The Abshire's Wild and Crazy Journey...Called Life

Another recipe....

2011-03-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

I have to share another recipe with you all. My mom shared this with me the other day and I thought it sounded great. It came from the Pioneer Woman blog. I haven't read much of her blog but I know many people that do and she has some great recipes on her site. What I tried last night was Creamy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole. My kids liked it and Ben LOVED it. I changed a couple of things. I had cooked chicken already so I just boiled the noodles in water and added the chicken that I already had, I also didn't have any olives so I just totally left those out (thought they were a bit of a strange ingredient anyway) and when I cut up the mushroom I chopped them pretty small so my family would eat them. It turned out so good and I will definitely be making this one again.

I am thinking that I may start doing a weekly "new recipe" blog post. I need to do a bit a research to see how I want to do it but like I said the other day I am going to be trying some new things that might be worthy of sharing.

We have sure been battling some sickness in our family that last 3 weeks. Jacob has missed 2 days this week and 1 a coupld of weeks ago, I'm hoping that he will be well enough to go back tomorrow. I know that I've been promising some more pictures but things have been so crazy around here I just haven't been able to get around to it. I will soon...I promise!!

Uh-Oh, it's already beginning.....

2011-02-22T19:18:00.000-08:00

Sarah is already riding around in "cars" with the neighbor boys. The little boy that lives next door is 20 days younger then Sarah and he got this super cool Jeep for Christmas and is kind enough to drive Sarah around. She must feel a bit nervous - notice the helmet?

Sorry it's been a little while since I've posted a new blog. We've been pretty busy with traveling, skiing, fighting sickness (and losing), little league meetings for Ben, wrestling practice, and on and on and on. I am about to try a few new recipes too, I'll let you know how they are when I try them. I also have some wrestling pictures to post as well. For now, this is all I've got for you but it's something right? :)

Jacob's face vs. Baseball bat

2011-02-15T09:42:00.001-08:00

This was day one....it swelled up the day after this was taken and turned black and blue. Now it is yellowing and healing but it looked pretty ugly for awhile. He survived....

Dinner tonight....

2011-02-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting at my computer for a while now trying to figure out what to blog about. It's been a week since my last post and I really don't want to "fall off the wagon" again so I decided I would just share what I made for dinner tonight. My mom has been telling me about the daily email that she gets from http://www.myrecipes.com/ called Dinner Tonight. I finally decided to sign up for it. I've only gotten two emails but I tried one tonight and it was so good! It was a black bean burrito bake and I made it with Lime Cilantro Rice. It was a little spicy for the kids (not Luke but the others) so next time I won't add the whole chili but or maybe I will make half with no chilies. Here is the link to the recipe.

Sorry if this is a boring post but I wanted you all to know that I am still here and thinking about my faithful readers and I felt like this was a good thing to share.

Jacob's music program...

2011-02-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

I realized today that I have done a blog post on all of the kids in the last couple of weeks except for Jacob. So I decided to fix that. As I was looking back at some pictures from last year I found these from December when Jacob has his 3rd grade music program. All of the 3rd grade kids performed for family and friends. Some even got to play instruments....including Jacob!! I think he was most excited to wear his tie :)

Here he is getting ready to play the bar instrument. He did a fantastic job!!

At the end of the night he wanted to take a picture with his teacher. He is having a great year so far and this program was right up his ally....he loves to perform!

Zac's new pets....

2011-01-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

Well here they are, that new addition to our family. If you didn't see this post about the ant farm, you should go there and then come back to finish reading about them. They came in the mail on Friday. All squeezed into a little tube. I have to admit, I was very afraid that they would die in the first day but here we are at day 3 and they are still alive and working hard. Ben and I are having as much watching them as Zac is. They are constantly working, moving sand, digging tunnels. It's pretty awesome!!
This was taken just a couple of minutes after Ben put them in.....

These were taken after 2 days (sorry about the glare)....

I thought Zac would enjoy telling you about his ants so here's a video.....

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Domino Fun!

2011-01-29T21:53:00.000-08:00

Luke had his friend Sam over after school on Friday afternoon and one of the things they did, after playing football, scooters, Wii and snacks, was dig out the dominoes. It was little iffy for awhile because, as you know, Luke has two younger siblings that like to bug him when he has friends over. They finally got a long line made so I thought I would take a few pictures. I'm not sure why I didn't take a video (just now thought of that) and the pictures are a bit blurry but it was sure fun!!

I've got another post that I will save for tomorrow or Monday.....Zac's ants came!!! They are so cool but I need to take some more pictures to show all the work that they've done.

Have a wonderful Sunday friends!!

Lukey turns 7!!

2011-01-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

I know that I say this every year but seriously?!?! He's really 7 this year?! I don't know why I can't understand that my life is screaming by way too fast and there's nothing I can do about it so I might as well just get used to it.
The day after Christmas (Luke's big day) started off with Uncle Chad and Aunt Crystal coming over to the house around 7:30 and giving Luke birthday card telling him that Uncle Chad was going to take him to the ski hill and teach him how to snowboard. Luke was so excited - not only did he get to spend the whole day with his Uncle but he was also going to learn how to ride a board.

When they got home he had just enough time to take a shower and get cleaned up and head to the bowling ally, because that's the tradition. Luke ALWAYS goes bowling with his cousins, aunts and uncles, brothers, sister and grandparents. He looks forward to it every year and even though he was tired from the day at the hill he still bowled better then me!!

Don't know if this was after his strike or one of his spares but it must have been great!!

After bowling we went to pizza then up to Mamaw and Papa's for presents......

....and ice cream cake!!!

It was a wonderful day filled with all kinds of fun and family!!!

He also got to have a friend party this year a couple of weeks after his real birthday. I will have to do another blog post about that a different day.

Today Sarah learned....

2011-01-24T20:37:00.000-08:00

...that when you don't feel like fixing your hair you put a hat on!!

"Mommy, take one of me making a mad face"

"Now a sad face"

Even making a mad and sad face she's pretty cute wouldn't you say? I realized that I should have taken a picture of us together because I was also wearing a hat today, like many other days in my past. Now, I wonder how often she will want to wear hats or if she will start to comment about me wearing hats so much. Ah well, at least they make hats stylish and fashionable these days huh?

The ant farm

2011-01-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if you know this or not but Zachary is my "bug" guy. In the summer time he is always outside looking for ants, caterpillars, rolly polly bugs and whatever else he can fine that crawls. Last year for his birthday we got him a bug carnival thing and he had so much fun finding different things to put in it and watch them crawl around. Well, for Christmas he got an ant farm from Grandma and Grandpa. Once we got home daddy helped him get it all put together. We had to send away for the ants and Zac is still patiently waiting for them to arrive. I hope that they come soon. He has the empty ant farm all set up and ready for the ants to arrive. Here a just a couple of pictures that I took while Daddy was helping him get it all ready.

I will post pictures when they actually come. Maybe I will even take a video of Zac puting them in the new home...if I remember!

I know that I haven't done any of the blog that I said were up and coming but I will. They are going to be just a bit bigger so they will take me a bit longer to put together.

Have a great Monday!

"Curly Sarah"

2011-01-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl I remember my mom using little pink foam curlers in my hair. I am not sure if she ever put them in all of my hair or just in my little pigtails to make ringlets but I do remember them well. I thought about them a few months ago and decided that I should find some for Sarah and see how her hair curled. I found some a Walmart for pretty cheap and they have been so fun. Her hair curls so well for being so fine. I have to put them in right after she gets out of the bath and I put some mousse in it before I start curling but wait 'til you see the end result....the curls last all day long too!!

I know you can't see the curls really in this first picture but I had to post it just so you could see her posing for the camera. Look at that stance!!

Pretty cute huh? I know that I'm a bit biased but I have to say that she is one cute little girl!!

Today is Friday and we have a HUGE weekend so I'm not sure I'll get back to the blog again before the weekend is over but you never know...

Happy Friday Everyone!!

Three in school!!

2011-01-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

Today I have thought a lot about how I am going to be jumping back into the blog world and I'm afraid that I have had no bright ideas. One of my good friends said that I shouldn't try to "get caught up" but just start from here. That's what I will probably be doing and I'm sure there will be a lot of jumping around. For tonight though I am going back several months to a day that my life got way quieter for a good part of the day. This was taken on the boys' first day of school. Jacob is in 3rd grade this year, Luke in 1st and Zachary in Kindergarten. Jacob is having a very good year so far. He loves his teacher and I am so happy about that. Luke LOVES being in school all day. He adjusted to full time so well and loves all the recess. Zac is going 1/2 days, in the afternoons and is always so happy to get on the bus and see all of his friends.

I also figured that I should add a picture of Sarah to this post as well. This was taken over the 4th of July so it's a few months old. She's changed a lot since then and grown up quite a bit. I think that she is enjoying her time alone in the afternoon. Sometimes we go shopping, sometimes we go to lunch with Daddy, sometimes we go work in the boys' classrooms but most of the time we just come home and she has the whole house and ALL of the toys to herself, not to mention she can watch Princesses or Tinkerbell instead of Starwars or Transformers.

Some of my up and coming blogs will be Christmas, Luke's 7th birthday, our new found (or returning) love of skiing/snowboarding and many more.....stick with me friends.

Jumping back in....

2011-01-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

I am not real sure if I have any followers anymore but I am going to try and get back to blogging again. I thought maybe if I changed the picture and the background it would give me a bit of motivation.

I am so behind and not real sure where to start. We have had several birthdays, holidays, camping trips, sporting events and lots of big things happen in our lives since the last time I shared anything with you all so I need to get it all straight in my head and figure out where to start then I will hopefully be able to get everyone caught of up the wild and crazy life of the Abshires.

If you are still checking in every once in a while I want to say I'm sorry for being gone so long. I will try to make it up to you in the next few weeks.

Stay tuned....

Easter weekend

2010-04-14T22:00:00.001-07:00

This year for Easter we headed to Omak to spend it with our family. The kids and I headed over on Thursday morning and Ben followed on Friday afternoon. He was originally going to ride over with the Scott and Kimberly but they ended up getting the flu and couldn’t make the trip so he headed over on his own. We had such a fun time! On Saturday morning we took the kids to the community egg hunt and they got lot’s of little prizes and had a blast. I ended up getting sick on Saturday afternoon and didn’t do much the rest of the day. I tried to help color the eggs but that’s didn’t go so well. Then Sunday morning we got up and went to a church breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa and went to their Easter service. After that we headed up to Papa and Mamaw’s and eat a huge, wonderful meal at the winery. Everyone was there, it was so great to spend it will ALL of the family (that was in Omak). The unfortunate part about Sunday was that Ben got the flu that I had the day before. So he didn’t get even one bite of the lamb, ham, deviled eggs or anything else that we had to eat. The kids and I actually came back home on Sunday night but left Ben there to sleep off the flu and he headed back on Monday. Other then being sick part of the time we had a great Easter and felt so blessed to be with so much family! Here’s just a few of the pictures that we got. I have to say…I’ve got the cutest kids on the planet!!! I know you might disagree but that’s ok, I can still think it.

Here the kids are hunting for the eggs they colored the night before and a few that Mamaw stuffed with candy! It was a super fun hunt and there were a ton of very good hiding places. Here are some of the egg coloring. They always have so much fun making the white eggs turn color. Sarah was the most patient of them all…she let hers get really pretty and dark. Real quick side track – do you notice that Sarah’s hair is a bit shorter? She got a haircut on Saturday afternoon. Mamaw has a friend who is going to open up a salon in Omak just for kids and she said that she would cut Sarah’s hair. It turned out super cute. I didn’t actually have my camera but Aunt Crystal took lots of picture and I will try to post those soon. Ok, now you can go back to looking at the boys coloring their eggs.

We are still eating chocolate bunnies and lots of other candies from that weekend but I guess that just comes with the territory!

Last wrestling weekend….

2010-04-13T21:53:00.001-07:00

Well I know that I promised some pictures and videos for our last weekend of wrestling and I am finally getting around to it. They aren’t really very great pictures but I did get some more videos. Luke’s little buddy Aiden from school came to watch. Luke was so excited and a bit distracted. It was pretty awesome to have him there though.

I wanted to show you this picture because this boy was really a tough one for Jacob to wrestle. He faced him the very first weekend and the kid just totally shocked Jacob (and us) with how fast and aggressive he was. The first weekend Jacob ended up doing alright against him but when he saw that he was facing the same “really tough” kid the last weekend, he got a little intimidated. The other boy ended up scoring a bunch of points on Jacob but he sure gave it a good fight and never ended up getting pinned. We were so proud of him for standing up to him and facing him. One of the other boys in the group of 4 didn’t really even try because he was so scared.

