At the Park

After school on Thursday, I met Dana and her boys at a nearby park with a playground. She wanted to get a good picture of her boys, I hope she was able to get it.

Mason wanted to throw rocks into the lake. He is so fascinated with the water. Austin and Ashley on the otherhand really just wanted to play on the playset. We had to take turns b/c the lake and the playset were too far from each other for me to watch both.

Austin and Braxton didn't want to get dirty, so they stayed at the playset, while Mason, Dalton and Ashley made it to the little creek. It was VERY muddy. I'm glad in a way that I had my CROCS on so I could wash them off easily, however when that mud oozed in through the holes and around my toes it was pretty nasty!

Mason and Ashley found sticks and pretended to fish.

And as you can see little Dalton fell in the mud. He actually fell in the mud about 3x! He is such a boy! He is so cute! He enjoyed it, didn't mind being muddy at all.

The Hermitage

On Wednesday we went to The Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) with my friend Jill and her daughter Izabelle. I had never been there before, I really enjoyed it (Especially the wagon ride). I learned quite a bit. I learned Andrew Jackson was good to his slaves unless they disobeyed and then he was quite strict with them. I learned about his faithful servant, Alfred. What is really neat about him is that he lived on the property and stayed on as a tour guide after the home was made into a "museum". This is where he lived.

We took a wagon ride tour. Austin, Ashley and Izabelle got to sit up front since there was no more room in the wagon. Mason was a little disappointed in having to sit in my lap, but he didn't complain. I learned something very interesting about horses. Did you know they go through cycles like women do? The horses that were pulling us had PMS. I asked if they tend to get PMS at the same time like women living together do. And she said, "yes, plus these two are sisters." Anyway, they were a little grumpy and knocked one of the tour guides down earlier in the day. The owner of the horses was also our tour guide and she kept them in line well.

These are 2 of the slave houses. They had about a 20'x20' room per family dwelling. Many of them had five and sometimes as many as ten children living in that small area.

Then we toured the mansion. It was really incredible seeing everything. But it was hard on the children. (my children that is) They were being so good, but we were told not to touch anything or talk loud. That was quite a task for 3 four year olds. They were happy to get out of the house and I was too. I know that my children made some of the tour guides nervous, even though they were being very well behaved.

Then we walked through the gardens and saw the little graveyard where General Jackson, his wife and family members had been buried. This big gazebo looking grave is where the president and his wife were buried.

The kids were quite hungry and tired, so it was time to take them to eat. They had ran and ran all over the grounds laughing and exploring. As we were leaving, Austin said, "I never want to come back to this place again.".

Look at his face. Does that face look like he didn't enjoy himself? He's doing a little happy dance on the cellar door.

I'm glad we went!

Purity Tour

OH my it's been awhile! And I have lots to say...I will probably break this up into 4 posts.

Monday we took a tour of the Purity Dairy Plant with our local Moms group. I have to say I was slightly disappointed. I thought it would be touring the whole plant and seeing how the machines work, but it wasn't. They said they used to do that, but since 9/11 they had to stop for security purposes. So our tour consisted of going in a room watching a small "funny" movie, opening the curtains to see the workers packaging the ice cream bars and then into another room to eat some free ice cream. The kids asked if they could come back again sometime, so they must have enjoyed it. Check out the boys milking the cow:

Ummm...Saturday Stuff

I don't know why I feel the need to blog, when I am so extremely tired! I just dazed at the computer screen waiting for my blog to come up...after a few minutes I realized that I hadn't even signed in.

I believe the sale went well. So much for my goal of $50 or less. HA! The good news is that I did spend less than I made. I don't know exactly how much I made yet, but the first day's totals were posted. I made $150.00, and I spent $141.25. Oh and then today's little purchase of $6.50. So a total of $147.75. I did get a lot of good clothes for the kids. I don't think I even need to buy anything else for Spring or Summer. So for an entire 1/2 year of clothes for 3 kids, I think I didn't do too bad. I'll probably have to buy new shoes at some point (since the sizing is too hard for me to predict.)

We had to take Ashley to the doctor today. She has swimmer's ear (apparantly that is an ear infection outside the ear canal). This is the 3rd weekend in a row visiting the doctors office. I really would like it to stop now.

Oh by the way...Does anyone know how to get ink off a child's face that doesn't come off with just soap and water? I'm going to try rubbing alcohol tomorrow. I really hope I can get it off before church.

While Mom works...

(very hard on the consignment sale) the kids play!

This is what happens when Mom is not right on them every minute of the day.

There is a trail of Peanut Butter Crackers (I'm not sure if you can see that).

Just about every toy bin tipped over.

And you can see 2 of the suspects up on the roof of the little house. They have been jumping off of it and sliding off of it.

And then this is what Mason did to his sister. She came in saying Look Mommy do you think I look beautiful?

And here is the culprit:

OK then it's time for me to get out the door and make some money.

OH by the way: I'm doing the HAPPY Dance! Tammy from Scrapin' Memories just called. I WON the $50 gift certificate!!!!! Thank you friends who put my name in!!! Can't wait to get over there on Sunday afternoon.

1.Stupid 2. Sale 3. Prayers

Austin has been saying the word "stupid" alot! I tried to explain to him that 1st we NEVER call a person stupid. And 2nd that it is just an ugly word and we should try not to use it. Well today he was using it quite a bit. Everytime I heard him I would say, "Austin please don't use that word." And he would say, "Oh sorry Mom." Well it kept happening and I finally said, "Austin you have got to get that word out of your vocabulary." So then I hear him using it 2 or 3 times in a sentence over and over again. I said, "AUSTIN! STOP USING THAT WORD!" And he said, "I was just trying to get all the stupids out of me."

