Last post of this year

Wow, this year has went by SO fast! We started the year out in Clifton, Colorado. Ryan was working on the oil rigs and we lived in a LITTLE townhouse. We took a family trip to Denver in February and went to Casa Bonita and the Denver Zoo. Then Ryan quit the oil rigs and we moved to Oklahoma. We moved into the nicest house we've ever lived in, we love it! My niece, Stephanie got married in June (in Colorado). In August, Ryan and I had a brief separation. We got back together in September and things have been great since then. That's basically all that happened to us this year. My hopes for 2008 are: To get out of debt, and stay out of debt; To lose weight; To continue to get stronger in the faith; And to just do more as a family.
We had a wonderful Christmas. We spent it at Ollie and Sharon's house. The only sibling that wasn't there was Chantel. We really missed them :( Taylor got a new bike, an MP3 player (her FAVORITE gift), a sock monkey, new bedding (I'll post pics soon), new clothes, a pair of Heelys (she LOVES these, and is getting good at using them), and other small items. Blake got a new bike, a helmet, new bedding (Star Wars, I'll also post pics of his soon), a Star Wars poster, a talking Parrot, Pajamas, and other small items. I got Ryan a telescope,and he loves it. I had found an amazing deal on it! And I got a new pair of Clarks shoes, clothing and my favorite show's 1st season on DVD. We had a great time.
Then the day after Christmas I went to Oklahoma City to get my niece, Savanna. I take any chance to get to hang out with family. She came up and spent a couple days with us and then I took her back to OKC. I enjoyed having her. The kids basically had a 2nd Christmas when we brought her up here. My sister, Sue, had sent a bunch of presents and Steph and Vanna had also gotten them presents. Savanna works at JCPenneys and got a lot of clothing or them ;) Oh, and my other sister,Peg, had gotten them this set of Fairy Tales on DVD, plus Wal Mart gift cards. So they absolutely had a great Christmas!!!

They were all so cute!!! I loved Samuel's face in this picture ;)

Stormie and Taylor wearing their BEST FRIENDS necklaces

Merry Christmas

I will be leaving to go to Ollie and Sharon's for Christmas, so I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Christian Glitter by www.christianglitter.com

Ice storm pictures

Here is a slideshow of our ice storm. Now that all the ice is melted, there are branches EVERYWHERE you look. It is going to take a long time to clean up after this.

I'm HOME!!!

Exactly one week ago tonight, we lost power. Us and 600,000 other Oklahomans. We went down to my in-laws' ,an hour away, for the week. But we finally received power last night,so we came home, almost 6 days with no electric. It is weird because this side of the road has power, but everyone across the street is still without power. I'm glad we were the fortunate ones to get electric back. I still can't upload pictures of our ice storm (that made trees fall on electric lines, making us all lose power) because the battery on my digital camera is dead. I'll get new batteries tomorrow and try to upload some pics tomorrow sometime. Sorry I haven't been leaving comments to anyone else, but my in-laws has the SLOWEST internet speed possible. But it feels great to be home again!

Oklahoma Ice Storm

If any of you have been watching the news, you probably already know that a lot of Oklahoma is without electric. Over this past weekend we started having ice storms. Basically, just rain that freezes. On Saturday night I think was the first storm. We weren't sure if we would get to go to church Sunday morning, but it didn't affect the roads and we were able to go to church. Then Sunday evening was our Church Christmas party, and everyone was able to make it to that. The kids were in the children's play and they basically just sang a few Christmas songs. It was very cute and just a really enjoyable evening. Then Sunday night it rained hard. We woke up at about 5:00 am without power. We later found out that the power went off at about 2:30 am. Ryan did go ahead and go to work at about 6:30 am, because where he works had generators. I'm thankful for that, because we really can't afford to miss work. But we got up and just couldn't believe all the trees that were breaking outside. Basically you could hear one RIGHT after another. Ollie and Sharon invited us to go to breakfast with Chris and Melissa. So my mom, me and the kids got dressed very warm and I went out and started scraping my van windows. I ended up breaking my blade doing so. We went to breakfast and saw SO many branches broken everywhere. Ice covered everything in sight. My mom suggested getting gas before the store possibly lost power. So I did, and was very glad I did, because that evening, there were cars backed up to try to get gas, and there was no line when we got gas. We ate breakfast with everyone and then came home. I have a phone that works on the phone line power and not electric, so we called a few people in Colorado to let them know what was going on. After Ollie and Sharon had time to get home,I called them and found out that Henryetta had not lost power, but did find out that ALL of Oklahoma City to Tulsa (100+ mile stretch) was without power. 600,000 Oklahomans were without power and was expected to be without power for 7-10 days. President Bush declared an emergency in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. So I started packing to flee to my in-laws. We waited until Ryan got home from work and we left our home, not knowing when we could return. The roads were PACKED leaving Sapulpa, and like I said, there was probably a 30 minute wait to get gas, so i was thankful for our full tank. We made it to Ollie & Sharon's house. Chris and Melissa are without power also, so they are down here with us. Lee and Cherrie are without electric and water, but they are staying with a couple who managed to keep their electric. There is so much clean up that will have to be done before they can restore power. The kids don't have school this week, but they will have to make up for it at the end of the school year. Also, I wasn't sure if my mom was going to get to fly home yesterday, but she did go ahead and fly home yesterday. On Monday, they had cancelled all flights. But she is home safe now. But I really don't know when I get to go home. I'm so glad that I had family to go to, and not just a shelter of strangers, like MANY people had to do. This is crazy! I'm going to go and check on my house today and get a few more clothes to bring down here. We really are a society that is not ready for these kinds of problems. I know I wasn't. I will post pictures as soon as I can, but I'm not able to today, I don't have the right software here.

