it's coming together

And the yard work continues....

I was out walking around the yard a while ago, wishing that the deep trench, filled with rocks and weeds, would just finally be turned into the beautiful dry river I had imagined in my head.

Then it hit me....what was I waiting for!!!  Forget paying someone hundreds of dollars, I could just do it myself.

So, I got on google, figured out how to do it, and went to work.

And I worked, and worked and worked.

I hauled rock for about 5 days, before it was finally completed.

It was HARD work, but I loved it.  Working outside is so refreshing for the soul.

starting out the dry river

weed barrier is down, and border is done...now have to fill in the rocks

The rocks are finally all in place, and the flowers are planted around it.  The big, big boulders should be here today, or tomorrow, and the bridge should be here by the end of the week!!!  I can't wait to post the finished product!!!

In other yard news...I chizzled rock for almost 3 hours, in order to plant these 3 bushes.  Seriously, we have no dirt...just rock.  Lots and lots of rock.  At one point, after hitting my 100th rock and jamming my finger again,  I got so frustrated, that I screamed and threw the shovel.  My neighbor came out to see what was going on.  I felt really cool.

I have some very fun finishing touches to do in this flower bed as well.  Hopefully by the end of this week, I will have some pictures of this finished product as well.

Along with this...I began planting our row of lilac bushes.  Once I planted these, the yard officially felt like "my yard."  Lilac bushes are my all time favorite!!  The smell of them throws me back to my childhood summers.  I am so excited about these!  The picture is bad, but so far, I have about half of them planted.  I smile every time I look out the window and see these.

Last, but not least, we are FINALLY putting in our parking strip.

Because we live on a corner, we have 120 yards of parking strip to put in.  Most people have about 10-20 yards.  Go us.

We decided to lay down weed barrier, and cover it with gravel type rock. Planting grass in it would be an absolute mowing nightmare.  We do plan to eventually plant trees in it, but that will probably be next year.

Ben rented a skid steer, and had the rock delivered on Friday.  Ummm yea, we spent two summers removing rock, in order to get our grass in, I spent the last two weeks, hauling that rock back into the yard to make a dry river, and now, we are PAYING for rock to cover the parking strip.  I didn't know if I wanted to cheer or cry when I saw the giant truck pouring rock in front of our yard.  The boys loved it!

The truck brining in rock...oh, and you can see the dry river completely filled in too.

The irony with the rock kills me.  Seriously.

Ben spent Saturday lying down the weed barrier and dumping rock into the parking strip. 
What a man!!!

 The next two days will be spent evening out the rock in the parking strip...and then, aside from the trees, it will be done!!

 

I am so excited for this weekend, to have so many completed projects. 

 

The last project for this year will be re doing the rock wall around our house, and planting bushes on top of it.

 

Next year will be trees, flowers, shrubs and cement where we need it.

 

It is finally all coming together!!!

goal!!!

Sammy boy had his last Soccer game on Saturday.

I am blown away with how far he has come with the sport since the beginning of the season.

He has learned so much, and is a lot more aggressive and confident.  He was on the perfect team for him, and his coaches have been wonderful.  I feel like he was very blessed to be on such a great team with good kids and coaches.

Sam plays defense, so he hasn't been able to score any goals this season.  He has had a lot of great saves and blocks, but every little boy wants to be able to score a goal.

During their last game, Sam's team was way ahead, so the coach decided to let the boys play different positions, for fun.

She let Sam play forward. 

As soon as I saw what was going on, I said a prayer in my heart for Sam to be able to score a goal.  Just one goal.  I knew how much it would mean to him to be able to score a goal this season, and how much it would boost his self confidence with soccer.  I prayed and prayed.

I knew Sam had the ability and the speed to do it, it was just a matter of him believing in himself.

Within minutes of ending my prayer, Sam stole the ball and began dribbling down the field.  He passed to his team mate, who dribbled a little further, then passed back to Sam. Sam did a corner shot into the goal and scored!!!!  The grin and elation on his little face, made me cry.  I was so happy for him, and for this chance he was given.

Not only did he score, but it was an awesome play and an awesome shot!

What a way to end the season!

Sam was beaming the rest of the game, and was thrilled to finally get the king size candybar that is handed out at the end of the game for those who scored goals.

Tryouts for next year are today and tomorrow, and Sam is going into them with great confidence and a lot more skill than last year.

Go Sammy!

