Just A Day In The Life of ME!!

Well lets start from Sunday night. My wonderful husband was playing on the computer and going through all his favorite sites catching up on sports and entertainment. He is kinda naive with the Internet still and doesn't quit grasp the "don't click on anything, click on reliable sites only". Well he clicked on something that was in the sidelines and some really naughty picture showed up of a lady. He made a gasp and then started clicking on things trying to get it to go away. Well needless to say it wasn't what he was looking for-obviously and happened to click on a VIRUS!!

I have spent the last couple days working on trying to fix it. I almost lost this months worth of pictures!

I called Best Buy to see what they recommended, there idea of a fix is 200$ later and hopefully it would be fixed. He said it may not work. So I am not willing to fork out 200$ and HOPE it gets fixed. I found my mother in laws new Antispyware disc and installed it, that was so frustrating. It wouldn't take the first 3 times I tried. The virus kept booting me off and shutting down the computer. ERRRR

Well I got it downloaded today and am crossing my fingers.



Today I went with mickey on his field trip to OSU for a Science Technology Day. It was a ton of fun. They had a reptile room and mickey touched snakes, skinks, turtles and some sort of pokey lizard guy.

We also made permanent ink move and not be so permanent, we also made kelp dots-did you know that McDonald's uses seaweed/kelp in there "shakes" to make them thick because they don't use dairy?! so the stuff we made these NON edible dots with is what they use in the shakes!! kinda disturbing. Anyway we also learned that bananas are radio active, we also learned about earthquakes. It was a ton of information for them to retain but they had a ton of fun.

Picture a Day #27

This is what our whole day was like. We went to two parks today and bbq'd today. I think we spent 80% of our day outside. I am pooped!! This is the new park down the street from us. The neighborhood put it together yesterday and today. We really have a good town to live in after all.

Picture a Day #26

After a day of mom being sick and the kids having fun at the park all day, I got the energy and made them cookie and ice cream sandwiches. It was a big hit, and I had to use the cookies from the cookie walk somehow.

The Crazy Carnival Day

Well my day was crazy. I woke feeling like poopie and couldn't stop coughing. Got the two oldest to school and Travis was busy watching toons and eating cereal. I took a quick nap/closed my eyes for short time. It felt like years past, I had really needed that. Dad took Travis to school and I cleaned the house and defrosted pork chops for dinner.
Now the day kinda disappears on me.
I went and picked up the boys from school and then drove over to the ash creek to get Sam, her best friend Sarah wanted a ride home(she lives a few blocks away so I don't mind). As we are driving I mention to Sam that I had wanted to go to the park seeing as how it was really warm outside and practice throwing and catching the softball with her. Sarah of course wants to go with us. I think oh sure what the heck that way they both can practice. Now mickey and Travis want Justin-the brother to go with us. Me being the easy going mom says, Yes why not.
So the park was fun and the kids are behaving wonderful. I begin to round them up so we can go home and eat dinner and get ready for the carnival, (I had been volunteered to work a shift in the booth for Travis's' class.) Now all the kids are wanting to go to the carnival and I said yes of course why not it would be fun.
(HMMM are we seeing a pattern here yet?)
SO while I am rounding up the kids Sarah calls and asks her mom if it would be okay for them to go with us. she says yes and i will bring you some money to have with. Now me not thinking that far in advance realize that her mom is pulling up and giving them money.
So, umm, I am not quite getting it yet, you know me a little slow in this area yet. give me a minute, AHHHHH!!!!!
There mom just left them with me for the evening. She is not planning on them coming home so as she drives off she tells Sarah, "if you need me call on the cell I will be in Salem". Okay now one more moment of catching up with the moment.........Um dinner, I have now given myself another 2 mouths to feed.
I yell at the kids in a mom voice that catches all ears at the park, TIME TO GO, Get YOUR BODIES IN THE VAN NOW!!
I have dinner to fix and it is now 4:30! The carnival needs me at 6:00 and I need to cook pork chops, what was I thinking.
Dinner was good the kids ate well and now its carnival time.
We get there and had to park like a zillion blocks away. tired already and getting testy, all I want to do is get the tickets, find my booth and set the kids free. Well that is not how it happened, of course.
I get to the booth for the tickets and Sam grabs the money and gets in line I say 10$ in tickets and bring me the rest and I will divide them up. Well that's not what went down. Here I am with Travis, no money, no tickets, no kids and I am being beckoned to get to the booth. I get in the booth and yes the kids know where I am and that I told them to find me, they just didn't. Me, well I am not happy. Travis wants to go play games and eat cotton candy, I cant leave the booth because no one else was there. Great, he is not happy kike me. Finally someone else arrives at the booth and I tell them that I will be back I have to find my kids and my money. (Apparently they have been there before :)
I am looking for 10-15 min and just give up. I am beyond mad and getting worried because NO ONE has seen them. I ran into Calista and I think she could tell that I was not happy. I told her the scenario-short version of course, and as I am walking away she finds Sam and she has a gob of tickets and the money, only a five of course :(
I take away most of the tickets and send her on her way, not to mention she is grounded for the weekend.
Well now I have to go back to the booth and work and here is Travis, such a big boy not once complaining, he wants to play. I was starting to tell him that he has to wait a while longer since his brother ditched him. Calsita tells me that she will trade me Madison for Travis and will take him around a little bit to do a few things. What a wonderful lifesaver she is!! At first he seemed not sure, but then all of a sudden I think he realized that someone wanted him to be with them. He is my sensitive boy.
SO, Madison and I went in and took care of the booth and Travis had a blast!!! He told me all about the train and how good the cotton candy was. Seeing as how that is like the only time he gets it he seems to enjoy every bite. By the end of the night we all were better, I was tired and ready to go. 2 bags of cookies, 3 goody bags and happy kids later, I made it out of the carnival and ready to get rid of 2 kids. Two good kids but none the less I only want my three and to go HOME!!