Out with the old, in with the new.

When I was about 2 months pregnant with Blake (about October, 2001) I bought a pretty pastel floral bed-in-a-bag. I have loved it for a long time, but it has been slowly falling apart, so this year, I've been telling Ryan that I wanted a new bed-in-a-bag. He has had to put up with the pastel flowers for years, so I told him we could do something more "neutral" LOL. So that was my wish list for this Christmas, a new bedding set. We are really low on money and I knew that would be probably the only thing I got, which was okay with me. Well, we went to Ryan's work Christmas party (hosted by Lee & Cherrie B. and John & Molly S.) on Friday night. They had several gifts that they were going to draw names to see who got to pick from them. Well, my name was picked and I unwrapped a present and it was exactly what I wanted, a new bed-in-a-bag!!! And the colors were almost exactly what I was going to look for. I was so excited!!! Oh, and also we played "Dirty Santa" and I got to steal a DEEEEELICIOUS bag of Holiday Roast STARBUCKS coffee! It is so good!!! Sorry Cherrie (that's who I stole from ;) Needless to say, I went home very happy! I had such a nice time, they all did a fantastic job putting it together!

Old bedding

New bedding

Oh, and off the subject, if anyone wants to see something funny, go to this web address:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1239674565

Just to let everyone know...

Hi everyone, I wanted to just write a quick note telling everyone that my mom is here, so I don't stay online very long, and haven't been on here much this week. She leaves Tuesday and I'll be back to my normal blogging self ;) So sorry I haven't left any comments in a few days, just bare with me a few more days, and don't forget about me ;) I am enjoying my mom very much though!!!

Christmas 2004

I am a little sad today. I just came across this picture and just started reminiscing of when I still had my dad in my life. He died April 13, 2005. But the whole year before that I lived in Henryetta and my mom and dad came 900 miles to see me a lot. I saw them 7 times in one year (for a week or two at a time) with them coming to Henryetta or me going to Olathe. I cherish those days. Well, Dad's last Christmas, they came to Henryetta. They stayed like 2 weeks. It was so wonderful. I wish I could have known it was his last Christmas, I wouldn't have left his side! He was such an affectionate person. There was NEVER a time that I had to wonder if he loved me. He was always showing love. And not just showing love, but he said it ALL the time. I miss his hands, he was a cabinet maker, so you would think with all the splinters and everything they have to deal with that he would have rough hands. NO. His hands were as soft as a child's hand. I miss feeling his hands. While they were in Henryetta for his last Christmas, we all piled in their car and drove to Muskogee (about an hour drive) just to see the famous Muskogee Christmas lights they have in a beautiful park. My parents never stopped doing wonderful things for us. Taylor was 4, almost 5 when he died, and Blake was 2, almost 3. Taylor remembers him quite well, but Blake just kind of remembers him, which tears me apart, because he is one person that deserves to be well remembered. I'll never forget that Christmas. I always had Christmas with either Ryan's parents, or my parents, never both. But that year, 2004, I got to share it with both. It was by far the best Christmas ever, for me. There's not ONE day that goes by that I don't think of him. Some days I have a hard time coping with it, like today, but I feel better now that I've gotten it out. But I will always love and miss my Dad.

My momma's coming!

I have been trying to talk my mom into coming out here for a long time. She has wanted to but just didn't have the braveness to drive out here by herself. Well she asked me to look online at plane tickets. I looked at Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, Cheaptickets, and Priceline. All of the prices were like $700.00-$900.00. Well I decided to just TRY and offer Priceline a cheap price. She gave me her credit card number and I put in the offer of $200.00 and it was ACCEPTED! So taxes and all it will only be a little under $250.00! It said her savings was 69%. So she is scheduled to fly here on Tuesday of next week! 6 days away!!!!! She will be here for 1 week. I'm so happy. She has never seen my house. It will be so wonderful having her here. I can't wait!!!

The picture that had me worried for years!

