Time goes on...

I must say it has been a while, again since my last post. Our lives have been very busy of late and also a little on the stressful and crazy side of things.

I will start with my dog Mercedes. Here is a picture of both our dogs with Luke but it is a few years old. Mercedes is the yellow lab in the picture.

At the end of January Mercedes tore her ACL in her knee on one of her back legs. We were told she could live like this just wont be able to run and play like she use to. OK great! Take her home consider surgery but no rush, vet said we could decide in time. With in a month she stopped eating and develops a lump on the hip of the same leg with the torn knee. We start thinking her hip is now out of place (my dogs are 9). So we decide to consult the vet about moving forward with knee surgery. When we do we find out she has cancer and that lump on her hip is a cancer mass. At this point we have a couple options, first remove cancer (no promis of removing it all), then have knee surgery or do nothing and wait. We decided since she was 9 and two surgerys was just to much money with to much unknown we decided to do nothing.

We medicated her to keep her comfortable and watched this cancer lump grown into a volley ball size mass on her hip as well as growing inside. Needless to say last Tuesday (April 12) was Mercedes last with us. We had to put her down as she lost all control of one leg (it swelled and was dead) and was starting to lose the other which ment it was time.

We are all a little heart broken but this is the reality of life. Sad part is we never thought we would lose this dog first she was so healthy, fit, active before January.

As for the rest of our life, we are buys working on our house (painting) getting ready to put siding on it. This is only 9 years over due. Both boys are playing soccer now. This keeps us busy running two nights a week and then Saturday games. Thomas has not had his first game yet due to rain this past weekend they cancelled all games. Hopefully this Saturday will be his first. Lets hope I don't forget the camera, I seem to do that a lot these days.

Lost in a Magical World

Once again I have vanished with out a trace.... it seems I have been hiding myself in a book for the last 6 weeks. Technically it has been 7 books but once I started I became consumed and I seemed to do nothing else.

What have I been reading you ask? Harry Potter of course.....(yeah I know I am acting like a 10 year old boy)

I got all 7 books for Christmas when I just asked for the first one. I only asked for one book because I don't think of myself as a person who sits and reads. These books have been around for a long time, only in the last two years have I been caught up on the movie craze part of Harry Potter. Seen the last two films in the theater but before that I had to got myself all caught up on the video's.

Anyway, because I love the movies so much I decided I would take a stab at trying to read the books. I guess I found the books to be unbelievable because I just found myself consumed by them and doing nothing else but reading my books.

Then I had the struggle of do I read the last book or not? See the last movie comes out this July which is the second half of the last book. I wasn't sure if I wanted to read the book or not. I then decided I had to read it because I didn't want to wait and because the movies now make so much more sense to me after having read the books (yeah I had to watch each movie again after reading the book). Plus the books create so much back story that just isn't covered in the movies and just makes the whole story so much better. Needless to say I read the last book and I read it in 2 days because I was not putting it down.

Now I am really excited for the first part of the last movies to come out on video in April (I have all the other movies so I will own this one also). Then I have to wait for July to see the final movie. Oh how excited I am for it to come out. My husband will not let me tell him anything because he doesn't want the movie spoiled. I am splitting at the seems to tell someone all about it. Good thing Luke wants to know and I was able to tell him about it. It isn't spoiled for me, I can't wait to see it and based on previews I think they will do it justice. I really hope anyway.

Have you read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies? I must say they have been well worth my time.

Winter Energy

One thing I really hate is winter. We are all stuck inside (way to cold outside) and the activity level goes way down. However little kids still have a lot of that energy that they really do need to burn.

Grandma bought the boys this adventure game for the Wii at Christmas time. It comes with 25 activities and a play mat that they have to run and jump on to do the activities. They have so much fun and it really does get that energy out that they have all built up.

Have a look and tell me this doesn't look like lots of fun.



If you noticed someone thinks he is Indiana Jones. He has a hat, whip and everything, hence the singing with the adventure. I love it!!!

The only bad thing about the game is the mat walks all over the room and the boys never reposition it until I make them, so someone is always jumping right next to a piece of furniture.

