Our date night

Donnie recently helped a friend from church make a 60th Anniversary Power Point presentation for her parents, and they worked hard for a week on it. Her husband wrote us a thank you card and gave us a gift certificate to the Rockwood Grill!

It was just too wonderful!

Donnie ordered the Walleye, which was so incredibly delicious that he didn't want to ruin it with tartar sauce or malt vinegar! If we could prepare our fish like that, we would not be practicing catch and release.

I ordered the Coconut shrimp. It was 7 pieces, and I wasn't sure it would be enough. They were so big that we had to take pictures to show just how big they are! Plus, they were even better than the Outback's!

These pics are from the camera phone. Donnie couldn't resist sneaking one of me eating, I thought he was saving the other pic he took. I am brave enough to post it, though!

It took Donnie 2 1/2 bites to eat ONE shrimp, they are that big. I only got 4 down.

I highly recommend this restaurant. The food was fabulous, the atmosphere was fun, and family friendly if you wanted to bring your kids. The waitress was fantastic, too, just the right amount of checking on us without making us feel hovered over. There were electric trains running through the place on shelves near the ceiling. It was entertaining watching them come and go from room to room.

Trinity's first Dental visit

Here's Trinity with her cutesy smile on the way to the dentist for the very first time!
How could anyone resist such an adorable smile? She melts my heart, even though you can clearly see a bit of mischief in her eyes.

All ready for "Mr. Tickle" to clean her teeth. Well, really she is not at all sure about this, but she didn't complain.

Here she is holding "Mr. Thirsty" in her hands. She gets to hold that to suck out the spit and the water they spray in her mouth.

All clean! Isn't she gorgeous!?

Here she is with her "loot" from the hygenist. Her new Cars toothbrush, some toothpaste, floss, and of course a new toy. She was very brave and didn't complain at all.

If you don't count the x-rays she wouldn't take, lol.

More contests!

Where to start??? There are so many going on that I'm going to link up to them in one post.

Pinks and Blues Girls Blog is giving away for a Vera Bradley Nantucket Navy “Little Betsy” purse with matching coin purse. Also thrown in is some Coconut Body Butter courtesy of Sheena Williams, a consultant for the Body Shop! Check out Sheena’s site for her July Buy One, Get One event and see what The Body Shop has to offer. This contest closes Monday, July 9th at 8pm EST.
5 Minutes for Mom is giving away TEN NeatReceipts Scanlizers! Check out the demo on the NeatReceipts website. This is a handy little travel scanner. It would have helped my husband so much when he was traveling for business, he could have just scanned in his receipts when he got back to his hotel room so he would be sure not to lose them. Now I would use it to scan photos and recipes and articles that I want to keep. I love to send pictures to family, and this would help me get them some extra pics.

Adventures in Babywearing is giving away The Podonbutai! A new baby wearing creation by Jenn at All Natural Mommies. I love wearing Samuel around, it makes for such a happy, contented baby! This is a three in one morph of baby wearing products. Exciting!

Mums The Word has got a rocking prize to win from XY Factory! A $25 gift certificate for their store! Kaytlin would flip if I won this prize and got Sam a t-shirt with a guitar on it!

Mama Speaks has had a great opening week and still has goodies for you to snatch up every day! Add the Mama Speaks button to your blog (the html code can be found here) ! She has so many prizes, its just too cool!

You can win a designer children's necklace at the Skimbaco Lifestyle blog! She uses the proceeds for children's charities.

Special K Family is having a great contest!! A $50 gift certificate to Splat Designs, or Amazon or a restaurant if you don't CARE about your blog design. You just need to put a button to her site on your blog. (That would be that top button on my blog!)

Whew, I think that's it! I've been on a winning streak, which I hope hasn't ended, but I hope you all will ignore the Splat Designs one because I really, really want that one! OH, ok, do it anyways!
In about 2 weeks time I have won 2 books, a onesie, a $25 Amazon gift certificate, and a Vikings pillow! The last two I had to earn, they took work! But it was worth it!

Trinity does it again!