When Blake was a baby (4-5 months old), I had our family pictures taken shortly before Christmas. I ordered a package deal. But there was this one picture that didn't come in the package that I KNEW I had to have. It was of Blake sitting in a present box with a Santa hat on his head. And he had the most ADORABLE smile. So I ordered 1 sheet of wallets (8). I knew that would give the grandparents one some Aunts/Uncles and I would get to keep at least one. I lived in Colorado at the time so I mailed Ollie and Sharon an 8 X 10 of the family picture and a wallet of this pose. Well, Sharon didn't realize that the wallet was in the package and accidentally threw it away. I gave out the other pictures and thought I kept 2 for myself and Blake. Well I asked Sharon if she liked that picture and she told me she never got it, which I told her she must have accidentally thrown it away. She was so upset about that. So I knew that I had 2 so I sent her one of mine, which left me with one. Well...shortly after that we moved back to Oklahoma, and moved again, and again, and again. And somewhere I lost my copy of that picture. I was devastated. I loved it so much! I started asking my mom, sisters, Sharon and sister-in-laws to keep an eye out in their pictures for it, because I wanted to make some copies. Everyone looked but never found that picture. I don't what happened to all the rest of the pics, but no one seemed to remember it and couldn't find it. It was just a little wallet. So I'm getting more and more upset the more time goes by and thought I'd never see it again :( Well, one day, I was at Ollie and Sharon's and decided to try to find it, because Sharon couldn't remember what it looked like and I could. So I looked all through her pics and didn't find it. Then I thought to look through her China Hutch drawers... and I FOUND it!!!!! I immediately scanned it and e-mailed it to myself and saved it on my computer and kept that wallet. Since it is a Christmas picture I didn't post it before, but I just want everyone to know how important this picture really is to me. Sorry I have rambled on, but I just had to tell everyone what I went through to find this picture. I think you guys will understand why right about now ;)

Holiday decorating

Ryan and I thought we had SOOO much Christmas decorations. I mean, we have like 3 storage totes of lights, garlands, stuffed animals, etc... We decided to clear out our bookshelves and decorate for Christmas in the room with the bookshelves. Well, we cleared everything off and started putting decorations on the shelves but it didn't cover NEAR as much of the shelves as we thought it would. So you will have to forgive the empty spaces for now. I'm sure we will buy a few more decorations here and there. I just didn't want to wait to show our decorations. Also, as you all know,we moved to Sapulpa in March and we have some ADORABLE stockings, but I searched high and low for those in our garage, but never found them. Blake's is a Denver Broncos, Ryan's is a Santa Clause, and mine & Taylor's is a snowman. So I am bummed about that. I don't know if maybe we left them at Ollie and Sharon's house last year or what, but the ones in the picture will also have to do for now.We also didn't have a tree. When we moved to Grand Junction in October of last year, we had been borrowing my Mom's tree, so we gave it back to her. Well, I was reading the after Thanksgiving sale papers with Cherrie and Melissa and found a Christmas tree in the Target ad, so I went with Cherrie and her mom to all the sales. I bought the tree, and it is a pretty nice tree, just a little smaller than I want. But that's okay, it too will also do for now. Ryan likes LOTS of colors and sparkles on the tree, so that is our style we use. We haven't put on icicles yet, but will very soon. Oh and by the way... my kids put on 90 % of the ornaments, so they kind of look uneven in a few places ;)This is Taylor's first Christmas ornament. It is already her 8th Christmas. I can't believe how the years have gone by!And here is Blake's first Christmas ornament. It is his 6th Christmas. Wow!

Happy Thanksgiving

Ryan and I started working on Christmas lights 3 days ago and I worked some more last night. Can you tell we are stoked about the Holidays ;) I plan on putting up a few more color lights around the windows and on a bush. But that won't get done until after Thanksgiving. It is an AWESOME day today, it is really chilly outside, and leaves are falling all over the place! It is supposed to be like this all week. Ryan said he heard it may snow on the weekend. But we will see about that. We are going to head down to Henryetta to be with Ollie and Sharon; Christopher, Melissa and Aiden; Lee, Cherrie, Elisha, Stormie, and Samuel. I WISH Dale, Chantel, and Andy were out here also :( I miss them. I also miss my family very much. I don't think we will have the money to go to Colorado for Christmas. But you never know. But way more than likely, we will be having Christmas in Henryetta also, which I'm not complaining about, I LOVE Ryan's family's traditions. I just wanted to show everyone our lights so far. I will probably have more pics of inside next week sometime.

Talk about amazing!

I haven't had very many things going on in my life, so I haven't blogged in a few days. But I finally have something worth blogging about. Ryan has been working in Oklahoma City for about one month. Sometimes he has to drive our little Toyota pickup all the way to OKC (100 miles away), and sometimes just to Chandler (about halfway) and rides the rest of the way with his boss. Well, he came in from work last night and said that the truck had overheated when he got off at the Sapulpa exit. SO it was hot for 5 minutes or less. I immediately started to worry that we would have to put more money into our vehicles, which we just don't have. But amazingly it didn't start to overheat until he was almost home. Well this morning, he drove our van to work and I went out and looked under the hood. I immediately noticed that the fan belt was completely off of its tracks. The belt was also VERY rotted and breaking apart everywhere. It looked TERRIBLE, see:

