31 posts tagged “savannah”

First of all, I really just want to take a second to shout out to some of the wonderful people in my "hood.  One of the most special young women that I've been blessed to know, Adah, has gone out of her way to ask people to pray for me.  She must really have some pull around Vox and people have been coming out of the woodwork to say hello and to send prayers my way.  Adah, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  If you were here, I'd give you the biggest bear hug of your life!  To everyone of you who have been giving your time to pray for me, OMG!  Your prayers are working and I want to thank you all so much.  SO...   BIG virtual group hug to all of you.  I wish there was something more I could do to express my thankfulness.  I just hope you know that I really mean what I'm saying.  Your prayers aren't falling on deaf ears and they're NOT going unappreciated by me!  I love you guys.  I really feel like the most blessed and lucky person in the world.  I am certainly rich in the area of good friends:-)

Here's where we're at:  I was released from the hospital on Easter day because they could find no more veins to give me the two units of blood that I needed at that time.  They also needed to give me 3 consecutive units of iron because I was losing iron just as fast as they could put it in.  There was nobody in the hospital to put in a central line or a pic line like I needed.  I'd been asking for these more permanent lines since I was admitted but the nurses would not even ask the doctors because there was always a possibility that I would be released the next day.  Several days later, I was still being tortured with these idiots blowing up every good vein that I had.  I was finally told by a supervisor that I could yell and scream and threaten these bastards with the hospital administrator.  This is what I'll do from now on.  So, I got to go home because, either they discharged me or I was walking.  I'm getting mean now.  They let me go if I promissed to come back and get my blood the next day.

I came back on Monday.  My mom took off work to bring me back to the hospital.  I had to go to the "infusion center", where I was told that they couldn't even draw blood from me because my veins were so bad.  They work with a lot of cancer patience and people who are notorious for not having veins, and they are generally AT LEAST able to draw blood.  They couldn't on me so they tried to get me into the radiologist to do a pic line.  Because I was ONLY bleeding to death and nothing more, they wouldn't consider it an emergency and I had to go home and come back on Tuesday, which is today.  8:30 is when they told me to go to admitting to get this party started.  I showed up at admitting, Ben taking off work this time (because I'm too weak to drive), and they told me I was supposed to be here at 8:00.  It wasn't the hospital's problem that Mom and I were told wrong.  NOW I would have to be worked into their schedule and that meant that I might not be seen until 3:00 this afternoon.  I was more than a little pissed.  It takes more than the loss of blood to make me forget that I have a "temper".  At this point, I don't really know what to do because if I show them that I'm as mad as I really am, they could treat me worse and make me wait longer.  You just don't know how it will work out with these people.  I kept most of my cool.  I got my pic line within the hour.  It could have been SO MUCH WORSE!!!!!  Prayer answered.

It was explained to me that because blood takes 4 hours for each unit to process (that would be 8 hours for me), and iron takes 1 hour for 3 consecutive days, that I would be admitted so that they could moniter me and it would just be that much more simple.  I'm packed to stay.  Once I got down to the infusion center, they took my blood to see where I'm at today.  I DON'T NEED BLOOD!  My blood went up a whole point since Easter!  Prayer answered again!  I can just go home now and come back and get my iron for an hour every day.  Not bad eh?  God will only give us as much as we can take and I think he probably knew that I was getting redy to kill the nurses up on the "floors".  My doctors are such good doctors now and I feel so blessed to have them but they only work out of this hospital.  If it gets to the point where I'm feeling postal, I may have to switch doctors again just because I absolutely despise some of the floors they put me on in the hospital.  This last stay made me feel like I was in the nursing home.  One lesson I've learned is that if you ever have to go into the hospital for any reason, TRY to bring someone with you.  I watched some of these people who didn't have family their to back them up not ever get waited on by some nurses.  I wouldn't have gotten 1 single glass of water if it weren't for Ben or Amber or my mom.  The lady next to me wouldn't have gotten 1 single glass of water.  A volunteer changed my bed only 1 day.  I changed my bed the rest of the days.  The lady next to me laid in her own mess for about an hour before anyone would help her.  When they did help, the nurse gave the patient all the stuff to clean herself.  She was a 73 year old lady who was weak from loss of blood too.  They would NOT help her.  I called the nursing supervisor to complain for this lady.  We were given semi better nurses after that.

