Still trying to catch up....but I'm making progress!

I feel like the to do list is getting the best of me today! I check one thing off and another gets added! I'm getting alot done, just not as much as I would like! I don't think that there is anything going on tonight, so I should have more time to catch up, I would like to watch The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe tonight...I just finished reading the book and I thought that it would be a good time to watch the movie again. I have also found that there is a big debate over which order the books of the Chronicles of Narnia should be read, I didn't realize it until I bought this book, which has all of the books in one. A friend was looking at it and told me that they were in the "wrong order". I looked more and found a note that says: "...The books are presented here according to Lewis' preferred order.....". I am reading it through in the order that my friend says that I should read it first, the order that corralates with the movies so far and read them in the book's order another time.

My miniature poodle, Teddy, went in for his haircut this afternoon. When he gets back I will post some before and after pictures. We have tried to cut his hair and he growls and bites, but apparently for the groomer he is very good. My Dad even tried wearing a pair of insulated leather gloves once and still ended up with teeth marks on his hand!

I've crossed a couple more things off my list, but don't know how much more I will get done, we are supposed to go out with some friends to the new Mexican restaurant in town. We enjoyed it the other night we went out...it was crowded, but the food was good!

Hope everyone is having a great day! I'd better keep moving or I definately won't get through my list!

More pictures!

My fashionable bandaid after I cut my thumb....you can see the nail color I wrote about in an earier post...NYC East Village

A view of the fish hatchery

An empty tank in the fish hatchery. We've never seen it empty before!

A view of the field behind our church

The mysterious rubber boots. This is where they have sat all winter/spring/into summer and no one seems to know who they belong to!

Behind our church

Catching up and a few pictures

I am still working on editing some of my pictures from the last couple of weeks in Photoshop, but I will start showing you a few so I don't end up with a HUGE post of pictures!
I'm also still trying to catch up on laundry and things around the house after our week of "vacation". Laundry is getting there and I sent out a bunch of birthday and anniversary cards this morning. I still have to clean the house and we have prayer meeting tonight and wedding rehearsal Friday and a wedding on Saturday. K is doing the sound/video for it and I usually just run around and help with whatever needs to be done.
Anyway....that's all the "fun" around here. Hope everyone is having a great day!
One of K's marigolds

A lily around the birch tree

A few of the roads we came across on our drive


I'll post more, maybe later this afternoon if everyone sleeps!

Blog Hop~Favorite Recipe

It's time for another Blog Hop! I had a difficult time picking out a favorite recipe...I am still learning alot about cooking but this has been one of our favorites!
Bubble Pizza
1/2 pound ground beef
1(30 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
2 tubes refrigerator biscuts
2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
Optional toppings: onions, olives, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers...

Brown beef, frain fat, add the spaghetti sauce and the refrigerator biscuts (cut into quarters first) and any other desired toppings. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Add cheeses over top, then bake another 10 minutes longer. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Hey there!

VBS is now over :(. It was a great week and a very tiring one! I had 6th graders. K was the sound/video/snack quality control guy. K and I also had most of the week off, I worked on Monday. We finished up some projects at church during the day...river rock around some new areas of cement where plants won't grow, fixing the flood lights that are around the church, and getting the new sign set up.
I am working on editing some of my pictures and should have a massive photo post coming up for you very soon!
Hope you all are doing well, I'm off to find my pillow!

Blog Hop~July 14

This week's blog hop is difficult....hmmm let's see 3 things you didn't know about me....
1.)I have lived in Iowa for my entire life. Actually I live an hour away from the town I was born in.

2.)I have to be able to hold on to a blanket to fall asleep. It doesn't necessary have to be covering me, but I have to be able to cuddle with it...also I have to be on my left side to fall asleep, a little bonus fact for you there.

3.)I love doing crafts right along with the daycare kids...hey, it's part of the reason I do daycare, I don't wanna grow up lol!

This week, on TUESDAY, 7/14/09, the theme is THREE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ME (or US). You can express this with photos, writing or a combination.

A better day!

