It's a Bon Voyage Giveaway!

Remember that plan I had mapped out for this week? Didn't happen. Not even close.

We've had a snow day thrown in this week and it's snowing again right now. Blah!

I haven't packed the.first.thing for the trip yet. I have the kids stuff almost done, but our stuff looks like this...

The suitcase is still empty...
And this is what my living room looks like right now. I have two extra kids for a couple more hours. Their dad is a couple hours away yet, so they will be here a little longer than usual. Eric is teaching tonight, so it was McDonald's for supper.
And no, we don't usually eat supper in the living room, but our table isn't big enough for all of them!

Now on to the fun stuff.
This will probably be my last post before we leave. I wanted to do something fun for you all while I was gone, so here is what I came up with:

I am going to bring something back for one of you! I don't know what yet, but something. I had a thought the other night about something, but I just don't know. Hmmm....

Anyway, here are the facts about this little giveaway.

1. I am going to be gone for 9 days.

2. I have anywhere from 15-30 blogs that I subscribe to.

3. I will check my bloglines account for the last time on Friday night (Feb 22) before midnight, so the count will begin after that.

4. Here's what you need to do: Try to guess how many posts that I will have to catch up on when I log in on Monday, March 3, after 8:00am Eastern time. The person closest to that number will win something from one of the ports that we are going to! It won't be cheesy or anything, I will find something nice. There is also a CD that I want to give away too, if I can find the one I want.

5. You can leave your guess in the comments anytime from now until Sunday, March 2. Don't forget to take into account the Monday morning posts on the 3rd.

Have fun with it!

Bon Voyage!

Love and Hugs~

A Sweet Moment

I have fun little story to tell you.

Ben was eating a sucker this afternoon while we were watching something on the computer. We were watching an online church service that one of my friends had told me about. The preacher asked this question, " What do you want to be, what do you want to do with your life?", or something close to that. Ben pipes up and says, "I want to love my mommy!" (melted this mommy's heart). Anyway, I said, "Come here and give me a kiss."

Well ,apparently he was in the process of taking a lick of his sucker because... he turned his head and licked my chin!
The look on his face was priceless. He really didn't intend to do that. It was so funny! I put him on my lap and he just hugged me while we laughed together. I could tell he was a little embarrassed by it. I didn't want him to feel that way because I really didn't mind.

He's my baby boy...whose going to be six soon.

One busy week

As you can imagine, I have my whole week planned. I have each day mapped out so that when Friday comes around, I won't be running around like a crazy woman.

Today's agenda goes something like this: laundry (all day) and a meeting at the school at 8:30 this morning. That meeting lasted 1 1/2 hours, which wasn't in my plans! Quiet time is a must and then I have to pick up the kids plus 2 extra, give them a snack and then take Sarah to piano, go get Ethan from basketball and take him to piano and then go pick them up from piano. Whew, that wore me out just typing it.
We are taking the kids to use the last of their Chuck E. Cheese money that they got for Christmas. The closest one is a 1/2 hour away, so I'll get to sit for a little bit! This is the only night we have to do something with them before we leave. Tomorrow is church, Thursday Eric teaches and Friday we will be dropping all their stuff off at their respective "homes for the week".

I'm not complaining though. I love to be busy... I'm a mom, it's my job! :)

Take a look at this picture...

What is that, you ask? That is peanut butter that is on top of bubble gum that somehow got in my load of whites. Socks and underwear, mainly. Oh, and my white sweats. Remember this incident? Yeah, those white sweats. The ones that are officially pajama pants now. Dern.

And then there was this story that I can't believe I forgot to tell you. This one happened on the way home from this. We stopped at Panara Bread for lunch and I had to use the facilities. I walked back out, sat down and ate the rest of my lunch. We got up to leave, I looked down and saw this...

And do you know that I COULD NOT get that stupid TP off of my shoe! I had to rub my foot in the snow outside to get it off because I wasn't about to pull it off with my fingers.

Oh, no ma'am!

The memories...

Have a delightful afternoon!

7 reasons why Staci has picked out her last cake

We celebrated the birthday's of two of our nephews today. Staci, Eric's sister, is not allowed to pick out the cake ever again! Yes, her son was one of the boys celebrating a birthday, but we don't care! No more cakes from Staci!

And here's why...

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5 - Staci's husband

#6

She's pretty cute without all that blue!

And finally #7...

There is none like You...

I have been thinking today about how I need to prepare my heart for our trip next week. We are going to be cruising with so many wonderful Christian artist and I am just sure that God is going to use them to reach my heart in some way. Like this song says, no one else can touch our hearts like Jesus can.
I am excited about the whole week. It will be so much fun to get away and meet new people, but I am looking forward to the time that will be spent praising Jesus.

