Baby gets hurt, mowing expert Annie, 1st day of school, fish tank attack

Wow, I feel like I haven't blogged in ages though it's probably only been a few days. So much has been happening around here though. My mom has been in town since last Wednesday which has been a lot of fun. We have spent time shopping, getting our hair done, watching movies, cooking and just talking. We are in the process of planning her trip back to Oregon. OK, I am in the process. Does anyone else notice that the roles change as we get older? I tell you what! :-)

Little miss Courtney really worried me on Sunday. She'd been fussy, really fussy for a day and a half and Sunday morning I noticed she was not using her left arm. A closer look revealed a very swollen little hand. I didn't think it was bad enough to rush to the emergency room so we proceeded to get ready for church and I figured I would keep an eye on it and make a decision of what to do after the day went on a little. God is amazing though and Mr Brent took a look at it during connection group. We are so blessed to have a pediatrician in our group, and even more blessed to have such a caring one. He looked at it, totally felt around on it (which my little girl would not let me even look at it) and suggested I put her on Motrin and see how it does. So, we did. When we got home I gave her some nummy nummy Motrin and even wrapped it up. She was so cute and let me wrap it and even kept it on! The next morning she was using her hand like normal! Thank you, Lord! See, I think she fell, I know she fell since she had a fat lip. I guess she hurt her hand too but I did not know it. She is all better now though and we now have a new doctor for my baby. Thanks Brent!



The dreaded lawn care. Come home, Paul!!! These are purely for Angela as she told me how much I rock for doing all this. Well, girl, it got better! I went to start the mower the next day now that I had fuel and it was no longer raining and it wouldn't start again. So I had to jump it with my now 'work truck'.

After I got it jumped and mowed for quite some time I got stuck. OK, seriously, there is like one place to get stuck out here and, well, I found it. So, I took one of the tie downs off of the jet ski (that took forever to figure out) and hooked the mower to my 'work truck' and pulled that baby out!

I got the rest of the yard mowed with no problems. We may need some new blades now, those pesky rocks are annoying!

The next day I thought I'd give weed eating a try. Oh, that was fun, let me tell you. After figuring out how to get the thing started. Let me take you through it...half choke, a little throttle, pull that stupid chord a few times. Full choke, no throttle, pull the stupid chord a few more times. Back to half choke...you get it. It finally starts, woo hoo I think. Then I realize, I don't have a clue how to do this. Oh, it was interesting. There are a few dirt patches now; but that's OK, it's grass, it grows back, right? :-) (sorry for all my grammar mistakes, I like commas). So, I'm going along and the string is so short. I turn it off and pull on the string...it doesn't get longer. Finally I call Paul and he tells me to bang it on the ground while it's on and the string will come out. Oh, that was neat - I bet I looked super hot doing that. It worked though so I was going along getting all the long stuff and I ran out of string. I guess when you hit rocks with a weed eater it breaks the string? Weird. Oh well, here are some wonderful blackberry pictures of the parts I did get to. Not too bad, eh?


And the first day of school. Ethan is officially a 2ND grader. I can't even believe it. The night before I called him and asked him if he wanted me to come have lunch with him this week and he said he wanted me to the next day! How sweet is that, his first day of school and he wants to have lunch with his mom. So Courtney and I went and he was so precious. He likes his teacher, enjoys his classmates and was having a great day.

Here he is sitting so nicely in line, can you find him?

Courtney aka Ms Cool

At recess he took a break to take a picture with his baby sister.

Doesn't he look so big?

And last AND least...I came home to this in our tank yesterday. All I have to say is EWE! This is our bristle worm eating our cleaner shrimp. I knew that thing was in there (the worm) but I didn't know it was this big and I didn't know it would attack our precious "Shrimpy" and I didn't know there were like 5 of these worms. Big and small...again, EWE.

We'll miss you Shrimpy.

Slacker husband and baby tricks

Can you see that little mower, all the way out there? Well, it's not little, that just how much I have to mow...times 4! So, I'm out there mowin' away today, I have the blackberry doubling as a mp3 player - totally awesome and I have never thought of using it that way before, I get about 1/4 of the yard done and...no more gas. I tell Paul it ran out again (after I had to jump it with my truck) and he says, "oh yeah, I only put a gallon in it and you have to go get fuel, we are out". So, he gets husband of the year award for that. I am not even about to put a gas can in my Tahoe, so I cleverly hook the jet ski trailer up, toss the gas can in the junk container in front and hall them down to the gas station to fill 'er up. I am so clever and quite proud that I backed the truck up to the trailer all by myself and it didn't fall off on the way to or from the gas station. By the time I got back, it was raining anyway. Oh well, the mower has gas in it at least, right?

Sure looked straight when I was going...(our house is behind that tree)

Our yard goes all the way to that house. Does anyone want to buy an acre? If you mow it, you can have it or two!

Ok, how precious is my little baby who is covering up her girl parts for a picture.

Courtney's new trick...



Ta-da!

(I need to repaint that door, huh?)

Laughter and children

Tonight Courtney made me laugh so hard. I was doing laundry and turned around and there she was, with her baby stroller. Not so unusual, except it was behind her. Can you figure out how she did this?

Looks normal, right?

She must be done playing with it...


Guess she isn't done playing...

Maybe she thought she was done playing...

Now it's fun...

Run, run, run....

Laughing at Mama laughing so hard she can't see...

I love my baby girl...

Home again...

We are home, we've been home but I haven't had time to blog. I know, how is that possible! Well, we had a great time with Dada in Tennessee but last Thursday we packed up and headed home. It took us just over 10 hours to make the drive with stops for the baby and wasn't really that bad. She was only fussy for a little while and just slept, danced, or watched a movie the rest of the time.