K was a huge help in snapping me out of my mood last night! After the kids left we went for a drive to the fish hatchery in a neighboring town, where they also have a small, but beautiful garden of flowers, for me to get some pictures. Some of the flowers had already bloomed and gone, but I still got some beautiful pictures! I will post them along with a bunch that I have taken in the last week or so after I get them downloaded from the camera.
After the fish hatchery we headed to Wal Mart for a few things, and K spoiled me a bit with a rounded corner punch for my card making, a Veggie Tales dvd for the kids, and a new nail polish color. I'm all about the out of the ordinary colors! The one I picked out last night is N.Y.C.'s East Village. Hopefully I will get my nails painted tonight and I will snap a picture to show you too!
Getting a good night's sleep helped too, although I was woken up with a loud bang of thunder at one or two this morning, followed by Casey, the shih tzu, freaking out and trying repeatedly to jump on the bed with us! I think we both fell right back to sleep, so it wasn't too bad!
Today the kids have been so good! Only Miss A has had a time out (or two), and they have all gotten along so well, used polite words, cleaned up and worked together when I asked them to! The only downside to the day has been that I cut my thumb on a can of green beans while making lunch. Nothing a little Hello Kitty bandaid wouldn't cure! Lol it was either that or Transformers...that was all that was in the first aid kit downstairs!

It was all just a dream.....

I have been out of it all day today! I woke up to the most vivid dream, and it felt like my heart was being ripped out! In my dream it seemed like I was in another country, but really I could see our church parking lot and I was sitting on the steps to the Pastor's office with three kids that I didn't know and little Tater.
It seemed that there was some sort of fighting going on or war or something...and as I was sitting on the steps some people that I knew came to check on the children and say goodbye. Before I knew it a helicopter was there and I was supposed to put the kids including my Tater on the helicopter and I just knew that I would never see him again. I was sobbing and begging the men loading the helicopter to let me go along or to somehow keep me in contact with him. I tried explaining that I had him in my daycare since he was born and I just couldn't lose him. I could feel his little arms around my neck, hanging on for dear life as he did not want to leave me either. Just as I should have let him go I woke up.
That dream has hung on to me all day and I just can't shake it. I've been sort of sad and depressed all day over a dream! But it really felt real! Hopefully a good night's sleep tonight will help things look brighter tomorrow!

Quiet rainy day

That blog hop was fun! It's got me excited to show you some more of the pictures I have taken recently too! I am already looking forward to next weeks' hop!
Not much going on today, it's been cooler and raining off and on. I was supposed to go watch Big C play baseball, but because of the rain the game was cancelled. No kids until noon left me some time to catch up on some projects....VBS starts on Sunday and I have some typing work to do for the songs so we can show them over the projector during the assemblies. I got three out of the five songs done. Our theme this year is Surf'n God's Word. They have a sandcastle building contest planned, a game time with water balloons, some neat candles to make for crafts....we can't wait! I will have the group of kids that is going into 6th grade in the fall.
Tonight is a bridal shower for a friend at church. Hopefully we will have a good turn out. They are a newer couple to church and some people say they don't know them so they aren't sure they want to come.

Blog Hop - Favorite photo

It was so hard to choose a favorite photo! I love to take pictures and experiment with settings and things...sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. K and I love to just head out in the car and try to find roads that we haven't been on before and stop in random places and take pictures. This was taken on one of those trips.

Back again!

Well, it's over. I had the tooth pulled this morning. The worst thing was hearing the crown pop off when they first started pulling. The dentist said that she expected that to happen, but it was still not something you want to hear when someone is working in your mouth, it was LOUD! I'm not numb anymore, a bit sore, and still bleeding and changing the gauze, but I have definately felt worse! I could use a nap, but hey, that's every day!

Saturday we had a GREAT day! There was a bridal shower in the morning at church, C picked me up with her daughter in law at 9:30 and we all went together. After everyone left from the shower C and I called B, who was having a surprise anniversary party for her parents' 25 anniversary and C and I hung out at the church and helped because some of their kitchen help didn't come on time and they were running behind. We waited for B's parents to arrive and said a quick hello and goodbye and we were off to a Mark Schultz concert! They bought their son tickets for his birthday and they bought us tickets to go too! It was GREAT!! Mark would tell the story about how he came to write the song before he would sing it, very cool to hear, and he had a great sense of humor! If you are ever able to go and see him I highly reccommend it!