Oh and we do have the occasional melt down when someone doesn't win. Oh well they have to learn someday.

NEW YEAR

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone, just a little late I suppose.

I have lots to share but no real desire to get the camera card out, edit my pictures and post them. I don't want everyone to think I have dropped off the planet, just lacking any drive to be on the computer. I do have a lot of drive for many other things including working out more, reading my Harry Potter books I got for Christmas, yes I know a 36 year old reading Harry Potter but I love the movies and decided I must read the books. My husband and I have also committed to spending more time for just us because with kids we tend to not do that as much as we should. I am also trying to put myself first, not to sound selfish just find that I put me last and I need to give myself a little extra attention as well. So lots going on in my life these days.

We had a wonderful Christmas, Luke also turned 8 years old. Where has the time gone. We had our first ever all boy sleep over at our house on Luke's birthday. 6 boys in all and let me just say 7 & 8 year old boys are very loud and they can stay up very, very late. They seemed to have a great time and I am glad of that. We are at the age now where unless Luke has a friend over to our house we are not going to see that child much because he is always being invited to someones house. I really like all the families of Luke's friends. I am hoping that I can make some mom friendships out of a few of them. I am one who really keeps to herself and I shy away from letting people in and I am really going to try and work on that also.

Soon I will bust out the photo's but for now all I have is a very late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Holiday Fun

Winter is not my favorite time of year. Driving on bad roads, the bitter cold, the very dry house, feeling trapped in side, just not my idea of fun. However we have been making the most of the winter weather and getting into the holiday spirit.


Our first snow was two weeks ago, and here is some fun we had outside. We made this huge snowman but my camera battery died before I got a good picture. He is still standing in the yard but has melted a lot and now you see all the grass and leaves we picked up along the way as we rolled our snowballs. He is not picture pretty anymore.

To get into the holiday spirit and to add a few personal touches to the decorations we decided to make snowflakes. A little paper, a couple glue sticks and this great glitter I found at Target that is in these little tubes that have salt shaker type tops.

Thomas did is own cutting and made his very own snowflakes. His favorite part however was the glue and glitter sprinkling. See my table....

Luke was a lot more neat about it and he made a Santa snowflake that was really cute also.

One of Thomas's finished snowflakes. Turned our really good!!!

Luke made lots and lots of little ones.

Our very messy process and my glitter table. Note to all, if you try this, cover your table first. I still have glitter stuck on my table. That might be because I got the bright idea to put glue on the paper and then had the boys turn it over and rub it on the table top to pick up all the excess glitter instead of shaking out more. Works great to stick to the snowflakes but it also does a great job making it stick to the table.

Then we hung them up in our entry way. Looks great! See Luke's Santa on the right.
These were lots of fun but every day I have a lovely glitter collection all over my floor as it falls off of the snowflakes.

Here are a couple more pictures of our snow fun.
Our dog really loves the snow. She is getting old but it doesn't stop her from getting out and rolling around in it. She is a golden retriever and the snow just cakes to her fur. Not very fun when it is time to go inside.
Then the babysitter had a party for all the kids and families she watches at her house. Guess who made a surprise visit. Thomas went nuts when Santa came in. There is no fear of Santa with this child. Luke wasn't so sure about Santa at 3 but Thomas was having a fit as Santa called each child, one by one to sit on his lap and Thomas was not getting a turn.

Luke was one of the first.
Finally, it was Thomas turn and he was so excited. Now he is telling me that Santa is going to bring him a motorcycle. Where did the motorcycle idea come from, no clue. Not sure what to do here because he thinks Santa is bringing him a real motorcycle. Hopefully he is not disappointed on Christmas morning.

I sure hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas season and enjoying the fun of the season. On my list of things to do this year, I have about 10 different cookie, fudge, etc... type recipes and we are going to make a bunch of them up. Then the boys and I are going to head out and make deliveries and spread a little holiday cheer.

Have you been having some holiday fun baking, decorating, whats on your holiday list of things to do?