No, she did not play in her excrement again, lol. We appear to have gotten through that, though every time I say that she does it again. So, we'll see about that in a few days......
My 5yo niece is staying with me for a week, she's almost 6, and I'm going to try to keep her another week, but fighting her mom could be scary, lol. This has been an easy week for me, Hope-Anne and Trinity have been playing constantly with Morgan! They are up late at night, and sleep in until 11am, lol. (My sister does not read my blog, so I can admit to all sorts of this stuff!)
Last night the three of them were sitting on pillows with their feet in the pillow cases and sliding down the stairs. (again, glad my sister doesn't read this!) They were having so much fun! But it was getting close to 11pm so we told them to get ready for bed, and they begged for "one more ride" down the stairs. Well, ok, of course, but just one more time.
Then we hear Trinity falling down the stairs, she's obviously not going down correctly and is screaming. We run to the stairs and pick her up. I took her in the bathroom for some better lighting to see if she is hurt. She has blood on her bottom teeth, so we were searching for where she got hurt. It took some time, but we located a tiny scratch inside her bottom lip. She was crying as we were looking for her owie, then she says, while still in tears "I need to do it again!"
Oh my heart! This child is a female Devon.
Devon had been sitting in the living room while they were sliding down the stairs saying how dumb it was to do that. But when Trinity got hurt and then wanted to do it again, he agreed to do that stupid (that means boring to him) stunt with her so she wouldn't get hurt. He gets to the bottom of the stairs and decides that's a sweet ride, and he does it again!
If the bottom of the stairs did not lead directly to a WALL, I could see them throwing themselves down the stairs like it was a Slip and Slide.

My trip to the dentist

I hate going to the dentist. Its a huge deal to me. Traumatic deal to me. Even taking the kids is trying. I finally found a wonderful dentist, walking distance, even. (plus he's a neighbor, lives two doors down) My husband's company was bought out by Symantec Corp, and in the merging they took on the other company's dental coverage. And we are back on Metlife, which is miserable. And our fabulous, close dentist is not on that plan. Its not that I don't appreciate having coverage, I do, but they are much more difficult to deal with for dentists, so few want to work with them. Thus, making finding a dentist difficult, at best. And their website is difficult to deal with, so I couldn't log in and find one. And their phone is a mess, you can't talk to a person unless you know some secret code.

Needless to say, we skipped the dentist visits for way too long. I finally found one that we can go to, 30 minutes away!

I take Kaytlin and Hope-Anne there because they both have toothaches. Kaytlin had a cavity on a baby tooth that the dentist didn't want to mess with because it was going to "fall out any day now." But it didn't. For 2 years. It just got worse and worse, until she tried some major mouth wash that crumbled her tooth! So we had to get it removed. She is 16, and still had that baby tooth. Why? Because the permanent tooth turned completely sideways and didn't push it out.

Do you know what that means? Braces, yes, but not just braces. Braces to open the space up. Then oral surgery to cut into her gums and put a metal brace on the tooth with a gold chain hanging out of her gums. Then another visit to the dentist to torture her by pulling the chain and winding it until the tooth comes down. This is not your standard braces wearing time frame, this is at LEAST 26 months. And how many mortgages on our home to pay for it????

Ok, so Donnie takes her for her ortho, so I didn't have to die from sticker shock or traumatize Kaytlin with all my questions to the ortho.

Now its time for the rest of the crew to get their cleanings. I made all 5 appointments together, they loved it and it was easier for me to make ONE trip that far. Drew didn't want to go, he had "work" to do, and the van decided not to work, so I had to take the car. Drew got to stay home so we would all fit.

All the way there I'm thinking: They are going to make me get my teeth cleaned in his place, I know it. Nope, I'm not doing it. (I'm getting a bit tense at this point)

Now you know what happened next, right?

I'm filling out paperwork for the kids and ME (now I'm a bit queasy), and Trinity goes back for her first ever visit, but they couldn't get the x-rays to work with her. She did great with the cleaning, but needs a pediatric dentist to get the x-rays and one cavity. I have pics I'll post another day.

Hope-Anne and Devon are next up. I know Devon is going to get an ortho visit because his baby tooth and permanent tooth are both in the same spot, so he'll need it pulled and something to bring the tooth in the right place. I'm not looking forward to that. Sure enough, ortho orders. How are we going to afford this?

Hope-Anne..... they gave me ortho orders for her, too!!! I'm not putting braces on her at 10. But they want to make sure they can pull the baby teeth that have cavities without causing spacing issues later. They do think braces for the gap in her front teeth, but I know that is easily fixed the same way I had it done, snipping that little thingy in your top lip.

