Christmas break begins........now

That's the cool thiing about homeschooling. I can wake up today and decide today, we will begin our Christmas break. YAAHHHOOO!! Time to bake some cookies. My Christmas cards go out in the mail today, I am going shopping with "santa" tomorrow night, and then I think we will be ready!

I wasn't sure what pic to post today so I thought this one of G was really cute. He is such a sweet guy and has been such a blessing to his daddy and I from the very beginning.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

My Mom and the crazy purse snatcher

My mom and dad adopted a family for Christmas this year. Paul was taking the kids to his mom's Firday night so I thought it would be fun to go along shopping with my mom and dad for the family.

It was about 10pm and we had been shopping for a good 5 hours. My mom and I decided to go walk down to Ross while my dad finshed checking out at Target. Ross is about 5 stores down in the strip mall. As we were walking down we saw a woman bending over tying her shoe. Nothing too crazy right. Well then this guy comes running up the sidewalk and GRABS HER PURSE from beside her and starts running down the sidewalk again. I was in shock at what had just happened and then....................my mom...................throws herself in front of the guy and says "Hey, what are you doing!!!!!!". I was in complete disbelief at this point. The guy threws his hands up and says he was just teasing the girl and that it was his wife! RELIEF. The woman was really grateful to my mom and said how awesome she was. :) As we walk away I burst into to tears. My mom had scared me so bad. I mean my dad is usualy the one we call Dudley Do Right. He is the one that gets riled up with idiot drivers or just disrespectful people in general. But to watch all 5 foot 4 inches of my mom get in this guys face was insane. I was such a wreck. It took a while for my legs to stop shaking and get the color back in my face. :0

Anyway, I called her the next morning and told her how I proud I am of her and she better not pull that crap again with me. :P I love my mom and am so veyr proud of her. Way to go Mom!!

The Wendy's Story :)

Missy had asked in her post if I would share our Wendy's story and I thought since this is the time of year when Paul and I met it would be a great time to do so. Thanks Missy.

I got a job at Wendy's with a very dear friend Lisa, in October 1995. I had just turned 17. We had a great group of kids to work with and it was by far the most fun job I have ever had. (other than being a mommy)
Sometime during Decemeber I started talking a little bit to Paul. He was a manager at the time and just seemed like a nice guy.
As many teenagers at the time, I had a pager. How cool was I??? lol Paul couldn't understand why a bunch of young kids would have these crazy pagers. So one night he said that he was going to start paging me with all these crazy numbers. I laughed and told him he didn't even know my number so good luck. A few minutes later he came back and rattled off my number.
So the paging began. He would usually page me with all 1's or maybe a 2 throw in. It was pretty silly. There was no flirting or anything like that going on. Just being silly.
Then at the end of December I asked Paul what he had gotten for Christmas. He said he didn't get any actual gifts persay but he had one thing that really made Christmas for him. He told me his Mom had bypass surgery very recently and his present was knowing his Mom was going to be ok. WOW! I have to admit, this was when I started just beginning to see him in a little different light. I remember buying him 2 cd's so he would have something to open on Christmas. One was Mariah Carey's current at the time and Alan Jackson's greatest hits.
So over the next few days the paging continued. Then on New Year's I left this greeting on my voicemail."Hey #1(due to his paging) I do have voicemail so why don't you leave me a message.
That night I went to an allnighter with my church group. I got a page at about 3am and figured it was my friend school. When I got home around 8am I checked my messages and was shocked to hear Paul leaving me a message. I was in total shock and wondering what I was getting myself into.
So I waited a few hours and gave him a call. We talked for a few hours that first time nd I don't even remember what we talked about except thing, our ages. During the conversation it came out that he was 33! Yikes. What was I doing. To this point I had been a very easy kid to raise and pretty much always did what I was told. So even considering dating someone twice my age was totally out of character for me.
As the next few weeks went on things got more serious and more serious. I know I couldn't tell anyone but very close friends of my new found "love". :) So in the meantime Paul and I had midnight conversations on the phone when my family was sleeping. On occasion he would give me ride home from work and one night our first kiss. :) :) :X
Anyway, sometime in late Feb. I told my family. I think they thought it was just a crush I had....until he sent me flowers.Then my Mom flipped her lid, now that I have 2 daughters of my won I can say rightfuly so. :)
Anyway, it took a while for my family to really accept Paul and get to know him. I was teased and hassled at school and church for dating "my dad" as I was told. But I was so in love I could have cared less.
In Oct. of my senior year Paul proposed to me. It was on my 18th birthday. I graduated in May and was married in July. This summer we will celebrate our 10 yr anniv. I am pretty proud of where we are. We have been through a lot of trials, mostly our own doing, but we are solid and I wouldn't, couldn't imagine being married to anyone else.
So in a nutshell, a really big nutshell that is the Wendy's Story. :)

Carried Away

We were at a festival with the kids a week ago and got this shot of the Wendy's balloon. It was right about this time 11 years ago that Wendy's brought Paul and I together. I thought this was such a perfect pic to describe how Paul has changed my life. Sure we have our struggles and "clouds" in life but I really feel like being married to Paul, the forecast is sunny and clear. : ) :) :)

You've got a friend in me

I have to say Toy Story is probably one of my favorite Disney movies. When I saw Evander and Casey this morning in the backyard, that's the song that popped in my head. What great friends they are. :)

So today I am going to tackle the scrap/craft/school/ future baby's room. There, that way it sounds like much more work than just one room. LOL

I have been doing a lot of digital scrapping the last few months and I am missing my paper stuff. Usually it just takes a page or two and a giant mess that sends me back to digital. I am even missing ebay right now. :). Maybe an auction or two will cure that two.

