14 Years Ago Today

14 years ago today (May 27, 1994) I met Tim after being "pen pals" for 2 months. That is one of the happiest days of my life! A couple of months earlier my Aunt Marge (Who is my Mom's friend, not an actual aunt) told me about her nephew, Tim. She said I needed a good guy like him. She said he was sweet and kind. I asked to see a picture of him and when she showed me one I asked her for his address so I could write to him. We wrote letters back and forth for about 2 months getting to know eachother a little bit. Well I found out that he was going to be at Aunt Marge's house for Memorial Day weekend and I decided to go there and surprise him. I didn't know it, but later found out that his Mom had told him I was going to be there. Anyway, on May 27th I had been laying out in the sun. I had greasy suntan oil on me and felt like I didn't look very pretty. I wasn't planning on him coming on that day, but since he'd found out I was there, he decided to come early. When he came I was so upset, because I didn't have anytime to clean up, put my makeup on, fix my hair, I just wasn't ready. He came in and Aunt Marge introduced us. I thought he was so good looking and cool and he seemed really confident. I didn't think he would like me and he didn't really talk to me at first. I found out later that it was because he was shy. My Aunt sent us on an errand to buy something she "needed". I think she knew we needed a chance to talk. We hit it off right away and we were both head over heels for eachother. :) We talked all day and all night. The next day he took me to Walmart and bought me a fishing license and a pretty little ring with a heart on it in black hills gold. So our first date was going fishing. :) I'm so thankful that we both "caught a keeper" that weekend! That very weekend we talked about our future and getting married. 2 years later on April 27th we did just that! I thank God for bringing Tim into my life and the way He has blessed our marriage and life together! 14 years ago today, was definitely one of the happiest days of my life! Here are some pictures of us early in our relationship.

Lilacs

The lilacs are in full bloom and they smell so good! I think they are my 2nd favorite flower to smell. (Lily of the valley is my favorite)

Emily and Flowers

I took Ben and Emily outside for a while yesterday. Here are a few pictures I took of Emily.

Silly Kids and their Hair

Here is Emily with curlers in her hair. I was trying to teach her a lesson in being patient which is the virtue of the month at Church. She was not patient enough though for the curls to take effect. She was cute with the curlers in though. :)

Here is Benjamin with his blue mohawk.

Ben is sucking his left thumb, while his right hand is playing with a single strand of hair that he likes to stick in his ear. We have no idea why he does this, but he has been doing it for a couple of years now. Sometimes he will hide a hairbrush in his room so he has hair available to him when he wants it. :) Silly Boy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Today is my Dad's Birthday. Here is a picture of him when he was an adorable little boy.

Here he is dancing with me at my wedding 12 years ago.
Here is a recent picture of him.
Today I made him his favorite cake, pineapple upside down cake. We had him and my Mom over tonight for cake and coffee.

Happy Birthday Dad! I love you so much! :)

CHICKS

Recently Tim got 9 baby chicks. There are 5 of 1 kind and 4 of another. I forget what kind they are. We are getting about 15 more in another week. I think most of them are leghorns. Yesterday Tim brought home 35 pheasant chicks! I think they are so cute. It's fun watching them. They get sleepy and start bobbing there heads around like little sleepy kids do. I'm posting pictures of the baby chickens, the baby pheasants, and our neighbor's chicken which I think is really pretty. I don't know what kind it is though.

Clara is 10 now!

Clara's birthday was on Sunday. She is 10 years old now! We had a birthday party for her at 4pm on Sunday. Her best friend, Sheyanne came over. Grandma and Grandpa came over along with Tricia and Bum (her husband), and Shawn and Tracy and their family. We had lots of food to eat. We had hotdogs, chili, potato salad, and doritos. She picked out a "Littlest Pet Shop" cake from Walmart. It was chocolate. After we ate and she blew out her candles, we played "Rock Band". That was fun. It's always fun especially watching people play that haven't played before. By 8:30pm, everyone had gone home. I think Clara had a good time. She got lots of neat presents too.

Friday May 16, 2008

This morning is starting off bright and sunny. I get up at 5:45am to get the girls up for school because their bus comes at 6:15am. Lately, it's been already getting light out when I get up then! I'm kind of glad though, because when it's light like this I stay up instead of going back to bed. I can get a lot done in 2 hours in the morning as long as Ben and Em are still sleeping. This morning Emily went into my bedroom and went back to sleep. She looks so snuggly in there, that it was very tempting to cuddle in there with her. As soon as the girls got on the bus though, my precious Benny woke up, and was not about to go back to sleep. :) He's being very happy this morning though, which is good because he's usually grumpy in the morning. Yesterday I bought him a bag of green army men and he's playing with those this morning.