So then its Cody and I. I'm a little freaked out, I don't do dentists well. I had some bad military dentist that not only hurt me so bad I was a puddle of tears while 7 months pregnant, they said they did two root canals, that I sat through, by the way, that they didn't actually do, so my teeth crushed and had to be pulled. And then I have puked for a total of 16 months with my pregnancies, which stripped the calcium out of my teeth while washing them in stomach acids hourly or more.

Lets just say I have some gagging issues and leave it at that, but by the time we got through the xrays, I was near to passing out. They did not have time to clean my teeth after that and I need to go back. (I purposely neglected to tell them that I will not come back!)

So I walk over to Cody's room to see how its going and I immediately inform them that if they are sending him to the ortho, they better not say it today because I'll lose it! They said that they will "eventually" need to send him, but its not urgent. He has an overbite, but it doesn't stop him from eating and he does not look weird or anything. His teeth are nice and straight.

I left there shaking and in tears. (and with several appointments for myself since they are smart about patients who don't like to go) They gave me an application to get interest-free credit for dental stuff and they say "You should apply for $3000, I'm sure it'll be under that though." That made me sick right there, because she isn't even talking about Kaytlin's braces which are almost that much OUR COST.

Thursday Thirteen #24

Thirteen Things about Lisa13 things to make teen drivers safeIn light of the deaths of 3 teens and a young ladythis week, I am looking for ways to makemy kids more safe in the car. Here is the news story. 1. Set an example for them. Don't speed, don't use your cell phone while driving, keep the music at a reasonable level. Things you want them to do. 2. Start them out with little privileges and gradually add them. No night driving at first, no friends in the car,etc. 3. Make them responsible for things. Have them pay for the vehicle, not to own it, but to want to take care of it. They should be paying their insurance, gas, some upkeep,etc, so they want to take care of things. Better grades means less insurance out of their pockets! 4. No passengers for 6 months. I, personally, did not do this. My first, and only so far, driver is really responsible, and we let him drive his siblings, and moved to friends one at a time. His siblings reported him to be very conscientious and safe. 5. No nighttime driving for at least 6 months. Teen's crash risk goes up at night. Start them with a curfew, 9:30 for a few months, then 10, etc. 6. Don't let them have their own car. If they use the family car parents still have control of the vehicle, making it easier to decide on the conditions of use: seat belt, cell phone, etc. 7. Teach them to be aware of their surroundings. They need to be looking beyond the car in front of them. They need time to react, at 16 they take longer than even an 18yo to respond. 8. Make them wear their seat belts, even when they are in the backseat! It needs to be a habit. I'm shocked at how many people don't wear them. 9. For the first year all driving should have a purpose, to work, to school, to a friend's house. No "cruising" with friends. Most accidents happen while joy riding. 10. Teach them to not drive while tired. Let them know its ok to call you and find an alternate way home. 11. No one wants to believe their teen will drink, much less drink and drive. But I have made sure that all my kids know that I would come get them without a fight if they find themselves in that situation. Its never worth the risk of driving! How about an Intoxalock? They can't start the car without a clean breath test. 12. Consider having a driving "contract" with your teen. Have written rules and the consequences to breaking them, with signatures! Make sure to put in there that parents make the final decision. 13. Consider getting DriveOK for the car to monitor speed and position. It sends messages to your cell if the car goes faster than allowed. There are several versions out there to choose from. If they don't go where they say they are, you'll know it! I know I'll be getting this for at least one of my drivers.

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MN Vikings

I'm a Vikings fan, I admit it. Its not that I watch football, because I only watch one or two games a year, but I'm loyal. I grew up in Minnesota and Minnesotans love their Vikings! My dad was a fan, I speak of him as though he is dead, but really he's just a traitor and gave up on them, don't hate him, he is getting old and feeble, and besides, I already kicked him. My husband is a fan, and a rule in our house is: You are a Vikings fan or you find somewhere else to live.

So there you have it! What else can I do?