U9 STORM -white

cousin time

Devin's kids, Eli and Lacey, came up for a visit this weekend.  Devin had a lot going on with his Dental School, and Nichole had a family trip, so they asked me to watch their kiddos for a few days.

Last minute, Grandma Sylvia decided to come up and help.  She is a good, good woman.

Eli and Luke played, and played and played.  They were cowboys, good guys, bad guys, police, cats, ninja's, and everything else.  They were loud, they were crazy, they were destructive, and they were boys.  They had a blast!

Molly enjoyed treating Lacey like a real baby doll.  It was pretty cute watching her follow her around and give her her blanket and binky over and over again.

Lacey cried the entire first night, and Eli threw up the entire second night, so I am VERY grateful my mom was here.

It was absolutely crazy and chaotic, but I am so glad the cousins were able to play together.  Some of my absolute best memories of growing up are with cousins.  Looking back, I am sure we drove our mom's/aunts/grandparents crazy, but they continued to get us together, because it was worth it.  I am beginning to understand that now.

Cousins rock.

Eli MUST be touching Luke at all times.

Molly and Lacey

best buddies

Blasting off in the rocket ship.  hahaha!

dad is the bomb

A few weeks ago, Mary came home from school with a paper announcing that she would be going on a field trip.  The paper also had a spot for parents to sign up to be a chaperone.

I was surprised when Mary walked over to Ben and asked him to go on the field trip.  It shocked me a little that she didn't ask me, but it melted my heart that she wanted to go with her dad.

Ben made arrangements, got work off, and was able to go!  What a cool dad.

I was so happy that Ben and Mary could do this together.

They went to a baseball game, and Ben was in charge of a group of kids.

It sounds like they had a great time, and it meant so much to Mary.

I love it!

He even rode the bus!  Super dad!

in a "jam"

Last week, I ventured off to Walmart, with the three littles in tow.

Walmart with three small children is always an adventure, but it has to be done, so we make the best of it.

On this particular outing, as I was getting Molly out of her car seat when we arrived at the store, William was playing with the door of the car.

Somehow, in a way only a child can do, he flipped the locking mechanism, and completely jammed it.  It was sticking out of the door in a way the completely prevented the door from shutting.

I worked on it for about 10 minutes, in a busy parking lot, while trying to keep the kids from running in front of cars, chasing birds, going through my purse, and so on.  It was quite the scene for sure.

I was not able to fix the door, so I gathered up the kids, did my best to make the door look like it was closed, and did a very fast shopping trip, praying the no one would steal our car. The perks of living in a small town. :)

Once we finished shopping, to my relief, the car was still there.  The next dilemma was figuring out if we should sit there waiting for Ben to drive 45 minutes to help us, call a car shop that would be crazy expensive, or try to make the 3 mile trip home with a door that won't shut.

The kids were tired and hungry, so they basically answered the question for me.  We had to get home.  I tried to find some way to tie the door shut, but nothing was working, so I buckled the kids in their seats, and asked William to hold the door shut while I drove us SLOWLY home.

William was completely freaking out, and screaming that we were all doing to be sucked out of the car and die. 

I talked to him for a while, and told him that I trusted his super strong muscles to be able to hold the door shut, which would make him a hero that saved his family from being sucked into outer space for the rest of our lives.

He wiped away his tears, puffed out his chest, and accepted the challenge.

We drove home going less than 5 miles per hour like this...

William is holding the door shut.

We crawled into our garage, and arrived home safely.  William was extremely proud of himself, and although I was frustrated that he broke the door in the first place, I was proud of him too.

Ben got home later that day, and fixed the door within 5 minutes.  What the????

Never a dull moment.

Rock on.

bed head

Molly has quite the amazing head of hair.  Not only is it brown...which is completely crazy being part of our family, but it is wavy, curly, and ALL over the place!

I do my best to contain it in ponytails every day, but not matter what I do, she wakes up every morning, and every afternoon after her nap, with the most amazing bed head ever!  Seriously, she should get some type of award or something for this.

I love this girl so much, crazy hair and all!

m & e's bakery

Mary, and her best friend Eden are quite the little bakers.  They almost always bake something in the middle of jumping on the trampoline, roller blading, riding bikes, painting nails, making movies, and anything else they may be doing.

A while ago, they decided to start up M & E's Bakery.  (Mary and Eden's Bakery)

They went around the neighborhood taking orders, then they went to Eden's house, baked up all of the cupcake orders, and delivered warm, fresh cupcakes to everyone who ordered some.

The response was amazing! People LOVED the cupcakes!!! 

They only sold to one street, and they made $35.

These girls are adorable...and quite the business women.

for real!

The other day, I was cooking something on the stove, and something started smelling like burnt metal.  Nothing was smoking, and I looked all over the kitchen.  Everything seemed fine.

Then, the stove just shut off.  And that was that.  The stove was dead.

The next couple days I quickly realized how much I actually use the stove, and it became pretty frustrating.  Ben decided to call someone to come look at it, but we decided to move it away from the wall, and just see if we could see anything behind it in the wiring.

Ben started scooting the stove away from the wall, and all the sudden there was a big "POP" and sparks and embers were flying everywhere.  It was like someone lit a firework behind the stove! 

It was nuts!!!  What the?!?!?
We grabbed towels and started beating out the sparks on the wood floor and the whole kitchen was enveloped in a horrible burnt metal smell. 

Luckily we got it under control, and began getting the stink out of the house.

I figured the stove was done for.  Bye bye stove.

A dude came over last night to look at the stove, and he literally laughed when we saw what had happened.  It was that bad. The wiring had burnt so badly that the metal parts had completely welded to the back of the oven, and the main wire that plugs into the house was completely fried.  There was some serious fire and heat back there.

The creepy part of the whole thing....it was all due to loose faulty wiring.  Stuff like that burns houses down!  Geeze!  Our oven is only a couple year old people!

 I didn't know whether to be furious or to be relieved that nothing worse happened.  I choose the latter and gave up my hope of a new double oven for mothers day tomorrow (hahaha).

I am happy to now have my oven back, and even more happy that our house isn't burn to the ground because a bolt wasn't screwed in tight enough. 

And life moves on.....

epic!

William's foot has finally healed enough for him to play soccer.

Sadly, today was his last game.

The weather isn't great, so Ben took him to his game, and I stayed with the other kids.

After hearing about this game, I wish more than anything I had been there.

According to Ben:   The game started out with 2 against 2.  Not sure where all of the kids were, but it was a small game.  William's other team mate, was a little girl, who didn't really have a clue what she was doing.  She was kicking the ball the wrong way, and kind of just messing around.

The first half of the game, the other team scored 5 goals, Williams team scored none.

The second half started, and the girl on Williams team didn't go back in, so it was William against 2 kids from the other team.  In Williams words, "it was just one human against 2 humans"

Ben said that something inside William just clicked and he completely unleashed.

He was blocking passes, dribbling down the field, scoring goals, sliding in the mud to protect his goal, and running like crazy.

William is in the yellow with his hood on his head

he blocked this kick

William is in the yellow

William scored 6 goals in the second half and won the game!!!!

This didn't come easy, because a kid on the other team was really good, and William really had to fight.

HAHAHA!!!!

All I could do was laugh and laugh as Ben was telling me this.

He said that William just turned into an animal and was all over the field.  He played with skill and toughness and did phenomenal!

He had a whole month of missed soccer games to make up for I guess.

Oh man, I love my big buddy so much.  I can't wait to see him continue to grow and develop.  His big body and big heart are capable of doing big things.

Way to go William!

friends

Mary and I went to a mother/daughter date night at the church last night.  The activity day girls put it on for Mother's day.

We played a game where we were asked questions, and we had to write down what we thought the other person would answer. 

For example:

They would ask Mary what my favorite color is.  And ask me what Mary's favorite color is.
We would both write down the answer, and then show it to each other at the same time.
Each time we got it right, we got a point.

There were 20 questions, and some of them were pretty tricky.  You really had to know each other.

Mary and I won the game, by getting 17 of them right.

As we sat there playing the game, I felt my heart getting so warm with the fact that Mary and I really do know each other.  We have open communication and we have trust.  Mary is my daughter and I am her mother and parent, but we have also established a friendship.

I have always hoped to have this with my children.  Of course, I am the parent, and I am usually the bad guy, but I also really want my children to feel like I am on their side, I am their friend, and they can come to me.  I want to be able to laugh with them, hang out with them, and have fun with them.

It felt so good to see that, at this point in time, Mary and I have that connection starting to blossom. I can only hope and pray that is continues to grow.
 She is a sweet girl, and she is growing up in a hard world.  I am so grateful that she has chosen to turn to me and to trust in me to help guide her through it, even if I don't really feel like I know what I am doing myself.

