It's been one of those weeks!

Why is it that everything seems to happen all at once....its been crazzzy this week. I can't really get into all of it because it's not exactly mine to tell. But lets just say that I'm searching for someone, praying for others and trying to figure out what the problem is. And it was Jareds birthday this week. So I will start with the good.

My beautiful husband and his brother Derek talking about music like they always do. I got him tickets to the Ben Folds concert coming up and I think him Derek can talk about songs they like and different albums for hours. So this week I've been listening to his songs so I can sing along at the concert....although I don't know that it helps much since I never know the words to songs and just make up my own lyrics.

I am the first to admit I am no genius at making cakes or decorating them. I got this idea from my cousin Pattys birthday cake. So I tried it with Jareds since his favorite candy right now are the crazy core skittles.

Blowing out the candles and no they were not trick candles this time...I totally learned my lesson on that one.

Jared took this pic of me even though my hair looks a little wild...its okay that was at the end of the party and I forgot to take more pics of everyone that was there. I hate it when I do that.

This is the little friend that came to visit us last night. Isn't he cute? We have a ton of these around our house and they make some pretty crazy noises at night. We think they may be the offspring of the tadpoles we raised a couple of summers ago because we don't remember them being around before then and now we realize what can happen when you introduce a new species into your environment. But I don't mind them I like their music.

Now for the bad...... So this is what else happened last night. Amber Mae was having a bad allergic reaction to something and I am yet to figure out what it is (I'm going to have to do some mommy detective work like Rachel) but it got so bad last night she was swollen from head to toe and red and itchy...that picture is after the fact because I was just trying to maintain my sanity at the time I wasn't thinking about taking pictures, so you really aren't seeing how bad it was....so we ended up going to the Emergency Room last night and being there till 2 a.m.....so they could give her some steroid medicine. She was better this morning, not as swollen but still itching some.

You can see her stomach is bruised where she had been itching so much...she's like that on the inside of her legs too. It was so sad to see her so miserable like that. Now I just need to figure out what it was that make her react like that. If you saw her on Sunday you saw how she is allergic to mosquitos, the side of her face was all swollen...well last night was so much worse than Sunday....she hardly looked recognizable.

Bar-B-Q

We had fun the other night at the Pepples house....just hanging out and letting the kids play and getting to know this awesome family that I had just met. Seriously they are so cool. Mary the mom and Jeff the dad and their amazing children (12 in all) and she homeschools them too which is even more amazing. Why is it that families that have a lot of kids are just the nicest and neatest families in the world. Could be that they get it....they get whats most important in this life. Here are some of the pics.

Judy and Ray

It was so funny because Jared made our hamburgers before we went and thought he was pretty cool with adding some minced onion and spices and I think even BBQ sauce.....until the Pepples pull out their hamburgers which were like 4 inches thick and packed with blue cheese and something else....they called our hamburgers baby burgers....it was pretty funny....I haven't even told them yet how we laughed about it on the way home.

Jared with his baby burgers.

Plenty of really good food....which by the way, Amber I need the recipe for the delicious bacon wrapped cheese pepper thing that was so good.

Kids eating....don't ask me what Rachels kids were eating because I don't even know the name of it, some wheat grass or something....I am so kidding with you Rachel...they chowed down on whatever it was.

Here's the babies waiting for someone to come push them along it wasn't charged which is probably for the best, they look like they could do some damage together.

Here's Vic being a little comedian and giving us a laugh with her little get up.

This is Mary, the awesome mother I was telling you about. We matched so I had to make this ink color match too.

I'll match Ambers shirt this time....don't we look beautiful!

My Pearls

You know how they say not to "cast your pearls before swine" well thats how I have felt about something lately that I've been hesitant to tell people about. Because for me its been a personal revelation something that I didn't take lightly and was a hard decision to make. I prayed and fasted and looked at all the options and things have fallen into place to let me know that this is what I should be doing for whatever reason and to be honest I don't even know what that reason is and may never know but if its what I'm supposed to do then I will try my hardest to do it. Okay so what is it I've decided to do its........ HOMESCHOOLING....there I said it I'm going to homeschool Kacey this year. I know your probably as shocked as I was that of all people I would homeschool...but I always told myself that as a mom I would do whatever it takes to make sure my kids have the best life possible.

I have lots of reasons....she will be learning more than she would at school in a shorter amount of time....she will have more free time to do more dancing or whatever else she wants to.....she won't have to change who she is to fit in with a certain crowd or be labled as a certain type of person.....she will be in control of her learning and not be limited by those around her.....we will be able to grow closer as mother and daughter....part of her curriculum will be studying the scriptures so she will grow spiritually....and many other reasons that I don't even know yet.