We wear our purple and gold on game days. We check to see if they win or not, and my husband watches them most of the season. We search yard sales for Vikings clothes for the baby, the boys, even us girls sometimes. We display our Viking's Fan post in the yard year round. Even when they lose. We even tried to get rid of a girlfriend of our son because she was a Packer Backer!!! Evil!!! (Our pastor is, too, but we somehow adore him anyway)

Soon it'll be that time of year! Diary of 1 is having a Sports logo contest in conjunction with TeamMascot. The first 20 people to blog about their favorite team and link up to here will win some merchandise from her store. I love the pillow picured here! These mugs are pretty wonderful, too!

There are many other great sports logo merchandise, also. Take a look-see!

Please pray for this tragedy.

Our town was struck by yet another tragedy of teenagers dying in car accidents. Today, two teen girls from our town, another girl from a neighboring town, were struck by a semi, and then somehow another car ended up in the mix, and a 24yo is also dead. Here is the news story.
My oldest two children have been burying at least one friend a year for a few years now. Kaytlin lost two friends today. She has been close with both of these girls. One was a class mate of Drew's, though he was not overly close with her. Her parents were in Niagara Falls when the accident happened.
I'll give more information later, but please pray. This is going to really hurt the 10th and 11th graders of our town.
I do know the two girls in our town were both born again Christians.

Wordless Wednesday #12 Filling Daddy's Shoes

Drew, wearing his father's Army uniform. He actually is a bit too tall for it!

Booboo City

We were out shopping for a present for a kiddo's birthday party and Sam was sitting nicely in his safe shopping cart protector thingy, happily playing. Hope-Anne and Trinity were walking with me, so nicely. Until we need to pick out tissue paper.
Trinity decided to amuse Sam by jumping up and down in front of the cart. She ended up smashing her lip on the cart handle. She sliced her lip open good! Right through that little thing in the upper inside of your lip! Isn't it nasty? Sorry about the bloody face!

It appears Trinity got a bit of a jealous bug in her later in the day because she got an irresistible urge to push Sam down.
Now he has a cut and fat lip! That's the worst owie he's ever had! He's a trooper, though. I had to fight him off the camera to take these pics. He kept trying to grab and eat it while I had to hold him and the digital camera still long enough for it to decide to snap the pic. Doing anything with an 8 month old is like trying to dress an octopus!

He didn't like me holding his head in place trying to get a pic of the cut inside. That was worse that getting the cut if you ask him.
He has turned into quite the little monkey! He's crawling all over the place, walking along furniture, digging in the toybox, eating ANYTHING he can get his hands on. Donnie brought him up to my work last week (temping for our church secretary) so I could nurse him while I had lunch. He got a whiff of my burger and decided there was no way mamma's milk was as good as that smell. So he sat up and grabbed my burger and got his huge mouth around my double cheese burger and took a hunk off it! He chewed that burger to bits with just his bare gummers! And loved every bite of it! He also LOVES spaghetti-o's. He says "MMMMMMM, Mmmmmmm" as he eats them, its so cute!

Happy Birthday, Jeannie!

Today is my friend's 49th birthday. There are 4 of us (me and my peeps) who regularly get together and cut up. Usually its at our monthly ladies night out, and it is a riot! It gets us through the month, and one of these months there WILL be soda spewed out a nose! (that's my personal goal for success as the Ladies Ministry Leader)

The 4 of us, Jeannie, Sarah, Jody and I, are also putting together the church pictoral directory. Its taking some time, input from the church for pictures has taken some creative touches from us. (there may or may not have been some people taken out behind the wood shed, but I'm not talkin') Its getting down to the wire, we gotta get it done soon.

So we planned to meet at Jeannie's for a meeting today. As soon as we were all there we decided we needed a break, and insisted on DQ, despite Jeannie offering us some lemonade. We get her in the van, and have Sarah follow us with Jeannie in her van, to the DQ. All is well until we PASS the DQ. I think she was suspicious at that point, even though Sarah played dumb really well. But I'm pretty sure she didn't realize she had been kidnapped for another couple of blocks. She should have been suspicious of Sarah showing up for a meeting with lipstick on.

We took her to a really nice local restaurant for her free birthday meal. Where we proceeded to pretend we were at ladies night out and probably were near being asked to leave, if the faces on the table next to us were any indication! (can I just say "fuddy duddies" and not get in trouble? They weren't talking to each other hardly at all, like an old couple with nothing to talk about)

But really, we may have gotten a touch giggly, and possibly a bit loud in those giggles, but the table on the other side of us...... lets just say that when there is a rare hush in the restaurant, that is NOT the time to announce you have not been sexually active this week. And this was a table of maybe 8 adults in their late 40's or more. Two of them said something about being sexually active! In total seriousness, like a group therapy or something. The timing couldn't have been more comedic.

