Welcome Jillian Denise!

I have a new baby niece! She's so beautiful. And the perfect combination of her mommy and daddy's looks.



And here's me with my other beautiful niece, Hailey.

My baby girl is EIGHT!

These are from her birthday (dec. 2nd).





These are all from her party (dec. 6th). She had "the best birthday party ever" according to her. Can't believe she's 8!

Thanksgiving was great!

And I ended up being able to take the day off of work to spend with my family. I gave my double pay day to a co-worker/friend who is going out of town next weekend. He needed the extra money and I just took a vacation day.

I love thanksgiving dinner! Turkey (the best part!), stuffing, mac&cheese, corn, bread, cranberry sauce, taters. Oh, and Pumpkin Pie (the other best part!).

I miss going to my Grandma & Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I always looked forward to that when I was younger. Now we live too far away to be doing that all the time.
I think I'm gonna try to get Christmas off next year and beg Chad to go to IL for Christmas day. It's only a 2 hour drive.

As for this year, I'm off on Christmas Eve for Christmas at his mom's house. And I will likely have to work the evening on Christmas day.

Ah, the holidays!

Ok, so here are some Halloween pics:






And now Thanksgiving is coming up. This is one of my favorite holidays. I love spending the day with the family and having good food (TURKEY!) and watching movies. But I don't know what time I have to work that day yet. I don't ask off of work because I get paid double time to be there. I just take what I get and hope I'm off in the evening.

Shhhhh....don't tell anyone, but I've already broke out the Christmas cd's in the car. Lmbo, I've been listening to George Straight's Christmas album. Man, I just love his voice, and he sings my favorite Christmas songs....Silent Night, Joy To The World...etc. I can't wait for Christmas!

Fun at the pumpkin patch!

We went to the pumpkin patch a week and a half ago. The kids had a lot of fun. Too many pics to upload, so I made a slide show. :)

Boys being boys

This is my son (in white) and my nephew (in red). They are 4 weeks apart and the best of friends.

My cousin got married this weekend!

Congratulations to my cousin Laura and her husband Steven!
I'm so happy that I was able to join them for this beautiful ceremony.

Today's the day that Brittney moves away

Morgan is so sad.
They spent every spare moment together this weekend. Got lots of good pictures of them together.

Morgan's better....Orin's worse

Now he has the pink eye. When will it all end??? If she gets it again, I'm gonna FLIP!

Home sick from school

First time this year. We were trying for perfect attendance since she hasn't been sick since Christmas.
She has pink eye.

:( Morgan doesn't know yet...

...but one of her closest friends is moving away in 2 weeks. :(
She's gonna be about 1 1/2 hours away. Leaving her with just one friend left in our trailer park.



I guess I'll do a little photo shoot soon. Stay tuned for more pics of the 2 of them.

I'll let the picture do the talking.

Let's just say, I am so proud of my little girl. She's so smart!
(Click pic to make larger)

We didn't get that car.

We got this instead!

http://www.westchrysler.com/AutoDetails2.aspx?ID=3225567
The seats aren't that color though. And the car is Inferno Red.

We went up to sign the contract today, and they told us that the in-house rebate ($4500) was no longer available. It ended Friday. BUT, they had a new $5500 rebate on the PT cruiser, and I've always wanted a PT cruiser. We bought the PT cruiser!!!
It's a $20,000 car, and we got it for half that with their deal and the cash for clunkers deal.

PLUS..... a lifetime warrenty with $100 deductable.

We just paid off the Grand Am this month. And the PT cruiser is $110 cheaper per month.














The seats are not orange though. They're grey.

1st day of 2nd grade

Can you believe she's in 2nd grade??? I sure as heck can't. This is unreal to me.

I ♥LOVE♥ this picture of my husband and I so much that I decided to change my blog header.

I love my husband so much. He is my rock. He is my strength. He makes me so perfectly happy and makes me feel better when I'm not feeling that great.
He is a loving, devoted daddy to our two children, and the only man I can ever imagine growing old with.

fun fun fun

Holy crud, these have been some busy weeks.
4 birthday parties, 4 consecutive weekends. Morgan has been one busy friend.
Tomorrow is my niece, Hailey's, 4th birthday party. Today's her birthday. Happy birthday Hailey!
And NEXT saturday is my great friend Niki's babys' birthday party. Cooper and Sophia will be 2.

After that, we're gonna take a break from fun and then the following saturday, we're gonna go to six flags! Morgan doesn't know. We're not gonna tell her until that day. She's gonna pee her pants when she sees the collussus. She thought the ferris wheel at the carnival was huge.
This will be her first trip to six flags. Don't know what we're gonna do with Orin yet.