Yesterday was a busy day. Clara stayed home in the morning because she couldn't breathe well and was wheezy. She has allergies and asthma, but we were out of medicine. I took her to school around 10:30 because she was feeling better. Ben, Emily, and I went shopping then so we could get Clara an inhaler and some medicine. We got home around 3:00 and took Clara her meds because she had running practice at school. We came home and I did a little bit of cleaning before I made dinner. As soon as we finished dinner we had to take Clara to softball practice. We dropped her off and then Allison, the twins and I went and visited with my parents for a few minutes and then my sister in law, Kim, for a while.

Tim had a checkup at U of M yesterday. I usually go with him, but didn't this time. His Uncle Tom rode along with him though. Tim said that he did well and the Dr. said there were more little improvements. For the past year and a half, whenever he goes in for his 3 month checkup, there has been little improvements. We are so happy because they say that what he has (lung disease and pulmonary fibrosis caused by rheumatoid arthritis in his lungs) cannot get better, yet he keeps improving. God is so AWESOME! We know that HE can do anything, even if it's curing an incurable disease. :)

Tonight is the school carnival at Clara's school. The kids always love going to that. They have lots of fun, little, simple games, with little prizes, but to the kids, they are just the best things. :) This year they are also having some inflatable things outside like a bounce house. They have a raffle too and give away a lot of good prizes.

Well, that's it for now. The day is just starting, and it's Friday! YAY! It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day!

Pictures of Mom and Dad

Here are some recent pictures of my Mom and Dad. I thought some of my family and friends would like to see them.

Preschool Roundup

Today I took Ben and Emily to school for preschool roundup. They loved it! They met their teacher and she is very nice. They had vision and hearing tests and did well on those. Emily was so excited because there are dress up clothes in the classroom. She put on the tutu, fairy wings, and pink slippers. Ben was excited about the toys there too. They both didn't want to leave. I'm really glad that they were so excited today. I just hope they will be that excited in the Fall. :)

Wild Things

Tim has Monday's off now. He's been working 4 ten hour days and then has a 3-day weekend. It's really nice.

Today Tim and I and the twins took a ride out back on our neighbors property. Tim drove the lawn mower tractor and he pulled me and the kids on a trailer. We got a bunch of wild leeks back there. The kids like to eat them and think it's pretty cool to just find stuff like that.

Yesterday we went mushroom hunting for morel mushrooms. Allison and Clara each found 4 and I found 1. My Dad gave us the ones that he found too. In the picture, the mushrooms are cut in half already. We will probably eat them tonight for dinner.

I rode my motorcycle more today in the backyard. I'm getting the hang of taking off now. I still just kept it in first gear though.

Motorcycle Mama

Here is my new motorcycle. It's a Honda Rebel. I don't actually know how to drive it yet, but am planning to learn. I'm kind of nervous about it, but I will be careful. I think it will be fun, once I get the hang of it.

Pictures of Our Family

Here are a couple of pictures of our family and one older picture of just the kids last summer.

A Lot of Info About Me & Things I Love

I'm 31 years old. I'm a very happy and positive person most of the time. I love my life as a Wife and Stay-at-Home Mommy! My husband Tim and I have been married for 12 years and we say that is a good start as we know we will be together for the rest of our lives. I loved being pregnant for all of my children! Allison is our oldest daughter. She is 11 1/2 years old. Our second daughter is Clara Jo and she's 10 years old (well in a week she will be). I have always wanted a big family. When Clara started school, I talked Tim into letting us have "just one more". I wanted more than one and I knew there was only one way to get that. I prayed really hard and asked God to give me twins...And he did!!! Benjamin and Emily are our 3rd and 4th children. They just recently turned 4 years old. They will start preschool next year. This time though, there will be no new babies in the plans. I finally feel content at the size of our family. Most of the time I really enjoy the kids, but there are definitely times where I get overwhelmed and feel so challenged. I know that in the end the results will be worth all of it.

When I was younger, still in school, I loved to write poetry. I've also always kept a diary or journal since I was probably about 8 years old. I enjoy writing old-fashioned, hand written letters to my friends and loved ones. I think they are so appreciated these days. I want people to know that they are worth the effort because they are! I have not written poetry much at all in the past 10 years. At one point I had lost all of the poems I'd ever written and I think it broke my heart so much to lose that, that I didn't want to put my time into writing again. Then, a couple of years ago, my Mom found all of those poems in her basement. I was so happy and felt like a part of me had been restored. Now I just don't have very much time to myself to spend on writing poetry. I hope to get back to it someday.