So I knew it was not going anywhere for a while. I called sister Amber T., who lives 2 blocks from the kids' school and I asked her if I could borrow her car to go get a new belt. She said absolutely. I then called brother Bill P. and asked him how to put in a new belt. He said that he would have to look at it because every vehicle is different. I told him I really did not want to bother him with coming over, but he is such a nice person, he wanted to help me. So I walked my kids to school (about 5 blocks) and then walked to Amber's house and got her car. I drove to the parts store and got new belt, drove back and pulled in at the same time as brother Bill and sister Marcelle. We opened the hood and he said it was going to be easy. We only worked on it for about 10 minutes and had it in! I was just so thankful that I have such wonderful brethren who truly care about us. We got the job done for just a little over $13.00 and 10 minutes. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is! The truck is good to go now! It is amazing that Ryan hasn't had problems driving as much as he has, and it is amazing that the truck only started overheating when Ryan was ALMOST home, and it is amazing that, with a little help from my wonderful brethren, it is fixed! It's turned out to be a great day!

Pages done recently

Marisela's request ;)

Back to doing what I love

When I was expecting Taylor, I got into scrapbooking. It is my favorite hobby! The last time I scrapbooked was about a year and a half ago when I lived in Olathe, Colorado. But we moved to Grand Junction, Colorado in October of last year and put my scrapbooking stuff in storage because we lived in a LITTLE 800 square foot townhouse, (I'm so glad to be out of there!) Then in March of this year, we moved to Sapulpa, Oklahoma. I started working about a month after we lived here, and I worked up until the beginning of September. And that brings us up to date. Me and Shonna R (also moved here from GJ) have been talking about getting together and scrapbook. Finally we talked about having a scrapbook get together weekly at the church and whoever scrapbooks, or wants to learn to scrapbook, is welcome to come. Last week, we had our first day, and had a pretty decent turnout, there was (including me) 7 ladies there. We had so many laughs, and lots of good visiting. It was just a really fun day. Then Ryan had company this past weekend, so guess what I did? Scrap booked! It was great. I worked on memorial pages of my Dad for my kids, and got a lot of pages done. It just feels so good to get back to doing what I love. Scrapbooking is my craft!

Follow up to our van: I talked to the company that I had got that estimate from, and asked them if we could do away with ALL the things that needed fixed and just take care of the brakes and the hardware, and they said yes. So we got it fixed. There are still other things needing fixed, but we will take care of that little by little down the road.

Car problems stink!

I think that we were chosen out of many people to have to go through car trials. I know everyone else has car problems from time to time, but we seem to have them regularly. Our last car, which was a Pontiac Grand Am, gave us CONSTANT problems. I'm pretty sure it was a lemon. We probably sunk around $7,000.00 dollars in repair in that piece of junk. And you know we always had a loan on it and the payoff was way more than the book value of that thing, so we were STUCK with it. We would fix one thing and immediately another thing would go wrong with it. And a lot of the things were very pricey! Transmission, clutch, you name it, we fixed it. Well, we finally got rid of it and bought Ollie and Sharon's van (Dodge Grand Caravan), which had a warranty left on it. SO we didn't have to deal with anything for a while, probably a year. Then the warranty expired and things started to slowly go wrong. We had to put new brakes on the van last April (2006). And then in September,2006, Ryan was backing up and hit a corner post which made a huge dent in the front drivers side, knocking out the turning signal and making a loud noise every time you open the drivers door. I know that's not the van's fault, but it is still something that needs fixed. Then in June (2007), I was driving out to Colorado for Stephanie's wedding and the stupid air conditioner went out on me. It will cost around $700.00 to get fixed. So we had NO A/C this summer, it was MISERABLE. The passenger sliding door is starting to be hard to open. And just recently our van's brakes started to squeak and even when we weren't using the brakes, the wheels squeaked. SO I had it checked out today, and there's a bunch of things needing fixed that will cost $478.00. I'm very frustrated! Why does car repairs have to cost so much??? If we fix everything that needs fixed on our van, it would probably cost us $2,500.00. Just say a little prayer for us, this is just a trial, I know, but I'm incredibly stressed over this STUPID van.

Great weekend

There's not a lot to talk about in our life, but we had a busy weekend, but very enjoyable. Friday night, Taylor, Blake and I went to see the Bee Movie with Cherrie, her mom, her kids and her niece & nephew. It was really a cute movie :) Then Saturday, we went to Aiden's 4th birthday party at Chris and Melissa's house. Melissa had done a GREAT job decorating for the party and the kids had a great time over there. And today we all went to Bob and Donna's 40th Anniversary party. It was really put together VERY nicely! It looked just like a wedding reception. It was very enjoyable, and what a nice couple they are! So we really enjoyed that.

I also just realized that I hadn't posted any pics of Taylor's fifth disease yet. She really didn't get it as bad as Blake did. I know it could get worse, but it just didn't do the same to Taylor as it did to Blake. I took a couple pictures tonight but the pictures proves that it was nothing compared to Blake's. I think hers is about over too, so it didn't last near as long. She barely had it on her face, and she only had it on her arms and legs. So enough of me rambling on, I just hadn't wrote anything on her and wanted to update everyone on her rash. Her leg

Satan's meeting. This will really make you stop and think.