Our busiest part of the summer is now over and I hope to begin blogging more regularly again. I know some of you are taking breaks for the summer and because you have alot going on now....I hope we can "reconnect" again and catch up with each other!

Dentists....

I really did mean to come back here and post right away with some pictures and things from our crazy hectic schedule, but I was hit with something else before I could.
I woke up one morning with a sort of an ear ache and my mouth/jaw sort of sore which quickly turned into the mouth pain from you know where, pulsing and pounding with every heart beat!
Here begins problem number one...which dentist to call. The dentist that my parents took me to when I was a kid is no longer practicing...which I wouldn't have called him most likely anyway, I didn't like him....the dentist I went to a couple of times after K and I were married caused me alot of pain and I didn't like his personality....and the dentist I had been to one other time on the advice of a friend was more than a half an hour away and couldn't get me in for about a week! K remembered that there was a new dentist opening an office in town and we called them. Unfortunately they couldn't get me in until the next week either, but it was earlier than the other dentist could get me in and she suggested that I see my regular dr and get a prescription for some antibiotics.
I went in and got the antibiotics and that and four ibuprofen every six hours helped the pain, but that antibiotic did some funky things to my stomach, I tell ya! Lots of yogurt the last couple of weeks!
When I finally got in to the dentist she found that the dentist that I had gone to as a kid had essentially started a root canal and never finished it and never told me. He just told me that it was a deep cavity and he filled it and it should be fine. Well, a couple years later that tooth broke and I had to go to dentist number two and he said the root canal was finished and that he would repair it by putting a crown on it. Sounded reasonable to me at the time. Well, like I said, really the root canal had not been finished and with the crown all that "lovely" bacteria and things were trapped in there and it became infected. It is apparently quite infected, but I hadn't felt anything until now because dentist number one had removed the nerve. Yay! As the new dentist opened up the crown she found that it number one had alot of metal used, and two the filling that dentist number one had used was nothing that she had ever seen before...apparently bright blue!....and it is so filled that she can not perform the root canal. She referred me to an endodentist to have the root canal done telling me that this may not even save the tooth. I called to find out if the accepted our insurance the next day and I found out that they do not, that we have to pay the whole cost up front and that they would bill insurance to reimburse us some, but they may not reimburse anything. She asks me which number tooth it is, and she tells me for that number tooth the price for the procedure alone is $975!!! And I have to be seen at least once before that for examination! Yeah, I just have more than $1,000 laying around to hand to her no problem! So after another phone call to the new dentist it has been decided that I am going to have it pulled. Fun. This is the second tooth that I will have had pulled. The first one was the very last tooth on the left side, now it is the next to last on the right. I just hope this is the last! At least I now have a dentist I feel comfortable with and will go back to see for more than emergency visits! She was very kind and explained everything well to me and made sure I didn't feel a thing, at one point I felt a tiny poke and she numbed it some more so I didn't feel anything!
So for now I am being very careful, no pain today, but it was a bit sore yesterday...two more weeks and it will be pulled and it will be all over!

CRAZY!!!!