The waitress did tell us we were having a bit too much fun, lol. My throat hurts from laughing so hard. And there WAS some spewing, on my part, but not soda out the nose, because we hadn't even been seated yet. Sarah did something so naughty and surprising as we were walking in the door that I laughed so hard I spit on Jody. I think she still loves me, but she sat on the opposite end of the table from me. She got me back, though, something about a holy cow.

So, Happy Birthday, Jeannie! I hope you had a great time and weren't too full to enjoy your meal with your hubby! I'm still so full I could burst.

Five random questions meme

I've been tagged by Michelle at Heart of the Prairie for a meme. You get tagged with 5 random questions, you answer them, and then make up five of your own to tag someone with.

1. If money wasn’t an issue, what three things would you buy for yourself for your birthday?
1. Carpeting in my house. Wood floors are pretty, but I feel like wall to wall carpeting makes a house a home.
2. A new front loading washer and dryer!
3. A new dishwasher that is quiet and eats every spec of food you put in there, even if its an entire pizza!
2.What restaurant meal would you go back for again and again and again?
It depends on the restaurant, really. I love french dip sandwiches with a side of fries! But if you are talking about fast food, which you probably weren't, I would be going back for a Spicy Chicken Tendercrisp sandwich with onion rings and dipping sauce at Burger King!
3. What did you want to be before you grew up and did you achieve it?
Not only did I achieve it, I went above and beyond it! I wanted to get married and have 5 kids. Always. Belly dancer and brain surgeon, those things came and went through the years, but I always wanted to be a wife and mom, specifically to 5 kids. I switched from brain surgeon to belly dancer when I saw half my brother's lip hanging from his face, how could I face a brain if I could barely handle that?
4. What one piece of advice do you have for others that you have learned through life’s lessons?
Never say you wouldn't do something. "I wouldn't let MY kid do that!" "I'll never fall into that trap." "That'll never happen to me!" Well, that's just asking for God to set you straight, you judgemental human! lol (I have extensive experience here, trust me)
5. What’s your oldest piece of clothing that you still wear?
My oldest piece is a sweatshirt from high school with the names of all my graduating class mates from 1989. I can't get rid of it because who would want it besides my class? And then I gave birth to Devon while wearing it, lol. Its still around somewhere, and I occasionally wear it to bed, or bumming around the house. I haven't unpacked it since I was pregnant with Sam, so I don't have it out to get a pic of.

Ok, five random questions...... This is the tough part.
1. What was it about your spouse that made you decide he/she was the one?
2. What was your favorite pet in your entire life? And why?
3. What one thing should you give up? (coke, cookies, computer?)
4. What is your most embarrassing moment? Ok, at least name an embarrassing moment!
5. What is your favorite/most interesting/weirdest job you've ever held?

I'm tagging Bring your own cheese, JAM, Laughing Mommy, and Don't give him crackers!
Let me know when you get yours up if you play along!
If anyone else wants to play, feel free to join in and let me know you've posted your answers.

Good news

Devon is home and willing to take care of himself and follow our terms.
We let him spend the night at a friend's house to think about what he wanted, and those boys have been in foster care before. I don't know what they said to him, or what their dad said, but he was home when I got home from work. We hugged for at least a full minute, and then walked to the DQ. As we sat there he said he didn't sleep well last night because he really wanted to be in his own bed. Really bad.
I'm so glad! He knew that if he came home that he had agreed to the rules. Things don't process quickly for him, so a little cooling off and thinking time are great.
Laughing Mommy, Devon will be able to take care of himself no problem, he will just have difficulty keeping a job and relationships if he doesn't control his anger. He just says things without thinking or care about the consequences. (Like Thursday "I'm going to find a new place to live!" He didn't want to move out, and didn't think we'd take it serious, he wanted us to be afraid of losing him and then agree that he was right for kicking his brother in the back over a game.) We used to be very afraid he would not make it through school. He could not read beyond a very basic baby book, which took a LONG time to get through, "Ball" "Apple" , at 4th grade. He knew all the phonetic sounds and rules but could not put them together to read. We finally got a specialist and she did WONDERS with him, then the chlorella came along and he is almost caught up. He actually does well in his reading level, its all in the speed, he takes too long to finish things because information from paper to brain and brain to paper gets lost along the way without the Chlorella.