I received this as an e-mail and I just wanted to share it, it really does make you stop and think. I can see a lot of this in my life, which makes me want to change it!

SATAN'S MEETING (Read even if you're busy)

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church." "We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and Knowing the truth." "We can't even keep them from forming an intimate Relationship with their Saviour." "Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power Over them is broken." "So let them go to their churches; let them have their Covered dish dinners,BUT steal their time, so they Don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.."

"This is what I want you to do," said the devil: "Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour and Maintaining that vital connection throughout their Day!" "How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and Invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, Borrow, borrow."

"Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and The husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a Day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles." "Keep them from spending time with their children" "As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!"

"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice." "Entice them to play the radio or ipod. Whenever they drive." To keep the TV, VCR, Cd's and Their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it That every store and restaurant in the world plays Non-biblical music constantly." "This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."

"Fill the coffee tables with magazines and Newspapers." "Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day." "Invade their driving moments with billboards." "Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order Catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter And promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.."

"Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV So their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with Their wives. " "Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night." "If they don't give their husbands the love they need, They will begin to look elsewhere." "That will fragment their families quickly!"

"Give them Santa Claus to distract them from teaching Their children the real meaning of Christmas." "Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about His resurrection and power over sin and death."

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive." "Have them return from their recreation exhausted." "Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation.

Send them to amusement parks, sporting Events, plays, concerts, and movies instead." "Keep them busy, busy, busy!" "And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve Them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences." "Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have No time to seek power from Jesus." "Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of The cause."

"It will work!" "It will work!" It was quite a plan! The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busier and more rushed, Going here and there. Having little time for their God or their families. Having no time to tell others about the power of Jesus To change lives. I guess the question is, has the devil been successful In his schemes?

You be the judge!!!!! Please pass this on, if you aren't too BUSY.

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween! We are planning on trick or treating from about 5 to 7, because tonight is church. But I think the kids will get plenty candy :) We will just stay in our neighborhood. We carved pumpkins last night. The kids really enjoyed that, although I ended up doing most of the work :P Here a couple pictures of what my kids are for Halloween. Taylor is a black cat and Blake is Captain Jack Sparrow from pirates of the Caribbean.

Update for Monday

Well it is Monday evening and several things have happened today. The guy that I had left a message with this morning about the motorcycle called me back and was extremely interested in the bike. He actually drove from Oklahoma City down to Dallas to borrow money from his bank (He is going to Oklahoma University but is from Dallas) and then drove up to Sapulpa tonight and gave us cash for the motorcycle. He said he drove like 437 miles or something like that. But he was thrilled to buy it and we were thrilled to sell it! It worked out AMAZINGLY! I thank the lord, I know he worked it out.

I babysat, or as my niece called it "kidsat" today. I love my nieces and nephews. Elisha, Stormie and Samuel came over and I really enjoyed them. Hehe, I have forgotten what 2 year olds are like, Samuel LOVES my purse, he knows that I have mints in it. SO...when we had our yard sale a few weeks ago, he had gone through my purse. And he did it again today. I wasn't mad, I just thought it was hilarious! He had ate all my mints and unwrapped my woman stuff, LOL.

And just a few minutes ago, I was looking at Taylor and noticed some Fifth Disease on her arms, so....HERE WE GO AGAIN :P

I want to thank anyone that remembered us in your prayers, because everything really did turn out better than I thought it would this morning. I was just so thrilled that we sold the bike so quickly.

Bummed out!

Hi, it is Monday morning. I hate Mondays. I got a call from the guy "buying" our bike and he said that his truck was not working on the weekend and so he would have to put his money towards getting it fixed. So I called the other 3 interested in the bike and 2/3 said they bought another bike on the weekend. And I got the other's voice mail, so I left a message. But I don't know anything about him, if he is still interested, anything. And not only the bike, but several people that I cared a great deal for, have passed away within the week. Sis. Joyce Easter from Oregon; Sis. Rhonda Morris from Vici, Oklahoma. And the third I don't know FOR A FACT that he's gone yet, but last night my mom called me and told me that one of my Dad's first cousins, Paul, had a brain aneurysm and didn't have much time left. My grandma died of a brain aneurysm and it took her within 3-4 hours. So I am assuming he's gone now, but I haven't heard yet.

On the bright side, a new baby was brought into this life yesterday. Congratulations Swanky's ;)I'm so happy it is all over with for them.

Please continue to pray that we sell the motorcycle, we are trying to get all of our debt paid off and stay debt free (except for maybe a house payment :) We have been watching and reading Dave Ramsey stuff and want to get debt free. I have wanted rid of the motorcycle from day ONE. It scares me to even own one. I always worried that Ryan wouldn't come home when he went riding. They are super dangerous! So remember us, please. I hope everyone else is having a good Monday.

YAY! YAY! YAY!