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote last! Real life strikes again! We have had an absolutely crazy but absolutely fun few weeks! It started out with K doing sound for a wedding at our church on a Saturday (PM did not do the service, the family of the bride are friends of some of our church members and the kids have been in Awana for years and they asked to use our church but have their Pastor do the service), the Thursday of that week we had a bridal shower for one of the girls at church, kind of fun since they had already begun to decorate for the wedding!.....but back to Saturday we also had the local Misson's graduation (it's a Christian drug and alcohol rehab type program), prom (for which I was taking pictures of PM and C's son and his date in the morning and we also left the graduation early to get pics at the Grand March!), the speaker for our Bible Conferece was flying in that night (thanks to some good friends who went to pick him up so we could make our other activities!!) and the Conference was held Sunday (during Sunday School, Morning and Evening Services), Monday, and Tuesday. Tuesday evening after the conference we had to take most of the chairs out of the auditorium and set up the track for the Awana Grand Prix! Time trials were Wednesday and the race was that next Saturday! Both went well, we had a bit of a snafu with two kids coming in a half hour late ready to race (we fit them in since we hadn't started the actual racing yet, but it caused an issue for the scoring of the races and the heats of the races themselves....but we survived!). Saturday afternoon we tore down the track and got the auditorium ready for church on Sunday and the next Wednesday brought the Awana closing program, for which I was working on a slideshow of pictures that I had taken through the year along with some music. Stress! I had to restart the whole thing two or three times and when it was finally done for some reason it would hold a couple pictures longer and almost skip the ones right after that. Oh well! Not much I could do at that point!
I have also had some Fridays off work now and have been able to go to lunch with some friends and visit a few others. Tomorrow I am headed off for an afternoon of learning how to stamp and make my own cards!
I am quite excited for that, as well as for this afternoon! I was done working about three and K just got home and we are going to go to a benefit auction for a local Christian Ranch/Camp! We went last year and came home with some neat things....I am excited to go again!
Well, time to run and take the dogs out and K wants to stop at the ATM....I'll write a more coherent post soon! And post some pictures of the Grand Prix and things!

Never a dull moment! Kids are fun!

I am feeling bad because I have not been here to blog as much as I would like, but real life has just taken over. Tater is needing a bit more of my time and I'm not complaining, he is so much fun and has gotten quite the little personality! Yesterday the little character jumped off our front porch into one of the bushes! It's not a very big jump or anything but it was funny, I could just see his little gears turning. I was standing in the yard with the other kids and K was sitting on the porch steps and I had just looked over and said "Tater don't even think about it! You come over here and come down the steps" and the next thing I know boing off he jumps into the middle of the bush, looks at K and I and starts to whine a bit! Stinker! I told him I didn't feel too bad for him, I told him not to do it! He wasn't hurt or anything, but he was stuck in the middle of the bush and couldn't get out! Yeah, that's pretty much a normal day around here lately! Tater and his older brother T keep me wondering! I love it!

Ugh drama

I've been doing alot of thinking over my little break from blogging and a few things in real life and I have come to realize a few things. I realized that there are two main people who are causing all of the "drama" in my life. I'm not writing this to necessarily "out" anyone or make myself look better than anyone else or make myself feel better, but I learned something about myself during all of this and I just feel the need to write to sort everything out, you know what I mean...I'm still trying to process a few things.
I had distanced myself from one other person late last year after twice she had gotten me mixed up in some of her drama, which her information turned out to be false both times...this person's drama was not little stuff either...at one point she had the police involved and soon after that asked me to lie to her parents about her whereabouts for her....I still have "polite conversation" with her, but I am by no means rushing out to spend a great amount of time with her...and she still seems to resent me for not lying for her. It seems as if she is running from a great number of things and my heart breaks for her. Someday she is going to make a decision that she is not going to be able to take back, and there will be something that she greatly regrets. I know she doesn't have the best home life, but who does?! I most definately did not, but you persevere (unless there is honestly some abuse or you are in physical danger) and get through it and as adults my parents and I have dealt with some things and have come to a sort of an understanding....we are not a real close knit family, I have a few members of my church family who I feel are more family than my actual family, but we have a relationship and we are doing our best.
But the two people that I am dealing with stings a bit. I deal with both of them quite often in many different church and social activities. I am not going to shut them out completely either, but it is sort of strange to look at them now....Person A has alot of family issues. I have always known that and just accepted her for who she was and have always taken some of what she says with a grain of salt. She likes to use alot of "big words" and it's a matter of self importance, but we all have our moments and I can look past that and just know when I need to give myself a little space. But these moments are becoming more often and "bigger". She has started spreading false things about some of my closest church family because she does not agree with some decisons that have been made. Her family has been causing more issues with more and more people in the church, causing hurt feelings and they have said some very unkind things. She is one who "answers" our Pastor during his message, lots of Amens, yes', and mmhmmms.
Person B is someone who I have spent quite alot of time with in the past. I have found lately that she is becoming very judgemental. Things are always black and white. And very harshly, very quickly, and almost angrily. I understand that we need to hold ourselves to certain standards I guess...but if a person has an issue she may judge them as non Christian. If a person drinks, well they must not be a Christian or not a very good one and she will look down on them from then on. It's a holier than thou type of attitude. And she has made statemtents about how she is glad that she doesn't have this issue like that person or make comments condemning that issue with such force....
She is not shy about spreading these judgements either and one her mind is made it is set, you can NOT convince her otherwise! She has now started hanging out with person A and another family that person A hangs out with alot and they have started spreading stories together now. And again this newest story is about one of the people I am closest to in my church family, and indirectly about a second. Person B did not even come and ask me if it was true, she just latched on to it and went running. When she did ask me about it the question came out as more of an accusation, with this tone. She was all "What's the deal about....." and giving me this look. I don't know if she believes what I had to tell her, but I told her the truth. She talks about Person A behind her back all the time. I'm sure that she is talking about me too, but that's not what hurts. I'm the type of person that you can say what you want about me, it hurts, but whatever....but when you start messing with/talking about my friends/family that is when I start getting upset and want to "fight back".
I honestly feel like I am back in high school. People are stirring up drama just to stir up drama. Just to have something to talk about, something to fuss about. Honestly, if this is how Christians are behaving how is this any different from the "world"??!! How is this showing Christ to the watching world??
I am thankful for the wonderful Christian examples that I do have in my life. I am thankful for the wonderful relationships that I have in my life and the terriffic friends and family. I just hate the drama and having to distance myself...I am happy to have some wonderful friends that I can lean on during this time and for all of you reading all of my blabbering while I try to understand and sort it all out. It's been a year of learning for me this year, about others and about myself....I hope and pray that I become a better person and a better Christian for it!