Where I'm at with the doctors:  I'm being told that because of almost 100% paralysis in my stomach, maybe the best way to permanently fix me is to completely remove my stomach.  I know I've said this before so I'm sorry if I'm boring anybody:-)  My ulcers are being caused from the food laying in my stomach, causing acid and eating holes.  If I had no stomach, this wouldn't happen.  They want to attatch my intestines to my esophagas.  Very little of your digestion happens in your stomach (even for normal people) anyway.  Your stomach just squishes up your food and technically, you can live without a stomach.  The quality of life wouldn't be as good but mine isn't great anyway.  I'm in the hospital every other week and my last major surgery that I wasn't supposed to live through just happened in August.  They think this might just fix me as best as I can be fixed.  The surgeon is going to a conference and will be presenting my case to other surgeons in order to get their input.

There is another option that I think I'm going to choose.  They can make another tube (for a total of 2 tubes) coming off the other side of my stomach.  They can cut away the damaged ulcerated tissure that won't heal with medication.  There is a POSSIBILITY that this might work.  They don't think so.  This is the general consensus of all of the doctors combined.  I think I'm going with this option because it leaves the possibility that I might be able to live a somewhat normal life.  They can always take out more stomach if this doesn't work but if they take out everything now, I'll never know if this could have worked.  To take out everything just seems so drastic.  Besides I want to give this new nutrition stuff that is supposed to rebuild cells, a chance to work.  Just maybe, with prayer, faith and a positive attitude it might work on me.  I'll never know if I let them take everything out right now.

The other positive thing that happened yesterday was that I signed up for disability.  There's almost no way that I won't get it (or so they say) with the amount of hospital records that they have on me.  I'll be getting back pay to 2006!  AND my kids will also get a little amount of money.  Hey!  Anything that we weren't expecting is better than nothing, right?  I never wanted to file because I couldn't get it through my head that I was REALLY disabled.  I think I'm accepting that, for at least a little while, I will be.  The good news is that I don't always have to claim disability.  I mean that if I ever feel good again, I can go back to work.  I guess I thought that once disabled, always disabled.  I just hate that label.  I'm just too proud for my own good.  So proud I'm actually stupid sometimes!  lol  I'll get my first check anywhere from June to August.  Great, huh?

AND another thing is that I took Savannah to get her permit yesterday and she passed!  She only missed one question.  She has a photographic memory so I was pretty sure that she would.  I also took her to open her first checking and savings account that she has control of.  I set up overdraft fee protection that won't come out of MY account too!  Yay me!  I guess I just feel like I need to get things in order in case something really does happen to me.  I know it's negative to actually think that way but to me, it's being realistic.  Even if nothing happens to me, I don't really have too many good days where I'm out of the hospital for very long, so I need to get as much done as I can while I can do it.

So there it is peeps!  Thank you all again and I love you all!!!!!!!!

 

So FINALLY I get to sit back and chill with my girls:-)  Danielle, Julia and I are lounging back on our new and VERY comfortable couch watching "Pretty in Pink".  I think I had this conversation last week with Nicole, about how it still amazes me that my kids love this movie now that it's "old" as much as I did back when it was new.  In fact, the movie is so timeless that I STILL love it.

 

Danielle is so impressed with Molly Ringwald's character because she can make her own clothes to look like the rich people's clothes.  It's kind of weird because my kids don't understand why she's so embarrassed about where she lives.  They don't understand why she feels bad about being poor.  They've been raised to be proud and hold their heads up high even when we're not wealthy.  I had to explain to them that the '80's were all about being materialistic.