This song also makes me think of the bloggers that were in Uganda this past week. I have been reading so many of their blogs. We have it pretty good here, we have been blessed beyond measure.
I'm sure many of you have seen this picture. I cried when I saw it because I know that if it were me, I would have wanted to pack that little girl up and bring her home with me! I'm sure it was hard for Sophie to leave her that day.

I have been singing this song all day long. I just love it. I'm sure most of you know it...


Happy Sunday!

A Little ValentinesTreat

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my bloggy frineds!

Enjoy this little look into the past.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanks to Linda, I had this awesome cookie recipe that I used on Wednesday to make Valentine's Day cookies with the kids. We really did have a great time rolling out the dough. Ben had flour, or powder (in his words), all down the front of him. Sarah and Alanna had fun learning how to cut out the cookies.
Ethan was at basketball practice and Kenny could have cared less about baking! Kenny and Alanna come to our house three days a week, after school. They are two of the best kids ever.
All of the kids took turns rolling out the dough.
I just thought that this was a really sweet, fun picture. They all worked together so well.
Here's the finished product. They look amazingly like the ones on Linda's blog.
This was Sarah's favorite one. She wanted me to mark it so that nobody else would eat it.
Tomorrow I have three parties to do at the school. This is the last one for the year and the last one for Ethan. He will be in middle school next year and that's a whole nother issue all together!

I don't know what to put here!

It's Tuesday night and I am watching AI. I will be watching House in an hour. Someone please remind me to record it for my husband. He is at a Purdue basketball game with one of his lifelong friends. They went to school together from K-12 and roomed together for a year at Purdue. He called my hubby last night to see if he wanted to go, so he did. I was glad that he did because he lets me go all the time and he needs a "guys" night.

I asked him if he was going on a "Man-Date". He said "NO" and I said can I blog that? He said "NO" and so I guess I need to work on the submission thing! ;)

My 10 year old son just told me that the kids in his class were voting on a game to play at their party on Thursday and do you know what two of the suggestions were? Texas Hold-em and Poker. These are 5th graders. I didn't even know what poker was in 5th grade! What happened to Heads-Up 7-Up and Bingo and Hot Potato?
I think they decided on a secret valentine game. He isn't too happy with that, he would rather go to the gym and play basketball. That's my boy! He still thinks girls have cooties. That's just fine with this mom.

Amanda, the motorcycle nurse, is from a town about 30 minutes from here. She's singing on AI right now. She might have to be one of my favorites.

I have been waiting for, like, ever for my BFF Tasha to write a post on her blog about the baby, but she hasn't. SOOOO, I'm going to tell you that she is expecting a girl in May. A few weeks ago, she asked me if I would like to come to the ultrasound when they would find out what they were having. I felt so honored to be a part of that special time! I got all teary-eyed when that little bundle popped up on that screen. What a beautiful gift.

Here is Big Sister Maggie with her mommy....

Well, that's all I've got right now. I think I'm going to bake something tomorrow, maybe cookies. Ben brought home a paper today where he had to mark whether something was fact or fiction. The very first sentence was this:

Mommy can bake cookies.

Thankfully, he marked it fact. Honestly, it could have gone either way!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

I haven't done a Tiny Talk Tuesday for awhile now. I couldn't pass it up this week though. Here is a snippet of a conversation that Eric and Ben had in the van the other night...



Ben (5): We didn't have no phonics today.

Eric: (after much laughter)How about English, did you have that?



I know that's short and sweet, but it's all I've I got this week! Head on over to Mary's @ Not Before 7 to read more TTT!

My Kitchen... The Finale

Well, here I am. For a day that started out on the grumpy side, the ending hasn't been too terrible. It didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to adjust the 'tude and the afternoon has been pretty good. I got so much done today. I went to Curves, cleaned the house, did at least 342 loads of laundry and my QT. Tonight I had to go to a meeting and now I am getting ready to put the kids to bed.


They aren't tired though. They never are.



Anyway, look what my BFF Tasha brought to me tonight...

This has turned into a bit of a tradition for us. For every holiday, either she will buy a cute towel for me (she buys herself a matching one) or I will buy one for her. Either way, we have matching dishtowels for all the holidays. It's so much fun!! LYMI Tasha!



So, don't get too excited, but here is the kitchen. This is a two bedroom house with 5 people in it, so every space is used. It seems like it's missing something...maybe the best border ever? Oh well, I'm not leaving it. See that dog? Did you know that if you have a medium size dog that lives 11 years you will have spent 16,400.00 taking care of it (on average) Does anyone want a dog? kidding...

Here is a close up of the garland on top of the cupboards. Love this.
More stars...

The Kitchen, part 2

(Before you get started, I will tell you that this is a very random post and I didn't spellcheck it, so, sorry!)

