Did Someone Say Chocolate?

Change in plans

Well our babysitter didn't have a ride, so I stayed late at work, so she could just come home with me. I took her home first so she could let her puppies out to pee, got back to our house where I got ready to go. Daniel had missed his nap today at school 'tis morning (FIRST TIME EVER the child ever has missed a nap!!), so he had a bit of a power nap over lunch. Doug had trouble getting him to nap later 'tis afternoon, but he finally went down around 4, I got home around 4:45, I was ready by 5:00. I let Daniel sleep until about 5:15 figuring if we got to the barbeque by 5:30, then that would be fine. I had just woke Daniel up and got him changed and washed when Doug came in saying "don't wake the baby yet". Umm too late. He said "they just cancelled the barbeque due to the storm coming". Ugh! Thirty deviled eggs sittin' in the fridge.

They have re-scheduled the thing for tomorrow afternoon, but we can't get a sitter then. We went out to eat anyway seeing as we had the sitter there and we were all ready to go. We picked Outback. I had salad, steak and veggies, nice and low carb considering I was bad today at lunch. I had rice for the first time since January as a little treat! My bad! Daniel came with us. He was very good at the restaurant. He ate his two jars of food for me, nearly tipped Doug's potato soup over on to himself, had some play time on mommie's lap, then amused himself with cheerios the remainder of the time while we ate.

After we got back, Doug, I and my sitter/co-worker/friend decided we'd wait out the storm on the back porch with a few Mike's Hard lemonades! Of course Doug doesn't drink anything, so we took care of that part for him, but we had fun watching the big, bad thunder come rolling in. No hail though!! Phooey!

More Cheerio fun

Some of you may remember a picture awhile back that I posted of Daniel trying out his first cheerio. Let's just say he wasn't thrilled! Well I've continued introducing cheerios to him regardless of the funny faces (or perhaps I did it for the funny faces)! Recently he started chewing them AND opening his mouth for them!! Doug called me at work today to tell me that he was actually picking them up now and putting them into his own mouth to eat. Victory! You'd think as a baby that he'd put everything in his mouth, but nope, not when it comes to feeding himself.

Doug got some pictures today while Daniel was snacking, but couldn't quite catch him popping any into his mouth. Daddy figured calling mommy was first on the list, not getting the camera!

Waiting patiently and looking cute as a button!


Concentrate!


Got it!


Tomorrow a co-worker of mine is coming to babysit so Doug and I can attend a faculty barbeque. I don't quite remember how I got talked into going, that memory has fled me. *scratches head* I've only ever met a few of his co-workers before, so hopefully it won't be too awkward. We decided to take Daniel along, perhaps he'll be an ice breaker if one is needed. It might seem mean not to take the other kids, but with the way they've been lately, no way! I would spend the entire time ref'ing them, PLUS god knows what Sarah would end up saying to embarrass herself and me!

Justin is still grounded anyway. I think I mentioned earlier that he mouthed off and earned himself Saturday school this week, so we gave him some work and grounded him! It's not like this is the first time, this is after countless warnings from us, teachers and the principal, phonecalls home, many demerits, behavior contracts and a face to face meeting with 5 of his teachers. So he got fair warnings for his mouthing! Anyway... I made chocolate pie and deviled eggs to take tomorrow. Isn't that a combo?

Crazy fruitcake!

I have this puppy sized ceramic pug that a former co-worker of mine got for me while I was pregnant. I love pugs, therefore I LOVE pug things (what's not to love?). Well I knew as soon as I saw it, we'd have fun with Bella with it. Isabella is a total fruit cake. She's all bark, no bite. As I've mentioned before she's the one who barks barks barks, until you bend down towards her, then she runs and hides. She's also all about barking at other dogs from our backyard...until of course she thinks they are coming closer, then she runs and hides. Such a fruit!

