausible/acceptable to have multiple bff's. Also, any future bff's will not replace/rescind/repeal any current bff's. That being said, on to today's post:

We've been given our marching orders and it is time to move on.  Last weekend's trip to Seattle wasn't just for fun, we were looking for a place to live since Tug's company is relocating us to the area (slight promotion but mostly lateral move). We have been in Southern Oregon for 2 years and (by the time we move) 4 months, time to hightail it out of here. We were successful in finding a place to live (renting again to start, in the Tacoma area) and we also found our future parish. 

I can't tell you how excited we are about the parish. NO ONE held hands during the Our Father (though it was sung, but not in a flashy way), EVERYONE knelt after the Lamb of God, bells rang during the consecration, the Priest said 'My Lord and My God' as well, they used the correct translation for the profession of faith (replace all we with I) and by saying 'and also with your spirit' in response to the priest's 'Peace be with you', there were a few veil wearers, and it is relatively small, which we like. We also met 2 homeschooling families and the girls already made a few friends. 

I have also already been in contact with the homeschool group there and HOLEE MOLEE they actually get together. They have beach/park days ONCE PER WEEK during the summer. When I was told this (via email) I thought it was a typo and they meant once per month. Nope, once per week is right. There will be a get together the day after we arrive but I think we will hold off until the next week. The girls are very excited for this. 

Also, since Tacoma is close to Seattle family and friends can now fly to visit us relatively cheap (the closest large airport here is 4 hours away and the closer airport is mucho expensive to fly in to).

I will admit I was a bit bummed when I first heard the news. We finally have some true, good friends who we get together with. With no family here we actually found some great people to share holidays with and who were gracious enough to open their homes to us. While I am still going to miss these great people, I am getting more and more excited to see what the future holds. 

We aren't moving until the end of July but I am going to be out of town from about 7/3-7/25 SO I am having to try and get everything packed up until then. And get this house cleaned up to show to future renters. 

Yum yum yum

This past Thursday my new bff Erica invited us up to her section of Oregon for some strawberry picking. It is about 45 minutes North...this picture was taken by me on I-5 on the way (driving while talking on a cell phone may be illegal but driving while taking pictures is not) to prove to my sil that there really are trees everywhere.
Back to the picking—unlike most people around these parts (or those who grew up with rain) I am not used to eating fresh fruits/veggies. It is very odd to me to see people pulled over on the side of the road picking blackberries and EATING THEM...
ew, shouldn't those be infused with some sort of something to make them safe? Isn't there dirt on that? Where are the preservatives?? The only thing I think I have ever eaten straight from the tree are pomegranates that we would steal from a neighbor's tree and plums from my Grandpa's trees. 
I thought I would let the kids experience a little of nature's bounty...they had a great time. 

And the strawberries were delish. The next morning they ate all 1.5 pounds before 8AM!

Insanity

Tug likes to say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. I think I am insane.

This past weekend on our way home from WA we stopped at some outlet stores. I, not surprisingly, couldn't find anything that fit so I left disgusted and annoyed. What happened once we were home? Why I stopped to pick up some Dr Pepper silly!

Who is the parent here?

More like who the f* do they think they are?  Americans now a days say "look how great Canada is with their socialized medicine." Seriously folks, WAKE UP...is this what you want America to become?!?!?!

First there's the whole hate speech crap where people are being brought before some sort of government tribunal for saying homosexuality is wrong. 

Now this:

12-Year-Old Grounded for Too Much Internet Use Gets Punishment Overturned in Court

A Canadian court has overturned a father's punishment for his daughter after she refused to stay off the Internet, his attorney said Wednesday.

The girl, 12, took her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on Web sites and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer, AFP reported.

The punishment was for the girl's "own protection," according to the father's attorney, Kim Beaudoin, who is appealing the ruling.

"She's a child," Beaudoin told AFP. "At her age, children test their limits and it's up to their parent to set boundaries. I started an appeal of the decision today to reestablish parental
authority, and to ensure that this case doesn't set a precedent."

Otherwise, she continued, "Parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on."

According to court documents, the girl's Internet usage was the latest in a rash of disciplinary problems. But Justice Suzanne Tessier, who was presiding over the case, found the punishment too severe.