Savannah is back in her room watching a movie with her "boyfriend", Josh.  Now, before you raise your eyebrows, she has no door on her room because we can't trust her with ANY single little thing so they have absolutely NO privacy.  Besides that, Josh (Harry Potter #2) is COMPLETELY young for his age.  He's still into Poke Mon (so is Savannah - truth be told).  Josh is a very good friend of ours son.  I've babysat him since he was about 8.  He's 16 now.  He's been diagnosed mildly autistic.  I've already told my friend that if he and Savannah grow up and get married, I will NOT be babysitting their children.  Bi-Polar meets semi autistic.  The gene pool is a little scary!  lol

Anyway, Josh, along with Danielle's new bf Zach, came over and hung out ALL day.  We had an awesome time though.  We broke out the Easter egg die and proceeded to die 4 dozen eggs!  2 dozen are going to the church to help with their HUGE egg hunt this Saturday.

 

 

So here's Zach with our only St. Patrick's Day contribution for the day - the GREEN egg!

 

You know, I know it's weird but these kids (even the 16 year old boys) REALLY liked dying Easter eggs!  Zach comes from a good family and has a lot of little brothers and sisters.  They still die Easter eggs.  He says that their family always has one "trick" egg that's not boiled.  You can imagine the mess when someone in their family tries to peel it:-)  Sounds like MY kind of fun!  lol  Oh, and I'm trying really hard not to like Zach like I did bf #1 (Daniel) just so I don't get MY heart broken when he and Danielle break up BUT I really DO like this kid!  It might have something to do with how good of a "suck up" he is.  He hugs me good bye like I'm his family AND he holds the door open for Danielle.  He has the BEST manners out of any 16 y/o boy that I've seen.  It's ALWAYS good to suck up to the mother!  lol

 

Julia had to babysit the 2 "happy couples" when I had to leave the room and do something else.  I'm still fairly certain I don't want Danielle to be left alone with a boy.  Savannah DEFINITELY can't be trusted with boys but Josh wouldn't know what to do with a girl so we were PRETTY safe.  lol  It was actually Savannah that I didn't trust.  So this is Julia, aka "The Snitch" with her most perfect pink egg!

 

Josh (Harry Potter #2) had SUCH a good time coloring eggs.  His family doesn't EVER do it.  In fact, he has only colored eggs once in his life, which is SO hard for me to believe.  My family has always been so rich in tradition even if we were ALSO rich in dysfunction!  I have a very good mother who made sure that our traditions weren't lost.  I was glad to see that other kids appreciated it too:-)  Josh was mostly fascinated with making his eggs as UGLY as possible.  Creativity is truly NOT his thing!  It's so funny to see Josh and Savannah together.  So far, she's been through 4 boyfriends back to back.  We've always told her that they'd make a good couple one day because they share some of the same strange interests.  They both also have incredibly high IQ's with not a lot of common sense.  Oh well, you can't have it all!  lol

Today was a happy family day.  I'm very thankful for days like these.  I'm also thankful that I get to spend these good times with my kids.  I'm glad that they actually don't mind sharing some of their time with me:-)

Admittedly, I don't have a traditional way of mothering my kids.  I'm not ashamed of this because I believe my way works.  I believe that you actually have to prepare your children to go out into the world and make their own way.  I want them to feel like they can be totally self sufficient.  Obviously, life happens and I have to step in to help financially.  I'm also prepared for this.  I don't have a problem helping my kids get the material things they want or need as long as I can see that they're really trying to provide for themselves.  I guess I'm this way because my mother taught me to be this way.  She instilled in me the pride of working for what I wanted.  Nothing ever came free.  On the other hand, my dad (who didn't live with us during the crucial teen years) gave us anything we cried for.  Gas, money for my boyfriend to take me out (I know - what a loser the bf was! lol) ANYTHING.  His way was to buy our love. My dad didn't pay child support but he always had the money to get to play the good guy.  I loved that then.  I have no respect for it now and don't want my kids learning to milk the system the way that I got to with dad.  Dad's way didn't make me proud and it always came with a bigger price that I had to pay than if I'd just earned my own way.  Mom's way is much better.

Which brings me to my point.  Savannah is going to be moving out once she turns 18.  Ben promissed (due to numerous problems) and she's agreed.  She will also be paying for her own apartment, her own school and her own car.  If you do the math, there's not going to be a lot of money left over at the end of the week for her.  Now before you start thinking bad of me, Savannah had choices.  She CHOSE this way.  It's been a hard tough learning road for her but the GOOD news is that I think she's finally getting it.