Here's an update on the kitchen. We worked all day yesterday and it's still isn't done. I am going to get it all put back together today...hopefullly!
I should say that we know that we won't be in this house forever, so I made a few changes on what I had orginally planned. This is so sad, but I bought all of this stuff to do the kitchen ... 2 years ago!

I know. Procrastination at it's best.

I had bought some border, but I have decided that I don't want to leave it here. It could help or hinder a sale, and I just love it, so it's going with me...wherever. I'll use it in the house that we know we'll be at for awhile.

I have to cook for an international dinner at church tonight. I have to make a mexican dish, so I am making Keith Moore's (Beth's hubby) King Ranch Chicken. It is so good. It might be more Tex-Mex, but it's close enough for me!

Last night we were coming home from the in-law's and we were forced to the side of the road by the nightly 10pm police run down our street. Every night around 10 the police cars go speeding down the street with their lights on. We never know what that is all about, so last night we followed them. Guess where they ended up?

The local Wal-Mart....all 6 of them. One at each entrance and 4 inside. What? Who knows.

Here are the kitchen pics, so far.

Have I told you how much of a brat my hubs is? The other night we went suit shopping. He needs one for the cruise. He has not had one since he graduated from college and needed to find a job. He hates them with a passion. The suits, not the job. :)

Well, we went to Penny's and can you believe there was a suit on the 75% off rack that was just his size? I couldn't believe it, how cool. Anyway, I had him try it on and do you know what he did? He came walking out with the jacket tucked in the pants! He complained the whole time, the WHOLE TIME. "Why do I have to wear a suit on vacation? I don't get that. It's vacation." Men.

I would rather take my 7 year old daughter shopping! :) He is such a pain...or goofball maybe, but I love him and wouldn't trade him for anything. He took this picture. Can you feel the love?

I love my new stars! Actually 2 yr old stars, but they've been in a box at my mom's.
I love my wallpaper! (see above, ha!)
I love, love, love this border. It's not going up, it's staying with me! It would have really made the kitchen grand though!

There will be more when I am all finished.

Have a great weekend!

Fun Friday...Visiting Retroville

After the kids went to bed last night, Eric and I sat down to watch some T.V. Of course, there was nothing on, so Eric decided to watch the IU basketball game...booorrrriiinnnggg! I love football, basketball not so much.

While he was watching, I thought it would be fun to get on YouTube and find the theme songs for some of the shows I used to watch. We had so much fun doing this. I would find a song and he would try to guess what it was. Some of them were pretty easy, some were not.
Oh well, it kept us occupied until Scrubs came on, so it was worth it! We are easily entertained around here.

Here are a few of the shows that I miss. Children's programming at it's best!

Workin' 9 to 5...or 8:30 to 2:30

I think I might need to count from ten to one. The daughter has plucked on my very last nerve this afternoon. The sass, the attitude and the tears...oh, the tears. She can turn them on so fast.

Manipulation, it's not going to work.


Okay, now that I have that out of my system, I will go on.

First of all, thank you all so much for the wonderful comments that you left on my blog yesterday. I appreciated all of them!

I started in on the kitchen today. I cleaned and moved things out so that Nancy and I could start the painting of the walls tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. The work that I don't like, I had to do today! It took me all day, but it's ready to go. All it takes is getting the Christian radio station going and everything goes so much better. Take a look....

For some reason, I am a little tired tonight. I decided not to take pictures of all the nastiness that was behind the stove and fridge, and on top of the cabinets. It was so gross! I'm glad I took my allergy medicine this morning because there were some dust bunnies that could have eaten the dog...

...you think I'm joking, they were talking to each other. ;)

We Did This Together, He and I

Well, here it is. The post that I have been waiting to do. I seriously cannot believe my eyes when I look at these pictures. With much prayer and work, WE finally did it. It's still a daily decision and it probably always will be, but making healthy choices has become more and more of a habit to me. I have found that it is getting easier to say "no" to the junk. Don't get me wrong, I still give in sometimes, but not as often as I used to.

A girl has got to have her chocolate!

Since this time last year I have shed.....55 lbs! Wow, I just can't believe it.

I am 75 lbs smaller than I was 5 years ago.

I will take you on a short journey through the last 5 or so years of me.


This was taken right before I found out I was expecting Ben. This was the biggest that I had ever been.

This was the Christmas of 2003.

This one was taken in the summer of 2006

This was Christmas of 2006. This was right before I had decided, once again ,to lose the weight.

This picture was taken at Gulf Shores this summer. This was the last picture taken of me before I finally said, " Okay God, I can't do this on my own. I need your help here."
By the way, I don't know what was up with the blonde hair. That was all from the Alabama sun!

Drumroll please........

Here I am today, literally. I went to Curves yesterday and got weighed and measured. I am within 6 lbs of my initial goal. I am very happy with where I am now though.

One more look at where I was...
So there you have it.