It was good to be back home with both kids. Bo (our mastiff) got attacked while we were gone. We don't know what it was or what happened but our friend who comes to take care of our animals cleaned puddles of blood up off the porch and sprayed the house down where there was blood all over it. Then, talking to the neighbor, he heard it. Bo is hurt pretty bad and the side of his face has a big huge gash in it and is really swollen. I felt bad enough for him that after a nice bath, I let him come in the house and even went and got him a bone. (that is really a big deal for me, he has been inside 2 times now in the past 2 years!). He seems to be getting better though.

We also came home to 2 kittens. We have a, well, promiscuous cat who has now had 3 litters in the past 2 years I think. She is so mean and ugly, I can't believe she can get a date! :-)

Other than that, the house was still standing and I even left it clean. We had a great weekend with Ethan; we went to the lake on Saturday and played all day in the rain. We surprised him and took him over to his best friend Trevor's dock. It was classic when they saw each other - Trevor comes running down the dock, Ethan goes running across the shore, both yelling each other's name and collide when they get to each other. It was like they hadn't seen each other in years! It was fun though, his parents are great people, all the boys (and Trevor's sister) went knee boarding which both the boys just learned how to do this year. Trevor came back into the cove backwards which was quite impressive!

Paul left after church and lunch yesterday; that was tougher than before. I was totally fine until I got out of the truck to hug him. Then it hit me - he's leaving for 2 weeks! I guess I got used to him being around all the time again. We keep praying for a local job, but we know this is what we have to do for now. God has a plan, we are sure of that.

Here are some pictures of our darling kids from the weekend...

Sooooooooooooo happy to be home!

Waiting for Ethan to come home Thursday night, trying to stay awake.

...didn't make it.


E woke Courtney up...he couldn't resist. She was very happy to see her brother.

Ethan 'made Courtney' out of blocks the next morning.

Paul's aunt got these boots for Courtney and I just can't wait until she fits in them. They are a little large yet and make her walk funny, but she loved wearing them and didn't want to take them off.

I don't think she'll be a leg model.

Going out on the lake. My 2 adorable kids!

This was this morning; my favorite time of the day. Every morning I bring Courtney into bed after she wakes up and we grab a book from her shelf to read. She was being quite independent this morning as you can tell.

SCC Interview Link

Click here for the interview

Godspeed Chapman Family

This morning Steven Curtis Chapman and his family did their first TV interview since the accident that resulted in the death of their little girl. I'll tell you what, that family is incredible - what a testimony of faith! For those of you who didn't watch it, they interviewed him and his wife and she is a very normal mom who just wants her baby girl back. But, she knows she is whole, she knows she is happy, and she knows she will be with her again. I think the most touching part of the interview was the interview of the 3 oldest children. The brother of the son that was driving the car said he just wanted to take the pain away from his brother. He said he didn't want to watch him grow though it, that he would rather endear the pain for him than watch him suffer. These are teenagers! I can only pray that my children will feel that way for each other, that they will have the Lord in their heart the way those children do.

I had Courtney on my lap as I watched the interview, as they played the home videos of this adorable little girl and her family. All I could do was hold my baby close and thank God for the time I have had with her.

Here are some pictures of my little girl from our Tennessee trip...getting ready to go home today, we leave tomorrow.

On the airplane...

So proud with her Dada on the tractor.

The rare picture of my husband smiling; really smiling. :-)

So tired but so cute.

She can't leave Dada alone; not even while he showers!



When she was a baby baby she had a 'mr crab' toy; this his her 'big girl mr crab'.


Her hair is just incredible here, not such a good picture, but the hair!

here too. the hair.

I ask, 'do you want to go see Dada'. She says "dada" and goes and stands by the door.




She just thought she was so funny climbing in the big pot.

She wore her pig tails for hours yesterday! I was sooooooooooo proud!

This is her looking at her Daddy - priceless.

What being a Mommy is all about

I knew something wasn't right when Courtney slowly drank 2 oz of milk this morning then handed me her bottle and said done. That is not my typical chug 8 oz in 30 seconds baby. I put her back in bed and a short 15 minutes later she was calling for me. I went in and got her and we laid on our bed and watched her new favorite movie Busy Buzby (or something like that). She laid next to me sipping on her bottle, I was too tired to think much so I just laid next to her. Oh, what a bad idea that was. She coughed, nothing, coughed a little more, nothing. Ok, I was fine. Then it came, curdled mild, cough (to spray the curdled milk all over me), then a little more curdled milk. All in the matter of a few seconds this happened. I sit up and just look at her, trying to decide the best way to tackle this mess. No washer and dryer here, so I strip her and wrap everything up in the sheets to take to the laundry mat at a later time. I ask if she wants to take a bath. With curdled milk still lingering on her chin she joyously says 'ba!'. I wipe her face with the already disgusting sheet and we proceed to the bathroom. I get the water just perfect, bubbled up along with foam letters and numbers and a truck and jet ski to play with but she doesn't want to sit down. Whatever, I wash her hair while she is standing and wash the rest of her which is surprisingly easier than when she is sitting. All clean and ready to enjoy the bath, oh no, not this morning. I must not have been paying that good of attention or there were too many toys in with her because all I noticed was she was sitting down, it took me a minute to notice all the poop floating around with the toys. What does a mom do in this situation? She quickly grabs the poop before the 1 year old - with her hand! OK, that is something you can say you would never have thought you would say. We then drained that perfect bath, washed off all the toys and started the venture all over again....and that was all before 8 o'clock this morning!