Well the other night, Doug decided to have fun with Bella. I had come around the corner and noticed this ceramic pug on the floor and Doug just sitting there out of sight. I knew what he was up to. He knows the pugs always follow me around and sure enough, that night was no exception. Around the corner she came. DEAD STOP. WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF. It was so freaking funny, I thought I was going to die. Well Doug moved the ceramic pug a bit, so it would appear from Bella's perspective that the pug was moving towards her, well she scurried away so fast, her paws were sliding. I almost pissed my pants laughing. Here is a shot just after all the action of her PEEKING around the corner at the intruder!



It took her the better part of thirty minutes before she felt brave enough to come sniff the dog. Oh and please excuse Dexter's bung-hole from the picture. What can I say, he's not modest!

Can you say...

holy freaking shit?



pick me up?


umm...please?

Okay moving right along...

So, I get a call from Justin's vice principal today. He mouthed off again at his teacher. He talks talks talks during class time, they ask him to be quiet and he doesn't listen. So, today the teacher warns him that he's going to get another office referral, he shrugs it off and says "go ahead, they'll just make me sign another contract!" WRONG! He got two hours of Saturday school for that little remark. Serves him right. Little did he realize there are also consequences at home too...

I went to Home Depot today and got 27 bags of manure and landscapers mulch. Perfect timing! Here he is doing some manual labor to get in our good graces again...


Here is Daniel watching his big brother and learning well in advance what not to do to make Mommy upset! Does he look like he's all that concerned at this point?


While we're at it, I just get the biggest kick out of watching this child play peek-a-boo! He just whips that blanket right down over his honker of a head, it's so funny!


Oh and here's one for the road. Isn't this the way every gal should sleep? Looks comfy to me!


*insert lots of snorting and snoring here*

Everyone please welcome with me...

my co-workers to my blog! Hello Ladies!

I guess first of all I have a few things I want to say just to get it out of the way...

Just over a week ago I discovered I had some new visitors to my blog. My first reaction was "so what" (like Simon always says), then I got annoyed. I locked my blog down. I waited all week for SOMEONE to at least come to me and TELL me they are reading my blog. Did anyone? Nope. Does it tick me off? Yup. I can safely say if I ever found anyone's blog that I knew in RL, you can bet on it that I'd be telling them I did. Isn't that some sort of blog etiquette or something? It would at least be up front and give them the opportunity to password protect or ask me not to read or whatever they felt like they needed to do.

I'm pretty annoyed to think people I work with are reading this and NOT saying anything to me about it. I know who, so it's pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I feel like they all think they've found a gossip gold mine, well ladies, sorry to disappoint you! I blog for me and my husband. It is my way of keeping track of what my family is up to. I send the pages of this blog to my Grandmother back home so she knows what we’ve all been doing; my mother also reads to keep herself updated. As much as I'd love to vent about my job here, I don't. I'm not stupid. Oh sure you may see a moan here or there, you may even see a mention of a conversation in passing, but you won't see any names and it certainly could never even be called gossip it's so casual. I watch the ins and outs of this blog with many different tools, I know all my readers and probably visit them on their blogs as well and to think for a minute that I wouldn't know you were reading is naive on your part.

I don't care that you are curious and are interested in what I write about. Have at it! You are more than welcome to. My blog is here for anyone that wants to read, that's why it's public and not private, I did, however, sadly expect you all to at least tell me you are reading. That would have been the "respectful" thing to do. I have since shared my blog with others from work and I welcome them here (hi girlies!). I guess I never really thought anyone would be interested in re-reading about stories I already share with everyone daily, but I guess I was wrong.

Moving along...so the blog is back up. I have removed really old archives and my old blog from public domain and I'd be happy to share those with anyone that asks. I need to fix old broken links and pictures, then I'll probably throw those up onto this domain in a new blog seeing as the old ones are now deleted. Sorry to all my regular readers about locking the blog down, I managed to let a lot of you know ahead of time, but sorry to those I didn’t reach.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming! LOL

What's new?

Not much going on this week. Soccer games both got cancelled due to weather this weekend, which suited us all just fine because Sarah was going to be missing hers anyway. Doug's had to work all weekend which is a first for him. I haven't got everything done that I wanted to yet, but hey the day isn't over yet!