Update: Orin is gonna spend the day with Hailey when we go to six flags! He will have a blast. AND...Stephanie has a free teacher's ticket that she's not gonna use, so I can get in for free!!! Bonus!

Some exciting news!

I just realized that December 22nd was the last time that Morgan has thrown up....6 1/2 months ago!
She felt nauseaus last month for a few days, but when we took her to the dr they said she had tonsilitis. She was probably nauseaus because of her tonsil being swollen.
But no actual throwing up!

And....I took her off of the prevacid a month ago and she hasn't said anything about it or about feeling sick.

Fingers crossed that it stays this way for my little girl.

This is what she looked like days after the Dec. 22nd hospitalization. She was so pale and super skinny. :(

















But, she's back to a good weight now!

It's saturday!

I love saturdays because I generally don't have to work that day.
And luck would have it that this is one of those NON work days for me.

We have plans to do our 4th of July celebrations (aka: bbq and fireworks) at Chad's mom's house today. But we have a 50% chance of thunderstorms all day. Mother Nature sucks sometimes.

And another thing....
I wish Orin's internal alarm clock could get on a different schedule instead of him waking up (and subsequently waking ME up) 2 minutes before my alarm goes off. I set the alarm for 8am because I like to get up at least 20 minutes before the kids so that I can have some time to wake up before they start whining for food and nickelodeon. Right after school got out for Morgan, they would both sleep til 8:30 or 9:00, so the alarm time was perfect.
I don't wanna have to start setting it earlier. :(

4th of July

I was actually off of work for the 4th. I asked....and I received. I got to spend the entire day with my children.

We had dinner AT Wendy's. That was a treat in itself because we normally don't eat AT the restuarants. We generally take it home to eat.

Then we went and picked out fireworks. Grandma gave them each $10 to pick out their own. They were so excited.

And then it was off to the carnival. Played some games....rode some rides. Ate some funnel cake, well, I did anyway.
Orin's favorites were the carousel and the big slide.
Morgan's favorites were the ferris wheel and the fun house.

My favorite was the funnel cake! :D

We stayed about an hour and only spent $30 there. That was Chad's favorite part!

I only got pictures before we left because my camera battery won't hold a charge anymore so it's pointless to take it.


We're not doing our fireworks until next weekend because Chad's mom just recently had neck surgery and isn't feeling up to the festivities yet. So I think we're doing the bbq and fireworks on the 11th at her house. She lives outside of city limits so we can do fireworks anytime we want there.
I will try to get a new battery for my camera before then.

Hippie kids

My friend made these shirts for the kids for 4th of July.
I think they look awesome, and the kids are adorable.

Updates:
Morgan's tonsilitis is gone. She was better the next day, but we continued the antibiotics for the full 10 days. Her allergies/coughing are getting better too, so we told her she could stop taking her inhalers for now. That made her happy!

Orin is Orin. Banged up and bruised and no idea how these things happen. For instance, the inch long scab on his forehead. There's no way he fell and smacked his head, we would've heard screaming at some point. So we're thinking rug burn.

Kids' pictures came in. They look so much better in person than they do on the computer.

Can you believe how hot it's gotten out there? It was 90ºF yesterday, and so humid. It was like a brick wall. Hard to breath.

Tonsilitis?

Yep, that's what Morgan has now.
Fever spiked to 103.4 on Friday afternoon. It finally went down with motrin. Fought the fever for nearly 24 hours and then took her to Urgent Care on Saturday afternoon. He did a strep test (came back negative).
He said he's giving her antibiotics for tonsilitis. 24 hours later and she is so much better. Fever completely gone. Tonsil still swollen, but she feels like a new kid.

I have the most beautiful children ever....here's proof!

BTW, I LOVE Picasa for the collages!

8 years of wedded bliss

Yes folks, that's right. Chad and I have been married for 8 years now.
Our anniversary was Monday (Memorial Day). I got him an awesome poster of the KC Chiefs stadium, packed in all it's glory. He LOVED it!
He got me this beautiful necklace. And I LOVE it!













We're celebrating tonight though. My awesome sis-n-law is coming over with my niece Hailey, and they're baby sitting for us.

We're going to Licking, MO to this castle restuarant called the Black Forest Grille.














And tomorrow we're all (including kids) going to Springfield, MO to get the kids' pictures taken @ Penny's and then we're having lunch @ Chuck E Cheese.

Fun filled weekend.

AND....I don't have to work!!!!!