Things I've learned from my kids today...

A question in Cheyanne's book - "If you could go camping, where would you go?" .... Her answer. " To the mountains. With a camper - Mobile home thingy". A true Californian girl answer.

Keriana while playing dolls... "You are so freakin' good at hiding!" - huh. How expressive.?

Tristin has been playing Halo ODST too much with his Dad when I heard him - while upstairs - holler out... " I own you! You freakin' Basterd!".
Yes. The game was turned off. In which he responded lovingly with " Mom! You aren't playing nice! You didn't give me a warning! Now go to your room!" As his face turns purple with rage and spittle (?) is flying out of his mouth. He stomped at the end and pointed up the stairs for emphasis.
No. I was not the one who ended up in my room. I think I would have liked it if I had! :)



What have you learned today?

Weigh in

Ok..... So I have been trying to loose weight. I am by no means OVER weight - but I just don't feel my best. So I have been trying to loose some poundage and inches. Thought I was doing pretty well. Been loosing about 5 lbs a month for the past couple months. Exciting right??
Well... I stepped onto my scale a couple of days ago and couldn't believe my eyes. 12 lbs gone! In a month! Wooo HOOOO! I moved the scale around my house just to make sure! Then I did an "I'm getting skinny dance!" Yea! I started texting a few 'supporters' my great news. Celebration right! I couldn't exactly figure out why my pants hadn't gone down a size but figured it was water weight or something. Actually I was too giddy to even really care.
That night I got on the scale again to prove to Joe - and for another set of eyes to confirm the scale. In case my eyes were going or something.... He agreed. The 12 lbs were gone. So I performed yet another "Skinny Celebration Dance". Keriana decided she needed to join the celebration and climb on the scale..... she went to the Dr. last week and weighed 42lbs. On my scale - she weighed 35.

My celebration balloons popped.

Joe promptly got on the scale.... he lost 20lbs in a week from his last Dr. apt.

Nice.

Yet another reason why I hate scales. crrraaap.

I proptly went out and bought a bag of TollHouse Chocolte Chip Cookie Dough. Still not feeling better. :(

Good-Bye Max

My sweet Max. We miss you so. From our heads to our toes. You were so sweet and smart and nice. You were our dog and smooth as ice. We miss your kisses, licks and nips. We miss your warning growls. You were the best and will always remain - apart of ours hearts and in our brains.

K- don't make fun of me. I needed to write that ok!

I have been having a heck of a time! Morning the loss of this stupid dog. And he wasn't stupid I am still just mad.

He was out playing with Myschief in the back yard and somehow hurt his leg. After taking him to 6 different vets and it was determind that to fix him it would cost 1500 to 3000 dollars and 3 months of physical therapy and no stairs (we don't have a door outside with lesss than 8 stairs) we just could not give him the help he would need. So many many many phone calls later to no kill shelters who would not take him from me, we gave him to the Utah Humane Society. As I sat and blubbered and snotted all over myself as I was filling out the paperwork my heart just broke. Anyway, 3 weeks later I got brave and contacted the shelter. They told me they were able to find a no -kill shelter for him. He got the surgery to repair his leg and is doing well. They said that he was a special dog with a great personality and know that he will make a new family a great life long friend.

I am so glad for him... but am still so sad for me! I didn't realize what an attachment I had/have for him. I am STILL missing him so much. He's been gone for 2 months and I am still sad at nights without him. What a boob I am.

Joe and the kids seem to of healed well. Joe found a new "family member".

This is Luci. She is 14 weeks and is really catching on to life with this crazy busy family. She is definitly Joe's dog - but is good with the rest of us. Although lately her and I have had to have "words" because she is trying to find her place and thinks that she should rank above me in the order of the pack. But I guess I am acting rather "out cast" as I get over my Max Trauma. Oh well (big sigh).

Let me end with this story Tristin just wrote for the Reflections Program....