I'm debating with myself as to whether I should chance taking the kids to have pictures done today. I just know what they are like any time I take them out and I'm not sure I want to put myself through that. Daniel is due for his 9 month protraits and I think it would be nice to get all the kids done again while I am at it. We'll see how things go after they are done eating.

Daniel, the little terd, slept in 'tis morning until 9:30 a.m.!! Can you believe it? Doug came in to say goodbye around 8:10 and I was all confused because I hadn't heard Daniel yet. Heh. Sound asleep he was! He was up for a bit before midnight with some stomach issues, so perhaps it tuckered him out. Anyway as a result he's now off schedule. He missed morning nap (on purpose by me) and he just finished dinner and now is down for a nap. Hopefully he'll wake up fairly early and we'll head to have pictures done. We'll see eh?!

Hope you all had a good week, I've missed updating! Here's a picture of me that I posted over at the forum I read from earlier in the week; sucking back a Mike's and looking thrilled to just be alive! LOL

Sarah's new haircut!

Sarah's hair has always annoyed me. Around Christmas time, Doug took her to get her hair cut and she came back with it all chopped off just below her ears. It was pretty short, but after we all got used to it, I liked it okay because it was simple for her to take care of. It has since grown out and although in length it wasn't very long, but the shape of it was awful. It always looked like an unkept mop.

The new hairdresser I took her to yesterday even said her hair was cut very uneven! Anyway, here is a before shot from Easter time. Not a good shot, but considering Sarah doesn't like getting her picture taken, it was the best I could find.



The new cut isn't any shorter in length, but has short layers throughout. I think it has a much nicer shape and perhaps we'll be avoiding the hair in the face. Here is Sarah after her cut:
Front:


Back:


I'm pretty happy with it and thankfully Sarah is too!

Simple pleasures

With death comes appreciation of life. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Doug and I can't count how many times we've laid in bed listening to Daniel start to wake up either in the morning or from a nap. We sit giggling like little kids at the anticipation of the sight we're going to see. We think it's hysterically funny when he wakes up because he usually makes some odd noises, we'll giggle quietly and he hears us, then he'll flip himself over and we get the "peek at you" look. I just love this one eye over the crib face! Adorable!



Daniel being nine months old now we get a lot of people asking if he's crawling yet. Our knee jerk reaction is to say "no, not yet". Well I take that back! As we have watched him for the past couple of weeks, I've discovered that okay no the child doesn't crawl in the traditional sense of being up on all fours and going forward. He actually crawls backwards like a little worm. He pushes himself right up on his hands, he brings his knees forward and then scootches himself backwards.

He's actually moving around enough and quickly enough that he's starting to get into some tight spots! Here's where he got tonight just five minutes apart from each other.

Under the playpen:


Don't move your chair daddy!


Now if he'd just figure out how to go forward, actually nevermind that too. I'd hate to see where he'd end up if he crawled forward. lol

He's also getting around well in his walker now too. So well in fact that he darn near got whacked in the head with the broom tonight. I told Doug time to babyproof the house. At this rate, it'll only take not looking once and he'll get into something he shouldn't. He he he, the fun begins! Poor baby gets one or two more shots tomorrow at his doctor's appointment! bah.

What can you say.

I went to little Reed's funeral today. Horribly sad. Obviously. I wasn't going to go, then I was, then I wasn't...but I went. I think it was good for me to go. I picture all the time the horror I would feel if something were to happen to one of my kids. I feel like I would not be able to function. I watched Reed's parents today, obviously grief stricken, but still able to do what they needed to do.

I overheard one teacher say "she's really found peace with this" when referring Reed's mother. I was a little surprised, but it got me thinking. Perhaps it's totally different when you have a really sick child who has suffered for many months. Maybe at some level you come to terms with the fact that your child is dying, maybe even near the end, you wish for a peaceful death, just so they don't suffer anymore. Having healthy children, I can't imagine that, but maybe my mind set would be different if I had to watch them battle cancer. I'm not really sure what my point is even talking about this, but it's been a really tough day. My sadness pales in comparison to Reed's family's grief and loss.

Here's a little poem that was inside his Memory Tribute that I thought was nice.