In other news, my blog had more traffic yesterday than I get on my Wordless Wednesday posts or my Thursday Thirteen posts! And my techonorati score is in the top 150! But where were the commentors? :-(

My Golden Keyboard Award

You can now see my lovely Golden Keyboard Award on my sidebar. I shall display it with pride!

I decided to check out my stats from my Thursday Thirteen post, and I saw that early this morning 25 people had already been by. This baffled me because Friday is not a heavy traffic day for me. So I looked to see where they were coming from, and it was overwhelmingly from Owlhaven. Now, I checked again this afternoon and there have been almost 70 visitors here today, and no one new has left a comment. So, all you visitors from Owlhaven, please leave me a "Hello!" in my comments so I can drop by and visit you, too.

Besides, I could use a "pick-me-up" today.

One of my children has an immunization injury. Its really hard because 1) he doesn't look or appear to have any problems and 2) doctors will NOT help you discover the problem if it is immunization related. I discovered it while doing college research. We knew there was a problem, but we didn't know what it was.
He has many, many symptoms of mercury poisoning. Irritability, Fits of Anger, Memory Loss, Lack of Attention, Depression, Low Self Confidence, Drowsiness, Decline of Intellect (actually has learning disabilities), Insomnia, Low Self Control. Lack of coordination of movements, such as writing. Impairment of speech. Skin rashes. Mood swings.

That was enough to do some more searching. I found something that removes heavy metals from your body naturally and we started that. Its a whole food, natural product, the side effects would possibly be intestinal upset, and bathroom problems. But all his side effects were positive! His grades went from ALL F's to ONE F in one report card! His anger and violence levels were so infrequent that we could trace them to forgetting the supplement. His mood swings were almost non-existent. He sleeps better, he eats better (not better for our grocery bills), feels better about himself, is able to pay attention and remember what he is doing, he isn't irritable all the time.

At one point he decided that he was doing great and didn't need that stuff anymore, so he quit. Things declined, of course. He still refuses because he doesn't want to take pills to make himself likable, he just wants to be likable on his own. Then we discovered that chiropractic helps incredibly, also. But it did not fit in his schedule when school started, she wasn't open when he could go, and we couldn't afford to take him out of school 2-3 times a week with being in special ed already.
But, we discovered accidentally that SPORTS works to release the gases, too! Sports are over.

So, Devon is not getting anything that his body needs to deal with the mercury, and he is acting pretty intolerable to his family, who, in turn, is not being kind to him. It blew up last night and Devon got the short end of the stick and left. That's why I am upset. It genuinely had nothing to do with him, but he's an easy target, and it happened.
Now we need to work things out to make sure he will follow a health plan in order to stay at home, and we need to get some more empathy and understanding out of his siblings.
Its hard to be a parent and see your child hurting and sabotaging themselves. Life is easier for him when he takes things to remove the mercury, why wouldn't he want that? We try to force it, but he feels like we are trying to make life easier for us. I can't imagine how horrible that feels.
He understands, when he is taking his meds, that his is like his "thorn" to deal with in life. That God is going to take this and teach him things, to prepare him for something special in life. He knows that God is going to use him.
My heart breaks for him because if his disability was noticeable, like a physical handicap or Downs Syndrome, people would treat him differently. But because his can't be seen, it seems like he is just a jerk, and is treated like he is. He is not a problem child, though. He is actually a very good kid, a very intelligent and strong young man who will stick to what he feels is right no matter what.

Another give-away!

You all know how much I love a give-away! I post these and post these and post these, but I don't win. I see others winning on a couple different give-aways, and me nothing. I finally won a book and I can't wait to read it!! I want to read it cover to cover, so I'm waiting, and today Donnie is taking the kids to the zoo, so when I get home from work I'll be alone for at the very least an hour, but probably 2!
So, here is another one for you to go enter into! I found it on my friend Michelle's blog Heart of the Prairie.
Mrs. U of “Making a House a Home” is celebrating her one year bloggiversary and is providing an amazing, large give-away to commemorate this special event. One lucky winner will receive a set of Marth Stewart every day towels, a choice of earrings from an Etsy shop, an autographed copy of a really neat book, and a TWO year subscription to Victoria Magazine!
Hop on over there and congratulate Mrs. U on her blogaversary!
Don't forget to stop at Five Minutes for Mom via the button on my sidebar, they have 7 give-aways up so far!