I am 99.9% positive that we sold Ryan's motorcycle! ANOTHER BLESSING! Three days ago, we put the motorcycle in the Bike Trader and I got a call on it today from a guy from Stillwater. He said that he wanted to come look at it tomorrow, and I told him it was slightly damaged and he was okay with it. Then a little while later he called and was at his bank and needed me to fax the title over to him and get the payoff information for it. So I did all of that. And I just got a call from the banker and he said that he was sending a payoff check to our bank that it is financed through, and he is giving the guy a cashiers check to bring with him tomorrow when he comes to look at it. He could still not buy it, but after going to all of this trouble, I doubt that he won't take it! If he doesn't, we'll just not take the check and my bank will just send the check back to his bank. But like I said, I don't think that will be a problem!

All of you know that Ryan is doing so great spiritually now, but this bike was the beginning of all of our problems. Not the bike itself, but the people that rode bikes together, not a great crowd.

Just keep us in your prayers today and hope that everything goes good!

Another blessing for us

About one and a half months ago, Ryan wasn't working and he applied at this company called Paragon. He was hired very quickly after that and we were both thankful. His pay wasn't as good as we were used to but they told him that they worked a lot of overtime and the pay was better with overtime. He really wanted a day job, but that was filled up so he had to take evenings/nights. He went in at 2:45 pm. and was supposed to get home shortly after 3:00 am every morning. They also worked him 6 days a week, so as you can imagine, he had no life outside of work. He worked at least 70 hours a week. He would come home and have to wind down for about an hour and then slept during the day. Then they started keeping him longer hours, and it wasn't consistent. They would just decide the night of how long they were going to stay. So he never knew if he would be home at 3,4, even 5 am. And another thing started to bother him, they have a day crew and a night crew. Well the day crew would ONLY work 10 hours a day. They would make the night crew make up for the "quota" that the day crew (most of the time) didn't make. Also, Ryan said that they treated him and everyone TERRIBLE! Ryan didn't get to go to church Wednesday nights, we couldn't go visiting nights, like we wanted to. And even on Sundays, he had a hard time getting up to go to church, and he really wanted to go. So he has been very stressed lately.

Well, he talked to a brother (yesterday) that does tile and started working for him today, so we will get to go to church 2 times + a week together and go visiting! I think this will be so much better on him spiritually also. So God has really blessed us!

It's finally gone!

I noticed that today Blake had no trace of 5th disease left, yay! Yesterday, there was just a little bit. I haven't been keeping up with the progress of it, sorry. I did take some pictures of it about 3-4 days ago, it was very ugly. But it is gone now. Someone told me it may come back one, two, or even more times. I hope in his case it doesn't, but if it does, oh well. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know it was gone now. But like I said, here's a few pictures from about 3-4 days ago.

My handsome Broncos Fan!

Today I got Blake's pictures done also. I am so excited to get all these pictures back. We took in a Denver Broncos flag and a #1 finger and used them. They turned out SO cute. Again, I had to turn them down for now, because I was going for the "school picture" look. But hopefully they will send a spec sheet with the Broncos flag in the background and I'll buy them then. Well, here are the proofs of Blake's pictures :) (I chose the third row down, last picture on right as my package)

Charlie Chaplin is back.

Last week at Taylor and Blake's school, some photographers came to do the annual school pictures. They were going to do individual and also group pictures. I was excited about it for 2 weeks prior to that. The reason I'm so excited every year is because I am doing this 13 picture collage. It has a 5x7 in the middle where my kids' senior picture will go and has 12 small ovals (mini-wallet size) all the way around it for Kindergarten through Junior year. So I'm always excited to add to my collage. Well, the order forms came in and I started looking at the prices...YIKES. All I was really interested in were the mini-wallets to put in the collage. The SMALLEST package available was 4: mini wallets and 1: 3 1/2 x 5 and the price on that package was $8.50! Ridiculous! It's not the price that really bothered me, it's the amount of pictures that you get for that price. So I quickly changed my mind on school pictures, however, I did order Taylor and Blake a group picture. So I immediately made an appointment at JCPenneys, because they also offer mini-wallets. I looked online and found a coupon that gave me a free sitting fee, free 8x10 and a package deal (1: 8x10, 2: 5x7, 4:3 1/2 x5, and 16 wallets) for $7.99. Then, when I go to pick up the pictures they send a thing called a "spec sheet" which has the mini wallets. I think it is $9.99. So I will get SO many more pictures this way. And, I get to actually pick which picture I wanted, instead of just hoping that the school picture looked good from the school.
So, picture day came and we went to JCPenneys. They let us bring one extra set of clothes for a change in the middle of the session. She started out with denim jeans, a pink shirt, covered by a denim jacket. Then we changed her into some black pin-striped pants, a white blouse, covered by a black sweater. The photographer saw the outfit and ran over and got this hat and asked her to do a few things with the hat, like raise it, hold it with her hand/hands, etc. She mentioned to me that she wished she had a cane. I knew that she was meaning that she reminded her of Charlie Chaplin. I knew those pictures she was taking with the hat would be cute. We got done with the pictures and they said that they like to play around with the pictures for about 30 minutes and show us some things they can do with the pictures. Taylor had some birthday money leftover so we went into the mall and let her spend it. She decided to buy an outfit for her bear (at Build a Bear Workshop). We went back to JCPenneys and another lady (not the photographer) came up and said that she was having a lot of fun playing with the pictures and requested a few more minutes. So we waited and when she was done we looked at all the pictures. They were all SO cute! She had taken the "Charlie Chaplin" pics and made several collages with it. She even wrote on the collages,"Charlie ain't got nothin' on me!" So she thought the same thing as me and the photographer. It was SO hard to turn down those pictures, but the only reason I got her pictures taken was to put in my collage. So I had to. She asked me while we were looking at the pictures if I would sign a release form to the company, so they could use those Charlie pictures if they wanted to. That's how cute they were. It was really a fun day. I'm getting Blake's done today, they would only let me do one child per day. I enclosed the proof sheet to give you an idea of what they looked like. (The second picture is the package I chose.)