After Glow

I'd like the memory of me
to be a happy one.
I'd like to leave an after glow
of smiles when life is done.
I'd like to leave an echo
whipsering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing
times and bright and
sunny days.
I'd like the tears of those who
grieve, to dry before the sun
Of happy memories that I leave
When life is done.

Rest in peace sweet little boy.

Family cleaning day!

Ha Ha, might I add they weren't too happy to hear what we had planned for today? I love Sunday's like this where we have nothing to do, but whatever we want to do! Doug ran to Target right quick to look for sandals for Cody and to get some biscuits for lunch today. We bought some new sausage from Sam's to try and I must say it was good. Of course I had mine without the biscuits. I had been told awhile back that Target sells Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. WOOOT, they do!!! Hubby came back with a $15 - 6" chocolate mousse cheesecake. I'm excited! I'll be bad tonight!

After lunch we decided to tackle our storage sheds. What a freakin' mess they were in after at least six months of neglect. Here's the before and after shots of both of them.

Before shed #1:


After shed #1 - We put a piece of our sofa out there to make more room in our living room for the exercise bike we have that we sadly NEVER use. Doug says to tell people we'll use the extra piece as our time out chair LOL. Just kidding of course!


Before shed #2: This shed had tons of crap in it from the other people that had owned the house before us. All those pieces of lumber, ya hate to throw it away, yet what the heck will we ever use it for?


After shed #2:


Anyway, I'm tired now. I'm looking forward to my grilled T-Bone steak and cheesecake for tonight's dinner. YUMMY!

Let's talk rule changes!

We decided a few things last night concerning the kids.

1. No more tattles unless someone in the house is getting hurt, that includes the pugs. We think that perhaps because we've encouraged tattling that it's possibly effected their relationships more negatively than imagined.

2. We are NOT paying them for every single chore they do anymore. It's been mentioned to us on more than one occasion by different folks that we are nuts for paying them for everything. We have created a short daily list of expected things; they will rotate days. Some things are M-F, while others are daily. We will create a chore list of extras such as vacuuming, dusting, organizing, car washing, yard raking, bathroom cleaning, folding clothes etc that will be posted and assigned an amount if they decide they want to earn extra money.

3. The list will be created and posted on the fridge for two reasons/advantages: They respond well to constructive tasks/assignments and we will have to expend less valuable energy that we really don't have anymore with instructions/herding/repeating/yelling.

We've started discussing this with the kids, but it didn't go the way we wanted it to, so we're going to start again tonight. We do this once in awhile; change the rules on them. With parenting, just like with any other job, you need to re-evaluate things and sometimes changes are needed to be more productive and well, we've reached that point again. I love that I have a flexible co-parent as my partner because things like this would be very difficult if he was thick headed.

Oh mommy, why do you do that?!

I wish I could have caught the faces he was making about 20 seconds before this last bite. By the time I got the camera the dramatics were pretty much over, but even still, this shot is cute!

"Why did you do that mommy?"


I was giving him little soft bits of broccoli trying to get him used to textured foods. He is still pretty gaggy, but we managed to eat three whole cheerios after a series of funny faces!

Of course as soon as he sees the camera now, we get the big grinners!

"Hi Mommy! I'm so cute even with broccoli on my face!"

Ghrrr the bickering!!

We've been tossing around ideas with each other trying to come up with a solution to all the bickering in the house. I'm so tired of the kids arguing all the time. They aren't even fighting over something worthwhile. I'm talking stupid stuff. Here's an example:
Me to Justin: "Justin go get me a bib for Daniel please".
silence.
Me to the air: "never mind, we'll use this one".
Cody to Justin: "Mom wanted you to get her a bib".
Justin's in a burst of anger and exasperation to his brother: "GOD CODY SHUT UP". (or whatever it was because at that point, I sent boy to his room for mouthing and yelling, so he stomps off in total anger and disbelief that he would get into trouble for something like that especially because it was Cody's fault and HE did nothing wrong). Hmm.