Oh, and I won a Golden Keyboard Award from Owlhaven today! That cheered me up a bit!

Found on my bed tonight

I've had a really, really horrible evening, and I can't even bring myself to blog about it yet. But when I finally decided to crawl into bed to hopefully sleep and not cry more, I found this note on my husband's pillow:
"Dad Only" With many underlines. Well, I couldn't NOT open it. (if you know me at all, well, you'd know I had to, lol)
So I open up the three page letter and here it is:
1.
Dear Dad it really Hurt my feelings when you said you trusted TRINA more than me!! I'm in geat pain!! I am in tears of sorow. I still love you BUT
2. It will take a wile to recover from the shocking news, so I will be writing notes and putting tham here each day
3.I still cant beleve you said that!!
Hope-Anne
Ps. Dont show MOM! (insert a giant face with tears rolling down from both eyes)

Is anyone else cracking up?? Sure, I should feel more sympathy for her. She's hurting right? Well, I stuck up for her, and the reason she didn't want ME to see that after I stuck up for her? Because she is manipulating Dad and knows I will NOT let it happen, lol. He's a sucker, and she knows it.
Plus, she earned it. She hits Trina and Donnie has caught her plenty, so when Trinity was screaming like she'd fallen off the roof, and she said Hope-Anne hit her, of course he believed her! And he said that Trinity doesn't lie to him. She's 3 1/2, she doesn't LIE! Hope-Anne was just devasted because she was grounded. I did a little check on Trinity that usually results in her fessing up, but she was not doing it. So either she really was hit or she learned Dad buys it. Or Hope-Anne is telling the truth and she told Trinity she can't have her hula-hoop and Trinity threw a 3 yo temper tantrum, and then lied.
After I read the letter and was laughing, Kaytlin asked me what it was, so she read it and was cracking up, too. Dad was completely snowed, though. I told her what happened, that he said Trinity doesn't lie, and she busted up laughing again! Dad is SNOWED by all of his girls.
Anyways, the letter made me laugh, so I won't be going to bed crying. My eyes hurt, but I have a smidge of humor now. Maybe tomorrow I can talk about it, or Saturday when I know what is going to happen. (Don't worry, its not the end of the world!)

Thursday Thirteen #23 13 Things in a parade

13 Things you find in a small, Midwestern town parade that you won't find in the Macy's Day Parade.

1. Princesses on lame floats. Yes, that's a BARN with "Got Milk?" on it. As if that weren't bad enough, how about having to sit inside a baked potato? I'm signing up for that pageant next year! 2. The obligatory Hay ride and 4-H float.

3. Tractors. There must be tractors. What else is there?

4. Yes, the camo truck, can't forget that! Why, that's practically a staple out here.

5. Then there are the plows. Old and new. What on earth do we need this huge on for? It looks like it should be in Antarctica.

6. Giant objects. As if everyday life isn't big enough!

7. Boat turned float? Seriously, this looks like some sort of tour boat with wheels! With a bunch of elderly gentlemen so thrilled with their ride that they sing wherever they go!

8. How about the broken vehicles? I mean really, nothing says "parade" like having to be pushed or pulled through the parade!

9. What would a parade be without Elvis? Sure, you'd find Elvis in the Macy's parade, but a Fat Elvis and a Flat Elvis? Bring it on, I dare you!

10. BooBahs? What ARE these things? They frightened me so! And my camera was so afraid it took 5 shots to get them.

11. Things that don't belong on the ground. Planes and boats. Why in a parade? They don't go on the road!

12. What says "Midwestern" more than snowmobiles and 4 wheelers?

13. Now, this doesn't scream "Midwestern" to me, but I can't imagine the Macy's parade having a float like this! That is, indeed, gym equipment. Like we need a reminder that we are fat, out of shape, lazy people with nothing better to do than sit on the curb watching traffic and fighting for candy!

Wordless Wednesday #11 Dancing to Stasis Dei!

You guys have GOT to go visit my mom's WW, she has the most amazing, HUGE blue lobster!