 

I'm just putting this out there for parents who may have children coming up on the age of employment.  I'm not saying that my way should be your way.  I'm just asking you to think about it.  We have to TEACH our children.  God didn't give us these kids to turn out on to the streets one day and say "spead your wings and fly"!  Our job is to see that they're actually ready (for the most part) to be productive members of society and that does NOT mean that they get to be a drain on their parents.  To get Savannah ready for this big transition, we charge her for the gas she has to use in my big SUV every time I have to drive her to work.  Ben doesn't pay for his own gas so he doesn't charge her when she uses his truck.  I think that's fair.  After all, she'll be having to pay for gas once she gets a car, right?  And maintenance.  It's not cheap.  I remember Amber learning this lesson and she really couldn't believe what all went into getting the privilege to drive.  It's a hard life.

  Back to Savannah...  now that she's working she had the option of either helping with the finances of the family (because she lives here) OR she could do chores to help around the house.  She chose to do chores.  She doesn't do anything even half right the first time (She's lazy - she'll tell you).  This costs a fortune in cleaning products.  The solution to this is that we warned her that she's going to have to start buying the Scrubbing Bubbles that she goes through every week if she doesn't do the cleaning right the first time.  She always has to do her job over 2 or 3 times.  This sounds extremem, I know.  If you could see the obvious scum she leaves on things, you'd understand.  She's not a quick learner of consequenses.  I guess that's part of the bi-polar.  We try to teach ALL of the kids that there's a cause and effect for their every action.

So today I'm doing laundry, right?  I noticed that Savannah was the last to do laundry and she put my brand new sweater in the drier, which of course shrunk it to a 4 toddler!  ARHG!  The rule in this house has ALWAYS been that we don't dry sweaters or bras or anything delicate and the kids have a handle on this USUALLY.  There are mistakes made.  Case in point...  Danielle accidentally dried one of Savannah's torn up, all ready too small sweaters.  Which of course shrunk it down to nothing.  Savannah got so upset she started crying and I made Danielle pay for the sweater becuase she was being careless.  That was quite all right with Savannah because her posessions are the only things in life that mean something to her.  I remember reminding her that she'd better be careful about throwing such a fit over material belongings because she too could make a mistake one day.  It happened (in fact it happens all the time but today was the straw) today with my new sweater.  I charged her half of what I paid for this sweater.  I think it's more than fair because I only wore it once and I have hardly any clothes.  Savannah has earned just under $200 from working at BK and out of that she's gets to keep $40.00 in her pocket.  The rest goes to savings.  Out of the $40.00, she already owes $25.00 to us.  That leaves her with a grand total of $15.00 for her BK snacks and clothes or whatever else she wants for the next 2 weeks.

All I saying is that we ALL need to start teaching our kids, along with loving them.  Most parents are good at loving their children.  But isn't teaching the same thing as loving?  You can let someone else teach your kids the hard knocks of life.  Or you can try to teach.  I choose the second.  It might not always work but I'm going to go down swinging!  lol 

Not much of a Super Bowl or football fan here.  However, I was a good wife and didn't object to the Super Bowl being watched today.  How could I say no?  lol

So Ben rooted for the Giants.  I don't know anyone one else who did.  I rooted for the Patriots because my friend Kristine told me to.  Danielle rooted for the Patriots because there was a cute guy on their team (she thinks).  Savannah rooted for the Giants because Ben did.  Rather annoying FAKE screaming and WOO HOOING came out of her mouth during the last few seconds of the game (which is all she watched).  Complete over reaction.  When I asked her if she even knew anything about football, she proceeded to repeat inaccurate accounts of what she knew, which was funny.  I find that geniouses don't like to be "called" on their inaccuracy.  Did I mention that Ben was screaming too when the Giants won.  I tolerated that a little more because he really is a football fan.  Oh and Danielle screamed loudly from the shower because she was immitating Savannah (which was funny).