If I could count how many times I've heard or better yet been deafened by the phrases "WOULD YOU SHUT UP ______!!", "LEAVE ME ALONE", "YOU IDIOT, GOD YOU'RE STUPID", "AARRRRGH MOOOOOOM!!", "DON'T TOUCH THAT", "STOP IT", Etc. It is so old and I'm so tired of having them not get along. EVER. It would be different if they were fighting over something or even just fighting once a day, but it's not. They argue just for the sake of bickering and having nothing nice to say to each other and it's ALL. DAY. LONG.

We told them today we are considering taking everything from them and throwing all their mattresses into one room, forcing them to share a room just until they learn to get along, or at least fake it well enough to give us some peace in this house. I'm figuring that'll be more hassle than what it's worth and no guarantee to have any affect anyway. Sigh. Perhaps just knocking their heads together would work.

We had two soccer games today (Sarah's team lost, Cody's team won), afterwards Doug took the kiddos out to Sam's and for a bite to eat, then took two of them to the elementary school carnival. After they were done over there, they headed over to Walmart and to the library. I got some odds and ends done around here and even got the pooches bathed. Can you say dirty nose wrinkles??!

So, we had a pretty busy day and now we're going to go stretch out on the couch, watch a corny movie and maybe eat some ice-cream! Oh and WOOT, my hubby found me some low-carb Doritos!! I guess they were just out for awhile. *licks lips* Night all.

In Memory Of...

Reed S.
9/15/1998 - 4/16/2004
Died early 'tis morning surrounded by all who love him.

How terribly sad.

Just some thoughts

It's been an odd week for me. I can't really decide what mood I'm in. I guess that's what PMS is all about huh? I'm horribly sad for the parents of the little boy who is dying. I met up with the minister who has been visiting with the family and I asked her today about it while at work. She was real sad and asked that we keep the family and little Reed in our prayers. They took him home from the hospital 'tis morning for hospice care. They give him 24-48 hours to live. I told Doug when you leave the hospital with a child, whether it be a newborn baby or a child that has gotten better from an illness, you feel joy in your heart. Imagine these parents for a moment. They are taking their little boy home to die. Breaks my heart and I can't get this child out of my mind this week. It's sad to think tomorrow I'll probably be posting about his death. Why do our babies have to die?

On another note this week, work is all bizarre on me again. When I went back to work after my maternity leave, we had hired someone in new a week after I returned. She works in the same office as I do and we've become pretty good friends over the past six months. We often shared many gripes in common and really just fell into a friendship. She was great for our office, but I knew she was over qualified and wasn't being treated as a valued member of our team. She gave her notice yesterday and it makes me pretty sad. I'm happy because she's found a really great job that pays sooo much more than what she's getting with us, but I just know it'll be like everyone else that leaves...she lives across town and I'll never see or hear from her again. Why do I bother even trying to make any friends around here?

Because this happened in the middle of so many other recent changes that are taking place, this just throws us back into a whole "let's re-think the structure of this office" mindset. Sometimes this is a good thing, other times it's not. This time around, I haven't decided whether it's good or bad yet. I work, but I am a Mom too. I've put being a Mom first, so my career "goals" are on hold. I settle for what I do and strive for nothing more because I'm afraid what will suffer most for it will be my family. It's a choice Doug and I have made and I'm okay with that decision, but when opportunities like this present itself, I always go through a few weeks of re-thinking the whole thing and I'm usually left with the feeling of being a failure and unappreciated. Sigh. Moving on though as usual...

We have band orientation, two soccer practices and an open house at Daniel's school all at the same tonight. We aren't going to make it to Open House. They tell me all the work will still be set up tomorrow morning, so I'm told to just go in and take a peek when I get in tomorrow.

Oh and just one more thing, where the heck did those low carb Doritos go anyway? They had 'em once in the stores, I bought them - YUM and now they are gone. Geesh.

A sad day

A little boy in Daniel's school has been battling cancer since the fall. He's losing. They give him about four more weeks to live and now the parents are faced with the decision whether or not to bring him home for the remainder of his time. He's on a constant morphine drip for the pain and bless his heart, he's only five. He hadn't even started grade school yet. I truly believe a parent's worse nightmare is to have to bury a child.

