8 Dollar Difference

FINALLY! ! ! ! I've got this child to
pay attention to a little doll at night time.
I've tried and tried, but she just pushes it out of the way.
Now the other night I decided to give it a try once
again and in the morning she
had plastered that thing up against
her little face. Now she has it every night
and we have to wash it frequently, due to the fact it smells
like slobber because she "eats" the poor pink doll.

His very own pink chair

Now allow me to tell you a short story before I dig into my

overwhelming piles of laundry that consists of 70 some odd 

socks, along with many other things, my dishes that have dried 

banana, my child's britches that need changed, yaddy yadda

yadda. Yesterday was one of those days. . . where everything sort

of has a gray tint to it, I didn't have enough patience, easily frustrated

annoyed at the little things. . . Josh text me and wondered how I was.

after I let him know he says," maybe we will run to Flobby Lobby after work"

He of course knows I want to live there ( by the way, they have an app now 

that you can download onto your phone and get 40 % off of things

that are NOT on sale. . . you can use one per day) So after work he comes

home, we feed kiddos, load up a bag and go to Hobby Lobby. 

I dilly dally around with Olive in there for awhile while he & Bode-man 

go to Dicks. ( much MUCHLY more man-ish) Then we go to Marshalls.

Now. . . being the over-protective mom that I am, I sometimes see people

in public stare (or what I think is staring) at Sister. I usually let it go

it doesn't honestly bother me that much. . . but I noticed this lady would

look at her whenever we seen her in the store. . . then we are in line to 

check out and she is in front of us. . . and again I'm thinking that she is 

looking at her. She pays for her stuff, steps back and looks at me, hands me 

a Marshall's card that has 8$ on it, leans down to look at Olivia, then kindly 

tells me what beautiful children we have. Now, it was only 8 dollars, but it 

changed my world from a dismal gray to dancing colors, singing birds, & 

lovely people. It wasn't the money, but the sincerity I saw in her eyes, I 

very nearly wept on the spot. I felt ashamed at my thoughts, and thankful 

to be rescued from my self inflicted negative spiral. God does that, He rescues

us just when we need it. The world isn't all bad. The beauty is in the little 

common every day things. Somedays you just have to have the patience to 

look for them.  

Feather Bed Quilt

  Lately I have been obsessed with feather bed quilts. . . So far I have only stitched together one block.  It is a fun one to do & I am by no means a quilter.  The pattern is floating all around the world wide web, if for any reason you fall in love with it and want to have fabric floating all over your house.  . . It's designed by Anna Marie Horner I believe. . . Now I may have misspelled that so Google feather bed quilt pattern.

  Bodie boy is obsessed with his sister. He will go to any length to grab her ponytail, buttons, hands, you name it. Usually she grins. . . It is something new to her so I don't think she cares.  When it is no longer new. . . We shall see what she thinks then. Couldn't you have warned me how fast a miniature male specie moves???????

Friday

  Hello friends. . . Once again it's been a minute since I chatted here. I cannot seem to fathom how fast life goes. . . Here I am eeking closer and closer to 32. 32????????? But i feel 23. Now I'm starting to wonder if a guy doesn't always feel young.  After all our body is just a mortal one.  . . So it doesn't matter if it's a tad wrinkly.

   Nothing funny to say about Josh that I can think of right off. The kiddos are good, I think they are having a giant bout of cabin fever. Im enjoying being a mom. . . You do a mad dash all day just trying to get one more thing done and finally it's bed time,  You put the little people to bed, and 5 minutes later you miss them, their soft faces,  little smell, loud noises, pudgy hands & then you're ready to start all over.

Chicken Lazone

Children at Play

Fell asleep at lunch

She has a new chair. We may
 very well
have to add on an equipment
room onto our house:)

Now. . . . For the Chicken part. One of my Pinterest buddies

"pinned" this recipe to her board, and I thought 

it looked AWESOME. Well let me tell you, between the 

four of us we licked it clean. If you love Olive Garden, you

should enjoy this dish. Yes it has two cups of

cream. I pretend while I'm eating it, that it's made with water.