Wonderful day off!!

I had a great day off yesterday! I really didn't get anything accomplished, but it was nice to be out running errands and just hanging out with the hubby and our best friends! We started the day off by sleeping in and just after we had gotten up and around my Dad called and K and my Dad were off to work on the truck that Dad has in our backyard. Just as they finished PM needed K to go and check out a moped that he was thinking of buying...since I had the day off I tagged along and got to visit with a couple people from church who just happened to be uptown at the same time. It was nice to get out and visit with some adults!
After we had lunch with another friend (during which I hopefully stopped some drama from going on, but that's a whole other story....ugh!) K and I went for a nice little drive. We both like to go for drives, but for two very different reasons! K likes to see if he can find new roads and new places to go and see if he can get himself lost. I like to take the camera along and stop along the way and get pictures of flowers or whatever we find along the way.
I got to do a little shopping at a consignment botique that just opened up in town and found a brand new dress and two tops for ten dollars!
About 5:30 PM picked us up and we went for an all you can eat chicken/fish fry in town. It was good! After a quick stop back at the house to drop off one of the boys we were off to do some shopping in a neighboring town. We had a great time! We went to Slumberland Furniture to look at a chair....the most fun was sitting in all of the floor models and checking out all of the different colors and fabrics that they had....I found a couple of comforter sets that I would love to have for my bed too!! After that we were headed to Wal Mart...we met a few people from town and our church while we were there and found some good deals too.
Today I have been catching up with the work that I didn't get done yesterday. K's brother and his two kids stopped for a visit and we are going to go to my parents' house for supper because it is my Dad's birthday today.
They are predicting some more snow and winter weather for us Sunday into Monday. I hope it misses us! I am SO tired of snow!

Finishing projects!