I love listening to music and singing along to the radio. I've been into all different kinds of music in my life. When I was really young, I listened to country music because that's what my parents listened to. When I was 11 or 12 I started listening to pop like Whitney Houston, Debbie Gibson, Madonna, and Tiffany. I joined some of my friends in a little singing group during recess that we called "The Jams". In Highschool I liked country like Garth Brooks, Randy Travis, and Reba McIntire for a while, then I guess I went to "alternative"? music for a while like Weezer (was my favorite) and Green Day. Then I got into Country again and when Tim and I were first married I listened to/watched MTV all the time. Now I love Contemporary Christian music. I very rarely listen to anything else. I love songs that praise and worship God. God has blessed me so much in my life and forgiven me for so many things. I just want to sing to Him and express my love for him in that way. I'm not a very good singer, but I love to sing and I like to sing loudly. I have fun singing and dancing with my kids. I love singing at church and I can sing loud there because there are plenty of other voices to cover mine. My heart is filled with so much joy that I feel it will burst sometimes when I sing to God. Outwardly I don't express this as much as others do, but inside I'm dancing and shining with happiness!

I love reading my Bible! I have the NIV version and it's very easy for me to read and understand. There are parts of the Bible that I still have a hard time reading, but I still read those parts and enjoy most of it. I love holding my Bible and knowing that it is the Word of God and that everything He wants me to know is in there. It makes me so happy to read about the salvation God offers us through Jesus. I'm happy that I've received it. I love going to Church and learning more. We have so many wonderful friends at church that are just like family to us. I love teaching at Church and in AWANA!

I love spending time with my whole family. We like to play board games like "Balderdash", "Outburst", "Apples to Apples", and "Cranium" brand games. I like it when we have family get togethers. We are all very social and it's fun visiting with everyone and eating good food. We laugh a lot when we are all together!

My favorite color is blue. I like sky blue, navy blue, light blue, and dark blue. I like blue skies, blue lakes, rivers, and streams, and bluebirds. I wear blue eyeshadow almost exclusively. I love finding blue sea glass on the beach. I have blue dishes. My favorite color is blue.

I like to eat flavorful food. I like Middle Eastern food the best and also enjoy Mexican and Chinese food. I have not tried Thai yet and I would really like to try Ethiopian food. I like tropical fruits like pineapples, bananas, and coconuts. I like asparagus, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. I love to grill food, especially shish kabobs. My favorite drink is coffee. I take mine with cream and sugar and prefer it with flavored creamer. I also like iced tea, sweetened of course.

I like watching lots of kinds of movies. I like watching the kind that make you cry, in a good way. I like funny movies and scary movies. I like action movies and some westerns. Some of my favorite movies are: "The Village", "Evan Almighty", "Dan in Real Life", "How to Make an American Quilt", "Steel Magnolias", "The Prestige", "Dream a Little Dream", "Lonesome Dove", "IT", "What Lies Beneath", "The Others", "Rocky I-V", "The Long Kiss Goodnight", and the entire "Little House on the Prarie" set.

I like to go fishing, but rarely get to go. I like to hunt, but have never gotten anything YET besides a squirrel and a rabbit. I like golfing, but have only gone once. I like playing softball and volleyball, but I'm not that good at either of them. I like swimming (well at least playing in the water, not athletic swimming). I like going for walks, picking wildflowers, hunting for wild morel mushrooms, looking at nature and all of it's beauty. I am getting a motorcycle soon. It's a Honda Rebel. I'm excited but nervous about learning to ride it. We have a mini bike that I like to ride.

I like taking pictures. I like to take pictures of people and nature mostly. I have tons of pictures that I've taken my whole life. I hope someday to get them all organized.

I like to read, but besides the Bible, I don't take time often to read. I have read all of the "Little House on the Prairie" books. I read one or two Stephen King books, but while I like the suspense in them, I find myself very offended by the bad language and such, so I don't read them any more. I recently read "The Secret Lives of Bees" which was ok. Mostly it made me want to start a honey farm and raise bees. I like to read biographies because I love learning about people and who they really are. I was amazed when I read Helen Keller's "The Story of my Life". I think I hadn't realized that she was both blind and deaf! I am amazed that she and others like her are able to learn to understand people. It was very inspiring to read her story.

On TV I like to watch PBS a lot. I liked the recent show called "Carrier" about a Navy Carrier ship. I like to watch documentaries on PBS because I love learning about different people, places, and animals. I liked watching the show "Heroes" when it was on, although it was getting a little too gory at the end. I like watching "E.R."

Well, I'm going to close for now because I need to tend to the house and the kids. It's getting a little crazy around here. It IS Friday though, so we are all very happy around here. I hope anyone reading this will have a great weekend!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms!