Hi- Ho- Hi- Ho- It's off to the E.R. we go...

Monday morning 12 am E.R. visit with kid1- ear infection. Poor kid.

He suffers so badly from ear infections and they sneak up on him within a matter of hours so tonight when he said his ear was bothering him I knew we only had a few hours until it got REALLY bad. We headed into the E.R. for some late night E.R. memories… you know the odd-bods that are at are lurking in the E.R. at night? The uncovered coughers, the way too large ladies in WAY WAY too small tank tops, the dirty little kids with NO shoes, the strange tattoos and the stranger hair styles? You know! The crazies!

So we laughed, we picked up extra nasty germs, we got antibiotics, we made memories and now were home tucked in bed and ready to sleep for a few hours and face the week.

Happy Monday friends!

:)

**HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND**

(Kid4 a few years ago)

the sunshine in my life...

My Dear Kid3, my boy oh' my boy how I love you. There are just not enough words to tell you how happy I am that you are home. I missed you like crazy while you were away at school. The house just wasn't the same without you. You give this house, our family and our hearts a balance that we just can't seem to find without you. You are so lovely, you are so kind and I am so proud of who you are. The way you treat others and the man you are growing into is something to behold. Your ability to know others; really really look inside of them and know their needs is unreal, it's a rare and admirable quality. You are a rare person, an amazing boy and I am honored to be your mom. You take my breath away every day. I still swoon at the sight of you every single morning when I see your smiling face. Thank you for being you, thank you for being extraordinary and thank you for being mine. I treasure you. You will always be my baby. I love you so much more than you will ever know.

Love, Mom

her teacher (just for T)

Kid4's teacher is a lovely person.

We love her.

Can you tell how Kid4 adores her with the care she took to draw her bangs over to the side so carefully with a green flower?

Can you tell how she adores her every step with her black beautiful shoes?

Can you tell how important she is by the polka dots on her beautiful blue dress and lovely long arms?

Can you see the amount of love piling up next to her from kid4's heart with all those hearts?

Oh Miss C- we love you!

How did we get so lucky as to get another great teacher this year too?

I think you are lovely and beautiful too!

Love Kid4 and her mom!

hangin' out over the weekend

What did you do this weekend?

This little princesses Daddy came home for a visit.

We took her to the park for a little play time.

We cooked out burgers with Bat Girl and the Shadow.

We just chilled and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine.

I hope your weekend was beautiful too!

move it, move it, move it…

see this girl...

she drives

Into the neighbors trees...

goodbye sweet little expensive vintage blinker...

through other neighbors yards…

heres what I'm saying-

if you see a little blue CRX (missing a blinker) on the road…

MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!

AND… thats why I blog!

I have been doing some hard core thinking about my blog lately. I have been asked before if my life as written on my blog is real or just a front and there is an easy answer to that. I never mind answering this question because it's simple.

My blog, my thoughts that I share are my real life, but I don't share the messy parts, the hard times, the times where I'm beside myself in tears, the parts where I'm sure my whole life is going to crumble away any minute. Blogging is like scrap booking in a way. If you are putting together a beautiful book of pictures and memories for your children would you also share the horror stories? Would you also include the miserable parts of your marriage, the days when you think you might actually put the kids up for auction at the local auction house? I wouldn't. I publish my blog into books once a year at Christmas time for my father-in-law and myself and the books are dedicated to my children. My blog is written for them to remember the good times vividly and leave the bad memories behind.

I purposely don't promote my blog by talking about teenagers and sex, teenagers and what they wear, alcoholism, skeletons in my closet or anyone else's because I want to read my own blog and smile and remember my house, remember my children and their funny stories. I want to look back at my own advice and either take it or laugh at it. It's a way to watch myself and my babies grow not a way to expose my children, lay my marriage bare or cause my family or friends discomfort.

I love to blog, I love to write and express myself and I hope that someday my children will look back at these words and be inspired to enjoy the minutes with their children more than I did, love stronger than I did, live healthier than I did and be the best people they can be. I hope for them that they can look back and read these sentences that I have written for them and smile remembering that even though childhood is not as easy as people make it out to be that there were amazingly memorable times. I want them to remember these times as vividly as possible.

and I'm terrible at scrap booking.

SO… you think you "know EVERYTHING"?

Do you ever hear other parents say "teenagers think they know EVERYTHING"? Do you agree? Do you think that your teenagers, or teenagers in general, think they "know EVERYTHING"? I agree and disagree all at the same time. Sometimes I watch my teens grasp at anything and everything because they are so aware that they know nothing and it's so hard to watch them struggle while knowing they must learn on their own. Sometimes it's horrible to have to watch them be so confident that they know just how to do something that you know they know nothing about and watch them fail.

Do you want to know what I have realized as I am raising teens? I have realized that not only do they not "know everything", I don't "know everything" either. In fact I have come to the sad realization that I know very little. As I watch them stumble down the paths of teenager-hood tripping and falling sometimes and succeeding and skipping along other times I feel like Im on a roller coaster running behind them clapping for the good times and trying to catch them during the bad times all along not knowing anything at all just hoping to do the right things.

Raising teenagers is a helpless feeling, like betting your last dime on a turtle in a horserace. Im crossing my fingers, closing my eyes and praying hard that my kids turn out human at the end of this thing they call teenagers…

Saturday favorites...

It's Saturday round' these parts and this kid is spending every single second she can with her long lost Daddy! They are out getting the oil changed as I type. She will be attached to him till he puts her to bed Sunday night and leaves again. Oh' this is so hard on her…

I hope your Saturday is full of your favorite things too! (in her case, her favorite thing is Daddy!)

I miss summer...

a fundraiser AND a date

Kid4 is ALL about a fundraiser. If her school is having a fundraiser she wants to GO! She's also very good at remembering dates so needless to say we don't miss anything. Monday night was a Stevie B (pizza place) fundraiser for her school and I REALLY did not want to go. She asked her biggest brother, the Kid4 sucker, Kid1 to take her and he was all about some pizza. He took her on a little fundraiser date, this is the picture I received, they had a great time! I wish I would have gotten a picture of them together- they are SO cute together!

her perspective

A day in the life of Kid4.

These are pictures taken by her this summer…

I love to see a kids perspective…

sleeping babies

favorite cartoon

again

and again...

well you know...

her fish London...

him...

Kid4 is having a REALLY HARD time with her daddy being gone. She misses him something fierce! We had dinner with him Saturday night and she cried and cried on the way home. I'll write more about it later when I can put it into words. She drew this today. I hope this means she's dealing with it… poor Kid4… she's such a daddy's girl.

Daddy...

WE are really missing Daddy around here lately.

His bright smile and warm laugh...

The way he reads the best bedtime stories- better than ANYONE else...

And all those special things that only Daddies can do the right way…

Daddy hugs, kisses and snuggles.

We miss you Daddy

Love, everyone!

:) happy :)

I love that my kids are friends…

I always tell my kids that friends will come and go but their siblings are forever.

"walk"

I had a total inner panic today when I realized that I had never sent a check to the high school for Kid1's cap and gown so I rushed around looking for the note to see if I missed the deadline, finally I gave up and just called the school. I said "Hi, I am Kid1's mom and I totally forgot to pay for his cap and gown and Im totally freaking out inside worried that he won't be able to go to the ceremony"… she reassured me that she had taken his measurements and that I didn't have to pay until April. She very confidently said "He will be able to walk". I took a big breath, thanked her and hung up.

As I hung up, I sat there and re-played the conversation in my head that I just had with the secretary… did she say "walk"? WAIT… wait a COTTON PICKIN' second here…. did she say "walk"? Wait…. didn't he just learn to walk? Is it even remotely possible that he is going to have his name announced, walk across a big stage and graduate from high school? Is my baby old enough to graduate? WHEN did this happen? I sat there and the life of my little boy played in my head and I closed my eyes and remembered him. I closed my eyes and felt his soft yellow hair, I felt my lips on his hot cheeks, I could hear his little baby boy noises in my ear once again. I kept my eyes tightly shut as I watched him learn to crawl and then walk in my mind. I forced my eyes to stay securely closed and watched him sit on those big stairs on his first day of kindergarten, I could just hear his little voice begging me to let him stay home "just one more day".

He grew. He grew up. He's about to "walk". He's about to graduate. I know I'll stand there sobbing like a baby, or will I see a little tiny boy crawling, walking, and running across the stage…? Will his life, the life he had with me flash before my eyes once again? Will I watch him and be paralyzed with mother emotion?

I guess we'll see… don't take your eyes off your babies because before you know it they will "walk", they will fly and well they just won't be your babies anymore.

*boo hoo*

peace

Do you crave peacefulness? What is peaceful to you? The dictionary describes peace as freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquil. Peace is many things to me, my babies sleeping in my arms quietly, a quiet house after a long day, a long talk with an old friend. I think to me peace always includes some form of quiet. Im not sure that quiet is always peaceful to everyone. I think some find peace in noises and crowds.

I often feel like I can breath again when I get to Mt. Perfect or visit hoofville… a place full of childhood memories gives me a sense of peace and belonging. The long red dirt road to my Grammies house makes me take a breath, fills me with a peace that is unexplainable. The sound of the swaying trees in Mt Perfect allows me to close my eyes and know that I am home.

Do you ever find yourself trying so hard to keep peace that you mess it all up? Do you ever think about how easy peace is to achieve but sometimes feel like it's always out of reach? Whats your peace friends? What makes you breath? What makes you feel totally secure? What makes you close your eyes and know that you are home?

I hope you always have a sense of peace, a way to find it and someone to share it with.

teenagers, car trips and growing up boys...

While Mr. B. is gone, Im trying to spend alone with each of my kids to connect with them, to remember that they are human and not just my children, children living in my house. Sometimes I get caught up in giving them money, feeding them, making sure they are safe, worrying about them and I forget to ask them about themselves, I forget to talk to them like they are people, my little people that I adore so much.

Yesterday I took Kid1 to visit my brother. It's an almost 3 hour drive up there, and I thought this would be a good time to do some real talking about life ahead of him, some things he needs to work on alone and some things we can work on together. I have to keep reminding myself that 18 is not grown and he still needs my advise.

We talked, we ate a nice lunch together, we visited my brother and we stopped at a revolutionary war cemetery on the way home. It was nice to reconnect with him, hear his thoughts and fears. I'm not the best advise giver, I just want to take it all from them and make it all better… but it doesn't work that way. Why can life be so brutal? When did these kids grow up enough to make their own life messes?

Will we make it through these next few years with 3 teenagers?

Stay tuned!