Wrestling was a very busy sport for us to be involved in but it was so much fun. The kids loved it and learned a ton. We are very glad that it’s over and that we have our Saturdays back but we will be doing it again next season with at least 2 kids and maybe even 3!! Jacob is on the fence on whether he will do it again but Luke for sure is going again and we are pretty sure that Zac will be out there next year. I will end this post with a couple of videos. You will have to excuse the yelling that comes from me and Ben....we are not the quiet spectators! Keep your eyes open for some more posts soon…I am way behind and have lots to share!

Our wrestling boys

2010-03-25T21:38:00.001-07:00

I guess this is about 3 weeks late but I am finally blogging about the Jacob and Luke and their wrestling experience. This has been a crazy month and we have one more weekend but it has been so worth it. To be honest, Ben and I didn’t really know how fun this sport would be for us. We have been so surprised and are LOVING it. It has been so fun to watch both of the boys find their competitive side. We took so many pictures and these are just a few. It’s a bit hard to take pictures and video at the same time that you are losing your voice for yelling so much!

Here's a couple of videos. This was the very first weekend and it was just a take-down tournament. They would take their opponent down, get up and then do it again. My hope is to take some video this up coming weekend so we can see the improvement. They really have learned a ton in just a few short weeks.

Future Bookworm?

2010-03-03T21:16:00.001-08:00

I walked into the living room tonight and this is what I found….

It put a smile to my face and I thought it was too cute not to share.

Jake joined in

2010-03-03T21:07:00.001-08:00

Well he did it…Jacob decided to try wrestling. When we first signed Luke up we gave Jacob the option but he didn’t think he would want to until he went to the first practice. I think he’s enjoying it and will have fun but I don’t know if it’s really going to be his sport. I guess you never know though. Here’s a few picture of his first practice….

We are going to have a super busy March with this sport. The tournaments are every Saturday in March and for some reason they schedule the younger kids first thing in the morning. So Luke has to weigh in by 7:30 and his matches are from 8-10 then Jacob weighs in by 9:30 with his matches from 10-12. Can you say “full Saturday morning!!” It’ll be fun and I’m sure it’s just the beginning of our sports journey as a family. I will get some pictures posted after the weekend and hopefully a couple of videos too.

Luke’s very first wrestling practice.

2010-02-17T22:24:00.001-08:00

Do you remember awhile back I posted this? I can’t even begin to tell you how many times Luke has asked me when his practices were going to start. Well, the day finally came and he had his very first wrestling practice tonight. He was so excited. Actually Ben said that he had a smile on his face the whole time. He had such a great time and it’s going to be really fun to see how much he learns this season and if this will be something he wants to continue with after the season is over. Just look at the pictures….can’t you see you the joy? One more thing that I need to add – we gave Jacob the chance to sign up for wrestling too. He chose not to but when they went to sign Luke up he started to wonder if he might want to. The coach told him that he could come and watch the first couple of practices and then he could decide. After tonight he is saying that he wants to try it out. So I may be posting more pictures next week of Jacob the wrestler too. Keep your eyes open for more pics to come of Lukie too.

Now I’m off to watch some more Olympics. I'm loving them this time around!

WOW Results

2010-02-08T21:56:00.001-08:00

First let me tell you all that this was the hardest WOW that I have ever done. If you missed what I was doing click here to get the details. I don’t know why but I was so unmotivated and just had a really hard time getting my rear in gear to get it all done. I wish I could have done more but all in all I think it turned out alright. Thanks Becky for hosting this again! It sure helps me get stuff done.

The first pictures are of the game closet. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to organize the mess and didn’t really come up with a good way. So we (Ben helped a ton) just took everything out, threw away all the games that were missing pieces or were broken and then put it all back in. You can see all of the games now and the very next day the kids were playing games again. It’s amazing what happens when you clean up a little bit and can actually see what’s what.

Here is the closet….this is the one that I really wanted to spend more time on. I was hoping to get some new shelving for the back wall and be able to move some of the stuff from the top shelf down and as you can see, the box is still there. I did get all the clothes off the floor and put back into the dressers though and that was the biggest problem.

I will keep working on the closet and I may come up with a better way to do the games but for now I am happy with what I got done. I also didn’t get the bathroom painted. I will be counting down the days until the next WOW Becky!

Another WOW

2010-02-01T22:21:00.001-08:00

Alright, here we go! Becky is hosting another WOW week and I finally figured out what I’m going to do for this one. I actually am planning on doing two projects this time. If you don’t know what a WOW week is go see Becky here and she will explain it, you can see what her project is and you can also see who else is playing along and what they are doing. So these are my projects…..

#1 - Ever since we got home from our Christmas break I have been wanting to organize our game cupboard but have just been putting if off. I thought this would be a great thing to work on this week. Here are the before pictures….

In the last picture you can see that I gave up trying to fit everything in the cupboard and am now putting “extras” in this box. My kids can’t even find games that they want to play because it’s such a mess in there. My plan is to have it all “nice and neat” by next Monday and post pictures of the finished product.

#2 – Now this one is a bit embarrassing for me so please don’t judge ;) As you might already know from here we just painted our bedroom and all the furniture. Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now and I still haven’t cleaned up my closet and filled the dresser back up yet. Yes, we have basically been using the closet floor for our dresser. See, I told you embarrassing!

So, my second goal is to have all the clothes put away and my closet more organized. It is pretty hard for me to show you the inside of the closet but I know that the next time you see the it, it will look so nice :) Do you see the box in the picture? That has been there since we moved into this house….almost 2 years ago. Oh my!

The other thing that I really wanted to do for the WOW this time was paint my bathroom but I’m afraid that I can’t get it all done. If I somehow find extra time I will post after pictures of that too. I’m feeling a bit ambitious apparently. I will have the first two done for sure and maybe, just maybe I can get the bathroom done as well.

If you want to see other WOW projects or if you want to join in on the fun go see Becky. Did I tell you that you might get a free coffee from her?

Summertime Fun……at Pavilion Park

2010-01-30T10:07:00.001-08:00

I’m going to do a little “flash back” to summer since I was so bad a blogging over the summer. I took so many pictures over the summer that I never blogged and I’m sure I won’t ever get all of the blogged but I will slowly go back and see what I can do.

One of the things that we did several times last summer was meet Ben for lunch at this pretty cool park. We are within walking distance from it so we would pack a picnic lunch, load up our bikes (we usually rode) and head out to meet Daddy. The best thing about this particular park is the splash zone! Unfortunately everyone else in Liberty Lake and the surrounding areas feels the same way. It gets really busy some days but it’s still fun. Sarah never really gets in the water, Zac usually just watches but Jake and Luke have a great time. You can’t really see my kids’ faces in these pictures so in case you are wondering who’s who……Luke is in the red and white suit, Jacob is in the gray, white and yellow, Sarah is the only girl and Zac didn’t make it into any pictures.

Looking at these pictures sure makes me long for summer again. We’ve had a very crazy winter, if you can even call that. The only time my kids have been able to play out in the snow was when Ben and I were in Cancun. Which reminds me, I need to show you pictures of that trip to don’t I? Anyway, I can’t wait for the weather to warm up. I know we have a few more months of cold but a girl can still dream right?

On Monday Becky is going to start a new WOW project week. If you don’t know what that is go to her blog and she explains it well. You don’t need to know Becky to join and you don’t even need a blog to join in. Just let her know and she will let you know how to do it. She even does a drawing for a prize at the end. It a really fun way to get a project done around the house that you have been putting off for one reason or another. I will be doing it this time so check back on Monday to find out what my project is going to be. I honestly have now idea yet what I will be doing but I have 2 days to figure it out!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

A Bit of a Scare!

2010-01-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

I'm starting this blog off with a picture of my beautiful, healthy little girl. This was taken a month or so ago and I just wanted to to see this picture before I tell the story. And just is case you are all of the sudden worried...don't be. She is still super healthy, we just had a bit of a bump in the road yesterday.

I would say that I have been very, very blessed when it comes to the heath of my family. We have had a couple rounds of stitches like here and here , numerous fat lips and I guess we can't forget this one either. But none of those have been as scary for me as what happened yesterday. When we put Sarah to bed on Monday night she has a bit of a cough and a slight fever but she's a kid and from my experience, kid's get sick. So I gave her some Tylenol and put her to bed. When she woke up on Tuesday morning she climbed into bed with me and I noticed that she was hot again (not super hot, just a bit warmer then normal) and that she was breathing real fast. I showed Ben and we talked about it a bit and decided that I would call her Doctor and talk to them about it. The nurse said that I could bring her in if I felt like I should but that I could also just keep an eye on her. By about noon we figured that it would be a good idea to take her in and have her listened to. I am SOOOO glad that we did! The doctor listened to her and said that there was no air flow in her left lung......WHAT?!?!? That meant that she either had RSV or Pneumonia. My heart started beating a million miles a minute at that news. So, they did a breathing treatment for her right there in the office and when he listened to her again she had about 75% of it back. He said that it was RSV (which I've read is not real common in kids her age, usually hits younger kids), and sent us home with lots of meds, a nebulizer, all kinds of instructions, an appointment for the next morning and his permission to call him in the night at home if we had any questions. I have to say that I've never walked out of a doctors office with so many things in my hands!! Our night ended up being pretty good. There was one point in the middle of the night that I had a bit of a break down and just wasn't sure what to do and I also felt very helpless. I knew, or thought I had a pretty good idea of what to watch for but I still totally doubted whether she was ok. Our morning started at 7:30 and she was so much better than when she went to bed....I guess the two treatments that I did while she was sleeping helped. She was pretty much back to her normal self with a little faster breathing. Here are a few pictures that we took last night while we were using the nebulizer..... I am very close to having tears looking at these pictures. I know that it could have been much worse and I could have had to take her into the hospital but I've never really been this close to something that serious. When I took her to the doctor this morning he said that she was breathing 100% better then when he saw her yesterday and if all goes well the rest of the week we shouldn't have to see him again. We are now proud owners of a nebulizer because he wants us to keep it around for the next few months. One other thing that happened with this whole is that she has become asthmatic. It may be a one time deal or she may have to deal with it every time she gets sick for awhile. Good news is, it's only going to last until she's 6 or 7 (if it even comes back) and he has never seen it turn into adult asthma. There it is, in a nutshell. We totally know that God has his hands in the whole thing, starting with the warning signs that we saw, to the way she responded to all the treatments. He is a great God that takes care of His babies when I couldn’t do it myself. Thank you all for your prayers…..and if you don’t believe me that she is feeling better, here’s a few last pictures that I took just tonight right after dinner. She is back to her normal crazy self….. Lord, thank you for keeping my baby safe.

The project is done......almost

2010-01-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

I know that you have all been waiting to see the project that we have been working on. We are 99.9% done with it so I figured that I would show you the pictures. The only thing that's left to do is hang stuff on the walls.

So, two Saturdays ago we were about to hang up this really cool jewelry box that Ben got me for Christmas in our bedroom. I was trying to figure out where I wanted to put it and so naturally that got us looking at how plain things were and how mismatched everything was. The really sad part is that I don't have any pictures of what it looked like before but I can try to tell you. The walls were an off white kind of color, maybe a little more beige, and the dresser and two nightstands were off white and then I had a couple of white pieces of furniture in there too. Really, things didn't go together. So we decided to paint the walls green and paint all of the furniture white. The walls were the easy part and we got them done in a day.....then we started the furniture. The plan was to just sand it down a bit and then paint over what was already there. Well, long story short, we ended up having to strip the dresser and two night stands, primer it and then we got to paint it. Here are some pictures of the action.....

This picture gives you a look at all the paint that came off. That's not all of it either, there was a lot on the floor of the garage too. It was a lot more work then we thought it would be.

Almost done now....I'm finally painting it.

Finally, the finished room!!

See this full length mirror? I got that about 3 or 4 years ago from my mom and dad and this is the first time that it's actually been hung on the wall. I LOVE IT!!!

I am so happy with the way it all turned out. We bought some new stuff like matching lamps, and new curtain rod things. We also got new hardware for the dresser and nightstands so they all match. I would really like to put up some black and white pictures and I totally plan on painting my bathroom a lighter shade of the same color. I will post pictures of that when I get to it. Right now I'm a bit wiped from this project but I'm sure it won't be long before I'm ready again.

Whew.....So glad it's done!! Now I'm off to sleep in my newly remodeled room.

'Night all!