I love my little Mary girl so much.  I am very blessed to be a mother.

Mary made this for me and gave it to me on our date.

this was actually taken this morning, after the gym, so I look terrible.  Mary is so cute though.

here we go

Molly is officially into the destructive phase.

All of my children have gone through it at this age.  I knew it was coming.

It is never on purpose, they are just very, very curious, and love to unload, undo, remove, take out, and take apart everything.

Molly's two favorite things lately....

completely unrolling any roll of toilet paper she can get her hands on, tearing it up, and spreading it all over the house,

and....

pulling all of my shirts off the hangers.

Seriously.  This one is new, and it drives me crazy!!!!

Good thing she is so stinking cute.

regionals and p.s. vegas sucks

This year, Mary's tumbling regionals were in Vegas.

We figured we could make a fun family trip out of it, and that way everyone could watch Mary compete, and we could all be together.

Oh, the things we learn in hindsight. 

We ended up selling  Maggie back to the lady who sold her to us (another story, another day), so we decided to use that money to do something fun in Vegas.

We got tickets to the Tournament of the Kinds show in Excaliber.

Right when we pulled in to Vegas, we checked into our hotel, and drove straight to the show.

The show was awesome!  I am so grateful we did it.  The kids absolutely loved it.  We had front row seats too!  There were knights, jousting, sword fighting, fireworks, dancers, kings, horses dancing, and everything a child's heart could only dream of seeing in person.

The boys were completely awe struck through the entire thing.  Mary loved the horses and the dancers. Molly was freaked out by the whole thing, and actually fell asleep toward the end.

the wizard came by to say hi

our knight and the jester.  Luke was completely into the whole thing but he was too shy to get in the picture.  He was just so amazed to see a real knight, in person. :)

yep, dinner along with the show.  No utensils, and whole chickens.  It was pretty cool.

After the show, we headed back to the hotel with some very tired kids.  They were not fans of having to walk through a smoke infested casino in order to get to our room.

Throughout most of the trip, the kids talked a lot about how yucky they felt being there around so much filth.  Aside from the show, the trip was pretty much a massive train wreck.  I think, some of the reason, is that the kids felt so unsettled and uncomfortable inside.

I am very glad my children are sensitive to things like that, but man, I nearly had several panic attacks trying to shield them from so much of it.

The next morning was one of Mary's competitions.  She competed on floor.
We decided to take the whole family.
Let's just say, our children struggle with sitting still.  It was quite the ordeal, and it was very, very stressful.
Mary did really well on her passes.  Unfortunately, she took a step on her first landing.  The competition was really tough and close, so that step put her in third place.
Honestly though, 3rd place at a Regional competition is amazing!  She was happy, and we were very happy for her, and proud of her hard work.  Regardless of how crazy the whole thing was, we do not regret being there for Mary.

When Mary was done, we had to wait another couple hours for the award ceremony, so Ben took the kids back to the hotel to swim for a while.

The rest of the day, we decided to try and see some of the cool things Vegas had to offer.

EPIC. FAIL.

We drove to Mandalay Bay, found parking, unloaded the kids and the stroller, dealt with crying and tantrums, walked forever, and all the while, told the kids how cool the shark tank was.
Well, the shark tank was no longer free.  Nope, the shark tank was over $100 for our family to go see.
Argh!

So, it was walking back to the car, loading in to the car, more crying, more driving, more parking, more unloading, and more tears, as we made our way to MGM to see the lions and tigers.
They got rid of the animals 4 years ago.
Doh!

So, it was walking back, loading into the car, more tears, more snacks, diaper changing, more driving, more parking, and more walking to go see the M&M factory.
Well, it is NOT a factory.  It is a little store where they charge $10.00 for a $1.00 bag of M&M's.  To top it off, it was surrounded by girls that were completely naked from the waist up.
This is how William handled his tour of the Vegas strip. 

He kept asking us why girls were showing us their bums. ugh, ugh, ugh

On our walk back to the car, the last straw snapped when a dude drinking a can of beer puked...on me.  Yup, down my arm, on my shirt and in my hair.  I can't even think about it. 

We accepted the fact that Vegas sucks, and headed back to the hotel, with crying, tired kids, and high hopes of swimming and trying to redeem the night.  In came the rain and the wind.  Rock on.
  No swimming.

We ate dinner, watched TV, and called it a night.