This is what we did to occupy ourselves today.  The girls (Danielle and Julia) played beauty stylists with each other.  Pretty creative I think:-)

 

Julia presented her perfectly "coiffed" Hillbilly Danielle.  She even went through the trouble of making her very own hillbilly ribbon.  The amount of "teasing" that must have gone into this hairdo makes me shudder with pride!  What a future stylist Julia is.

 

Not to be outdone by her sister...  Danielle shows great promise with her understated "Gator Julia".  What do you think?  It's hard to pick a winner huh?

Goofy but happy sisters!

So how did we end our perfect Super Bowl night, you ask?  Well,  lets just say it has to do with Danielle hiding soggy bread (that she got out of the kitchen sink before she did the dishes).  Where did Danielle hide the soggy bread, you ask?  Where else!  Inside Julia's shoe.  It only took a few hours to find the mooshy bread and Danielle did have to clean Julia's shoe.  Julia is NOT a happy camper and is racking her little brain trying to figure out a good way to get her big sister back.  She'd appreciate any ideas. 

Now, as a mother, I can't really participate in the revenge of Julia but you're all welcome to forward any and all suggestions:-)

Hope your Super Bowl was just as fun!

Life has a way of teaching better lessons than we, as parents sometimes EVER can.  Many of you know the trials and tribulations of my life with Savannah, my step-daughter.  It's been a rough road and it sometimes seems like the road was impassable.  Blocked.  I will admit that I've been through times where I've all but completely lost hope that she would even be able to function in society.  Lost hope is NOT a good place to be in.  Against all odds, I kept trying.  In retrospect, I guess I was really hanging from my last thread of hope for her or I wouldn't have kept trying.

It's no secret that Savannah has had serious issues and obstacles to overcome.  She's bi-polar, she's had to live with several "mom's" that her dad has imposed on her, and the list seems endless.  There's just so much that's she's been through and I've touched on it ALL in previous posts.  The GOOD news is that LIFE is teaching her.  Life is teaching her lessons that I haven't been able to.  I think she's finally getting it.  For the first time since she's lived here (7 years), she's finally trying in school.  Her grades are starting to excell.  Her teachers are giving us reports about what a "joy" it is to have Savannah in class.  She's actually PARTICIPATING in class instead of disrupting class.  She should be in 11th grade but she really hasn't even been able to pass 10th grade because of her own lack of effort, despite ANYTHING we tried.  She finally sees that it's so much better to get the good type of attention.  Lord knows she's gotten enough of the wrong type of attention!  She actually may WANT to do well just for her own sake. 

Yesterday, Savannah went to a speech competition, or "finals" (as they're really called), where only the best of the best kids got to compete against each other.  There were a LOT of VERY talented kids there.  Savannah did a dramatic interpretation called "Multiple Personality Murder" where she got to play a murderess who had several personalities.  She can do ALL the personalities so well that it would give you goose bumps!  It did me, anyway and I'm not necessarily prejudiced!  lol  She won 3rd place and we were SO proud!  Her teacher just couldn't say enough good things about her.  Apparently, Savannah may just have some acting skills!  Of course, living with Savannah, I already KNEW this!  lol  She brought home a medal and a certificate.  I can't begin to say how GOOD it feels to see something positive.

 

ALSO!!!!!  She FINALLY has a job!  We've been on her for a year now, trying to get her to be serious about finding a job.  Our motivation is that once she's 18, she's going to have to find her own place to live.  I was SURE that I couldn't go through anything more than her 18th year.  We've been trying to impose on her just how important it was to believe that she really will be supporting herself and that Daddy really won't be doing it anymore.  This all sounds harsh but she's "purposely" tried to flunk out of school.  She's lost any chance of getting a scholarship into college because she didn't WANT to go to college.  She also didn't want to ever drive or get a job because she'll tell you, she's lazy.  She thought there'd really be a way around life and she'd get to do nothing.  I guess it's part of the disease of bi-polar.  I don't know.  Maybe I should have had more patience but I've always been a driven person (when I was healthy) and so are MY kids so I just couldn't understand why someone would actually think thier dad would take care of them all of thier life?  It sounded crazy to me. 