Me and Max
By: Tristin Murray

I had a dog named Max. He was my best friend. We played lots of things together. My favorite thing to do with Max was playing Star Wars. Max would be my R2D2 and I was Anikin. We would play in the back yard and the bugs were the bad guy clones. Max and I played catch. I would throw the ball and he would run really fast and catch it in the air! Then he brought it back to me and I would throw it again.
The day Max came to live with us Mom took us for a car ride. We went to a house on a big farm that had lots of animals. They had Horses, cows and sheep and lots of dogs. We met a nice lady who brought out some puppies. They were all cute and fuzzy and different colors. This boy puppy came up to me and licked me. He kept following me around and whining at me. My mom said that I could keep him and we brought him home. I decided we should name him Max because it is my middle name and it is a good, strong name.
Max was a very smart dog. We taught him to do tricks. He could sit, fetch his ball and give kisses when asked. Max hurt his leg and doesn’t live with us anymore. I miss him a lot.

THE END

And yes - I did sit and cry the ENTIRE time I typed this up for him. Thanks for asking.

Fun Friday- Crafting

As I promised, here is the quilt that I made in March.

My wonderful aunts gave me the pattern and fabric Xmas 07. I messed up cutting it in April of 08 and actually cut enough shaped to do two blanket. But because of that mistake I didn't have enough to do the colorful border. I was lucky enough to find enough fabric colors that matched the original fabric to complete the blankets. The other blanket will be the REVERSE of this one (black stars with a colorful background). Was trying to make them for the girls birthday's but didn't make it. Here is the fabric for Keriana's backing...

We're still working on finding the right one for Cheyanne. But since I haven't even started the blocks, I am not in any rush to find the backing. But if anyone finds any cupcake fabric let me know!

The other thing I wanted to share with you today is my latest project. I have one hall .... the "hallway of love" that doesn't have anything on it and looks so plain. I found a poem and wanted to get it in the vinyl wall letter and put the kids yearly school photo's above it. However - upon talking with Joe- realised that the poem was long and the letters would be within kid reach. And Tristin LOVES to run his fingers along the walls. So I did these! They each have the poem AND I can take the pages and put them right into their scrapbooks - which I keep up about as well as I do this blog. I actually haven't had out my scrapbook stuff since we moved. I take lots of pictures, but I don't do the books. BAD JAMIE! Anyway, thought I would spread this creative spark along. ....

I gathered my supplies and took the kids outside.


I bought these cute frames from Target for $3 each. Cut my card stock to match my frame and marked on the card stock how far the frame came over so that I could get the hand prints to show.


I grabbed a 5x7 most recent school photo and cut it to fit the left over space.


Tried my "hand" at Calligraphy and was so crappy at it that I decided there was NO WAY I was going to attempt to write the poem on each of their pages. (NOTE: I've been told by many people that I should have been a Doctor or professional athlete to have penmanship as bad as I do.)


So I grabbed my husbands computer - and MY printer I just got for my birthday (Thanks MOM AND DAD! I loooooovvvvvveeeee it!) and printed out the poem in different colors and founts.

Pasted everything together and......

WWWWAAAAAHHHHHLLLLLAAAAAA! The finished projects....

Simple, easy and relatively cute. And it will be fun to see their hand prints grow! Wish I would have thought of this idea years ago!

Happy Friday!

My Biggest Accomplishment (Next to Child Birth, Marriage and home buying)

Whoever decided to turn on the summer heat is not my friend anymore. I am all for above 60 degree weather but this 90 degree stuff sucks!

I decided to share my most recent BIG . . . HUGE ... project with you first. Not saying that the inside of my house was not big - just not as noticeable because I didn't change wall colors. I didn't realize till I went to write this that I had not taken any pictures of the front of the house for the BEFORE foto. Shame on me. Actually I think it was because Joe got a "bee in his bonnet" one afternoon and by that night it was changed. So I found this "before" picture by using GOOGLE MAPS. And it is way old. As you can see we got a fence, took out the middle of the grass "thing" and you can't see the weed growth but you can use your imagination with the backyard photos.

So armed with our trusty tools.....