Glad the weekend is over.

I had a super busy weekend, and am really glad to have it over with. For the last week-2 weeks I have been going through everything and getting ready for a yard sale. Sapulpa had a community yard sale on Saturday and there were LOTS of people out. Cherrie and I had decided to have the sale together, which was SOOO nice. I enjoyed having someone to visit with. Actually, there were 3 people to visit with: Cherrie, Ryan and Chantel. I have had to run yard sales by myself the last few times and that is NO fun! We didn't sell out, but we did get rid of big items, yay! The rest we are just hauling to Goodwill. And I feel so much better about getting rid of some clutter! Ryan put his motorcycle in and had 3 different people inquiring about it. Just pray that at least one of them comes back! We NEED rid of that bike! Overall, it was a successful sale, but it is always so nice to have it over with.

On another note, Blake's 5th disease has spread all over his arms, all over his back, and now on his legs. But it is getting lighter this evening, I think. Hopefully Taylor won't get it and Blake can get rid of it soon.

Taylor and Blake only have school 2 days this week, I am hoping that Taylor and I can do some scrapbooking maybe Thursday night. I LOVE scrapbooking and haven't been able to in about 1 1/2 years. So needless to say, I'm very far behind!

Hope everyone else had a good weekend :)

1st day 5th disease pics

I just want to display these and and see if they get worse, the lady at the school said it may get worse, we'll see. I feel sorry for Blake, however, these are not painful or itchy. Thank goodness!

Fifth Disease

While I was helping Cherrie and Lee paint their house in Drumright I noticed that I got this UGLY rash on my arms. It looked like a bunch of dark red splotchy spots all over my arms. I had them a little bit on my chest also. I at first thought that I had an allergic reaction to the paint. Then last night I noticed that Blake had a few red dots/pimples on his face and I thought it was just dry skin. So I put Vaseline on his face and when he woke up, the red dots were still on his face. I didn't know what to think, but he went on to school as normal. Well... I got a call from the school and they said that Blake has a thing called Fifth Disease. It is kind of like chicken pox, but not bad like them. We all know pox itch and are just miserable. Well, Fifth Disease doesn't itch or anything, it just looks ugly. But like pox, you are contagious before the breakout. And it lasts 1 to 3 weeks when you finally break out. And supposedly you don't get it again, your body becomes immune to it. They said that he was fine to keep going to school though. They wanted to just let me know what it was, which I really appreciated. It is just a thing that is going around, so I thought I would let everyone know, because I had no idea what the rash was. Anyway, you get a fever about a week before you break out. I now think back to before I had the rash and I was sick but not throwing up. I had a fever and felt terrible. And it was about 1 week before the rash showed up. I will try to post a picture of Blake's skin, but for now, I found this picture, the arm in the picture looks EXACTLY like the rash I had a couple weeks ago. So this is just for all of you to know ahead of time, just in case ;)

Angelic voices

Today I went to Brother Jacob Bocook's funeral. He moved to Delta when I was a teenager and he started hanging out with my good friend, Velvadene, so I also hung out with him as a teenager. We weren't close friends, but was definitely good friends. I just felt so bad for his wife, Renee. She also was a good friend of mine as a teenager. It is so strange to see people that I am/was friends with being called home. He left behind 5 children and 1 on the way :( I just can't stop thinking about poor Renee. She is going to have quite a trial ahead of her. But as I was standing at the graveside, they asked that we all sing a couple songs. I have heard some beautiful singing, but today I just listened to the voices harmonize and it actually (to me) sounded like a bunch of angels. It comforted me. I don't know why that was the most comforting thing to me, but it was. I think it was only about 3 months ago that I saw Jacob and Renee at RD and Andra's wedding and it was so nice getting to catch up with them. I told them I was going to try to come and see them. And you know how time goes by SO quickly and I've gone through a lot of things in those 3 months, but now I just am so MAD at myself that I didn't. I hope that this will be a lesson for me that we can NOT take advantage that everyone will always be there and we can go see them just whenever we want to, because that isn't always so. He was only 35, his family needs all the prayers possible.