Prophetic words.........

I was writing about a friend telling you to look at possible sin in your life in my post Christians? . I said how I had friends who do that, call me out when I'm complaining about how this or that is going wrong, .. And they have pointed out areas that may need to be looked at.
Well, that happened.
My sweet friend who loves me dearly, enough to call me to the carpet, called me to the carpet.
She called me up today (she lives FAR away) and I was telling her how glad I am to hear from her because its cheering me up so much with all my computer woes, and this very morning I tried to get on my computer but all access to the internet was gone, not just trying to sign in, but internet explorer wasn't even ON there, and it was all frustrating. So I tried to go into safe mode and do a system restore to a better time in my computer's life. Well, it worked this time, it went back in time and brought all my stuff back without the adware stuff! But it only works in safe mode, because regular mode........ the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH appears. Safe mode won't allow me to get to the internet, so my hands and feet are removed from me, my life is suddenly halted.......
"Lisa, I think God is telling you to get your butt off the computer and spend more time with Him."
{screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech}
Ummm, I do think that is the problem. Didn't want to hear that, but you know, umm, the truth is what we all want to hear even when we don't want to hear it, right?
I did try spending more time with the kids and cleaning the house and making better food with the computers having limited capabilities, but that wasn't the only thing God wanted from me. Thank you, my dear friend, Sheree, I love you so much and I am more and more grateful for God bringing you into my life! Thank you for speaking the truth and not sparing my feelings even though you are a peace maker at heart and would love to just let things ride out and not make waves! You are my heart-sister that no amount of miles can change.

Well, my dear Donnie told me to try my computer in Safe Mode with networking, and everything works fine there, I can do all things as before, like nothing ever happened, except it is in safe mode and looks a little weird. We'll have to download the pics and stuff and reinstall everything, I guess. It is still better than giving those criminal adware companies our money. They need to be prosecuted. You just would not believe the amount of people on message boards proudly supporting how that software worked so well, not at all suspicious that it was not their virus protection that discovered the problem and sent them to buy it.
Now I need to spend more time with God, because He's calling on me!

Who's conspiring against me???

Between the refrigerator, the roof leaking/shingle blowing off, child needing braces (which I haven't blogged yet), our second computer going down, car needing some serious help, well, I'm looking for a job.
Then we got a virus or Trojan horse or adware thingy on my computer. It kept popping up a thing saying we have a virus and this and that and to click to download software to get rid of it. But it was NOT our virus protection software that was saying it, and it always brought up this same software to BUY to get rid of it. I will wipe out my computer and start over before I will give money to the creeps who put out those adware to make money on their software!
So, my dh did search after search and we downloaded things to get rid of it, and we just couldn't do it. Everything worked on the computer, but we couldn't get rid of the annoying pop ups that would stop whatever we were doing until we dealt with it.
So, Donnie found a way to manually get rid of it. And he did! Its gone, gone gone! But so is my ability to access anything that needs to be signed into. Email, blogging, commenting, you know, MY LIFE!!!!!!!
We are going to have to back up all my pics and files and reinstall everything.
But, the good news is that Donnie is on vacation this week, so I can use his laptop to blog and check email, and he has the time to take care of it. (when he's not fishing) And I work at the church this week, so while I sit there with very little to do besides answer the phone, I can do a little blogging and emailing. I only have to answer phones and add finishing touches to the weekly bulletin and print it out and play with some announcement slides.

Maybe I need to do some major house cleaning??? And this has to happen when all the kids are home and we want to play computer games in the heat of the day, but NO computer works, except Donnie's work laptop.

So, if I'm not commenting much, or visiting or posting, or emailing, you know why. Not to mention the busy week we have.
Kaytlin goes in to the orthodontist this week. She has one permanent tooth that grew in sideways over her other teeth. So she has a gap in her mouth right now. I want to go to the appointment, but I am supposed to work. I may go, though. They are talking about doing something like putting a chain around the tooth and tightening it to bring the tooth down. But the rest of her teeth are straight enough, so why can't they just take it out and put it in place right? Can't we just take it out and put in a fake tooth, not dentures, but a permanent one posted in? Kaytlin doesn't want that, though.
And then on Friday Donnie has to take a group of kids to the Minnesota Zoo for Kaytlin's 16th birthday party.