FRONT YARD BEFORE:

FRONT YARD AFTER:

THESE are my beautiful flowers in my front garden area. I am so proud that I finally am able to grow some flowers!

BACKYARD BEFORE:

BACKYARD AFTER:

.... and because I got soooooooo focused - I forgot the sunscreen....

My husband thinks I'm a total dweeb for sharing my sunburn blisters with you. Of course he doesn't understand the purpose of blogging either.

Anyway, I am so glad to have a place to enjoy my 70 degree mornings. Watching the birds .... when Max is too busy chewing tanbark to chase them away! ;)

Have a great Thursday!

So Sorry!!

Hello All!

I am sorry that I haven't been on for a bit. I have composed so many posts in my head it's hard to remember which one I wanted to start with. .... Anyway you are probably wondering whats been going on! Here's a recap.....

I am just going to highlight the past few months in this posting. I WILL write some further in depth posting WITH PICTURES(!) later on. Most of my big projects are done and my deadlines for the projects I have left are up in the air so I should be on more frequently...

In February we had Tristin & Joe's birthday's. And shortly after Joe's b-day he came home and said that he was up for a promotion. YEA! But if he got the promotion we would be moving. Kohl's was going to send him in April to Phoenix for interviews and then we would know within six months if we were moving. So we had to get the house in order. This of course meant painting. But me - always with good intentions but desperately ignorant of the TIME things take made projects bigger than what needed to be. I went around the house patching little dents in the walls and door frames. Painting base bored and ceilings and removing wallpaper borders. I need to remind you here that I tend to get bored easily so I had a different stage of the projects going in almost every room of the house until Joe came home and lectured me for an hour or so on how things should be done - and that if he was home everything would be run more efficiently. I promptly ceased all projects including laundry, meals and daily house keeping. But I was so pissed I didn't blog because I didn't want to bad mouth my husband... at least that publicly. So I just got engrossed into TV shows. He apologised a few days later. And so did I. Even though his logic made sense - it's just hard for me to stay in one room for a while. Anyway the majorly lived in and FINISHED portions of the house have newly cleaned and painted walls, ceiling, borders, window sills, windows and such. It feels pretty good. I also finished a blanket top.

When April arrived we had the girls b-days and found out that Joe's interviews had been pushed back to May. Fine but now I have the outside to weed. Joe made the mistake of saying the since I wanted a garden the yard should be my and only mine responsibility and that all he had to do around the house was mow and occasionally vacuum. HA! so we had a long battle of the wills on who could go the longest and ignore the weed growth. Needless to say I won - but gave in and helped. Until the backyard came up and then I did the majority. Ah well. It looks beautiful.

Boy! For a recap this is pretty long!

Anyway, Joe's interviews were again postponed and looks like they will happen sometime in October. Along with all birthday's celebrated but Myschiefs' (yes we DO celebrate dogs b-days at our house) Joe and I celebrated our 8 yr. anniversary, Tristin "graduated" Kindergarten and Keriana "graduated" pre-school. We had school fields trips, vacations, new hair styles, baseball games, lots of books read as well as the day to day cleaning, laundry and health hurtles.

I'd like to end with......
CURSE YOU HERSHEY'S PEANUT BUTTER EGGS!!!!!!!
Easter came and went along with my diet and weight loss. I can't help myself when I pass those cursed eggs! I need to find a good hypnotist because my will is lost when those things hit the shelves. And once you get started on the chocolate..... there's no turning back! ARGH!

I will leave you now with this picture I have taken sitting on my new patio set! YEA ME! Every new post will be of my - our - adventures over the past few months. Again sorry! I will try to do better at posting!

Poor Woman's Valentine's

Thank you all for your well wishes. Sorry I have been gone all weekend but when your sick it's hard to be creative. Joe surprised and TOTALLY FLOORED me when he announced Sunday that he had taken the day off for me to get better. And I slept pretty much the whole day. I am doing much better today. I even had the DRIVE to sanitize my house! And that is what I did. Swiffered floors, scrubbed and cleansed bathrooms, wiped down walls with Clorox wipes and did all bedding and sprayed them with Lysol. And I hate the smell of Lysol... but desperate times call for DESPERATE measures! Hopefully with all the antibiotics and disinfectant we will be better for all the birthday's coming up. Valentines and 4 b-days in one week! Wheew.