Movie night in Omak

2010-01-22T22:20:00.001-08:00

One of the nights that we were in Omak over Christmas we had a movie night. Uncle Chad and Aunt Crystal rented X-Men, Mamaw popped popcorn and all the kids brought out their pillows and the new blankets that Aunt Teah made them for Christmas. As you can see from the pictures, they were all comfy and cozy. Zac, Sarah and Papa (and maybe Uncle Chad and Aunt Crystal too), all fell asleep part way though but the older boys loved the movie and stayed awake for the whole thing.

I am almost done with the project that I've been working on. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will be able to show you pictures. It has taken way longer then I though it would but it's going to be really nice when we are all done....I can't wait to show you.

Have a great weekend!

There is nothing sweeter....

2010-01-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

....then seeing how much this little girl loves her daddy.

I don't have anything more to say about that :)

Happy Friday!

Finally, another tooth gone!

2010-01-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

So Jacob is almost 8 years old and he just lost his second, yes his SECOND, tooth. He lost his first tooth about a year ago and we have been waiting very patiently for another one to come out. This second tooth has been a bit loose for a long time but about a week ago he came home and said "mom, I think I'm ready to pull this tooth". He work at it for probably 2 hours and finally, with some help from mom and dad, it came out. I should have taken some video because it was so funny that way it all happened. He went from a cry, to a shocked intake of breath, to a laugh and then finally to an excited, laughing, crying something. You will just have to picture it in your head and laugh with us.

I am wondering when the other kids will start losing their teeth since Jacob has been so late. It doesn't really bother me though because, like their dentist says, we just get more time to practice on the baby teeth and by the time the adult teeth come in they will be pros and taking care of them. It may save us money in the long run right?

P.S. How's this new look? I might like it better. I think the picture isn't as good but it fits better and I kind of like the red in the background.

My wrestling machine.....

2010-01-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

I missed my blog entry yesterday so I will do one first thing this morning to try and make up for it.....

Last night Luke got to register for wrestling and he is so excited! We have been talking about it for a long time and the day finally came. Ben and I (and many other family members) think that he is going to be a natural with this sport. He starts practice mid February and the tournaments start in March. I will post pictures when it actually starts but Luke was so excited to try on the "singlet" and I had just to take some pictures.

Thanks for all the comments on the new look. I'm still not 100% sure that I will stick with this one so keep an eye out for some more changes.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

Our new look....

2010-01-18T23:26:00.001-08:00

So I'm trying out a new look. I'd like to know what you all think if you wouldn't mind telling me. Not sure what I really think of this one but I'm going to leave it up and get your opinion so please leave me some comments.

A bit of Christmas excitment...

2010-01-18T22:02:00.000-08:00

For today I am just going to show you a video that we took of the older two boys opening up their Christmas gifts from us. They had both been asking for a Nintendo DS for a long time and we finally decided to get them each one. You will be able to see for yourselves that they were totally shocked and super excited.

I have lots more pictures to share from Christmas but for now I thought you would enjoy a quick video.

Two quick things....

2010-01-17T21:36:00.001-08:00

Today is our good friend Scott's birthday and we got to celebrate it with him at the Melting Pot. My mom and dad came to town also to celebrate with us. Ben and I had been to the Melting Pot for desert before but never for a whole meal. It was so fun and the food was great as well. I always have a hard time choosing what kind of meat I want when I go to restaurant but here I got some chicken, 2 kinds of steak, shrimp, lobster and sausage. It was perfect and I am still totally stuffed! Here we are, waiting for the chocolate.....YUM!!
We left all the kids with out long time babysitter Amanda. She is one brave girl and my kids love her. She has babysat for us since I was just pregnant with Sarah. Since we moved to our new place we don't get to see her as much but it's alway so fun when she comes.

Well, that's all I have for tonight. I am a bit distracted due to my favorite TV show being on right now. If you don't know what it is, it's 24! We love this show and we are so excited that it is back on this season. Can't wait to see what Jack Bauer is up to this season.

I mentioned yesterday that we were starting a project. It is well underway and hopefully in the next couple of days I will be able to show you what we are up to. I'm sorry, but now I'm signing off to watch 24....

My AWESOME kids!

2010-01-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

When Ben and I went to bed last night, way too late, we thought to ourselves "how nice would it be to sleep in?" So, we thought we would try something......

We set bowls, spoons, cups and cereal out on the table with this note...

We didn't know if it would work or not but heck, it was worth a shot. At about 7:15 or so I heard them all up and walking around, the pretty soon I heard Jacob say "shh guys, be quiet!" I could also tell that he was filling their glasses with milk and they were all talking, very quietly with no fighting. Next thing I knew it was 9:00 and I was waking up totally rested. I really did wonder what everything was going to look like downstairs and I held my breath as I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. To my wonderful surprise, the table had been cleaned off, the cereal had been put away and all of my kids were in the basement playing their DSi's and watching a movie. I honestly thought the day would never come that I would be able to sleep in again but I was wrong and my kids totally stepped up to the challenge of 'letting mom and dad sleep in'.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far. We are about to start a big project that I may be able to blog about tomorrow. Check back soon!

My new hobby....

2010-01-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I showed you a couple of my digital scrapbook pages and today I thought I would show you the rest of what I have done.

First let me tell you a few things. My friend Kimberly is who got me started. If you get a chance stop by her blog and see her pages too....she's done some really neat ones. I was pretty skeptical at first. I thought the pages looked great on the computer but I really wondered what they would look like once they were printed out. I was very surprised at how beautiful they look when they are printed and as soon as I saw a few I realized that it was something that I would like to switch over too. It had been over 3 years since I had done any real scrapbooking the traditional way and I really think it's because of the time. I would dread getting everything out, set up and then cleaned up and that doesn't include that fact that I have four kids that would be trying to "help". With digi scrapbooking you can do just a bit at a time and save wherever you are at and come back to it when you have finish cooking, cleaning, changing diapers and whatever else might take you away. Plus, I can sit on my couch, watch TV with Ben and still scrapbook!

Ben got me Adobe Photoshop Elements for Christmas so that is the program that I am using to do all of this and then Kimberly gave my an online class from http://www.jessicasprague.com/ for Christmas. I would have been totally lost without that class. I have only taken 2 of the 4 classes so I know there is still so much to learn but I am having so much fun and can't wait to do more.

Ok, so now you can look at the pages....

I hope that answered your questions Katy (and whoever else was curious). I would happy to answer more if you have more. I will keep posting more pages as I get them done but for now, that's all I've got!

My big 6 year old!

2010-01-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

This kid turned 6 on the 26th of December! It's so hard to believe that Luke is 6 now but he is really starting to grow up. He is loving kindergarten, making new friends and he is starting to read now! Here he is blowing out the candles on his ice cream cake that Mamaw always get him. I asked him this year if he would like something different and he said "no, I like the ice cream cake mom". I have to say that I'm really glad because I like the ice cream cake too.I mentioned yesterday that I have been digital scrapbooking...here you will get a chance to see some of what I've done. I did a couple of pages of Luke's yearly bowling party. He had a blast, like always and I had a blast scrapbooking it.

Well 2 days in a row.....I bet you didn't believe me did you? Now I must get to work on my very messy house....maybe Becky needs to do another W.O.W. so I can get some things accomplished! Have a great day my wonderful friends and I will see you all tomorrow!

Am I really back?

2010-01-13T12:45:00.000-08:00

Well.....I'm still alive! It blows my mind that I haven't been on here to blog anything since September. I'm so sorry for those of you who have asked me to post something. There are no good excuses from me.....just lame ones, so I won't even try. Just know that I am going to try and be better about keeping you all up to date on the happenings of the Abshires.

So much has gone on that I'm not even really sure where I should start. Do I start with our Mexico trip, Luke's 6th birthday, Christmas, my new hobby (digital scrapbooking)? I guess I will just work my way into it a bit and show you a video that I took of Sarah, without her knowing, just a couple of days ago. She was totally in her own world pretending her own thing. It was very cute and something to capture on video.

I am going to try and post something small (or big if I feel the need) everyday for a week. Do you think that will help me get back into the grove? We'll see....

Enjoy for today, this sweet little girl. I know I do....everyday!

Talk to you all again soon...

Excitment for a Sunday morning...

2009-09-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well this morning we had a little excitement. We were at church, I was singing this morning and we were practicing, Ben was out in the lobby with all of the kids and a friend of mine came up to me and told me that Ben needed me. I thought "well that's weird, he knows I'm practicing and he never interrupts me" but I went out to see what was going on. As I round the corner I see Zac laying on his back, on the ground, crying, with Ben leaning over him with a rag on his head. Ben looked at me and said "we need to take a trip the to ER!" As a mom, that's that last thing that you want to hear when you have a crying kid. Let's just say that I was not the most calm one in the room. Turns out, he fell and hit the corner of a coffee table and got a HUGE gash just above his left eyebrow. He ended up needing 8 stitches....1 is kind of inside holding the "meat" together and then 7 are on the outside holding everything else together!! Here are a few pictures....

Sitting, waiting for the "stuff" to kick in and numb it all up. He's watching Madagascar and actually kind of having a good time at this point.
Here's a decent shot of the cut just right before it got closed up.

And here's the after, once we got home.

He did such a good job and was a very tough kid through the whole deal. The doctor was great and he kept talking to Zac the whole time he was stitching, keeping his mind off of what was actually going on. They say that he will have a pretty good scar when it's all over and also mentioned that if it bothered us we could see "Plastics" to have it fixed. Don't scars make guys look tough? I'm pretty sure we will NOT be having plastic surgery on our son's head! Plus, I think it will make him popular with the ladies....many, many years from now!!

First day of school....

2009-09-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well this is a week late but here they are...the boys starting school!! Jacob in 2nd grade and Luke in KINDERGARTEN!!! I can't believe that I have 2 kids in school. So far it's going great. Jacob was so excited to get back at it. He is one of those kids that loves school and was totally ready to go back after summer. Luke was a little nervous but also very excited. Here they are all ready to head out the door.

Getting ready is always fun and a little crazy around our house. Oh sure, it looks all calm here but that's because you can't see me in the background rushing around like crazy :)

Here is Jacob walking down the familiar hall. Last year his room was one of the first ones down the hall, this year it's the very last room before you go out the door to.....RECESS. It's the perfect place really. And here he is, showing off his desk. See Grandma and Grandpa? They came for the big day and it was so awesome having them here. Now to Luke....showing of his desk! He thought it was pretty cool to be there. I know I've already said this but REALLY?!?! Luke in kindergarten?

The day is over and here he is getting off the bus.

Look at that smile, no tears for this kindergartner. If you are wondering how he is after his first week, he still loves it. The words out of his mouth on Friday were "Mom, school is AWESOME!! I love it!!" I'm so glad he's having fun. I have to say that I'm enjoying it a little too. It's amazing what taking 2 kids away can do for a noisy house.

Well, there they are. Sorry Mamaw and Grandma that it took so long to post these pics.

My new meal planner....

2009-09-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to tell you all about something new that I'm trying. My friend Cerissa told me about this last week and I am going to give it a try. It's called eMealz. You sign up for it and it will send you a meal plan and it gives you the grocery list and all!! I just signed up for it so I can't tell you for sure how it all works but Cerissa sure loves it. If you are interested, I put a link to their website on my side bar. Click on it and you can find out all about it....

I will let you know how I like it once I've used it some.

Swimming at Liberty Lake

2009-08-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

We have lived in Liberty Lake for over a year now and up until about 3 weeks ago we had never been to the lake. It's a pretty nice place, not a huge beach and not the cleanest but the kids sure had fun and it was nice to lay around in the sun for awhile. I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was swimming but I got some really cool ones of Ben and Zac.

I haven't told you about my new camera yet. For my birthday Ben bought me a really great Canon Rebel with a 75mm-300mm lens. I've had so much fun with it and I think it takes awesome pictures. This first picture that I took was from so far away. I was on the beach, sitting on the blanket while they were way out in the water. Anyway, enough about my camera....here's the pictures from the lake :)
Look at the height....it was a little scary for mom on the sidelines but Zac loved it.

We've gone a couple more times since this trip and I'm sure we will go many more times.

Garden Project

2009-08-19T21:03:00.001-07:00

This spring Ben and I decided that we wanted to put in a garden. We originally had a dog kennel in the corner of our yard but our wonderful Home Owners Association told us that we couldn't have it there so we HAD to take it down. We were going to just put in a little garden but after talking about it and planning it for about 30 min or so it ended up being way bigger then we thought it would be. It was so much hard work but we LOVED every minute of it. I took a lot of pictures of the progress along the way. Here are some....

I wanted you all to know that I did work with Ben but I also made sure that I had my coffee out there too.

The neighborhood boys sure enjoyed having piles of dirt and sod to play with. I'm not real sure what they were doing in this picture but I think there were cars involved.