Yes, I'm worried... you always are when you do something new and unknown but there are so many homeschool groups and activities that she's not going to become a social outcast or freak and the curriculum I'm using goes by the highest standard of all 50 states and there is a teacher assigned to her to help her in anyway if I can't and they have field trips too. I'm just going to take it one year at a time and see how it goes but to tell you the truth I am so excited about spending time with her and getting to know her as she is growing up into a beautiful young lady, she is such an awsome girl, who wouldn't want to spend that much time with their daughter.

I am a little bit more helpless than I thought..

I thought I could handle things okay while Jared is away this week. He left yesterday for some work training in Georgia. I know how to do most things around here myself and get along just fine. The truth is in the 13 years we've been married this is the first time that he's actually left me at home with the kids for any amount of time. I've left him several times with the kids and I've gone to visit my dad with the kids by myself but its different being at home without him. So I thought we'd start off the "no dad around week" with a little girls night of watching a movie last night. I also thought it would be fun to watch it in my room on the little t.v. so we could lay on my bed. What I didn't plan on was spending an hour trying to get the dvd player hooked up to the t.v. Of course I called Jared but he's little help since he can't see the big mess of wires I've created and even if I wanted to give in and watch it in the living room, I can no longer remember how it was hooked up in the first place....So I did what anyone else would do and called a neighbor to the rescue. I called Anita Ruggles who lives around the corner to see if her husband could help...but guess what?...he's out of town too...but she informs me he isn't the one that handles this stuff at their house anyway....its their teenage son Ben...go figure...of course a teenager would know how to do this stuff....so they come over and I'm feeling really stupid...because literally in 5 seconds he has it done and working and even fixed the t.v. in the living room....Thank you Ben!....Wow...I should have known a teenager would be able to fix it. I'm just hoping there isn't anything else that puts me in my place while he's gone...

A Mothers Dream Come True!

My friend had her daughters party today at the Polka Dot Place in B.A. It is such a cute litlle place.

The cake went along perfectly she had it done at Reasors before she even saw the place.

Look how cute the tables were.

Here are all the girls dressed up taking a pic with Cinderella thats the birthday girl in the middle. They all looked so cute.

Sariah all dolled up....she loves this kind of stuff....and I love that she loves it :)...I am such a girly girl.

Mae is such a girly girl too...she loved getting dressed up and was a little lady drinking from a tea cup.

Now, you know it was hard to get the older girls to dress up but they finally gave in and I was so excited to see Kacey even a little dressed up because she hates to do girly things right now...I'm sure its just a phase...right? please!...anyway she used to be the biggest girly girl of them all and now its skulls and sneakers....she'll always be a little princess to me though.

Ever since Amber Mae's daddy painted her fingernails she has to have her nails done and didn't want to miss this opportunity.

Sariah always the loving big sister....they are so cute together.

Riding the horsey....

She was just way too cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously the reason us moms have little girls is so they can be our little dolls and we can play dress up with them....so I was in heaven today getting to dress them up! They are so cute I couldn't help but have a big smile on my face the whole time the party was going on!

Oxley Nature Park

So thanks to Amber Pepple I now have something to blog about....JK...no seriously I have just been lazy about blogging...but today me and Amber Pepple had a fun little adventure out at the Oxley Nature Center. I thought it would be fun to go there and take our kids for a little hike on their trails. We soon learned that our children are not ready for the summer like weather and that we need to get them better conditioned for hiking...so we plan on doing this more often.

But they did have fun looking for tadpoles and the Pepple children even managed to take some home for their tadpole aquarium. They saw where a beaver had chewed at a tree...pretty cool. And we think we figured out that these little red bugs in the water were ticks...weird..I need to look that up. Anyway our biggest scare was that the Pepples dogs were lost and Chris couldn't find them when he got home luckily by the time our hike was over and we were on our way to the pound he called and said he found them at the neighbors house...its a good thing...I really like those dogs and I am usually not a huge dog lover but that is the one type of dog that I want to get. I love the outdoors and really can't wait for summer to get here and stay for a little while. The only thing that I can seriously live without is the wasp because I am deathly afraid of them and I am trying to overcome that fear but they are just the weirdest looking things on this planet and they come right at you.

Look at how happy they all are....this is obviously before dragging them through the woods. :)

Catching up

I haven't blogged in a while and honestly its because my facebook has been taking over...sorry but its more fun to see what everyone is doing and easier.

I took Sariah to the doctor today because she's had a headache for the past two weeks. He thinks its sinuses so I am going to try something over the counter and see if that helps. But it was so interesting to see because Sariah is in the 25% in her weight, she weighs 48lbs. She's always been so tiny and skinny and she's only in the 50% in her height so she will probably be short like me....and then theres Amber Mae who has been such a chunk from the very beginning we always couldn't believe how fast we get tired from holding her...with the other girls they were always light as a feather...So Amber Mae is in the 90% in her weight she weighs 31 lbs and 75% in her height...I think she definitely takes after Jareds mom's side of the family. Its just interesting to have them so different from eachother...Give Amber Mae a year and she is probably going to catch up to her sister.