~Story Time~

I just had an interesting idea and am feeling gung ho enough to try it out. Here's the plan: I am going to start a story on here as a blog and you, my viewers, are going to finish it. After you read what I write, just click on my comments to see what others (hopefully) have written to follow. Then add your part on to that!!!!!! Brilliant, isn't it??? And hopefully fun. Write as little or as much as you like, but please, please, please participate. Here goes:


There once was a little angel by the name of Bravery. One evening, as she looked down upon the earth, she saw a troubled little boy making mischief. Bravery instantly knew that she was needed and prepped her wings for a long flight.

When she arrived, she...

Success (kinda)

Yea!! So I guess I kind of figured out how to type along with each picture. Thanks to Mindi!!!!!Sorry about the extremely old photos. I just wanted to experiment with this real quickly and grabbed the first photos that I could find on here! Oh well, it's fun to see how much the kids have grown. Just look how super cute they were!

Trial Run

Hannah banana at 3 years old. What a cutie!!!
Noah at 4. Look at my precious boy!
Faith and her Papa Jerry. Cheeeeese!!!!!

FAIR 2008

So, as promised, I am dedicating this post to our trip to the fair. My fair experience actually began on Thursday evening when I was able to go and see Phil Vassar in concert. Christy was given the tickets for free, and they included free admission into the fair as well, so how could we refuse, right? The concert was okay. I am a fan of country music, I just was not all that familiar with his music. We ended up bowing out a little early and sneaking over to the hypnotist show. Now this is what the fair is to me. Elephant ears and the hypnotist show. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!! It was, as usual, hilarious, and it was so nice to be able to sit through the show uninterrupted by children needing something. It was great to spend an hour just laughing my butt off.

We ended up back at the fair last night with the whole family. Luckily, Christy came through with the free admission tickets once again (gotta love the connections of being a business owner!!). I tell ya, if it weren't for that we woulda broke the bank last night. Holy Cow, THE FAIR IS EXPENSIVE!! I don't know, maybe it's because we spent all summer at Silverwood where we could ride any ride we wanted for free, but I just could not believe the outrageous prices for the ride tickets. Unbelievable. Our kids probably rode 3 rides each and we put out 40 bucks. What a rip off. Of course, the kids were disappointed and mom and dad were as well because the whole point in taking the kids is to see them happy. We even tried telling the kids before we went that we would probably spend most of the time looking at the animals and stuff like that, but those things just don't fly with our kids anymore. And I can't really blame them. I guess the only way to really go to the fair is to purchase the wrist bands for like 30 bucks and let them go all day. We'll have to remember that for next year.

Once again, though, the highlight for everyone I think was the hypnotist show. I was a tad bit worried about the content, because it does tend to get a little racy, but we went for it anyway. It was great to see the kids laughing it up. The only thing that could have made it any better would have been for someone we know to have been up on stage (We almost had Brian up there). The end of the show consisted of a Chippendale's-like bit where the hypnotist has the men that volunteered come back up on stage and shake their booties. Noah and Darian thought it was hilarious when one of the guys' shirts was flung off stage and right at them. Oh geez!!!

All-in-all it was a good time. We enjoyed some good fair treats and, of course, checked out the stinky animals. We were all extremely disappointed that, after searching all over the fair, we were unable to see the kangaroo, as he was not in his cage for some reason. Bummer.

(By the way, would someone mind filling me in on how exactly you can make it so that you can have writing before each picture? Please, please, please? A lot of the time my posts don't make a lot of sense and I would love to be able to explain each pic)

~Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful~

Be your own kind of beautiful
The best that you can be.
Smile your own kind of smile.
Find your own identity.

Then heaven's light will shine through you in very special ways.
Just being you is sure to make the world a better place.
Be happy to be who you are.
To your own self be true.
Be your own kind of beautiful you.


I don't recall who wrote this poem, but it brings me back to my teenage years. These words played a major role in helping me through those tough years. I was reminded of the poem that I loved so much last week when my youngest daughter said to me, "Mommy, I'm not pretty. I'm stupid." And no matter what I said to her to the contrary, she insisted that what she was saying was truth. How absolutely heartbreaking to hear those words come out of the mouth of a 4 year old. I am teary-eyed remembering.

I will recite these words to her every day if I must and know it is my job as her mother to help her realize her worth and beauty as a daughter of God.

~UPDATE~

Wow! I can't believe that summer is over already. It seems like just yesterday we were gearing up for 3 wonderfully long months filled with sun and fun. I am definitely sad to see it go.

We have been extremely busy in our neck of the woods trying to keep the kids happy this summer as well as get ourselves ready for our big trip coming up next month. Cancun, here we come!!! As excited as I am for this vacation, I can't help feeling much trepidation about leaving my babies for 10 WHOLE DAYS! I don't know what we are going to do with ourselves for that long without them. I haven't gone that long without a kid with me for 9 years. Crazy. The only thing holding me together while thinking about this is knowing that my mom will be here with the kids. There's no other person that I would rather have taking care of them. And they are extremely excited for her arrival.

In other news, as is the case in most homes across the country, our kids have gone back to school. As much as I hate to say goodbye to summer, the start of school has definitely brought me a little peace. With Faith in preschool 4 mornings a week I have 2-1/2 hours Mon through Thurs that are all mine. (Although most of this time will of course be spent working, but it is soooooo nice to be able to sit for even a full hour and type without needing to get up and tend to someone's needs.)

We have said goodbye to Silverwood for the season, but we do plan on visiting the Spokane Interstate Fair this weekend. Should be a good time and hopefully I will remember to bring the camera. I have been so bad about taking pictures lately. I am ashamed to say that the two pics accompanying this post are literally the only two that I had in my camera to download! The one with all the kids was taken at the campground at Silverwood on Labor Day weekend. The other is Faithy Riley on her very first day of preschool. She was loving the ice cream that mommy bought her to celebrate her first day!

Well, I apologize for the boring and somewhat random nature of this post, but hey, at least I did one, right. I do solemnly swear to blog about our adventure at the fair immediately following the event. (Maybe!)

Night all!