Here it is, all ready for the dirt to arrive. Look at the beautiful wall that we built.

Here it is!!! Our WHOLE dump truck full of dirt. The biggest bummer of it all was that the dump truck couldn't fit back to the garden. We had to haul it all back to there one wheel barrel load at a time. We were so sore for the next week or so!

The kids thought it was cool to climb up on the mountain of dirt. They got so dirty!

Hey, it's almost ready to plant....

and now it's planted!!

Here it is a lot later after everything had some good water and sun.

This onion looked so big but when we pulled it, not so much. It was good though.

My HUGE zucchini plants.

Here's Ben harvesting some stuff....I think it's the big (not so much) onion.

And here's some of the fruits of our labors. The last two nights we've had veggies and potatoes. It's been so fun eating stuff that we working so hard for.

So there it is....our new hobby. I have learned a lot this year about gardening and I can't wait until next year to try a few new things. For now, we are just going to keep enjoying the food we are getting out of it.

Zac....the 4 year old!

2009-08-18T21:53:00.001-07:00

I know it's been forever since I've blogged and so much has gone on in the last few months. One thing being my youngest son turning 4!! His birthday was on the 2nd and we had a little SUPERMAN party!! He loves being the center of attention and totally ate it all up. Scott, Kimberly and the kids were here and my aunt, uncle and cousin where in town visiting from the west side so they were also able to come to the party. Doesn't he look so happy in this picture?
Here's my Superman decorating attempt. They sure tasted good and they don't look too bad if I do say so myself...

Here the kids are playing a game that he got. You put a water balloon in the middle and as you pass it around it pops and gets you all wet if you're holding it. Turned out kinda lame but the kids liked it and had fun.

He had been asking for a webkinz for awhile so Jacob and Luke both thought it would be a great idea to get him one. He loves it and named it Kevin.

Here's the kids waiting to eat their dinner....but they still smiled for the camera. *Say Cheese*

Once more, all the attention on him as we sing Happy Birthday Zachary!

It was a fun night and he had a great time. I can't believe that my little boy is 4! It seems like he was just born and I wish I could just push pause sometimes. I guess I just need to slow down and enjoy the time I have.

Well, I hope to be posting more blogs soon with lots of picture from our summer fun!

Really?? Was it 2 years ago....

2009-06-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

....that this little princess came into our lives??

How can it be that today, June 8th, she is this beautiful little 2 year old girl?

It blows my mind that my BABY, my very last baby is 2 years old already. I have tried so hard to enjoy every moment of her "firsts" because they are my last "firsts". I am having so much fun with her and I love the stage that she is in but also a little sad too. Today she totally understands that it is her special day. She got the super cute red outfit with purse and all from Nana Sheets and she had to wear it right away. Both sets of grandparents will be her to help us celebrate. I will post party pics later. Here's a few more of her posing for the camera.

Another first for Jake!

2009-05-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Last week while I was super busy with my W.O.W. project (see before and after ) I didn't get the chance to blog about 2 HUGE events that happened in our house. I will start with Jacob's big first. He lost his first tooth!! We were so excited....well maybe I was so excited! The story about how it came out is really funny and I will try my best to tell you how it all went down. It had been loose for awhile and I knew it was coming out soon. I was shopping at WalMart with Kimberly when Ben called me and said "Did you want to be here when Jake loses his tooth?" My response..."Uh, Yeah I do!" He told me that I needed to hurry home because it was coming out soon. So, we finished our shopping and hurried home. As soon as I walked in the house I got my camera and took this first picture.....before the tooth came out.
The funny part comes between these two pictures. As I was switching my camera from still shots to video Jacob grabs a napkin and starts playing with his tooth. I tell him not to touch it because I don't want it to come out before I get the camera on. Well he says "I'm just going to wig....*pause with shocked look on face*....I didn't mean to mom!!" HAHA It came out without him even trying to pull it. At the end of this post is the video that I got after the tooth actually came out. He was pretty proud of himself for pulling it out on his own. Here's a couple pictures of out 1 missing tooth boy.

So here's the video. Please don't pay any attention to the funny sounding voice in the background. You will quickly hear that I thought it was all pretty funny and I so wish that I could mute out my voice.

I will get the other "event" up on the blog soon. Curious to see what it is? You will just have to check back soon.....

My W.O.W. update....

2009-05-20T16:20:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I have to be totally honest with you, this was really a hard one for me. I don't know if I just picked something too hard for the busy week I had (they are all busy though) or if it just stretched my brain to be so creative. Anyway, I got half of my goal done. As I started thinking about what I really wanted to do with the walls and the "art", it took way longer then I had expected. So, the organizing of the crafty closet didn't get done. But, I am so happy with what I finally decided for my walls. I didn't have a lot of extra money to buy pictures and things for the walls so what I did was bought some cork board, fabric and a clock. I covered the cork board with the fabric and hung it on the wall. I also took some buttons and glued them onto thumb tacks. This is how is turned out.

I even got some more books up on the book shelves. I think I have some more somewhere but sort of ran out of time to find them all.

I am super happy with how it all turned out. Thank you Becky for doing this again to keep me motivated. One more thing....did you notice the Starbucks coffee in the picture. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you draw my name Beck!

Within One Week I Will.....

2009-05-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law Becky is doing another one of her famous W.O.W. projects this week and I'm jumping aboard!! She did one a couple of weeks ago and I was not prepared for it. This time I've been thinking about it for awhile and after much debating have decided to work on my office. We painted it, put curtains up, got a new desk and a couple of nice bookshelves for it about 2 months ago but that's as far as it has gone. So for this week I would like to finish the office. I would like to put some pictures on the walls and get some books on the shelves. We have books still in boxes from our move a year ago, some good kids books in the basement and a few other places I'm sure, so I would like to get them all in one spot (the spot where they belong!). I'm afraid that this doesn't seem like much of a project but it is something that I've really wanting to be finished with. Here are some before pictures.......While I was up there taking the pictures I decided to add the closet too. It has all of my scrapbooking/crafty stuff and it is totally unorganized!! I hope to find a place for everything and have it all in it's place by the end of the week.

Now, if you want to join in on the fun (and you really should because there's a coffee prize) go over and visit Becky. Good luck to all you other WOWers out there!

Our new family toy….

2009-05-12T13:35:00.001-07:00

I realized today that I didn’t tell you about our new toy. For Jacob’s birthday we decided to get a new basketball hoop. It’s so fun to have. With four kids, three of which are boys, we know that it will get a lot of use in the next few years. I have to admit, even I have enjoyed it some and Ben has really enjoyed it. Here are some pictures that we took the first night that we had it. As you can tell…all of the kids were getting into it.

Who knew Sarah could dunk huh?

Zac the Muscle Man!!

2009-05-12T09:27:00.001-07:00

The other day Zac put on these matching boxer briefs and tank top. We thought it was so funny. He looked like a gymnast to us. He thought it was pretty cool that we thought it was so funny so he had no problem posing for us!!

This one is my favorite. Isn’t he such a stud?

My first official run!!

2009-05-03T19:23:00.000-07:00

So today I did something that I never thought I would ever be able to do....I ran a race!! Bloomsday is a race here in Spokane that is the biggest timed road race in the US if not the world. It is a total of 7.46 miles (12K) and that's a really long way to run. I was pretty sure that I would walk at least half of it but guess what? I RAN the whole way!!! Now my run was pretty slow but I still ran it. My sister-in-law Crystal came over and ran it with me. She a tough chick and pushed me, I mean encouraged me the whole way. We don't know our official time but we think we did it in about 1 hour and 20 min, maybe 30 min. They will post the results tomorrow probably. I am very very sore tonight but so excited that I did it. I will be running more and maybe I will work my way up to a half marathon. Here's a few pics of us before the race. I will let you know the official time when I find out. I just had to tell you all about my experience.

Sarah's new dress made by Grandma

2009-05-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago Grandma made Sarah a really super cute dress. Our weather has not been real nice around these parts so today was the first day that she actually wore it. It is so beautiful and fits her perfectly. Thought I would share some pictures. She was being very silly and didn't want to stop, smile and look at the camera all at once so this is the best that I've got.

New look

2009-04-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

As you can clearly see, I've decided to play around with the look of my blog. Plus it was time to update the picture. You will notice that Dash, the rock eating dog, is not in the new picture but we do still have him, we just didn't have our family picture taken with him this year.

I would love to know what you all think the new look. Please, please leave me some comments and let me know. Stuff like the text color, title text color and all of the kind of stuff....can you read it well? I will be waiting to see what you all think :)

Their first dance

2009-04-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I was watching Kimberly's kids. Since they have moved up here the kids have been together a lot and get along really good. I've been so happy with how they have become such good friends. You really never know, just because parents are friends doesn't always mean the the kids will follow. But in our case, they all get along great! So, on with my story about the other day. Sarah and Andrew are a year apart in age, both of them the youngest kids in the family. Now I feel the need to explain something....Sarah has three older brothers, as you all know, and she can hold her own. She's a little tough sometimes (most of the time) and when she can get away with it likes to be a bit bossy. Andrew has one older sister and we all know that girls can be a little "mothering" or that they like to be the leader. So needless to say he's probably been the one who's told what to do most of the time. Sarah has picked up on that totally! She likes to lead Andrew around, takes his toys, can be very pushy with him and sometimes not so nice either (I'm working on that part). I was sitting in my living room talking to Andrew when Sarah comes up to him, grabs him by the hand, leads him to a place more "roomy" and turns to face him. I wish that I could have heard what he was thinking. It probably went something like this "Uh-oh what's she doing now? Where is she taking me and why did she turn to look at me?" There was no music in the back ground but she started twirling around him and trying to dance with him. It was so cute! He was quite a good sport, although he didn't really look super happy about it. I will have to teach her at some point that the boys are supposed to lead and the girls follow.

The other thing she likes to do is hug him from behind. Can't you just see the love that he has for her?

I finally got a smile out of him. I'm pretty sure that it's because she wasn't touching him at this point.
Just so you all know, Andrew really does like Sarah. He talks about her and plays with her lots. I just didn't want you all to think that this stuff happens all of the time and I wanted to end this post on a good note.

Jacob's first "friend" party

2009-04-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a good day for Jacob! He got to have his first real FRIEND birthday party. We let him invite 8 little boys....5 from his class, 2 neighbor boys and 1 from kindergarten. On Saturday morning I was a little bummed out because we had only heard from 2 little boys that they were coming. I knew Jacob would have fun no matter how many were coming, plus Kyle (from kindergarten) was coming and that was very exciting!! I was still just a little bummed that not more were coming. The party started at 2:00 and at about 1:15 I got a call from one of the moms who had forgot to call me to RSVP and was still wondering if it was okay for her son to come. "OF COURSE" I said, "he can totally still come". Something about that one last boy made me feel way better. It was kinda of nice only having 4 kids 'cause they got to play the Wii and I didn't have be so planned and organized. Here's the group of them....are they so cute? From left to right we have Garret (our neighbor), Ryan (a classmate), Jacob and then Kyle (the friend from kindergarten).

If you can't tell from the pictures, Jacob wanted a Star Wars party. It was a hit and all the boys had really cool goody bags (first time I have done those), yummy cake, Capri Sun and they had lots of time to play. Looking back at it all I think I'm glad that there were only 3 boys that came. It let me ease into the party scene a little :)

So, that's the end of Jacob's birthday. He ended up having 3 parties total....what a spoiled kid! It was so fun though. Now I've got just a little over a month to plan the next one....Sarah turns 2 in June!

Easter 2009.....a little late.

2009-04-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

So I know that this is really late and a little out of order but here's our Easter. It was a little bit of crazy year but also a lot of fun. I was on the worship team singing this year. We had a couple of extra practices and also had to be at the church at 7am on Sunday morning but it was really fun to be a part of the service. Since I had to leave the house at 6:30 in the morning I missed the kids getting the Easter baskets first thing in the morning so Ben took pictures for me. They had fun and all got new sun glasses. Here they are...Here they all are dressed in their fancy cloths. Ben did a great job getting them all ready didn't he? I was so impressed...he had to get them all dressed totally by himself. I did fix Sarah's once they got to the church. He's still not real sure about the whole hair business yet.

Right after church we had the kids hunt eggs. It was great to have a big yard and it was a little chilly but not raining and that's what mattered. Scott, Kimberly and the kids spent the day with us. We had a great dinner but I didn't get any pictures. Taking pictures is really hard to do when you are the one cooking :)

Here's Sarah and her beloved "Gott" or "Gock". She really does love him....she always makes sure to say hi and bye to him.