I dream often of my kids dying or being murdered or killed in a car wreck. It's actually disturbing how often I think about it. I'm not sure if all mothers do this or if I do it because I fear death or maybe because I've had our lives threatened so many times, I'm just not sure. It's really scary to wake up sobbing and not being sure at first as to whether it was a dream or not. I look at my kids and think of this little dying boy and it breaks my heart. I ache for his parents. Awful.

Give me back my maternity leave

Back to work tomorrow. Blech. Daniel and I thoroughly enjoyed our day off together. The kids were at school, Doug was at work and we just lazed around for most of the morning, then I putted around doing some housework that will totally be undone this time tomorrow. It was nice, the house was quiet. I even read a piece of the newspaper 'tis morning and I NEVER read the news. With days like today, I find it hard to believe I was bored during my maternity leave. Someone please give me another ten weeks off!!!

I guess plans this week will include soccer practices, band orientation for Sarah, WBC for Daniel, more digging in the flower bed, a few PMS mood swings and clothes shopping for Justin and Sarah.

Doug took Cody tonight to get him some new clothes. I noticed lately the kids just seemed like they were wearing the same thing over and over. I made them go through their drawers today after school and it turns out more than half of Cody's stuff didn't fit anymore or had holes in them. It usually is spring and fall when they get an overhaul of new clothes and it is that time of year already.

When Doug got home, he yanked out this god awful ugly, blue and white hawaiian shirt. I'm like WTF is that? He says don't blame me, Cody wanted it. I'm in shock that he picked something out like that. He LOVES it. I asked him if other kids wear shirts like that and he assured me all his friends do. Wow. And so it starts. I'm old and out of touch.

Sarah came home from school a little giggley for a switch. She asked me to come talk to her, so I followed her to her room KNOWING it had to be about a boy. Surprise surprise, it's about two boys. She found out today that two boys have a crush on her. One of her friends overheard them fighting over her. Oh my. I told her by next year she'll be what I call "boy crazy". She looked confused for a moment, then says I don't know what that means, should I look it up? ha ha Um no Sarah it just means all you'll think about next year is boys. She says I doubt that. Ha we'll see!

Happy Easter!

I'm pretty sure the kids enjoyed their Easter day. I found it to be a bit of a bummer this year, but Easter isn't about the Mom, it's all about the kids (or it's all about Church depending on how you celebrate). As usual I have bunches of pictures to tell the story of our day. First here is the latest shot of the garden. So far we have one yard of dirt shoveled in, we are picking up another yard tomorrow. There is some dirt spilled down the front of the bed, I'll have to spray that off after we're done.

Before:


After:


It's level and almost complete, now comes the fun part of planning out what I want to plant!

So I decided last night to run out and buy some stuff to make a little Easter basket for Daniel. I couldn't not get him anything. Here he is checking out his little stuffed train basket.



I managed to get one great smile out of Daniel when he was checking out his little musical lamb he got in his basket before everything went downhill.



This little doggie is cute, when you push its belly, it barks, then hops/vibrates around. It scared the daylights out of Daniel and made him cry!



Shortly after that as Justin was hopping around looking for Easter eggs, he accidentally hit his knee on Daniel's head and that made him cry too! By the end of the day, poor Daniel had his share of bumps. Bella knocked him over tonight and stepped on him to lick his face, that scared him and he cried and cried. Also while I was bathing him, he slid sideways hitting the side of his head on the tub wall. He cried his eyes out for a long time over that one! I felt awful. He was soo tired too which made it even worse I think. Not a fun Easter for little Daniel.

Here are the bigger kiddos digging into their baskets and eggs.



Of course here are the pug babies enjoying their new Easter bones!



How could the Easter bunny ever forget those two little rascals!

We headed up to Doug's mother's place for an egg hunt and dinner. Here's a shot of all the kiddos getting ready to charge the backyard for eggs! Cody is not wearing his own sweater, it's a borrowed one from grandma because he forgot his coat. It was COLD and WET today. Blech!