Picture a Day #25

I consider this my picture of the day because she was my friend while her mom, (the most awesome person in this whole world right now) saved my sanity! So while I had Madison, she took Travis on the train and to get some cotton candy. Madison and I played, danced and tried on many princess halos.

Picture a Day #24

I don't know if anyone will be excited for me but this is what Scott and the kids got me for being an awesome mom. I collect the mini star wars toys called Galactic Heroes. I think they are so cool, well this is there NEW space ship called the Millennium Falcon. Its really neat and yes I know if your going to collect something you shouldn't open it-well I HAD TO! I wanted to play with it soooo bad. Now I am way cool here at the homestead and they are asking ME to play with them!

Picture a Day #23

Well this is what our fun activity is before I send the kids to bed. It seems to help them calm down from the day and make them focus and be quiet for a change. It also gives me a chance to sit down and watch them work together with out fighting!

Picture a Day #22

I have been really lacking in blogs lately, been really way to busy for me. The kids have been keeping me busy, with all there activities going on. So this one is for Wednesday Travis wanted to make his own lunch before he went to school. He loves peanut butter with NO jelly. That's what he asks for.

Picture a Day #21

Now I found this funny. There were tons of kids books in the waiting room of the doctors office and this is what she read! It just shows me how much she is growing up and wanting to learn about everything. I was thinking about maybe getting a subscription to this but hadn't decided yet. I think I just might, I know now that I wouldn't be the only one to read them.

Picture a Day #20

This is Mr squirel, he was finding and eating nuts. When he noticed us watching him, he ran off to the nearest tree that had a ton of ivy at the bottom of it. It was like 1-2 inches deep. Well anyway he spread the ivy like Noah did the water and burried it. Then he just sat there and starred at us like NOW WHAT?! It was soooo funny. I love it.

Picture a Day #19

Okay here is picture #19.

Travis found old toys and made a bug face out of them. I love how much imagination he has. They all do, its always so amazing how much they come up with.

Chores!!

Wow, I do have to say that I have done a lot in the couple hours I have been up. I have already done two loads of laundry, filled and ran the dishwasher, put away laundry, got two of the kids ready and off to school(since grandpa is away for a while I have to drive them) its been a nice morning. It makes me feel like I can take a break today. I will have time to be in Travis' calss today!! I have done all of this since 6:30 this morning. YAY for me!!