And last but not least....Zac doing his favorite past time. I couldn't resist taking this picture of him. Quite a big day for a little 3 year old that goes and goes and goes!

The school party!

2009-04-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

Here's Jacob's school party. Last year I had to take a store bought snacks but this year I was able to make cupcakes and take them. It was pretty cool. I didn't do anything fancy, just plain old cupcakes but the kids seemed to like them and it sure was fun. He got a pack of gum from his teacher and he seemed to think that was pretty awesome.
Here he is passing out the cupcakes. He got to pick a friend to help hold the plate. Pretty cool stuff when you are a 1st grader!
I don't get to visit Jacob's class as much as I would like to so I really enjoyed being able to spend a little time there. I took the rest of the kids and they all thought it was pretty cool to see big brothers friends. I still can't believe that he is 7. I really feel like it was just yesterday that we found out he was on his way and we were scared to death. Didn't think we were ready to be parents. He changed our lives more then we could have ever known and would never, ever change it for ANYTHING.

Oh and one more thing...he finally has his first loose tooth. I thought he may have lost it by his birthday but I'm sure I will be blogging about it soon....don't hold your breath though, sometimes it takes awhile.

Jacob's 7th Birthday....really??

2009-04-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

How is it possible that this baby....
could turn into this kid over night? I mean really, shouldn't it have taken at least, I don't know, like 7 years or something?
Yes it's true, Jacob turned 7 years old on Wednesday. He was so excited when he went to bed the night before. He could barely fall asleep. We started the day off with a pancake, bacon and eggs breakfast. I made Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny pancakes (the kids' favorite). After that Jacob had to go to school. His teacher does this V.I.P. week with each kid and she tries to make it the week of their birthday. So, this week has been great for Jake! He's been the "special" kid all week long and was able to take pictures, take something to show and tell, read a favorite book aloud to the class and last but not least.....EAT CUPCAKES!!! (those pictures will be in another post).

We had a special birthday dinner that Jake got to pick. When I asked him what it was that he wanted me to make for dinner he had to explain it to me but I finally figured out that he wanted Tater Tot Casserole. It was nice for me because it's a super easy dinner and we had 5 extra people here. It was a great night of good food, presents and great friends. Here's few pictures of the evening.

Here's a picture of my cake decorating attempt. It sure tasted good! Jacob is going to have his first real "friend" party on Saturday and I am going to buy a decorated cake for that one :)

A really cute little girl and some comparisons....

2009-04-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

I know that it has been a really long time AGAIN! I have been feeling really unmotivated with blogging lately. I've still loved looked at all of my friends' blogs but just have lacked the desire to do any of my own. I won't promise to do better because I have no idea how long it will be again before I do another post (hopefully not long!) but I have a fun one today I think.

I was getting my daughter ready this morning and as I do just about every morning I was also trying to think of a cute way to fix her hair. Having a little girl has not gotten old to me at all. I still LOVE dressing her cute and fixing her hair and many fun ways. So this morning I fixed it like this and couldn't resist taking a picture of it.
I just have to say isn't she sooooo cute!!! So it made me think of this picture that I had of me when I was a little girl. I was probably a year and a half older then Sarah so my hair is longer and I look older but do you think she's mine? heehee
Then I got to thinking about this other picture that I have of me on my first birthday and thought I should also share that one too. I pulled it out for a few of my friends and some actually thought that the picture was of Sarah and not me. The first is Sarah and the second picture is of me.
That's about all I've got for today :) I have been working on a couple of projects around the house that I will post pictures of soon. I need to go outside now and enjoy this totally awesome 60 degree weather we are having here.

My sleepy Zac.

2009-02-24T10:02:00.000-08:00

I have this kid that can fall asleep anywhere when he wants to. In the last year or so I have been collecting pictures of him sleeping and I thought it would be fun to share. It is crazy some of the places he decides to lay his head....you will see what I'm talking about when you take a look at the pictures.

This first picture was just about a month ago. We were eating lunch at a pizza place after one of Jacob's basketball games. He seemed fine and then all of the sudden he was asleep on Grandma's lap!
The next few were at our old house. Taken almost a year ago. He may have been watching a movie. Take notice....no pants and one shoe on. It doesn't really matter the situation if he's tired he will sprawl!

This is just proof that our couch and ottoman are way too comfortable. We enjoy sleeping on it too :)

I guess he couldn't wait to get into the car this time. Who in the world could fall asleep on the bottom stair but him? Are you starting to think that he doesn't get enough sleep? Well let me tell you, we put him to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 most nights and he gets up anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning. So he's getting almost 12 hours a night and if he naps during the day he won't fall asleep until after 9:00.

This is one of my favorites....he was watching the snow plow!!

Don't even ask me here. I just looked down and he was asleep, face down under our desk. Do you think that I'm mean for taking pictures? I promise that I move him to a more comfortable place when I've taken the pictures!

I think this one is the most impressive. There were 5 other people standing around talking (some yelling) in the kitchen plus Luke was bouncing the basketball. He STILL feel asleep in the middle of it all. Grandma was a witness to that one!!

So there they are. All of the places that I've caught Zac sleeping. Well probably not all but a lot anyway. What a kid!

Again?!?!

2009-02-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Well, once again I've disappeared for a whole month without realizing it. Our life has been crazy busy so I will try my best to catch you all up on the Abshire's happenings.....

Jacob is a little over half way through his basketball season. He is still having a great time and believe it or not we are seeing improvement. He's been playing GREAT defense the last couple of weeks. I actually think that the kid he was blocking last game was getting a little ticked off because Jake wouldn't let him by. It was pretty awesome. We are very proud of him and it's going to be sad when the season ends. Baseball is next though and this year we will have two boys playing.

Luke is so excited to start playing baseball. He's been talking about it pretty much non-stop since the snow started melting. We are hoping that we can get him and Jacob on the same team this year but it may be a little tricky. He had a 5 year well check this week and got up to date on all of his immunizations for school. That is the other hot topic....kindergarten!! He says that he's ready to go now. I think I can wait a little bit to send my little helper away to school.

Zac is changing so much right now. I think that he's in that stage of going from a toddler to a little boy. His new thing in the last month or so is that he is TOTALLY out of diapers and pull ups. We've been done with diapers for awhile but he sleeps through the night now. Can you believe it?! I only have one kid in diapers!! YAY for Zac Man!

Sarah is starting to get quite a "goofyness" about her these days. She loves to play around with her brothers and tries really hard to keep up with them. She is finally getting some more teeth, she went about 7 months with just 8 teeth and in the last month or so has finally cut her molars. All of my kids have been late in getting their teeth. The other thing that she is attempting is going potty on the toilet. She has gone several times and wants to go all the time. We'll see how long it takes her. I'll keep you updated on that.

So that's about it with the kids. Other things have been going on too....Ben's work has been really busy, we've had some really big and exciting changes at our church, some of our great friends are moving up here from AZ. and right now our family is battling the flu. Hopefully that will pass soon.

I have a few random pictures to share just so you have something fun to look at instead of just reading my boring post. I don't think that I will be making any more promises about being a better blogger but I will try my hardest! Thanks for sticking with me.... :)

I forgot, one more thing. I wanted to share something from one of my friends blogs this morning. I don't get political but I read this post and thought it worthy of sharing. Just in case you don't all know what our new president is probably about to do....you should go check it out.

Jacob Abshire.....Basketball Great!!

2009-01-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Well here it is, the basketball post that Grandma has so anxiously been awaiting. Jacob had his first basketball game last Saturday (the 10th). Practices started in November but with the weather we've been having he had 2 practices canceled and then a 2 week break through Christmas. So these kids only had 3 practices together before their first game. Add that to the fact that they are all in first grade and most of them have never played the game before, it was very interesting and fun to watch. There was so much confusion when they started playing but Jacob is having a blast and that's what matters! He is playing through an organization called Upward. When we signed him up we thought about doing it through the YMCA but I'm glad we chose Upward. It is a Christian run program and they really focus on learning the game not really who's winning at this point. For now, it's what we want for Jacob. So, here are a few pictures from the game. I need to apologize for the pictures though. My camera did not perform like it should have. Maybe we need to get a new camera huh? My birthday is a short 5 1/2 months away (hint hint) :) Anyway, this is about Jacob not a new camera.....as I was saying some of the pictures are a little dark so I'm sorry about that.

This first one is in the "locker room" (aka Sunday school room) before the game started. They all meet in there to mentally prepare for the game As you can tell, Jacob is very focused on game time....

It's pretty cool, they have a little tunnel that the kids get to run through as their name is called. Jacob is right behind #24 there.

My friend Jill came to watch his game with us. I didn't tell him that she was coming and this was his reaction when he saw her.Here they all are, praying before they start the game.

I thought this was pretty funny. Jacob didn't start in the first game so he was sitting on the "bench" between the coaches. Looks like he was learning the plays!

Here he is getting some instruction on where to stand. There's so much to this game! I'm not sure what he was doing in this picture but I thought it was a good one of him. Look how skinny he is. Ok, last but not least, here's a video. Now I feel the need to remind you that they are first graders, 6 or 7 years old. The other thing that I need to tell you is that Ben is not the coach but you will hear him because the real coach doesn't say much. Jacob really had NO IDEA where he was supposed to be. It was so much fun and I can't for next Saturday and his next game. I'm sure in about 5 years I will be exhausted from all the different sports that my kids will be playing but for now, with just one playing, I can sit back and enjoy watching my son "play" basketball. Enjoy the video and feel free to laugh along with me!

Luke is 5!

2009-01-14T20:37:00.000-08:00

Well, Lukey finally did it....he finally turned 5!! He has been so excited to turn 5. I don't know, maybe it's because he knows he gets to go to school this year. As I was looking at pictures to put in this post I decided to look back at some baby pictures. Once I did that I couldn't help it but use a couple of them. As you look at Lukey as a baby focus on the cheeks....they were huge!!

So here we are 5 years later and for his party he wanted to go bowling again. It was so much fun and he really had a great time with his cousins, grandparents, uncles and aunt and of course his brothers. We can not believe that he turned 5. I guess that is what's supposed to happen right? You have kids and then they grow up. It just all seems to be happening too fast for me.

Here are a few pictures of the bowling. I didn't take as many pictures as I should have but you can tell we had fun.
After bowling and pizza we had an ice cream cake party up at Papa and Mamaw's house and Luke got to open presents for the 5th day in a row...but this time it was all about him!!

Look at his smile in this next picture. Can you tell that he LOVES the attention? He was so happy and loved that we were all singing just for him.

Catch up time!!

2009-01-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

I was just looking at my last blog post and realized that it's been whole month!! And it had been awhile before that one too. I have no idea where December and the first half of January went but they're gone! As far as my blog goes, I really am not sure where to start. There is so much to share. I guess I will start off with the Christmas stuff and we will go from there.....

Here's our beautiful, tall, skinny tree! My favorite kind and quickly becoming Ben's first choice also.
Sarah totally got into the festivities of it all too. Problem was...she wanted to climb all the way to the top of the ladder and it made me very nervous!

As you can tell here, we had quite the "group" of red balls. I think I went back and moved some around (shh, don't tell).

Our Christmas pretty much started on the 20th of December. Becky and her family came to our house for a couple of days to hang out. It was so much fun. They hadn't seen our new house yet, the kids (who love to play together) hadn't seen each other in several months and most importantly I (and my family) hadn't met Benjamin yet!! He is so cute and I couldn't believe that we had to wait 5 whole months to meet him. I tried to hold him as much as I could while they were here. Sarah got a little jealous a few times but Aunt Becky was always there to hold her. We decided to let the girls and Ben-Ben open their presents from us and the boys and Sarah open their presents from them while they were here. The main reason was because the gift from them to the boys was huge and there was no need to haul it to Omak just for us to haul it back. Plus it was fun to have just a couple of things to open up early.

Here's the girls opening there Karaoke machine from us....it was fun! Although the boys weren't too big on singing songs for "The Little Mermaid".

Sarah got a set of 8 books written by an author named Karen Katz. They are her favorite books by the way. And I've heard from a very reliable source that a little girl named Amy picked them out especially for Sarah.
Now, here are the kids playing with the boys' totally awesome gift! They got an air hockey table! It has been lot of fun to play and it's fun for kids of all ages (even 30 year olds!!). The other cool thing is that the kids can totally play each other and have fun at it.

So now to the next part of our Christmas. We did things a little different this year. We weren't planning on driving to Omak until Christmas day but there were some storms coming and we were afraid that if we didn't head out while there was a break we may not have made it. So we ended up celebrating our Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with our little (hum..not sure it's too little) family on the 22nd and 23rd. It was a little different but still very fun. Ben had taken a couple days off and ended up having a whopping 16 days off in a row!! That gave us the flexibility to take off whenever we wanted to. On Monday night (the 22nd) we did all of our Christmas Eve stuff which included opening up Christmas jammies and games....