Sarah hunting with her new hat on:


Cody and Justin hunting determined to get the most:


And to end our adventures today, Daniel decided to surprise us all with his newest accomplishment - standing up while holding daddy's hands.



That probably isn't a big deal to most of you with babies, but Daniel always has what I teasingly call "lazy legs". He started standing up awhile back for us, then stopped, but still he wouldn't do it for the longest time. A LOT of babies start using their legs for standing at only a couple of months old. It's always worried me that Daniel wouldn't do it. Oh well, he just prefers to be laid back or on his butt!! I'm beginning to think he may decide not to crawl, he scoots himself backwards all the time, but some babies don't crawl, so maybe he'll just decide to walk instead. lol Suits me just fine!

Catching up with pictures!

Where to start...let's begin by seeing our happy baby! That's always a great way to start things. =)



As you all know we are currently in the middle of digging out a spot for a raised flower bed in our backyard. This was the first shot of the shape after many hours of measuring and aligning up bricks. It's 12' on each side and 10' deep. BIG!



Looks easy right? Ha ha. Let's just say we've hit a few snags here and there and I'm pretty sure hubby is going to want to hang 'em on the wall as trophies!



The very first day of digging, Doug had unloaded all of the bricks into that back corner of the fence while we were getting set up to start measuring and setting up the shape. At one point he moved a brick and sweet LORD, there was a snake. I thought I was going to die!! Doug yelled, grab the thing and flung if over the fence. OMG! I told him he was damn lucky he had already unloaded all of those bricks (24lbs each) or that would have been it for the flower garden for me! In two years here, I've never seen a snake yet. That has just freaked me out! (shut up Humbaba!)

The lower half of the trench we dug was hard as heck, the upper half was stocked full of huge rocks and tree roots. It's made for pretty slow progress this week. Weather permitting, we usually go out after I get home from work and dig for a few hours. We've been sore and have had our fair share of wounds. At one point those crazy pugs just about drove me nuts with their running around and chasing one another. Dexter got his legs caught in our string level while running and guess who's arm it burned straight across? Yup, it hurt! Never the less, the doggies were imprisoned at that point. Can you tell they were NOT happy campers about it!?



We certainly put the rugrats to work outside this week as well! Here are Cody and Sarah hard at work digging the side bed that we plan on rocking in. I figured it's not often you see Sarah working, so I had better document it as soon as possible! lol



Oh and don't forget, our littlest member was also hard at work...chewing and gettin' that stubborn tooth through!



My little prisoners caused me guilt head after about thirty minutes listening to them cry and whine. Really they just wanted to help! Here is Bella helping us out with her famous dig dig digging skills!!



Silly girl! I think she thought it was snow or something. It wasn't long before she was gagging and coughing with a snout full of dirt!



Of course, I couldn't forget Dexter! Here's the man helping out too! I guess his fat little belly was tampering down the dirt for us!? Well that's what we'll call it!


After all is said and done and a few more hours of work today, we have finally got the first two difficult rows down and level. We have half a brick we need to lay tomorrow up at the north end, then Doug needs to go to Home Depot and get another fifty-five bricks for us to finish up. Keep in mind, the bricks on the side are only stacked like that because they were being used for our line level before Dexter decided to yank it down! That's not their placing!



The bed will have four rows total. Our yard is sloped enough that the first two disappear into the ground. That was the hardest end to dig out. Even wrecked our large pruning tool trying to chop out those tree roots! I'm really excited about the garden. I think it's going to look great, of course, after we are done, there are many MANY other outside projects I have in mind as well! *insert batting of the eyelashes at hubby here* Well hey, after we're done this HUGE project, anything else is just child's play, right? ;)

I know, I know...

I need to update. Gah we've been busy with soccer practice, soccer game, digging in the flower bed (which we may have hit a snag tonight, not sure), work, a teething baby and lack of sleep is starting to catch up! Daniel's been up for three nights in a row. Not crying, just making noise, unsettled and congested...again. We took him back to the doctor on Tuesday to rule out another ear infection. Thankfully he got a clean bill of health aside from his cold, so that was good news, however it sure doesnt' help us at 2 a.m. when nothing will settle him down. Sorry but I can't fall asleep when a child right beside me keeps hollering. Sigh. *Yawns*

I have a ton of pictures to share and have just had no time to upload them. I'll be real happy when Friday gets here. I'm so looking foward to having a long weekend. I'm really behind on my housework and the house is very ICKY right now. Well I'm supposed to be going to be early tonight, so...night.