Wow, this week has flown by! Mr. Tater has been a bit clingy and I think that he may be teething...maybe some two year molars...and I have had a couple of big projects that I have been working on for church. I think that both of those projects have come to an end for now. One is for our Awana program. We were looking into buying a new computer program for our recordkeeping which would also give us a contact list with the childrens' pictures to put on a laptop. We have had a couple cases where it would have been very helpful already...one little girl's parents were late picking her up and she wouldn't tell our Commander her name. She finally told me her name, but she had a hard time remembering her last name and she didn't know her new phone number (apparently they had just moved) and we had another situatio where we couldn't get ahold of Mom and Dad and we could have used the emergency contact, but the person with the informational papers had gone home. I printed off 20 pages of reports to show our Commander and with a 30 day trial I started entering information and just today got the order out in the mail to order our subscription key.
The other project was working with a few people so we can get our church website up and running. I have written quite a few emails back and forth between the person who is going to host our website and the person who is now going to put the information up. I now have to burn another cd of pictures for the website and I think my part is done.
I am still working on the hymn book index and trying to catch up again on laundry and printing birthday and anniversary cards for this week but I am seeing an end to it all!
I got off early this afternoon, 4pm!, and found out that I have tomorrow off too! K has the day off and it sounds like we have a couple of errands with PM, but other than that we don't have much planned at all. I like those day!
I have a couple other little things to work on like this week's PowerPoint and hymns, writing a few emails, and looking for some music for PM. Nothing that will take alot of time, but just enough to keep me busy.
Sounds like we will have Chinese for supper and then we are off to prayer meeting tonight.
Hope you all are having a great day!!!

Many projects

Today is a slow day kid wise, but not project wise! I am trying to help out a friend, their computer crashed and they used Outlook Express as their email. I was in the process of getting them switched over to a Yahoo email address, but I was not quick enough. They can't remember the password and now I am working on figuring out how to access the address book. So far I have found how to back up the address book, but not about what to do if you forgot your password.
I'm also trying to get a song typed up for Awana tonight. I say try because last week we had everything ready and then we get to church and the computer will not work. It must have been the month for computers because we know of about three other computers that crashed! K and another friend got together and worked on it a bit and it seems to be running now, so we'll see! Not to mention the song is recorded from an old tape to a cd so it is not the easiest to understand!
I am feeling a bit better with my cold today. I am still pretty congested but I don't feel so tired. Hopefully I am on the downslide with this!
Well, I better keep working or it won't get done....have a geat day all!

Hello and kid funnies!

I meant to blog yesterday, but the kids kept me so busy I didn't get a chance to....and after the kids left the cold I have really kicked in and I was so tired! I got the laundry done and folded and I went to bed about nine!
I should buy stock in Kleenex!
I haven't gotten alot except for the laundry done in the last couple of weeks, so I really need to get some things done tomorrow! I only have two kids tomorrow and they are older kids so hopefully I can get them done!
Today was one of those days with the kids...T didn't take a nap, which is really strange for him and we are working on potty training Mr. Tater...well, I caught him trying to poop and after getting him on the potty and him proceeding to have a melt down I put his diaper back on, I figured that it wasn't worth tormenting him. I kept an eye on him and when he did go, oh. my. word. He had it up his back, down his legs, in his socks! I took everything off and wiped him down a bit and immediately took him up for a bath! He was happily splashing in the tub and I look down and asked him, "Tater, Why??" He looks up at me with those great big eyes and says..."Because!" I just had to laugh! His other recent funny was on Friday. I was supposed to have the day off and I was going to clean, but his Dad called and said that Mom was sick, and I agreed to take him. Well, I wasn't getting my house cleaning done and Tater found the dust on the tv and I told him not to play in the dust and he looks at me with his hands out and says "It butaful!!"

Catching up

Things are getting a bit better around here...the weather has been a big help. I am still struggling with a few things, some of it real life that I really can't post here. I have to say that I have a great group of friends, in real life and here on the computer, and I am very thankful for all of you!
I am staying busy...this weekend we did some spring cleaning in the house. We cleaned carpets and folded laundry, cleaned the bathrooms and did some tax preparation, it has been a productive weekend!
Last weekend we had a Ladies Day Away at church, where we all get together and have home made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, do our crafting or other projects, have a salad lunch, and more crafting. Some wonderful ladies there were reteaching me how to crochet and I have now almost finished a scarf and started an afghan in crochet.
I have been reading your blogs and keeping up, and I hope to start posting regularly again...sorry for being so dramatic and a pain in the neck!