Yup, that's right....even Ben and I got new Christmas jammies:)

Can't really tell here but they got Hi-Ho Cherri-O and Memory from us and they also got a game from Scott and Kimberly.

So after the jammies and games we went ahead and opened the rest of our gifts that we had under our tree. Like I said before, we were really trying to miss the upcoming storm so we wanted to get out of town as early as possible. Funny thing, even with all the prep to get out early we didn't leave until 3 I think it was. I tell you, getting out of the house with 4 kids, 1 dog, 4 suite cases and a bunch of "stuff" is not easy. Plus we had a few last minute stops. Ok, back the the Christmas Eve...sorry about the side track....

We got the boys the Transformers movie in BluRay and this was Jacob's reaction. He was pretty shocked.....

and very excited about his very own Transformer movie!

Sarah figured out pretty quickly how to open up the presents. It was really fun to watch her this year. She wanted to help everyone.

Jacob made us an ornament at school in art class. He was so proud of it. He said "I made it too look like the earth mommy" and it sure does.

We made a call into Santa and asked him if he could come to our house a couple of days early and he said that he would!! He told us that it would be a good practice run ;) The kids were super excited to head down the stairs to see what was down there and I guess, from the look on his face Zac wasn't too happy about having to wait for me to take pictures.

It was so nice that Santa put the first letter of their names on one of the presents so they would know who's was who's. And how in the heck did he know that they needed socks and white t-shirts and that they love bubble gum??!!?

After all the Santa gifts were opened we had a big breakfast and headed out the door to Omak. Once we finally got out the door and on the road the trip was great. The roads weren't bad at all and in the end we were glad that we left the couple of days early. Here's some more pictures of actual Christmas day at Papa and Mamaw's.....

Jacob got a Superman costume and he was thanking Mamaw for it. Do you think he was excited?

I knew that I had some super heros in my family but I had NO IDEA!!

So I guess that about sums up our Christmas. There were a lot of things that I didn't get pictures of that I wish I would have like our wonderful Christmas Eve at Uncle Beetle, Aunt Kelly and Krita's, the fun time we had opening Christmas presents at Grandma and Grandpa's, the great time our kids had dancing with their cousins and much, much more. I do hope that this gives you a pretty good glimpse into our fun though.

I should probably also tell you about our drive home. I'm sure most of you have heard about or experienced our crazy weather. Well when we were trying to figure out when to head home we had to try to miss the storms. So we came home on Monday the 30th thinking that we were missing storms. Well, we were wrong, so, so wrong!! Things were fine for the first half but once we got to Wilbur, the half way point, the weather turned from not so bad to really really bad. It was snowing and it was very windy. They don't mix well when you are surrounded by wheat fields! It took us 3 and a half hours to get from Wilbur to Airway Heights and that's normally just over an hour. The kids did good considering they were stuck in the car for 6 hours, Ben did a great job driving in it but me on the other hand, I didn't do so hot! I thought I was going to lose my mind. I guess I'm a wimp when it comes to winter driving and this was not something that I handled well at all. There were times when my poor husband could hardly see 5 feet in front of him but he kept us on the road and got us home safe and sound. He is my hero!! Not only did he have to deal with the roads, he had to deal with a crazy wife! He did an amazing job and still loves me.

There we go, my first blog in a month is complete. I plan on adding a few more before the day is over but I can't promise. I do promise however not to wait another month....

Oh, the weather outside is frightful....

2008-12-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

First I have to start out by saying "I'm sorry that I've been neglecting you!" I really have quite a few things to blog about, pictures to show, stories to tell but today I have to tell you about the day we had yesterday.

It all started on Wednesday mid-morning. I went to Costco and it was just starting to snow, when I came out of Costco it was actually starting to pile up a little so I came home. All the news channels were saying around 5 inches. Well, in just a little over 24 hours we had 2 feet and more in some places!! We broke records is Spokane. It was crazy....all the schools closed (Jacob got out for Christmas break 2 days early!), lots of businesses closed and they were saying stay home unless you absolutely had to go somewhere. Ben went in to work for just a little bit since we only live a couple miles away but he didn't stay long, the place was empty. I took pictures while Ben was out shoveling and the kids were playing. The thing to remember is that I took these pictures in the morning and it snow hard all day long!!

It has slowed down quite a bit now but it is still snowing a little bit. They say that we are going to have a break but then on Sunday we are supposed to be hit with another storm. We'll see what that brings our way. Hopefully the break will give everyone to catch up before it hits again.

I'm just trying to stay dry and warm in my house while my kids want to play out in the fluffy white all day.

Becky and her family are heading up here tomorrow so please pray that they make it safely. My kids can't wait to play with their cousins!! It's all they can't talk about so I hope they bring there snow cloths with them...

Thanksgiving Day

2008-11-30T21:21:00.001-08:00

This year we had the privilege of hosting Thanksgiving at out house. It was so much fun and right up my alley. We were hoping to have all of the Abshire clan but Becky and her family weren't able to make it up. We missed them very much and it wasn't the same without them but we knew they were being well taken care of by Daiquiri. Here's a few pictures of our day....
Ben brought home these beautiful flowers for me on Wednesday night. This is my attempt at being a photographer. Not quiet like her stuff but I thought this was a pretty picture.

Here's my turkey going in the oven

And here it is out of the oven. It was so good...I love turkey!

Grandma and the boys making the fruit salad. They loved helping her and they were very good at "cutting" the fruit.
All of us working hard in the kitchen. I felt like I was in there most of the morning but it sure was worth it.

I was going to make two different kinds of pies but we all LOVE pumpkin pie so I decided to just do two pumpkins.
Zac got tired of waiting for dinner to be ready I guess. I have to say that it was nice not having him in the kitchen with us right at the end when it's all crazy.
I just had to throw one in of Sarah saying "cheeeeeeesssse". Every time that I get the camera out she looks at me and says it.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Sally, my friend Jill and I all got up way too early (3:15) on Friday morning and did the whole black Friday shopping. It was a blast and we got a few really great deals. After shopping we headed to Omak for the rest of the weekend and I was able to see the rest of my family. I am very tired and not feeling like I'm ready to start the week (and the month of Dec.) tomorrow but I had a great weekend. I have an awesome family and I am very very thankful for each and every one of you. Love you!

Thanksgiving Eve family night

2008-11-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

The last couple of family night we haven't really done anything big...I know I've been slackin'. Last Wednesday I baked sugar cookies and they needed to be frosted so what better way then to have the family help out. The kids love frosting cookies too so I didn't have to do any convincing. I have leaf shaped cookie cutters that I only use once a year and then I try really hard to get the "right" colors for fall. It turns out different every year but I thought they turned out good this year.
The boys, hard at work. I noticed Jacob was a lot better frosting them this year. He could do about 3 cookies to Luke and Zac's one.

Luke is starting to be quite a perfectionist. He kept tell me "I want to do it like yours mommy. Does this look as good as yours?"

Zac was a different story. He was cute though....he just kept working and working on the same cookie. At the end I noticed him lean over like he was going to smell the cookie and before I could catch him he stuck his tongue out. I said "Zac! You can't lick the cookie!" then he look up at me and said "But mom, it's good!" Like he didn't already know it was going to be good. All I could do was laugh and tell him that he could be done and eat that cookie.

Sarah couldn't really help much, but she did enjoy eating them. How can you turn this face down...are we in trouble or what?

Here's a few of the finished product. In the morning we put together a few plates for our neighbors and Jacob made cards that said "We are thankful for our neighbors". The kids loved handing them out. It was like trick or treating except for we gave stuff away instead of getting candy. It was fun!

As I've told you before....

2008-11-25T10:10:00.000-08:00

..it always seems to be my Lukey that gets hurt. This happened last night.

I'm not real sure how it happened. I was standing at the kitchen counter, he was sitting on the bar stool and the next thing I knew he was not on the bar stool anymore. I even saw the whole thing happen and I still don't know how he did it. I was afraid that we were headed to the urgent care....again, this time with a busted nose or a missing tooth. All we got was a very fat lip. Poor kid, that' all I can say!

Kids say/do the darndest....

2008-11-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

I realized that it's been a bit since my last post but honestly I haven't had much to blog about. Something did come up with Jacob the other day and it reminded me of something Luke related that happened a couple of months ago.

First, Jacob - I've been thinking a lot about Jacob being in first grade at a public school, being there more then at home and being around friends, that I don't know, all day long. I've been wondering when he will start "learning" things from his friends. Well, it finally happened. The other day Ben was downstairs playing around with the kids and Jacob said something about the "F word" (that's exactly what he said "F word"). I thought to myself oh man, already? He's too young to hear that word. So, Ben started talking to him about it. Telling him that some people say things that we aren't supposed to say. Jacob was saying stuff like "I don't know why they call it that" "I don't understand why it's called the F word". That kind of got Ben (and me) wondering what the word really was that he had heard. It's kind-of funny now that I think back on it but we were asking him like "what does it sound like?" "what are some of the letters in it". We started to get very confused because there was an "M" and a "Q" and he saying the first word starts with and the second word has. We just got the feeling that it really wasn't the actual "F word" that we were thinking of. Finally Ben took Jacob away from his brother and told him that he wanted to know what the word was. At this point we were pretty sure it wasn't what we were thinking it would be and we wanted to make sure that he didn't think something was a bad word that really wasn't. So Jacob got really serious, a little afraid that he was going to get in trouble even though Ben assured him he wouldn't, and said, very slowly "Oh Queen Mother!" and then just looked at Ben. I was around the corner but I could just feel the tension as Ben was trying not to laugh. The poor kid thought he had said something horrible. We explained that it was not the "F Word" and it was an ok thing to say. We've had a few laughs about that.

Now Luke - In our neighborhood we have a lot of kids and as you know kids teach each other things. Well, within the first couple of weeks at our new place the two older boys heard that the middle finger, when put up by itself, was not a good thing. I don't exactly how it all happened but Jacob used to point a lot with his middle finger so maybe they saw that and said something about that not being good. They asked us about it and of course we told them that it was a very bad thing to do and we didn't ever want to see them doing it. Well, one day we were shopping at Costco. We were done and walking out. Ben was pushing the cart with the two younger kids and I was holding Luke's hand walking behind Ben. I looked down at Luke just in time to see him look up a guy we were walking by and flash the middle finger. I was horrified when I saw it happen. It was like in slow motion. My mind was saying "No don't do that! Don't flip him the bird!!" We stopped and I told Ben. He took Luke back to the guy and had him apologize then took him to the car. He will likely not be doing that again. I actually saw the guy walk out just a little after we did, he was with a friend and they were cracking up about it. I'm glad he wasn't mad. That would have made it worse. We've also laughed about that one more then once. Still are to tell the truth.

I wonder how many more things like this are going to happen to us in the next few years. I'm sure many. I will do my best to pass the memories along so you can get a laugh along with us.

I'm safe!!!

2008-11-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

If you worried about little ol' me being safe from the "bad guys", don't worry. I'm safe with a house full of Super Hero's. How could I be so lucky to have 4 in my house??!!? Watch this video and you will see their skills and they may even tell you their names so you can call for them when you are in trouble. I haven't learned the secret weapons yet but I'm sure they are amazing whatever they may be.

And just so you know, I had nothing to do with any of them getting their gear on. I just looked up and there they were to rescue me.

I can sleep easy now :)

Ben's Birthday Dinner

2008-11-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

Ben's birthday was on Monday night. Even though we had the party for him on Saturday night we still went out to dinner on Monday. We decided to take the whole family....a little risky sometimes but we thought we would try. Ben knew we were going out and he chose Red Lobster but what he didn't know was that the kids and I got all dressed up to go out. The boys LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to wear their ties and get all dressed nice and looking handsome. Our kids did great at dinner. People were looking at us, smiling and we even had a lady come up and say we had "lovely children". My heart just swells with pride when people complement my kids. I thought this video was pretty cute, the kids really enjoy singing "Happy Birthday". This is also the only picture that I got of Sarah...I know, I know, pretty lame but at least she's in the video.

The boys got the pet a real live lobster....that was pretty cool. In this picture you can see Zac feeding it a piece of candy. Go figure, it would be him to do that.

Well that was our fun evening. I think that we will have to find more reasons to "dress up", I think that's why the kids were so well behaved :)

Ben's 30th birthday party ROCKED!!!