Hope you have a great day!

PS Jesse, a scrap day sounds so perfect. Let me know if we can work something out. Maybe Cathy will let us invade her living room and her "store". :)

Chirstmas Cards and a little freak show

I have my cards all made and printed now just to work on the letter, get them addressed and mailed! YYAAAYYY

So we had our 2nd appt for Baby-E. I hadn't been feeling good at all that day. Just really worried that something was wrong. So by the time I got in to see the dr. my blood pressure was really high, my heart was racing and I was a wreck. He did the u/s and Baby-E is perfect, already waving these tiny little arms aroud. I think trying to tell me "Hey Mom, I'm ok in here'. At our first u/s we measured a week behind and this time right on target. What a relief. It is truly amazing how much you can love someone beofr even meeting them.

So this weekend is get orgainzed at the White House. The kids closets are such a mess and really need some work. I am my happiest when everything is put in it's place. Let me tell ya with 4 little ones that is a rare day!

Have a great weekend, Heidi

Happy Little heartbeat!

So we got to hear Baby-E's sweet little heartbeat. We decided to buy a doppler on ebay this time around. After losing little Carter we felt it was worth the peace of mind. So at this point Baby-E has a nice strong hb of 172! We are waiting until delivery to find out the sex this time. We have always known ahead of time so we thought it might be fun to be surprised!

Well I think it is time to put our tree up. I so love Christmas time. It's just such an incredible time of year. I am really going to try to get everything I need to get done and then just ENJOY the season. I tend to procrastinate and that really causes me to miss out on the fun.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and enjoy all you can of it!

Cheers to old friends!

Yesterday I got a call from an old friend, Sue-zee-que! It was so nice to hear from her. For me, the sign of a true friend is one where you haven't talked for some time and you pick up the phone and it's like no time has passed. It was so great talking to you Sue. Thank you so much for thinking of me.

So tonight Paul and I are going to try to finish up some Christmas shopping. It's really chilly this week so it feels kind of Christmas-y here. Last week our high was 89 degrees. Yikes! I think we'll head to the mall and grab a Peppermint Cocoa from Starbuck's. Thanks Cat for the tip. :0)

Hope you have a fantastic and fun today!

Off he goes.......

About 3 months ago we adopted our newest addition to our family. His name is Evander. He is a rottie/ boxer mix. We think he is right around a year old. He is so sweet and lovable. He is just fantastic with the kids. But.....given the chance......he loves to run away. Paul and I were putting up the Christmas lights outside while the kids were watching a movie. Well, one of the kids opened the backdoor and Evander got in. Not a big deal right? Well then one of the other kids opened the front door to check on Paul and I. Evander bolted out the door and was gone. Poor Paul chased after him in flip flops for at least 20 minutes. I was shocked to see him return with Evander! Paul said he had been chasing him and all of the sudden Evander turned around and ran home. A little blessing from God I suppose. It's so hard to be mad at this cute little face isn't it???

What's Cooking???

So, today I hope to get all of my turkey day cooking/baking done.
Here's my contributions for this year.
Brocoli and cheese casserole
Cranberry nut mold
Herb and cheese crackers- this was a recipe from Paula Dean's sons. I made them last year and they are so easy and soooooo yummy.

Black Friday is less than 48 hours away. WOW! I am trying to decide between the Vsmile or Leapster systems. WalMart has a great deal on the Vsmile but I'm thinking we might get more use out of the Leapster. Well, at least these are fun decisions to make.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We as a country have so much to be thankful for. God bless you all!!!

Is it really almost Thanksgiving?

WOW, has this year gone by so fast or what. I can't believe we are already into the holidays. I think being in AZ makes it a little tougher to get into the spirit of things too. Our temps are still well into the 80's so no chance of flurries on turkey day here. Nothing like eating a big turkey dinner and then going for a nice swim. LOL
Last week we took a fall break from school. It was nice to have our days a little carefree. The girls just finished their ice skating and dance classes. They really enjoyed the ice skating as did Mom and Dad watching.
We also went and had our first ultrasound of our newest addition. We are nervous and excited and pray that this little one is a keeper for us. :0) We are not going to find out the sex this time either. For the first time we really don't care if it's a girl or a boy.......we just want a healthy baby to bring home. :) We figured being the 6th baby we have to shake things up a little bit. So if you think of it please keep our little one in your prayers.
Hey, have a fantastic day today! :0) Heidi