Excited or panic struck?

A diggin' we will go, a diggin' we will go, high ho the merry Oh, a diggin' we will go.

All I can say is this is going to be a bitch. Anyone care to come over and visit? Pretty please? This is the BEST weekend to be visiting us! Update later, bye!

Finally a win!

Cody's soccer team finally won a game today. It was a good game and they had some good moments. During half time, the coach told the boys that they were doing great, especially "Cody" and "Brian". Woot. That's my boy!

Here's Cody during half time. It was soo hot outside today, he tried a few times during the game to convince us to throw him his water bottle. Sawry, can't. =( You can even see his highlights that I put in pretty well in this shot LOL. Poor boy!



We ran around today to a few different Home Depot stores in search of the perfect blocks to use. The larger rock place didn't have pre-formed blocks to use, so we had to scratch that idea. They do however have some pretty good looking rocks for our back patio and great looking mixed top soil to fill the flower bed in with. I'm pretty sure it'll be cheaper to buy it like that then in bags from Home Depot. They were selling the dirt by "yards" though, how the heck do you measure dirt in yards?

Here is a shot of the rocks we picked out. At $700/ton compared to the normal $100-$150/ton, they are pricey stupid rocks.



Here is a shot of some funky rocks that I like and hopefully will get one for in the garden



Here's Daniel eyeing the back hoe at the gravel yard! His eyes followed those big yellow dinky cars around the whole time we were there. Heh.



Anyway, the whole task isn't going to be as easy as just throwing the blocks on the ground and filling it in. Sigh. I spoke to a man at Home Depot and when I told him what I wanted to do, he laughed and said I sound like his wife. Have to do everything at once. He said "take my advice, do one project at a time". Ha. I'll be lucky to get my hubby excited about even one project. Doug says, after I gave him grief for acting so depressed over the whole ordeal, "I AM excited, I'm just conserving my energy for the hard work tomorrow". What a crock of shit. lol

Oh and BY THE WAY, I have told you all why we're going ahead with the whole "Michelle wants a flower garden" thing right? No? Well my friends, step inside and see why!

Here's what the boy bought he-self! A bright red, shiney, new toy to play with!



HA HA HA HA! OH Yeah Mama gets a garden!

Garden planning

I didn't sleep too well last night. Partly because I was awake for a long time thinking out my flower garden plans and partly because I was up and down last night with bad dreams again. Daniel actually slept pretty well last night. Talking with a co-worker today about raised flower beds, she tells me that Home Depot probably would have the interlocking blocks that don't require any cement, they just stack together. So I talked hubby into going there 'tis afternoon with me to take a look. We found what she was talking about, so that was encouraging.

Here is a shot of the area of the yard that I am hoping to fill in with a raised bed.



As you can see the chain link fencing would have to be blocked somehow so the dirt won't flow out. It does have a slight slope, but other than that, I think it's a pretty good spot. There are a few trees, so I'll have to watch what I plant.

Here are a couple of shots I took of potential rock blocks we might use. A bit pricey at 1.77/block considering the area I'd like to work on.





I'm hoping for more and better selection at the rock place we are going to.

Here's another part of our backyard. I'd like to clean it up some, shrub in our compost pile on the north side of the shed and also perhaps put a flower garden around that tree.



We decided after looking at Home Depot that maybe we'd get enough blocks to outline our back porch as well. Our plan last year was to rock it in, we just never got around to it. There is a HUGE rock place on the other side of the highway, so we're going to go there again this year and take another look because they also sell those interlocking blocks, that way we can make sure our loose rocks for the back porch match what we get for the raised beds. Sadly we'll have to get some sort of trailer to lug all this crap. I think that was the deterrent last year, a royal pain in the arse to get it all done.