2008-11-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

This year Ben and I both turned 30, well actually Ben's birthday is tomorrow but by the time most of you read this he will be 30. I don't remember how much I told you about the party that he threw for me. It was a well pulled off surprise party. I am a pretty hard person to surprise because I'm pretty nosey. He did a great job at it. Well, I kind-of felt like I had something to live up to since his big 3-0 was this year too. I really had a tough time trying to figure out what would be fun for a guy and all his friends. A few days ago I mentioned our new addiction here and here. So I figured what better thing to do for his party but to have a "Guitar Hero World Tour Rock Concert" party. It turned out to be an awesome party!! We have 2 guitars, a mic and a drum set so 4 people could play all at the same time. We also had the party at our church which used to be a movie cinema with a big screen. It was so much fun. We played for 5 hours!! Needless to say my feet hurt and my fingers hurt and my voice was sore. I think Ben had fun too. Here's some pictures so you can see all the fun!!!

Wal-Mart bakery pulled out the best right here. I told her what I was doing for the party and she said "well the only thing that I can really do it make a cupcake cake shaped like a guitar", "Um, I think that will do just fine, Thanks!!"

Oh yes, I did make him wear a 30 button that had flashing lights and everything. He was such a good sport.

OK, these next few pictures are kind of hard to see some. A few of them are dark but it was best I could do in the Concert Hall!! But look at this first picture below.....see the big screen.

Here's the crowd....watching in awe :)

Well, that sort of sums up the evening. It was a great party and I think that Ben really enjoyed it and I had a great time too!

Sarah being silly

2008-11-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

Sarah was cracking me up the other night. Sure enough as soon as Ben started recording she didn't do the same stuff but she was still being pretty cute and funny. She's just growing up way to fast for me. I'm trying to enjoy every last moment. I thought you might like to enjoy it also.

Guitar Hero

2008-11-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

I figured I should put some pictures of us playing the new loved game. On Sunday after we got home from church we played some with the kids. There is a super easy beginner level that all the boys can actually play. Look how focused Jacob is....he gets pretty into it.

I have to say that Luke gets into it too. I was watching him play and when he didn't have anything to do he would dance and smile then when he had some stuff to play he would get real serious and frown.

Here's one of Luke and Ben playing together. Luke's trying to get the "star power" that's why he's holding his guitar like that.
Look here...it's a rock star!! Ben's always saying that his lips hurt when he plays the game...look at what he's doing with his mouth in this picture. No wonder they hurt.

HAHAHA...here I am pretending that I'm the real rock star!!

Confession time for Angie

2008-11-03T12:08:00.000-08:00

I have a couple of confessions to make to you, my faithful bloggy friends. I will start with what I consider the "lesser of two evils" confession.

1) This weekend while Ben's cousin was here we broke down and bought Guitar Hero World Tour for our Nintendo Wii. It is an awesome awesome game. We played for hours on Saturday night. So, what's the confession you ask? We stayed up until 2:45 (we thought it was until we went to bed and saw the time had changed) playing the stupid thing. We actually went to bed AFTER the time had changed. How pathetic is that? In all fairness - a) I never had video games growing up so I'm just making up for lost time, b) I was hanging out with our cousins, c) I was spending good quality time with my husband and d)the most important thing to remember is that I was learning how to play the guitar and the bass guitar. Now you can't fault me for my lack of sense when it comes to the whole time thing.

2) I am afraid that my computer time is going be shared from this point on. I promise I won't leave you bloggy friends totally. I still love you and my blog is still a great way to keep you all updated on our life but i did it, I finally broke down and signed up with a Facebook account. It's also a great way to keep up with friends and family. I have to say that it is sucking me into it's world right now. I know that the newness will wear off soon and I will be back to spend some more time on my blog. I just thought I should tell you before you heard it from someone else :)

If any of you are part of the Facebook world I would love to have you as my friend. Just search for Angie Abshire and you will find me. Goodbye for now.

Halloween Fun (part 2) TRICK-OR-TREATING!!!

2008-11-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

Look at all these kids!! Ben's cousin Danny and his family came up from Prosser so we could let all the kids trick-or-treat together. It was so much fun but we had a lot of kids. My friend Jill also came with her two boys. So, all together we had 10 kids! That's not the most amazing thing though....the oldest one is Jacob!! It was a ton of fun and the kids got so much candy.

Ok, here's the run down on the kids. I'll start with the picture above starting from the left: Maddie (3)-Ewok, Zac (3)- Yoda, Luke (4 1/2)-Obi Wan, Ethan (6 1/2)-Clone Trooper, Hayden (5)-Anakin, Haylee (4 1/2)-Princess Leia, Jacob (6 1/2)-Darth Vader--DUH!, Sarah (16 months)-Lady Bug! Whew that was tough work...Heidi is sitting next to me helping thanks goodness. In the next picture we added a couple of kids. Jill's kids are here on the far left, Colby (4)-Leonardo and in the front Ethan (3)-Pirate.
Here's a few more pictures of the Abshire kids...

Trick-or-Treating was so much fun. Every time the door would open and the kids would yell "Trick-or-Treat" we would always here "Wow, there's a lot of you!" It was pretty great!
So that was our fun evening. It worked out great that they could come up and visit.

Thanks for making the trip Dan and Heidi. We had a blast with you and your family!!

Halloween Fun (part 1)

2008-11-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday night for our Family Night we had a Halloween theme. We let the kids carve their pumpkins. We helped them a lot but they did the design themselves. It was a very messy job but they had tons of fun!

Here's our fancy "decked out" dinner table. I tried to make it pretty festive.I even made Baked Eyeball Casserole! Don't worry, it's just fresh mozzarella balls with olives. I actually thought the kids might not eat it for a little while but they liked it.

So that was our Family Night for last week. Coming up next.....TRICK-OR-TREATING!!!

I've been tagged

2008-10-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, Mia tagged me today. So I need to come up with 7 random things about myself to share. Now I just did 100 things last week so I am going to try and do 7 things about my childhood that I didn't share in the 100 last week. You are so lucky to hear more about me!! Here goes....

1. When I was a kid I wanted to be 5' 9" so that I could be a super model. I stopped just shy of 5' 7" and I round up every time that I have to say how tall I am.

2. I used to LOVE going fishing with my dad. My whole family would go a lot but I always liked to go with dad.

3. My family owned an apple orchard for a lot of my growing up years and I remember having to be quiet during the day because my dad would be up in the night turning on the windmills or lighting the smudge pots. I don't know how my mom kept us quiet.

4. I loved Anne of Green Gables. My mom read them out loud to me and I'm sure that I read them at least twice. I still have the movies too. Maybe I should watch them again :)

5. I mentioned in the 100 things that we had a boxer named Bo growing up but I didn't say that for the last few years of her life she only had one eye. I remember when she came home from the vet, I thought it was so gross. Her eye was sewn shut with stitches. It was really sad but she got along fine with just one eye.

6. I had a friend who used to cut her Barbie Doll's hair. I always wanted to do the same but my mom would never let me. I'm glad now, it would drive me crazy if my kids wanted to do that too.
7. I cried when I saw the Jungle Book. I don't know why but I remember my dad carrying me out of the theater crying. Maybe I was sad that Mowgli left Baloo.

There, I hope that I didn't repeat anything. Now I'm supposed to tag a few more people but most of my friends have been tagged. So, I will tag a couple....

Kinslee
Heather
Katie
Brandi

You girls are it!! Have fun!!

A good book..

2008-10-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I started listening to audio books on my MP3 player while I clean or do the dreaded laundry or whatever "chores" that I am doing around the house. It really does help make the time go by faster and in case you're wondering I only put one of the ear buds in so I can still hear the kids while they are playing. The reason that I'm telling you all this is because I wanted to recommend the one that I just finished.....I had not even heard about Marley and Me until about a week ago when my friend was talking about the movie that was coming out. So I thought I'd check it out.

I will not attempt to write a review, I'm sure there are many different reviews that you can find but I did really enjoy it. It had a tiny bit of language but all in all it was pretty clean and it was a great story about a guy and his dog. One of the things that I really liked about it was that it's a true story and I could just picture it all happening. If you decide to read it let me know, I'm interested what you all think.

Sarah + a Marker

2008-10-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Yes it is true, she found a green sharpie. I honestly think this is the first time that any of my kids have taken a sharpie to their face. It all came off but I have to say she was pretty proud of herself and her fancy artwork.

What Happens When You Swallow a Penny?

2008-10-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

You end up going to the emergency room!! This story came up two times this weekend so I thought I would post the picture and tell you the story (in case you hadn't heard).

This is an x-ray of Luke when he was just over a year (like a week over). He decided to see what a penny tasted like and ended up swallowing it. Luckily it went it like it did so he didn't actually choke on it but it did stop him from eating anything. That's how we figured out what had happened. He would eat like three bites and then throw up and he was drooling a ton. So, we took him to the emergency room and they did surgery right away. It was really scary for me, just sitting around waiting for him to get out. It ended up taking them longer then they thought so we waited even longer. The original plan was to go in and pull it out but once they got in there it fell down more so then they just ended up pushing it into his stomach. So we got to "look around" for it to show up for about 2 weeks! Turns out we missed it and had another x-ray to make sure it was gone.

So far we haven't had any more kid surgeries and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It's just a matter of time I'm sure. I hope you enjoyed the look into my past.....

Kids, kids and more kids!!!

2008-10-25T08:55:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the men's retreat for the guys at our church. Ben went along with close to 20 other guys. They just stayed one night and are due back this evening sometime. Yesterday morning my friend called me and asked if maybe I wanted to get together with her and her kids and one other friend and her kids. So we got pizzas, ice cream and brownies and a movie. The crazy part? There were 11 kids and 3 adults!! I guess you could say us moms were out numbered. Oh yeah, and one of the moms is also pregnant so #12 is on the way. It was so fun and our kids had a blast plus, it made our night without the men go by fast. All the kids get along really good and the older two girls were a big help. Here are some pictures of them watching the new Veggie Tales movie -- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. The kids LOVED the movie. I can't say that I watched it much, I was too busy eating brownies, drinking coffee and visiting with my friends, but the kids really enjoyed it.

This first picture is of the whole group. The four girls (not including Sarah) and the boy in the green shirt all belong to Mara, the boy in the black shirt by Jacob and the boy with the blue sleeved shirt belong to Cerissa and then of course there's my four.
Here's Zachary sitting with Kyra. He loves that girl!! She's such a good sport. She is the oldest of them all and plays so well with them and even helps with diapers and cleaning up. Thanks Kyra, you're awesome!!

This little boy is Chance. He was so into the movie at first, if you can't tell from the picture.

Here's Ayla, Luke and Emilyn laying on there tummies. They are also very intent....

It looks like Logan is really enjoying it here. I'm not sure what was going on but look at that smile.

Marly in this one decided that she would look at the camera. I didn't get a very big smile but I got a little one. In all fairness they spent all morning taking pictures, so here cheeks were probably sore form all the smiling that she had to do then.

I love this picture of Thad, Ayla and Luke. Notice Ayla's hair? She made it all day with the hair in pig tails and then pulled them out just in time for the picture.

So, Thad and Sarah are funny. I think that Sarah scares Thad 'cause she's always chasing him around our house. Uh Oh for me huh? Don't you think they look so cute together though?
I couldn't resist this one....she was saying her famous "cheeeeeese".

So that was our fun exciting pizza/movie night.

**If anyone wants an update on Dash...he is doing so much better. Yesterday at about 4:00 he totally perked up and seems to be in pretty good spirits this morning too. Now the problem is going to be keeping him calm enough to heal right.

Making Laundry Fun!!

2008-10-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

I know that I am spending WAY too much time on my dumb ol' computer today but I finally figured out a way to make laundry fun!! I had to stop and show you.....

If you haven't see them yet go see our family night and our mini Beethoven and don't miss my 100th post. I just thought I should put those links there just in case it's been awhile since you've looked at my blog. I don't usually update things so many times in one week and I didn't want to throw you all off.

Italian Family Night (with a minor dog emergency along the way)

2008-10-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

I have decided to make Wednesday nights "Family Night". A couple of weeks ago we just did a pizza/movie night, last week we did a "breakfast party" (Pajamas and all) and then just this past Wednesday night we had an Italian night. The whole idea was that we were chefs in Italy or at and Italian restaurant depending on who you asked. We had it all, the chefs hats, the music "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!!!" and others too, plus we even had the red and white checked table cloth. We all made our own pizza and I made Italian Soda and for desert we had Italian Ice. It was a lot of fun but we did have a little bump along the way which I will tell you about at the end of this post. So Ben took some pictures of the evening....