Be sure to do the same thing:) Yummy Chicken

Just click & make :)

Volunteered

  This morning my phone rang. . . it was my "other" mother calling me to tell me there was a couple being interviewed on TV, due to the fact that they have a special needs child. I grabbed my favorite blanket, flew down the stairs and turned it on. I love to hear other parents stories. This family had 4 boys and the 3rd one at 6 months had an ear infection, and after he wasn't getting better, the mom takes him in, only to find out he has spinal meninjitis. So begins their life with special needs. While watching, there is this part of me that desperately hates the fact that I can so well indentify with her, that I know her inner turmoil, and just how much her heart cries over the fact each and every day of her life. . . but as we all know, there is a time for everything and a reason. She said something that got me to thinking. She said how angry she was in the beginning that God had volunteered her to do this. 

  Often in my life, I've wondered why I was supposed to go through certain things. So often it seems like it never makes sense. I think it's human to always wonder why, we just want an answer. Lately I feel like it's all started to make sense in a small way. Our daughter. Such a little girl & yet such a big responsibility. I know that if I ever get my sinful mortal body up to heaven's gates it will be because of God and my little girl. 

  What I so often forget is, that God has put us right where we are, & if we only ask him, he will give us grace to get through the obstacles that he has already equipped us for.

February 7nth

marks a giant turning point in my life, it was the day I married Joshua.

  Life has never quite been the same & I mean that in the best way it could be meant. I remember the first time I drove down to see him (we were both living in California at that point ) I rambled on and on to the poor guy about how I most CERTAINLY did NOT want any "man"/boyfriend/relationship in my life. To this day I cannot understand what possesed me to have the little speech. Over the grilled chicken and asparagus he had fixed me he just nodded and agreed. I think he was having trouble fathoming my speech also. I remember seeing him stand in his kitchen (clean kitchen, no, spotless kitchen) and thinking to myself, I would never marry a boy like him. He was blond, tall, tan, macho, kind, pretty much the all american boy. Well nevermind, I married him.

  Then he came to see me a few weeks later, he thought we should go hike up Big Bear.

Me: He should be here about now
My Nerves: Wow my hair is retarded
Me: Go look out the window
My Nerves: Change the shirt I just put on.
Me: Go get a drink of water
My Nerves: My hair really is retarded
Me: Go pee
My Nerves: Change back into the previous shirt
Me: Check my phone
My Nerves: Why did I agree to this again?
Me: He really is here

. . . and walking up the sidewalk barefoot, swimming trunks on, & a green shirt that came from the recycle bag because the ribbing on the neck was hanging on by 3 threads. Apparently no nerves involved while he dressed. Wow I am really waco. Then I find out he has fresh baked banana bread in his pick-up. Never  mind the "I don't want a boyfriend speech" I'm going to marry him. Period. Flat-out. . . .& I pretty much kept that resolve until February 7nth 2009. He has changed my life. I love that all-american boy. Every day I wait patiently for 4:00 because I get to see his face. I can't wait to see him when he's 80. I hope he will ask me to sit on the porch when it's raining and drink a good cup of Jo while we rehash the same stories about the kids that have been rehashed 300 times over.

. . . Now. . . he will not like the fact that I put a picture
up of him without his shirt. I certainly do not mind
looking at it. This was up on top of the mountain
we hiked that day. Hotter than
all get out. The shirt actually, probably
fell off, due to it's age.

my dashing boy

My Dirty Little Secret

The view behind my brown chair.

 If you ever stop by my house, do not, under any circumstance look behind my brown chair. The last while I have become addicted to yarn/crochet. It is a wonderful world. Now, if you're super eager like I am. . .  you will even browse the second hand stores for yarn. A bunch of mine comes from there. I got a "bag" awhile ago for a little bit of nothing and it had several new skeins of 100% wool. So of course it literally paid for itself. I keep it behind my chair because it needs to be in reach at all times. You never know when the mood will strike. Now I will stop talking about yarn because I suspect not as many of you are as in love with it as I. . . but before I go . . . my favorite website is Attic 24  I stop by to visit her as frequently as possible. I love her simple outlook on life and her colorful pictures. For any of you that are interested, she has little crochet tutorials on the left hand side that are mighty easy for a beginner to follow.

My angel daughter that will not look  at the camera

. . . .& my darling boy that thinks everything is funny

 . . .  and to you all, a very happy weekend full of family time fun. There is nothing quite like it. Life speeds away so fast that we must take time to enjoy the little things.

Cheer-i-o To You All !