Picture a Day #18

We did some major spring cleaning today in the boys room. Floor is spotless and vaccumed. Toybox cleaned out and ready to recycle old toys to kids in need. Seeing as how both birthdays are coming up. I feel accomplished today!!

Oregon Garden

I am really sad that I didnt much or any pictures of the gardens. We spent the whole time looking at booths and learning about trees, leave no trace, knot tying, composting, worm bins(we have a lady that wants to come and show us how to make a worm bin), recycled art, plants, and so on. We did lots of crafts and got trees to take home and plant. All in all it was a good day, cold but good. Next time I would love to wander the garden and look at the house down the way from the gardens. I will have more pictures to put later of the projects that the kids did. But here is some from today.

Mariachi band, they were wonderful!

Learning about skulls and items you can find in the forrest.

Recycle man, to help them learn about recycling.Master roper, Mickey!

I think they said a rescue anmial and is very scared of dogs, it was attacked by one. I couldnt believe how many people brought there dogs!
TACKY

Making buttons

Sam and her organic hat!

Paper making

This is the wagon when we got done!!
I call it the wagon 'o crap :)

Gem and Mineral show

Okay well this weekend we had two scout outings. On friday after school we went to the gem show and we met two of the other scouts there. Well really only one but whos really taking tally besides me.! ;) Well I learned a few things that i didnt know before. I also got some awesome rocks. Calista and Kellen went and they BOTH won the hourly drawings!! Not fair. I recieved out of a candy dispenser (that was full of rocks and agates) three leopard jade rocks, two blue newports, one amethist and some really nice agates. The kids got some crystals for free and played games to win some nice rocks and petrified wood. All I know is that we had a great time and will most likely be going next year because they plan on having a black-light show with rocks and minerals.

This is jade made into statues

This is petrified wood, in a display case.

This is leopard Jade I believe,
this is what I have but this is much bigger.

This is a Megalodon tooth, the kids really thought this was neat.

Picture a Day #17

This Travis, showing how much fun he is having!!

This weekend is/was fun. I am glad that we planned these outings. I would just be a homebody if we didnt do this stuff. (HEEHEE)

Picture a Day #16

This is my Favorite rock from the Gem and mineral show we went to as a cub scout Den Outing. I forget what its called. I just know i really liked it.

Pack meeting

This months theme was magic and we had been working on magic tricks and I am so proud of the boys. It really showed that they really listen and learn from what we teach them on Wednesday nights! We were the ones this month to do the skit for the meeting. So we did our magic show for the pack. For one thank you Calista for practicing with them last night. Two,they did an awesome job. Three, doing this show tonight they get to mark of some electives in the back of the book!! Here are a few pics of it.(I hope I didn't do anything to change what you had done calista)

This is Kellen introducing the boys as they do there skit/magic. Mickey is in the back ground trying to work on his part. He had a little issue, but i helped him fix it.

Ben and his magic banana, it is magically cut in half on the inside!
oooh

This is there finale, the magic flying film canister.

This magician was awesome!! I am not that quick with slight of hand and I was very impressed. Most of the kids were amazed, but there are always gonna be skeptics!

Picture a Day #15

Here is proof of my food craving today!!
We went to Carls jr and it was a grand opening today and they gave these away. Travis noticed and got so jealous. I think this is the only fast food restaurant that I LOVE!

Well yesterday at my youngest child's IEP meeting I was informed that he may have what is called Verbal Apraxia or Verbal Dyspraxia. I had and still have no real idea what it is but i have began to look it up all over the web. I knew he has had speech issues and his doctor had his hearing tested and well pretty much everything tested-except for this! I am a little frustrated with the doctor because it should have been diagnosed earlier on so he could have had speech therapy at a younger age. Hmmm, sounds like normal health care in Oregon. :(
Well with the help of his current teacher and his speech teacher we will begin classes on this soon. He will first need to go and get tested to make it official. Wish us luck in the coming months and probably years. He is such an awesome kid and he has dealt with it so well so far. Below are some web pages that I have found so far and i was hoping that someone out there has knowledge to share with our loving family.



http://www.shop-in-service.com/verbal_apraxia.htm

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/apraxia.htm


http://www.tayloredmktg.com/dyspraxia/das.shtml

Picture a Day #14

I got bored while waiting for the night to go on. I couldnt make it to scouts, mickey is still sick so Calista was so nice and willing to help out tonight. (Thank you) So I made this out of most of the Easter candy. Kinda cool.