Don't you just love the chefs hats? I got them at the 50% off card shop for pretty cheap. They were just paper and already a couple of them have holes. In the picture below you can see my chef hat, it's a homemade one decorated by the one and only Jacob Abshire!! There's another picture of it later where you can see it better.
Unfortunately Sarah didn't get a hat, I just knew that she would have torn it to pieces before the night even started. She didn't seem to mind though as long as I kept some kind of food on her tray. Have I ever told you how much this girl can put away in food? She's a good healthy eater.

Here's the kids' pizzas. Jacob and Zac wanted the big ones and Luke wanted the english muffin style, that's what I made for Sarah too.

Ok, so this is funny progression that I had to put in. Ben was in charge of taking the pictures and he was trying to get one of him in his homemade chefs hat decorated by the very talented Luke Abshire. This was the first try......wow buddy, that's a little scary.

Here's the second one.....this one's a little better but I think that I see nose hair babe.

And here's the final shot....nice job, you look so handsome in that hat.

Here's my hat. I guess you can't see it much better in this pictures. You'll just have to take my word for it....it was decorate awesome!! It said "Chef Angie" and "I love you Mommy" and "This is what you would look like if you were a chef". Come kid, don't know you know that I really am a chef?
And last but not least...our fancy table. The table cloth was also from the 50% off Card Shop. It too was paper and had a hole in no time at all.
Here's a little video with the kids telling you what we are doing. If you listen real close you can hear the great music in the background. It's really not my favorite music so I was ready when it ended.

All in all it was a fun night. As for the bump along the way....While we were eating, our dog Dash was at the vet's office having emergency surgery. He ended up eating a rock that gave him an infection in his intestine. It was actually pretty scary for a bit, the vet told Ben when she took him in that there was about a 50% chance that he might not make it out of the surgery. Originally the thought was that the rock was too big to pass and there was no way to tell what kind of damage it had done until she got in there. Once they got in there they realized that the big problem was the infection and the rock didn't end up doing any serious damage, it just caused this horrible infection. He good now though, just in recovery form a rough couple of days. He's on about a million different pills and has to wear a cone so he doesn't look very good but he does wag his tail some so I think he's starting to feel better. I tell ya, having a dog is rough sometimes but I'm glad we have him. As hard as it was to have all that going on when we were supposed to be having this fun family night I think that it was a good thing that we had something fun to do. It kept our minds busy and we didn't just sit around waiting to hear how things were going.

Well I guess that's all for now. This was kind-of a long post for me. I guess the 100 Things must have got the juices flowing. Have a good weekend everyone!!

Ladies and Gentlemen......Beethoven (aka Sarah)

2008-10-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Now that Sarah is climbing I am having a hard time keeping off of EVERYTHING!!!! That includes the piano. She was up there playing the other day and I thought it was cute enough to share with you all.

So, what do you think? Is she going to be a famous pianist? She may not become famous but she sure is pretty stinkin' cute!

100 Things About Angie

2008-10-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

From all the blogs that I've seen and read, I have learned that it's a blogger tradition that on your 100th post you have to list 100 things about you. I'm not sure if I can actually do this without putting you all to sleep (me too) but I will certainly try. I'm sure there are things that I will put here that you already know but I'm sure some that you don't know. I also want you all to know that I totally expect you to read EVERY word :) Just joking...if you don't want to read it just skip but if you do read it feel free to leave a comment and tell me how weird, funny, a little dumb, or whatever else you think I am. So, here goes....

1. I was born on July 2nd, 1978
2. In Omak, WA (a town of about 5,000 people)
3. I was home schooled all 12 years
4. I loved it!! A lot of people worry about social skills of kids that are home schooled but I never had a problem with that. If you know me....
5. I am a VERY social person. (like how I pushed that one to number 5?)
6. I took one college class right when I was done with High School (it was music theory at Cal Baptist in Riverside CA)
7. I almost went to college there the next year
8. I got a job as a dental assistant when I was 19 (the reason I didn't go back to collage)
9. I also thought about going to the University of Idaho. I met the head of the music dept. at a piano competition and he asked me to come there. I'm not real sure why I didn't go...it just wasn't in God's plan for me.
10. I worked as a dental assistant for 4 years -- 2 different dentists. When I got married I moved and found a job in Cheney.
11. I got married in June of 2000. It's really easy to remember how many years that we've been married!!
12. When I got married it was first time that I had ever lived away from home.
13. It was really hard moving away from ALL of my family.
14. It took about 5 years before Spokane really felt like "home" to me.
15. We have lived in 4 different places in the last 8 years. 2 apartments and 2 houses. We plan on staying in this one for a long time.
16. I am married to my very best friend.
17. I "went out" with Ben when I was 15.
18. He was my first date. We went to the prom together.
19. We went out separate ways for about 6 years then got back together.
20. I told him that I was in love with him before we started dating again. I knew that I was going to marry him before he did.
21. I have the 4 cutest kids in the universe (go ahead and tell me that I'm wrong if you want...I still won't believe you....but yours are a close 2nd)
22. I love being a stay at home mom. It's the best job ever....and the hardest too!
23. I think that I'm going crazy in the head most days....my kids are busy!!
24. I hate doing laundry....it's my enemy and is never ever done.
25. I am also not a big fan of vacuuming. Maybe I need a Kirby or a Dyson :)
26. I don't know how to keep up on my house either
27. It's messy most of the time (this is where you can give me hints)
28. I feel like I'm always cleaning/picking up and it just never gets done. I guess that's 'cause we live in it.
29. There are days when I wonder if my kids are crazier then anyone elses or if they are just normal boys.
30. I think my hair is already graying!!
31. I can't believe that I'm only at 31!!
32. I was scared to death when I had Jacob
33. I didn't even really know how to hold a baby...I had never babysat infants.
34. There was nothing to worry about....it all clicked.
35. I love having babies.
36. I could have a million of them as long as I didn't have to bring more home :) I know that sounds bad...I love my kids but I just know my limit.
37. I have the perfect number of kids
38. I was also scared to death to have a girl....I only knew boys! I'm still a little scared but getting used to it.

*Break*

Are you making it through this horribly long post? I hope so...I need to take a break though.

***

39. Sarah looks just like I did when I was a baby. When she turned 1 I compared my first birthday picture with hers and if you didn't know it would be really hard to tell who is who.

40. Luke also looks like I did. It's just a little harder to tell since he's all boy.

41.When I was little I had some friends who nick named me "walky talky" heehee...makes me laugh now (are you laughing Shiloh?)

42. I think that I could probably still have that nick name really.

43. I learned to ski when I was a kid and skied with my family lots.
43. I was also on a ski racing team. I sucked big time. I'm pretty sure that my name was at the end most of the time. I guess I just wasn't daring enough to just "let go" and take off.

44. I started snowboarding when I was 16 or 17. I never got very good at it but it was fun.

45. Someday Ben and I want to take out whole family skiing/snowboarding.

46. I broke my thumb when I was about 10. I was skiing.

47. My thumbs are different lengths. When my left one broke it was the spot where it grows and so it never grew after that.

48. The only time that I've ever had to stay in the hospital was when I had kids.

49. I loved being there....like I said earlier....you can say I'm weird. It's just fun being taken care of.

50. I knew 5 great-grandparents and 3 grandparents growing up.

51. We had a Mamoo and Pop, they were greats. I remember them really really well. Pop lived until he was 96 (?) and I was 19 or 20.

52. My mom's dad died soon after I was born so I don't remember him at all.

53. My Nana and Grandad still live in the same house as they have my whole life (that actually where the winery is.)

54. I grew up living in two different places.

55. My family owned a business in Southern California. It was an apple business so during the apple season, August through December, my dad, mom, brother and I would live in Oak Glen, CA.

56. I worked for them. It was such a great experience for me. I think that has a lot to do with the "social" part of me.

57. I got to go to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and Sea World a lot when I was a kid.

58. Once Chad and I got old enough to drive we would got to concerts. We went to hundreds of Christian concerts.

59. I just found out the other day that I actually know the keyboard player for Switchfoot. He used to be in a band called Mortal and we saw them several times and I met them the first time I saw them. His name is Jerome in case you were wondering.

60. I want to go back to Oak Glen sometime with my family. It's been at least 10 years since I was there last.

61. I went to Hawaii when I was 21. The dental office that I worked for went for a convention. It was such a cool place. I wanted to move there, Ben proposed to me when I got back. I got married instead :) good thing.

62. We will go there together someday. Maybe for our 10 year...in 2 years!!

63. I went to New York 2 1/2 years ago with my friend Kristin. We went to see our two friends Jen and Melissa.

64. That was the first time I had been away from Zac and the longest from the others. It was so much fun and we did a ton stuff.

65. I have the best mom EVER!! She is always doing stuff for me and she still "takes care" of me. I love her so much and I don't tell her enough. (I love you mom!!)

66. Our friends used to call my mom Betty Crocker. She is quite the cook. I've always wanted to be like her.

67. I really enjoy cooking....I have since I first got married.

68. I started Weight Watchers in July and I have lost about 14 pounds and Ben has lost 30!!

69. It hasn't hindered my cooking at all. I've just had to change it a little.

70. I still have 30 more "things" to go?? It's starting to get hard.....

71. I have played the piano since I was 3 1/2. My mom started teaching me then when I got a little older I took from other teachers.

72. I played in competitions. I won state once and came in second a couple of times. That was one of my favorite parts.

73. I taught lessons when I was 15 through 19. Then got my dental assisting job.

74. I just started teaching my two neighbor girls. I am loving it!!!

75. I still play some. Mostly for my church. I wish I had more time to work of classical stuff but it takes so much time.

76. I used to play the drums for church too (when I was younger). I had a friend that was a great drummer and he taught me some stuff.

77. Someday I'm going to learn how to play the guitar. I would love to be able to sing and play with the kids.

78. I love my friends and I love spending time with them!! Unfortunately I am so busy with family that I don't get to spend time with as many of them as I would like to. They are all awesome!!

79. I drive a Suburban...what else could my family fit into.

80. I don't really like snow. It's okay for a few days but I don't like to drive in it and I'm not a fan of cold weather.

81. I love the spring, when it's warm enough to be outside.

82. I also like the crispness of fall too. I just don't like what comes after it.

83. I am starting to become a football fan. That's another good thing about fall. Ben is starting to wear off on me I guess. Although our poor Seahawks suck this year!!

***

*I know I'm almost there but I have to take another break to think about more stuff*

***

84. I used to be a lifeguard. I started when I was 17. It was the best job...I got to sit out in the sun and get a tan.

85. I also taught swimming lessons. It's a little ironic that my kids are just now learning how to swim.

86. Growing up we had a Boxer named Bo. When we got Dash (our dog now) we looked at some boxers. I've always thought that it would cool to have another one. She was a really good dog.

87. I know that I've told you this before here but I will say it again....I love coffee. I know that I drink way too much of it but I really really like it. My favorite way at home is with some Coffee Mate Coconut creamer in it. If I go out, I go to Starbucks and get either a Carmel Macchiato or a White Mocha.

88. I play pinochle. I have since I was young and it was just my luck that Ben plays too. We don't play enough but whenever there is a family gathering we usually get a game or two in.

89. I married into an awesome family!! I love Ben's family...all of them. He has a ton of cousins who all have kids around the same age. We don't see them enough but when we do we all have a blast.

90. My sister-in-law Becky is an amazing person. I have been friends with her for longer then Ben and I have been married. She also has a cool family!!

91. I enjoy reading when I have time. It takes me a long time to finish a book now though. My new thing to do it download books onto my MP3 player and listen while I do my housework. It make the time go by pretty fast.

92. My favorite book?? I would probably have to say Francine Rivers Mark of the Lion series. They are great books...I would highly recommend them.

93. I Love Jesus!!

94. I have been a Christian my whole life. I don't remember any distinct point in my life that I become a believer...I just am and have been.

95. I have had some tough times but I always come back to God and realize that there's no way that I can do anything without Him.

96. We helped with a church plant about 6 years ago. We are still there and both Ben and I are very involved. It's cool to be able to serve God in different ways!

97. I pray everyday that my kids will love God and grow up serving him.

98. I wish that I could be in more then one place at a time. Then I could do way more stuff and be way more productive!!

99. I'm amazed that I've made it to 99!!

100. The most profound thing about me that you probably all know....I'm a goof ball!! :) I like to joke around. I get that from my dad...he's quite a joker. I'm pretty sure that at least one of my kids has gotten that from Papa too. We'll see about the rest of them.

Oh my goodness....I'm done!!!! Hope you stuck with it and if you have any questions about any my 100 things please ask. I love to share about my life and please please leave a comment to tell me that you read it.