It's official....

John got hired on with the IRS as an agent :) We are really excited and feel extremely blessed right now! Woohoo!!

Still Kickin'

Hey all! We're still alive and well :) We spent most of the summer in Arizona visiting my family, and are getting ready to send the kids back to school on Monday- oh happy day!

Have a great weekend!

Well look who's blogging again :)

Well lookie here…I’m blogging again! Aren’t you so excited?? I know I am!! I can’t believe it has been almost a month since my last super fun, super cool blog entry. The kids and I are getting ready to go to Arizona to visit my family very soon. We can’t wait! My mom is flying out on Tuesday and we are making the drive out some time after that.

The kids are going to take swim lessons in Arizona. That should be a fun experience- they have always taken them at the city pool, and they have always done really well with them. It will be fun to see how things are different out there in the Wild Wild West! We are also hoping to take a trip or two up the mountain and camp a little bit. My version of camping is to stow the seats (gotta love stow and go!) and sleep in the car. I am scared of bears, so every time we camp in the wild outdoors I wake up whenever a twig cracks or a skunk snorts. It makes for some really long nights.

I cannot believe that my baby boy is finished with Kindergarten. Next year three of my four children will be in school. I honestly don’t know where the time went. It seems like just yesterday, I had three kids in diapers, demanding sippy cups of chocolate milk (warmed in the microwave, not shaken, and with lots of mix, respectively), and wanting just one more story read to them before bed time, one more hug before mommy leaves for school, and to “help” me with my homework. Now they are turning into independent little PEOPLE with their own ideas on everything. It is amazing to watch :-)

I am so glad my husband and I have spent this time, while our children are young, pursuing our educations and working for a brighter future for our little family. When I was working on my degree, I remember so many mornings dropping the kids off at daycare, staring at their empty carseats on the way home, and wondering what the hell I was doing. Would this degree ever be finished? After Caitlyn was born, I almost quit. Like many moms, I was struggling with the idea of having my children in daycare, and felt like by having them in daycare, I wasn’t being a “real” mom. Luckily, I had a really awesome mentor who urged me to push through and finish. On rough days, I spent so much time in her office talking about my kids and how I felt that I was cheating them out of a mother by being in school. She said that she also felt that way when she returned to graduate school. We shared war stories about everything from psycho professors to trying to find a decent place to pump in academia (and both agreed that the handicapped stall does NOT count as a decent place to pump!). She always told me that no matter what, my kids would love me, and that they would be happy as long as I was happy. After meeting her children and seeing how happy and well-adjusted they are, I believed her. Now that I see my own children and see how happy and well-adjusted they are I know she was right. Thanks Dr. H!!

I don’t know why, but for some reason I decided to dust off my old high school yearbooks today. It was fun taking trips down memory lane-looking at pictures, remembering old friends, and reading everyone’s signed messages. Among the generic “Have a great summer!!” “Let’s party!” and “Don’t ever change!” were several passionate, dramatic, angst-filled letters from old loves. Nestled among all these was this lovely little gem that I just had to share:

“Your hot and I like your body. (insert name here)”

And that’s it.

Not even the perfunctory “Have a nice summer!”

I’ve been laughing off and on all morning about that one. Especially since, at least the last time I heard, the guy has spent a significant portion of our post high school years on the wrong side of law. Well that, and I am no longer hot…but I digress…

John's family has some land just outside of town. We call it "the farm". His grandfather owned over a hundred acres once upon a time, and he dug several large ponds on the land and stocked them with bass and catfish. Over the years, the pond and especially its fish population, has grown and matured into a largely self sustaining ecosystem. The last time it was stocked was sometime in the early 70s. Needless to say John and the kids have caught some pretty huge bass over the years!

I hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane as much as I do!

Ok...my internet connection is even slower than normal...I'll add more pictures later :)

What can I say....

...as we all know, yesterday was Mother's Day :) It was a fun day, complete with beautifully colored paper hearts, love notes from two of the sweetest boys ever, crafts from school, and a yummy dinner. My father-in-law gave me a gift card for Wal-Mart (this is Small Town, USA- it's not like there are many choices ;-) ), and I was determined to spend it on me, myself, and I. So I set out to Wal-Mart while I was on break from all my last minute project making and paper writing. I eyed the Twilight director's notebook, but decided to wait a little while to get it. It looked awesome, but I knew that if the purchase was made tonight the last minute projects would be even more neglected than they already are. So I decided to get myself a new toothbrush. And some new floss. And some toothpaste. New shampoo- you know, the "fancy" Suave shampoo. The kind that is supposed to be like the salon stuff but probably isn't as good as the expensive stuff, but it smells really good, so I buy it anyway whenever I can. Yeah, that stuff. And as long as I'm at it- new toothbrushes and shampoo for the kids along with a new tube of mascara to replace old, clumpy, bacteria laden stuff I currently use. Oh, and some new lotion, too. So yeah, even when I'm "splurging", I'm practical. What's the deal with that?