 

So now she has a part time job at Burger King and she LOVES it!  We were pretty sure that she'd try to get fired the first day that she worked.  That didn't happen.  She's been working now for 3 weeks and they LOVE her too!  In fact, they've increased her responsibilities.  They trust her more than they do someone who's worked there for much longer!  Savannah is so proud and rightfully so.  It's just good to see her achieve something POSITIVE!  Sorry for sounding like an obnoxious MOM but I just don't get many of these moments where I can be proud of her!  Oh yeah, now she's actually looking forward to driving.  She's saving her checks for moving out and for a car!  I'm pretty sure she's growing out of her Peter Pan syndrome! 

The moral of this story is that sometimes, even though it's scary to hope , we can never REALLY give up hope. If we do, we might as well be dead.  I believe this. Sometimes we just need patience and life really will work itself out.  Sometimes we just need to step out of the way and let God do his work instead of trying to force his hand.  That's a VERY hard lesson for me to learn:)

 

Sorry all of my most excellent vox friends and neighbors - for dropping out of existance and not letting anybody know what was up!  I love the PM's from a lot of you asking if I'm back in the hospital and just expressing concern, in general!  THANK YOU but really I'm better than I've been in a long time:)  I feel as well or better than can be expected!  I'm about to tell you what I've been doing and I fully expected you all to laugh at me.  It's ok though.  I'm used to a lot of grief!  lol  The truth is that I've been putting up all my Christmas decorations since the weekend.  My kids were all home and they won't be again until 2 weeks before Christmas so they wouldn't be able to help with the tree.  I know, I know...  I could have waited until 2 weeks before Christmas to put out the big spread but that would equal sacrelige to me!  Generally I put out out Christmas decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving but we're going to be in Texas this year so it wont be possible.

Christmas is my FAVORITE time of the year!  I'm such a sap, really.  I fall for all of the glitter and tinsle - just like Whoville (did I spell that right?) in Dr. Suess' "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" (the movie version)!  I love being in a crowded mall (as long as I'm not in a hurry) and watching all the people rushing by with all thier pretty bags.  I love watching "It's a Wonderful Life" 50 times during December and "A Christmas Carol" 30 or more times.  We've already watched "Polar Express" and "Meet Me In St. Louis" with Judy Garland this weekend.  Needless to say, my house is decorated from end to end!  All of the regular decorations (even the pictures on the walls) get packed away to make room for all the Christmas stuff!  I hate the mess and disorganization it causes for a little while but the end product is so worth it!

I've always been this way about Christmas.  I remember this time of year to be the best when I was growing up.  As many of you know, my childhood was riddled with abuse and there was really no good time of the year EXCEPT for Christmas.  My mom went through such great pains to make it special for us.  We'd get home from school on a nonspecified day to find our house of horror transformed into a winter wonderland.  She had a special place for our Bible opened to the story of the birth of Jesus and somewhere near would be the nativity scene.  Everywhere else had the usual garland and tinsle and God only knows how many other decorations in every single room of the house.  We always had a real tree that Dad would cut down from somewhere in the woods, usually cedar, so the smell would fill the house.  Once the Christmas decorations were up, the smell of mom's homemade cookies filled the house every day.  We didn't have a lot of money (mom tells me this but dad's story is different) so mom gave about a million different assortments of cookies to neighbors and teachers and some family members.  Looking back on it, I'd be willing to bet that store bought gifts wouldn't have been as anticipated as her cookies.  She's STILL famous for them!  Anyway, both of my parents passed on their love of Christmas to all of us.  I think I got bit by the Christmas bug a little harder than my youngest brother but J, up until he died, couldn't WAIT for Christmas time.  I guess we looked at it as a time where our family was normal...  The one timne of year where we could FEEL love and peacefulness.  It was all fairy tale but it worked for us and is still working. 