More Candles

B lue liker

R eader

O rdinary she's not

O utstanding she is

K ind

E quine rider

I ntelligent

S o cool

N ine years old

I nspiring

N ine, seriously NINE!?!

E xcellent

Happy birthday to my awesomely awesome niece Brooke! We love you and can't wait to see you in a few weeks.

Have a great day!!!

Blow out the candles

Look at him*...it's no wonder our kids are so fricking cute—they have good genes. 

Happy birthday my love, I hope your 33rd year is the best one yet. 

*still haven't figured out my scanner with this new computer so this is a picture of a picture hence the flash light on the upper left corner

Howdy ho

Wow, it's been a bit. We were out da town this weekend...went North to the big city. Nope, not that city, further North. Up to the big city of Seattle. We thought we would look around a bit. More details later...

We went to the space needle...Sugar's friend 'zoot' has been saying he wants to see it so Sugar really wanted to go. $50 later and I have nothing to show for it...I realized too late that I had forgotten the camera at the hotel. We then walked to Pike Market-the place famous for the fish slinging. It is over a mile I think and by the time we got there and saw the gazillions of people Tug decided it was time to leave. So back walking we went. The weather was nice, surprisingly.

Overall it was a good time.

GGYR

So, you might have noticed the little horse and dove logo on my left sidebar—perhaps it is time I explain exactly what that is. My brother-in-law (Tug's sister's husband) decided to quit real life and start-up a youth ranch. I have asked my sister-in-law Michelle (the one who does the blog) several times to write up a little 'about us' post so I can link to it instead of just the blog itself. Though it wasn't written by them, and though it isn't intended to be, here is a wonderful 'about us' post-written by someone who's been greatly affected by the ranch. 

I can't say how proud I am to be related to Max...don't ever tell him I said that, his ego is big enough already :)

Michelle's not so bad either. 

Joyce's story

Tired

Boy am I wiped! We had a busy weekend...on Saturday some friends invited us to their small town parade and rodeo. After we went to their house and hung-out, had dinner, then played euchre. It's been a long time since we played euchre. It was a rip roaring, eyes watering, snort while you laugh good time! Unfortunately they live about an hour north of us so we left our house at 9:45AM and  didn't get home until well after midnight.  Surprisingly, after spending all day with us, they still want to be our friends :)

Yesterday I had to get up early to make chicken salad, we then went to Mass, then the girls and I went to our Little Flower's tea party (sorry Shelly, I forgot to take pictures but I'll tell you all about it).  We had to get pretty fancied up and the girls loved it. We are in a younger group for LF and the girls in the older LF group were our servers. For the older LF group (their tea was on Sat.) a dad and a few brothers were dressed in black tie to be their servers. We started with a May pole then sat for a round of tea. After a bit the girls did a game where they looked at a tea tray with various items then had one minute to write down all the things they could remember. Sugar won, writing down 13 things. We sat for another round of tea and sandwiches (cucumber, chicken salad, and some quiche thingies) then they had another game where they looked at a place setting (done with paper) then were blind folded and had to try and put the items back where they belonged. There was a plate, fork, flower bunch, teacup and saucer, spoon, creamer—the plate, flower bunch, teacup and creamer were all cut to be the same size so it was supposed to be a game of luck.  There was a doily and napkin glued to construction paper as a guide. If they got it in the general location then it was considered correct. Sugar won that too but they said they couldn't have the same person win twice so they gave the prize to 2nd place. We then sat back down for desserts and more tea. Once we were done we headed outside to undue the May pole and they had a drawing for a framed picture of St. Therese. Boo's name was drawn from the hat. We had a trifecta. We all had a great time.

Today we start swim lessons. I think I have already been asked 5 times "When are we leaving?" I am ready to go back to bed.  

Top Ten in Ten

I got tagged by ms. amy

Rules: 10 People You'd Like to Spend 10 Minutes With:

Most people took their 10 minutes seriously, I am not most people...