Slumber party

We had a slumber party over here last night that was full of laughs and plenty of goofiness! I had went to Cherrie's to help her get started packing/rearranging, but we really couldn't do much until we had some room, so in a few days, when her shop becomes vacant, we are going to get in gear! Anyways, I had LOADED up on caffeine, thanks for the DELICIOUS coffee Cherrie ;) When it was time to go home, I invited Stormie (Taylor's BEST friend). We got home and I kind of let the girls do whatever. They started watching Parent Trap and I had a LOT of caffeine running through my body, so I decided to clean and organize Taylor's room! I am soooo happy with it now. That kid had WAY too many toys. Cherrie and I both are planning on having a yard sale next weekend, so I am trying to get RID of stuff that we don't need! Mission: ORGANIZATION! Taylor had this huge toy box, full of mainly stuffed animals. The toy box looks like it is for a little girl (like 2) so we are getting rid of that and I had a pink storage container, less than half the size of the other, that I made into her "new toy box." Plus... I went through and took summer clothes out and put fall/winter clothes in. In the middle Stormie came in and wanted to help me. I told her she should enjoy relaxing and she insisted on helping me. What a sweetie! And she was a great help! But after the room was done, the girls continued to have a great time together! Taylor is really going to miss Stormie. But it was a really fun night

The moon is so so sad...

I just realized that I had 2 blogs on Taylor and none on Blake yet, so I came up with one for my baby boy :) (I'm all about equality). Blake LOVES drawing pictures. He doesn't have the talent of drawing like Taylor, that girl WILL be an artist. But he LOVES coloring and drawing. By the way, he LOVES Harry Potter! He drew this picture and I asked what it was and he said it was a moon and a warewolf. He went on saying, "The moon is SO SO sad because the warewolf yelled at it." I just started laughing, it was so cute!

Will Taylor EVER grow her 2 front teeth?!

Taylor's 2 top front teeth became loose in the last part of June and I waited to enforce pulling them until after her birthday, July 15th. Well, I think the next day we did pull the top 2, they were VERY loose and appeared to be ready to be pulled. Well...it is now almost 3 months later and there is still NO sign of adult teeth showing through. It usually (for the other teeth) took less than 1 week for the adult teeth to show through. Has this happened to ANYONE else? I teased Taylor before her birthday about singing "All I want for my birthday is my two front teeth." But like I said,I decided to be nice and let her keep them until after her birthday. I'm starting to worry that we may actually have to have her sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!"

There's something about those Easters ;)

I just thought of something to write about: my neice, Savanna P, is getting married on August 8th. at 7:00 pm in Delta, Colorado (08/08/08). She is my sister, Sue's, youngest child. Her sister, Stephanie just got married in June and I have been waiting for Savanna to announce that her and Trevor B are engaged. It is kind of funny, BOTH Stephanie and Savanna chose 2 of Ryan's cousins. Ryan's grandmother was an Easter. Stephanie's husband, Jeremy Easter is Ryan's 3rd cousin. And Trevor's mom, Therese was an Easter (Ray's daughter). So Ryan and Trevor are more like 4th or 5th cousins. But I always tease them about wanting to be double related to me! I guess there is just SOMETHING about those Easters that my family (including me) love ;) The top picture is Trevor and Savanna (soon to be Bellew) and the bottom picture is Jeremy and Stephanie Easter. I chose green because that is Savanna's favorite color :) I guess Taylor is going to be a candle lighter and Blake is going to be the ring bearer. But for those who know them, I knew you would like to hear the news.

I met the (real life) Sheriff from CARS

This happened 2 weeks ago, but I really thought it was neat talking to this guy, plus my life is kind of boring right now and really wanted to write about something ;) And you all are probably wondering what I'm talking about. When the people that made the Disney/Pixar movie CARS, they based all of their characters on real life people. Well, my family met the Sheriff. His name is Michael Wallis. VERY nice guy, he lives in Tulsa. He kept saying things that the Sheriff in Cars said (ie: "BOY, you're in a heap a trouble.) He asked the kids if they've been out tractor tippin, and just other things like that. He has written 14 books about Route 66. He's not FAMOUS, but is semi-famous (I guess). So it was pretty neat. He had A LOT to do with the making of Cars. If any of you own the DVD of CARS, you can see just how much he had to do with the making of Cars. Just go from the Main Menu to: Bonus Features. Then go to: Inspiration for Cars, and watch that documentary (16 minutes long), it is really neat. Also, if anyone wants to see the characters the movie is based on, here is a web address: http://rwarn17588.wordpress.com/2006/06/09/a-route-66-guide-to-the-cars-movie/

You tell me what this reminds you of ;)

A couple weeks ago Taylor was sick and you know when you are sick, you think you are hungry but you're really not. Well, Taylor asked for an apple, so I gave her an apple in bed, because she was sick, and she fell asleep after only two bites. So...any guesses on what this reminds you of? I'll give a clue: Lips, red as a rose; skin, white as snow; hair, black as ebony (but not really). I really did feel bad for her, but saw her with the apple in hand and had to take a picture of it.