Picture a Day #13

Did you know that seagull like smoked almonds!
They also like fruit snacks. This one liked me though, it just kept on flying/gliding right by the window. I could have reached out and touched it. Sam doesn't like it when they do that, she freaked out.

My Grandma

This is in loving memory of the funniest lady I have ever loved.

She loved playing cards, her favorite is skipbo.

She taught me to play canasta and tons of other games.

I remember when she came here to visit us. She had her own car and was driving through old town and she must have been going 50 mph! She said that she only lives once and thought it was fun. She always had some sort of treat for us, whether it was candy or a day of fun.

She passed away Monday night at 7:30. I havent been to see her for a few years. We were planning on a family trip this year to see her and the family down in california. I really wanted her to see Travis, she had only seen him in pictures. His name is a family name on that side of the family. It would have been nice to see her. I cant make it to her funeral this weekend, i am kinda depressed about that.

She loved life and life seemed to love her back.

WOW

Okay now I am excited, my profile views are now over 100!!!
That means that someone is looking and i want to know who, so dont be shy and let me know by comments. I love making new friends and i am not shy at all.

Picture a Day #12

I have one to go on here and it wont download, so ill do it later. :(

I got it to work!!!

I took a picture of Travis' bean plant he did in class. Its growing so well.

Picture a Day #11

I chose this one because it had 2 centers, the picture doesnt show it that well but it was so neat. We had such a wonderful time.

Picture a Day #10

This is the "picture a day" because she was Smiling and it wasnt fake!!!

Picture a Day #9

I am so behind, but I have taken some.This is one of my favorites from friday. Its when dead trees have new growth on them.(nursing trees)

Fair warning

I am giving you fair warning that next couple of posts that you read are kinda long, filled with pictures of our weekend. Please don't get discouraged, it will have an ending at some point!!

Tulip Gardens

Well today was family day and we chose to go the tulip festival in woodburn. It was the best type of day not to sunny and just enough cloud cover to not get hot and sweaty.

It has changed since we went here last year. Can you say commercialization!! It was like we were at a county fair. There were all sorts of rides and things that cost money. When we were here last year it had the garden of course then just some odds and ends of fun for the kids. They had all that plus MORE. Seeing as how we didn't count on spending money we had packed a picnic lunch and snacks. So I sat down with the kids and reminded them that we can have fun without spending money and that we were gonna prove it today. They thought it was a good idea. I forget they can read(they are 11 and 8) they quickly saw that the tickets were a dollar apiece and the rides took 3-5 each. They didn't want to go on any. So today was a great day to see what we could do.

First we went out to the gardens and looked at all the different colors.

Then we went and looked at the steam engines, they had one going when we got over there so awesome. Then as the day went on we did some fun in the sandbox, horse swings, rubber ducky races, roping the cow, played in a pile of hay and went down a roller slide. They had some rescue birds there that loved kids and the kids were allowed to hold them! How awesome is that.

All in all it was one of our best times this year.

Today made me realize how awesome my kids are. They were polite, understanding, full of fun and proved to me that money means not that much to kids and they get it when stuff is too expensive. Man we have done a great job with these guys. They make me so proud. I got a compliment on them today, not once did they cry and apparently someone was watching and said that ours were probably the only ones not whining and wanting money. :)

Yeah for us!!

view from the gardens
I love this one

The awesome roller slide

Hay stack, with tunnels

looking at flowers or a bug?



mickey, mesmerized by the steam engines

Say cheese

mickey roping the cattle!
sand box time
they made a tunnel

rubber ducky race



mickey holding pretty bird

sam in love with bird
time for the swing, the big hit with the kids

hmm i wonder if i could make one? its made out of one tire. Ill let you know what I find