 

  SO...  This is how my extravaganza started...  I came home from getting some more lights for the tree and found my girls pretending to do some carolling!  lol  NO, Julia can NOT play the guitar and Danielle was SO off key but they thought I'd like to come home to find them peacefully singing "Oh Holy Night".  It was funny but maybe you'd just have to be there to appreciate it! lol

 

My mom started a tradition with all of her kids and grandkids, years ago.  She bought us Hallmark ornaments.  My series is Barbie (because I truly still love barbies).  Every year, when it's time to put up the tree, it's like opening up some of our presents early in the year.  We all love to open up the Hallmark boxes to look at the detail on each ornament...  some we'd even forgotten about.  Usually the kids like to put their stupid ornaments beside my most precious barbies!  Like one year, I got a bride and hung her in a special place on the tree.  I came home from work one day to find her married to one of Amber's pro-basketball player ornaments (which should have never gone on the tree because they were ugly in the first place)!  These past few years, they've gotten a big kick out of marrying my barbie off the some Harry Potter character of Savannah's (again because they all know I really despise Harry Potter).  SO here is me hanging my bride barbie.  I haven't checked to see yet who they have her married to THIS year!

 

 Danielle is hanging her Wizzard of Oz ornaments and Amber is just posing because I asked her to look like she's doing something for the picture! 

 

And this is the partially finished tree!  I still have to rearrange the tinsle because the girls just started throwing it at each other and on the tree.  I finally got the entire house done.  It took a solid 3 days with all of us working on it but now I can just sit back and enjoy!  The only thing left to do is have Ben put the lights on the outside of the house (sometime after Thanksgiving).  I hope ALL of you have as much fun with your Christmas as we do!

Doesn't she look mean?  The theme for Halloween this year with Julia and Danielle is Gothic.  They actually HATE gothic's so they've decided to mimic them (I think it helped their decision because Savannah sympathises with gothic's and would be one if we'd let her).  Danielle did Julia's make-up for this picture and I'll be doing her make-up tonight.  Danielle is going as a Gothic Faery.  I'll get more pictures tonight. 

Danielle is going to have several friends over and they're going to run the neighborhood.  This is the first time she's not going to be with us so I'm not sure what kind of fun WE'RE going to have.  Usually Mom and Amber come over and someone stays behind to hand out the candy while the rest of us go to all the subdivisions that we can get to in one night!  I've already let Danielle know that if the cops are called, she's gets to STAY in juvy jail! hehe

 

 

The kids carved their pumpkins last night.  Ben helped Julia with the fine details but for the most part, they all did their own pumpkins.  Has anyone else noticed how much pumpkins are this year?????   Geeze, 3 medium sized pumpkins cost $35!  Maybe it's just here in Missouri.  I've heard that most of our pumpkin crops were destroyed with the spring frost that we had this year.  I think a lot of our pumpkins had to be shipped in from Michegan.  These pumpkins came from a local grower right here in Missouri though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retreiving the pumpkin seeds for roasting later:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danielle's Creation!  I wish you could see them lit up.  They really look SCARY!  lol   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Julia's pumpkin.  This one really turned out cool!  I didn't put a picture of Savannah's because it didn't show up in the picture.  I really need a new camera or I need to figure out how to use this one! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween to all of you!  Hope you get a million pieces of chocolate!  I'm planning on raiding my kids candy bags at around midnight tonight.  Someone has to make sure all the chocolate's not poisoned, right?

My mom loves nature.  She always has.  She likes to be alone in nature...  It gives her peace and allows her to clear her mind.  Sunday, she called and wanted to know if I wanted to take a drive to Elephant Rocks so we can look at the colors change in the mountains.  Of course, I'd just come from a day at Elephant Rocks on Saturday so we decided to take a trip to Hawn State Park.  She wanted to go hiking in the mountains!  Ugghhh!  Ok, so I'll admit, I'm not exactly athletic so I really thought that our rock climbing experience the day before should have given me all the strenuous exercise that I should need for about a year! *lol*   I couldn't let this 60 something year old lady out do me or make fun of me, right?  So I packed up the kids and husband and we (minus Amber) took mom for a Sunday walk through the woods (it would be more accurate to say that SHE took US!)!  I didn't remember Hawn State Park because I haven't been there since I was 9 1/2 months pregnant with Amber when mom was trying to help along the labor process because it appeared that I would never give birth to that baby!  Yes, 9 1/2 months pregnant, I hiked up mountains with my mother!  pretty good, eh?  I'm sure there was more than a little complaining done on MY part, but the important thing is I went! *LOL*   I'm so glad we went yesterday because it was even more beautiful (imo) than Elephant Rocks!  PLUS, we hiked for about 4 miles.  It wasn't the 6 miles that we'd hoped for but 4 is nothing to sneeze at ESPECIALLY with 3 complaining kids (mostly Danielle)!

