Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Today is one of those days that I wish I had "Dorothy" powers!  

Like my Dad, I have a lot of memories of my mom from growing up.  The first thought that comes to mind when I think of my childhood is that Mom was always there.  I know that staying home and homeschooling 4 kids was not easy, yet she did it for us.  A lot of my memories have more of an impact on me now that I am a mom.  I remember getting ready for our camping trips and how well Mom handled herself packing for 6 people, in a tent mind you!  We had a lot of good vacations because of her.  I remember her on Christmas morning, waking us all up, I remember going cleaning with her to keep her company as I got older.  

We might have had some rocky years as I hit my teens, but today I'm thankful for the relationship I have with my mom.  She is always a just a phone call away and 9 times out of 10, she keeps me company while I do my dishes.  Thank God for cell phones!  

Mom, I know you would rather we were all there today, having a tea cup party and some carrot cake, but know that I WANT to be there.  :)  I miss you and I love you.  Thank you for always being you!  

....and just remember, "If you spray the window above the paper mouse, it's going to drip down and get the paper mouse wet!"

My birthday celebrations

It's become tradition that Doug and the girls make me a peach pie...they didn't fail me this year either!  They do a great job don't you think???

Again we didn't have enough candles so we pulled the lighter trick again...

I had an awesome day.  I'm so thankful for everyone that reached out to me to make sure I wasn't alone on my birthday!  You all made me feel very extra special!  All the facebook messages, texts, cards...they all made my day...so thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope you all have a great day of fellowship and don't forget to give thanks for all you have!!!

Family Version....

The girls went shopping with us for the items for Youth Group and were really bummed they couldn't play.  Doug also wanted to play so we did a smaller version of it at home a couple nights later! :)

We had fun decorating our goggles...

They rolled more drinks than they did anything else!

 The girls were really good at it!  I couldn't believe how many they got right!

Youth Group for November!

We held off youth group this month so one of our teens that has been out of town could attend.  Everyone voted that one in! ;)  Doug and I planned out a life size board game for our activity this time.  It kind of resembled the cranium board game.  There was a fast track and a slow track on the board, a life sized die, and 3 categories.  The 3 categories were canned goods, baby food, and drinks.  We teamed them in teams of two and as they rolled a category, the team then had to taste whatever it was blindfolded!  We quickly found out how your eyes tell your brain how something tastes based off of a label.  Pretty cool!  

The winners!

We had a blast!

4 day weekend = AMAZING!!!

Not this weekend that just was, but the one before that, our house had a not so great weekend.  Doug and I anyhow were struggling with not connecting, things kept coming up that kept us from having quality time, and lets just be honest....I was just in a bad mood.  :(  

As Doug left for work Monday morning, he asked if I minded if he took Friday off.  I of course did not object at all!  Monday ended up being a rough work day for him and his boss told him to take Thursday off as well.  A four day weekend was just what we needed!  

I had a list in my head that I wanted to get done before it got too cold to get it done.  On the top of my list was to spend time with my family though...something we missed out on the weekend before.  

We were able to knock off soo many projects off our list!  We didn't get the whole list done, but building shelves in the garage and basement can be done anytime, and the snowblower has to be put on the tractor, but it looks like we have some time on that as well.  

With Doug working out of town 99% of the time during the week, it makes it hard to get a ton done around here.  I try to keep up, but there is only so much I can do.  I didn't realize how weighed down I was feeling by everything that needed to be done.  I'm so thankful for a company that cares about family time and cares about my husband.  They really do look out for his best interest and you don't find that very often at all!  

That's it for today, but I'll end todays blog with a quote from Marissa...

A little prep on the quote...She was working on her Math this morning and came to ask me a question.  I was talking to my mom at that moment so I told her to hang on one second.  When I got off the phone I went and asked her what she needed.  She started reading the question to me and then just stopped and looked at me..."You are just magical Mommy....All you have to do is listen to me and I know exactly what to do without you telling me!"  HAHA 

Huge praise!

My husband is off today and tomorrow which means we have 4 days together!  I'm so excited!  On today's agenda is to catch up on sleep, put the lawn tractor back together, and put up shelves in the basement and garage.  Tomorrow we are hoping to get lights hung up on the house before the snow flies!  Tomorrow is youth group so we have some stuff to get ready for that as well.  Looking forward to some good quality time with my family!  

Talk to you all Monday!

Doug's birthday celebrations

Doug was out of town last week for his birthday so I made him his desert on Friday.  Work went late and that didn't work out so we improvised!  :)  Sunday night we had his favorite dinner....spaghetti and then leftover apple crisp.  We didn't have enough candles, nor was their enough room on the leftovers!

So we made him blow out the lighter a bunch of times to make up for the loss!

Thanks Marissa for the pictures!

Utica Children's Museum...Finally ;)

Finally the field trip post!  We had such a great trip.  The kids loved it!  It was a little loud would be my only complaint...especially on the 2nd floor where they had an organ that the kids could play.  LOL  Honestly though, if you are local and are looking for something for your kids to do on a rainy day, this place is amazing!  I don't think my girls got to fully get a feel for everything there even and we were there from 10-2ish.  The place is pretty big!  There are 4 floors and everything is hands on.  They asked that we stay together as a group and the kids had a blast running from one thing to the next.  

An old telephone switch station!  So cool!

The mirror was dirty, but we got a kick out of it anyhow!

This was on the second floor.  I made the girls go through and listen to these shadow boxes.  Each one would light and a little girl would tell a story about how she got to the Utica area.  One of the boxes also told how they built the canal that runs through there.  I tried explaining to the kids how one works, but they didn't quite get it.  We rounded the corner and this was sitting there.  I loved that they could get a really good visual of how it worked!

I think this was the girl's highlight!  They loved this!  This game was kind of like musical chairs only musical squares.  

This one, they had to avoid the moving square...

Digging up the dinosaur bones was a favorite as well!

Back to the square....I couldn't even get clear pictures here because they were moving so quick!

This room was also a favorite!  There was fish, a snake, a turtle, and a tarantula!  There was also a lot of stuffed dead animals.  The kids liked seeing them all!

I definitely wouldn't mind going back!  The customer service there was phenomenal.  We walked in with 36 kids (2 and up so more if you counted all the little guys) and 16 adults.  They handled the craziness  great!  Most people would say that is their job, but we have been on other field trips where it wasn't handled so well.  I would recommend this place to anyone!  To top it off, they are located right next to the Utica train station, so we jumped over there afterwards to see that! 

An extra blessing for me...I ended up not having any extra kiddos that day, which was unusual for me, but it gave me the opportunity to take a friend and her 4 kiddos with me.  It was awesome to have company on the drive there and back!  

Who doesn't love some girl talk?  Right???  ;)