What am I going to do with him?
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So all you locals...POTATO (parents of Twins and Triplet organization) is having their consignment sale tomorrow at McGavock Middle School. It is open to the public at
8:00-11:30 and 1/2 price shopping from 12:00 to 2:00.

Please come and buy my stuff. I'm number 44 and my stuff is priced to sell! Most of my stuff is marked $3 or less.

My goal is to NOT buy anything! Now that is going to be hard! The kids actually need a few things...maybe I should make a goal of not spending more than $50. But I really want to make enough money for us to go to Disney one day while we are in Florida in a few weeks.
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Also I have 3 friends who need lots of prayers right now. One is going through a really nasty and abusive divorce and trying to sell their house, one is having major health issues and one is very financially stressed. Would you please say a little prayer for them right now? Thank you!

Just Get it OUT of my house!

Just a quick update to tell you I'm doing much better...just a few lingering headaches.

I have a consignment sale to get ready for on Friday. I haven't started. So tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. Yes I would really like to have the money, it would certainly help if we decide to go to Disney, but I just want to get rid of the stuff. I'm so tired of bags and bags of clothes and toys being in my garage and I'm not able to park in there. I just took 5 bags to Goodwill yesterday, because I just didn't want to go through them.

I tried to work on the sale a little yesterday. All I got was kids going through the bags and bringing toys back into the house.

I got to go to bed! My kids fell asleep at 5:00 tonight. Oh what am I in for?

By the way I'm really behind on reading blogs. Hopefully next week I'll get caught up.

doggone flu!

I'm so disappointed! I've got the flu.

My parents travelled 9-10 hours to get here. They were passing through on there way to Florida. I saw them for 5 minutes and they decided to sleep in a hotel. I don't blame them. But it makes me very sad!

The flu I have is not as bad as what I have had in the past. It is rather mild. My head hurts, my throat hurts a little, and I get a bit dizzy when I'm walking. And I need to sleep a lot! It's still a pain though!

Some Sunshine on a Cloudy Day!

I'm not feeling very well. I've got a headache that won't go away with medicine, and 3 sick or hurt kids.

Last Friday- I took the kids to doctor. Mason had a bad ear infection, Ashley had a small one and a yeast infection.

I'm trying to make this quick, because I'm tired.

Last night, Mason fell on the corner of the banister and cried and cried. He is much more sensitive when he is sick. Over the last 2 days he spiked a fever. He was telling me his mouth hurt and his head hurt. I kept him home from MDO on Thursday. Ashley doesn't understand that when one of the others is sick they need to get extra attention. So she was very jealous and needy. Also, last night while I was trying to fix the plastic gate in our family room, Austin decided to "tight rope" walk it. He fell right down on his groan and cried for at least 2 hours straight. His upper thigh was pinched and his testicle was scraped. I fell apart at that point and cried too.

I slept with Austin to make sure he was ok. Greg slept with Mason to make sure he was ok. Mason had a hard time sleeping. He was short of breath, heart racing, burping a lot and had a fever.So off to the doctor again today. I thought maybe Mason's ear wasn't getting better, I just didn't know. Well he has the flu! Apparantly, since he had the flu shot it is not as bad as it could be. I found out something I never knew today. His burping throughout the night, was his body's way of kind of throwing up. I had never heard that before.

Anyway, Mason, Ashley, Austin and I are all on Tamiflu. It should help Mason get better and prevent us from getting it.

Now for the sunshine! I got 2 packages in the mail today. One from Stephanie, it was the Blackberry Jam that I won from the Make-It-From-Scratch contest. I look forward to having some of it tomorrow with breakfast. And the other package was from my Secret Sister, she sent me 3 packages of letter stickers for Scrapbooking and 3 cute bookmarks. Thank you friends!!! I really needed that smile today!

What a hoot!

Mysterious picture found after 20 years! Thanks Eric!

Scrapbooking Fun and Layouts

These are the fun place settings Jeanette had at the crop.

This is a close-up on the name cork board she made for each of us. I need to replace one of the brad that I used down in the corner.

And Here are the three layouts I did:

fun facts

I found this slipper kit at JoAnn's on clearance for $2-$3. I bought one for Ashley and one for a birthday gift for one of her friends. She enjoyed making them and she wanted to where them everywhere. She was quite upset when I said she couldn't wear them to the store and that they might get ruined outside.

Then this is a cute story: Sunday morning Ashley told me she named the dragon. I said, "What did you name it?" And she said, "Gramma" I said, "???????Why did you name it Gramma??????" And she said, "I named it Gramma because it has green eyes."

And there you have it! LOL

Chinese Birthday Bash

Here is the Birthday Boy:

Funny thing about the cake: When I had it made I took in the symbol to have put on the cake. The guy came back in a few minutes and asked me which side was up. I said it didn't matter, but then I said, Oh do it upside down because it means good luck come down on you. He comes back with it and said, "Oh man, I hope I didn't just write you will fall over dead this year."

The kids made these linked dragons. We took them to the resteraunt to show Daddy.
We talked about how the dragons represent strength. So all three showed their muscles.

And here is Austin holding up the Happy New Year sign.

Here Ashley is showing off her extra long noodle.

And here is Greg in the costume the kids made for him.