 

This is mom, walking off trail to show us how adventerous she is.  AND not at all afraid of heights (like me)!  We all enjoyed her being with us because we really don't know much about nature (just that we like being out in it) so she gave us a science lesson.  She quizzed everyone on our way back to the car about things we saw.  We had to name something that we saw on the trail beginning with each letter in the alphabet.  The kids acted like they didn't like being quizzed but I know they did.  It's amazing how observant they really can be (mostly Julia and Savannah). 

 

This is funny:)  Danielle complained from the time we left the car to the time we got back into the car.  The thing she just could NOT understand is WHY none of us would carry her water bottles.  Didn't we understand that she was going to have enough trouble just walking UP the stupid mountain?  *LOL*  This was another lesson in "problem solving" for young Danielle.  She figured out what to do with her "stupid" water bottles! hehe

This was one of my MANY "resting" spots.  lol

This was some of the "less" treacherous terrain!  I thought this wass an interesting picture.

Savannah and Dixie on a cliff.  We brought this silly dog but didn't realise that she wouldn't touch her little paws on anything wet!  So when we crossed the creek (by jumping over wet rocks) Ben had to carry her!  They've spoiled this dog.  If it were up to me, Dixie would learn to LOVE water!  I guess that's not what Beagles were bred for though, huh?

 

This is Pickle Creek:)  Charming name, eh? lol  I'm told that in the spring time, there's so much water that there's a small water fall.  There hasn't been much rain this season so the water was WAY down.  It's still so pretty though:)

 

 

Can you see the monsterous crawdad?  Half the size of a small lobster!  (ok  so not really but CLOSE!)

 

There really wasn't much fall color yet but this was pretty.  I guess the leaves aren't going to change this year for very long before dropping:(  I think it's just been too dry and then it just started getting cold.  There's that global warming again!

My oldest daughter, Amber, is more like me than she cares to admit.  She's been in a "lull" with her life (read:  bored) while waiting to start school full time in December.  I don't think there's enough outside stimuli to keep her entertained and when she gets bored, she becomes a dare devil!  Which, I'm not ok with btw...  This is the child who, while on vacation in the Smoky Mountains this year, tried to make the black bear pose for pictures (oh... about... arms length away from her!!!!!)!  She's also the kid who likes to jump off 30 foot high (or taller) cliffs into a quarry filled with spring water (thankfully no rocks below that water).  I could go on and on with her death defying stunts but I'll save that for another day:)  Anyway, she's been calling lately wondering what I have planned to entertain her!  I'm getting too old to watch her try and kill herself so I haven't had much planned. *lol*  Saturday though, I came up with the idea to go and climb granite rock mountains at Elephant Rocks State Park in Bellgrade Missouri.  This park was named after a series of boulders that look like circus elephants.  It's been a family favorite since I was a little girl.  My parents used to take us to climb the rock mountains in hopes that we would expend some of our energy.  After climbing the rocks, we'd all settle down at a picnic sight, nestled between the boulders, to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken (my favorite part).  Sadly, this Saturday, I forgot to stop and pick up the chicken!  Boo Mom!!!  We still had a great time climbing the rocks and rediscovering some hidden spots that I haven't seen since I was a child.

 

These are some of the boulders that we see as we come into the park.  The state has developed trails that are easy to walk on but we chose to climb up the rocks and not follow the trails (trails are for whimps, right? lol).  The trails are actually perfect for handicap people.  There are information plaques in braille for the visually impaired also.  I don't see this very often.

 

This is Amber in a semi-relaxed state BEFORE she started jumping across boulders!

 

And here's me doing the most daring thing I care to do (holding up a boulder).

 

THIS took some doing!  Julia isn't very daring AT ALL!  She's my "all about personal safety kid".  I thought this would be a good picture so Julia had to jump across some pretty large rocks to get here.  Th