10. Monica Lewinsky to find out how Bill is in the sack.

9. Bill Clinton to find out if Hillary is as cold to the touch as she looks.

8. Barack Obama to find out if stupid is as stupid does.

7.  Ted Kennedy to find out why he and his entire family bother calling themselves Catholic. 

6. Brad Pitt to find out how Jennifer Aniston* is in the sack.

5. Elizabeth Zimmermann cuz all the cool knitters start with her (or so it appears). 

5.  Tate Donovan to find out if Jennifer Aniston really is that pretty.

4. The Count on Sesame Street since I accidently just did two #5's.

2. John Mayer to find out if Jennifer Aniston is as lovely in real life as she is in my head.

1. Jim Tressel...GO BUCKEYES!

*iloveher, well loved her, it is kinda fleeting

 

Those rotten jumble of cells, they just don't quit

A mother who decided to abort her son because he may have inherited a life-threatening kidney condition is overjoyed that he survived the procedure. story from Foxnews

(my own .02)

Jodie Percival of Nottinghamshire, England, said she and her fiancee made the decision to abort baby Finley when she was eight weeks pregnant.

Percival's first son Thane died of multicystic dysplastic kidneys — which causes cysts to grow on the kidneys of an unborn baby — and her second child Lewis was born with serious kidney damage and currently has just one kidney, the Daily Mail reported I won't even begin to pretend to know how scary it must be to know you are pregnant with a child who might not make it, but I do know people who faced this but continued on and allowed God's will.

"I was on the (birth control pill) when I became pregnant," how responsible of you to be on the pill since you are obviously so concerned about becoming pregnant again, yet you can't control your animal desire and abstain especially since this is your fiancee's (not husband's) child Percival, 25, said. "Deciding to terminate at eight weeks was just utterly horrible but I couldn't cope with the anguish of losing another baby.me me me me me, who cares about the actual person I am killing"

A short time after the abortion, Percival felt a fluttering in her stomach please let this be gas. She went to the doctor for a scan and discovered she was 19 weeks pregnant.

"I couldn't believe it,' Percival said. "This was the baby baby, what do you mean baby? isn't it just a jumbled mass of inviable cells...you mean you KNEW it was a baby and yet you 'terminated' it I thought I'd terminated i'll be back. At first I was angry that this was happening to us, that the procedure had failed how dare you survive you rotten little baby. how dare you put this burden on me. I wrote to the hospital, I couldn't believe that they had let me down like this i mean seriously, what a let down.

"They wrote back and apologized and said it was very rare," she added.

Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing health editor for FOXNews.com, said Percival's situation is actually quite common.

"Women that have early terminations in weeks six, seven and eight, many times the pregnancy is so small that doctors miss removing the baby uh oh that b word again," Alvarez said. "The danger is that the failed attempt can damage the baby and again. That is why these patients who get early terminations need follow-ups to make sure we have really killed that leach sucking annoyance of a baby."

Another scan a week later confirmed the baby also had kidney problems, but doctors told the couple the baby was likely to survive, so they decided he deserved another chance at life this last half of the sentence utterly disgusted me. he deserved ANOTHER chance at life??? how about he deserved his first chance at life. how about he never deserved to be the victim of attempted murder.

In November, Finley was born three weeks premature. He had minor kidney damage but is expected to lead a normal life except for the psychological damage he is likely to face when he finds out his mom put a hit out on his life.

WoW Week 14

Is anyone still participating? 

As of Sunday I am back on track (or at least trying to be). Still up from my lowest here but going down. 

This week: 0

Leave a comment to check in, few did last week:

Laura: Doesn't know for sure but thinks she is down about 2

Michelle:

Renee: + 2

Kimberly: -2 whoopsie

Miguelita:

Amy: -5 thanks to the stomach flu

Jessica: still out of town

Bonnie:

Trina:

Can you feel my pain

I started the night with this.

And ended it with this. 

I am working on these for Boo. You start with the legs...I casted on 88 for the first leg but only 80 for the other. I realized it once I joined them but kept working-I was in denial. I finished the top and hoped, since the legs are worked with a provisional cast-on*, I could frog the leg from the bottom up to the join. I did but then couldn't figure out how to work the crotch since you seam the 2 legs together and put 18 live stitches on hold (which are the ones to be seamed). I gave up. I am now crying in the fetal position. 

*provisional cast-on just means you cast on with a 'waste' yarn that you will go back and cut out, put the live stitches back on a needle then start knitting again. For these pants the bottom ruffle is done AFTER you've done the rest of the leg so you start from the bottom, knit up, join the legs, continue knitting the top. Once you have done that you go back to the bottom of the legs, take off the provisional cast-on, put the stitches back on a needle then knit the ruffle.