After spending 5 hours wiping down my house I was in the mood for some creativity and since our funds are small this year I decided to make crafts with the kids.

We used construction paper, glitter, glue and pens.

Then we used tape and thread and hung some of the hearts from the ceiling. We made a 'Hallway of Love'....

We had tons of fun and talked and laughed.... It should be interesting to see Joe's face when he gets home from work!

(Addition- Joe thought it was cute and that we did a good job.)

And I just have to share this with you too....

I found out where the new Star Wars Rebel base is today.....

Happy Monday!

Fun Friday

Needless to say, still being sick and dealing with a sick child, I am not feeling the "fun" vibe today. So I thought that I would 'catch-up' with awards and /or challenges that I have been sirking from other sites/people.

Jenjen at Tatertots and Jello gave me this the other day....

The award states: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

Still being new to blogging I don't really have 8 but I will try...

Amanda at Keeping up with the Jones

Sarah at Clover Lane
Carrie at Carrie's Little World

Jen at Adventure's in Mommyland

Crissy at Come Ye Ladds and Lasses

This is a game:

Picture Fun-

1. I choose the 4th folder where I store my pictures on the computer. 2. Select the 4th picture in the folder. 3. Explain the picture. 4. Tag 4 people to do the same. 5. No cheating (cropping, editing, etc.)

This was taken in California at an event called "The Pumpkin Walk". This was during set-up but I have no idea why I took it. OOOOooooo really exciting I know. Now for the 4 people to tag...

Chrissy at Come Ye Ladds and Lasses

Amy at The Jensen Trio

Amanda at Keepin' Up with the Jones

Sarah at Clover Lane

To Share a Laugh:

Joe and I were watching a rerun of AFV and Joe got this idea for kid torture. Put whipcream on the kids belly and let the dog lick it off. The only trusting child we have left is Keriana. ... Who found it hillarious. ...... And Myschief liked it too!

Have a great Friday! I am going to do a giveaway soon so check back!

-Jamie

Thoughtful Thrusday

The Play Area...
BEFORE










AFTER:



I went to Target and bought these bins to go in the shelves. And on them I painted likenesses to the toys they had the most of and then their names for any toys that didn't go with the other bin names. Hopefully this will help with the organization issues.




After all this cleaning up of my house, it has really started me thinking about "things". And why we have so much or think we have to have so much. I got rid of so much stuff! But why was I so attached to some of it that I couldn't get rid of it before? And why am I still holding on to baby clothes that the kids will never wear again? I tell my self it's for memories. But who's going to remember? Who's going to care about my report card from 4th grade with all my A's or my dog's baby teeth (yes I have their baby teeth! Who doesn't save baby teeth?) The tooth fairy has left me all my kids baby teeth, why not keep the dogs too? Their my kids!
How many shoes do we really need? OK so this is not my soft spot but I know it is for some...
Who's going to care that I went to see Raider's of the Lost Arc in the Movie theater? Yes, I did actually part with this and other ticket stubs. Some I actually wrote who I went to see the movie with...
I finally parted with my "Slam Books" from my middle school years. HELLOOOO!!! I paid to MOVE those suckers. And why? ??? I have no idea. Do you remember "Slam Books"?

What are you keeping that doesn't make sense to anyone else??

P.S. My Daughters class has started a program on feelings. They are bring home papers called "Putting a drop in someone's Bucket". They write about something they like about another person. I decided that we all need more of that! Whether it's getting or giving. So I had added - on my side bar- "Putting a BEE in someone's Blog". As I am searching the blogging world for new friends and fun things I will share with you what I find. And I hope you will stop in and visit them! Let's make this world a smaller, friendlier, happier place!