Mary had a team party, at the pool, late that night.  Mary and I went to it for a while.  It was really cold. It was fun to talk to the team and their parents though. Bev, Mary's coach, turned 60 that day, so we ate some cake and sang to her.

The next morning was Mary's double mini competition.  We packed our bags, and decided to leave right after the competition.  By this point, we were done with Vegas.  Even Mary said she couldn't wait to get out of there.

Mary did beautiful passes on double mini!  The only glitch, one foot was out of bounds on her first landing.  She placed 3rd again.

Pretty awesome to come away from a Regional competition with two opportunities to be on the podium.

Way to fly Mary girl!

After the awards, (where two of the babies cried the entire time) we drove to the hotel, loaded our bags, and headed home.

The trip was pretty horrible, but I am so thankful that the two big things we went there for worked out.  Mary's meet, and the show at Excalibur.  Both of those things turned out great!

Other than that, I am pretty sure Vegas is the last place we ever want to go to again. Good riddance!

molly's babies

Molly is not only my last child, but she is my last little girl.

I just want to indulge in everything little girl with her, while I have the chance.  When we are at the store, I always point to the baby dolls, but Molly is too busy reaching for the balls.

I always do her hair in cute piggy tails, but Molly rips them out.

I had her ears pierced when she was in infant, and we battled her ripping those things out for quite a while.

She just loves to play outside, jump on the trampoline, she is obsessed with bouncy balls, soccer balls, and baseballs, and she loves to wrestle with her brothers.

Today however, was a victory!

She FINALLY asked about a baby doll.

Mary went down to the basement with Molly, and they came up with not one, but FOUR baby dolls.
 Molly insisted on bringing all of them upstairs.

She has been doing this ever since.

I can't even....oh my heart.

moments

Yesterday, I saw Luke sitting on the porch, completely mesmerized with the workings of this tractor.  He sat there watching for probably 20 minutes.  It was adorable.

After a while, I looked out my bedroom window, and saw this.  My heart melted.

 I love moments like this.

where is molly

Molly has decided to start running away from us when it is time for her to get changed, or get her diaper changed, or get her hands washed, or get her face washed, ect.

The other day I told her I needed to change her diaper, and this is what I found.

Ha!  She kills me!

he builds

William went to the gym with me on Saturday.  He does not like going to the kids club, but in order to get out of staying home and doing chores, he decided to come along.

When I went to the kids club to pick up the kids, the ladies that work there told me to check out what William had built.

That is one amazing castle, complete with the inside all done too!

William had worked hard on this thing for over an hour.  It was incredible!

Wow, this kid has some talent.

sushi?!?!?

We had another Achievers Club dinner on Thursday.  I love that Ben works so hard for our family, and that he gets rewarded for it.  These dinners/activities always remind me of how great of a worker he really is.  I am proud of him, and very grateful.

This time, Achievers Club was at a sushi restaurant.  uummmm, yikes!  I am not a seafood fan really, aside from some really good calamari,  so sushi kind of freaks me out.

Ben and I did decide to give it a shot though.


Here is what we were presented with.

This is one of about 15 trays that we had for the main dish.  5 different types of sushi rolls.  They varied from not so sushi-ish (vegie rolls) to very sushi-ish, pieces with big slabs of raw fish on them and in them.

I started out with the vegie roll, to be safe, and I really enjoyed it!

Ben had filled up on one of the meat appetizers, but he also gave these rolls a shot.  He didn't love them, but didn't hate them either.  Go Ben!

I mostly ate the vegie roll, but I did venture out and try one that I actually really, really liked.  It had these really yummy orange circle things on top that topped it off so well.

I soon learned what those orange circles were, when the guy next to me, who is also not a sushi eater, asked what they were as he took a bite. 

The answer:  fish eggs.

The dude next to me got up and literally went to the bathroom.

I felt sick to my stomach and immediately stopped eating.

Fish eggs!  For real! 

The best part, is that they get in between your teeth, like little seeds, so I got to sit and pick them out of my teeth for the rest of the evening.  Each time feeling more and more sick knowing I had fish eggs stuck in my teeth. (shudder)

Aside from that fun episode, the night was really fun, it always is with the Cintas crowd.

We did have to bring Molly with us, because we didn't exactly trust the babysitter we had to deal with a baby for 5 hours.  Molly loved sushi!  She ate three rolls!  What the what!?


So there you have it.  Ben and I have officially tried sushi.  We didn't hate it, but it would not be our first, second, or even third choice of food to eat when we go out. 

Just sayin'