Meme...

So Bekah tagged us for a little meme with pics and seeing as how I am without a camera right now, I had to make do with what I have. So, here it goes.....

#1. This has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves. People, who in pictures, real life, or on TV, stick out their tongue for a lack of anything else to do. It's not so bad when it's my own kid, obviously, but it drives me up the wall with most anybody else!





#2. I really, really miss Ryder's long, curly hair. I don't care who likes it short, or think he looks like a "big boy now", I just want the long hair back.






#3. If I could, I would live at the beach. My kids would LOVE it! It is the place I most often dream about going when I want to "get away".





#4. I love Randy's schedule as a fire captain. Some people don't know how I can handle him being gone several nights a week, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't have to make dinner, get dressed, have the house clean and it gives me at least 24 hours to fix anything or project that may not have gone as planned :-).





#5. Randy and I make the cutest babies/kids ever! Ok, ok, I know every parent thinks that, so I'm just taking advantage of my rights.






So now to tag, Jess at The Great Author; Jenn over at the crash pad; James at Enchanted-though I know it's his business blog, I'm sure he could figure something out; Kia at Antisdel's Blog; and Corrie, she needs a blog I can look at, so here is your first assignment. Have fun!

The rules for this meme are as follows:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Happy Birthday Paula!!!!

Happy birthday to my sister Paula! Thanks for all of your help with the kids, what would we do without you??? Have a "fun" day at school!

Love you, Ran, Liz, Ashlynn, Ryde and Gage
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Happy Birthday Trevor!!!!

Happy 9th Birthday to my fantastic and brilliant nephew! Glad you are feeling better buddy, hope you have a great day!

We love you, Uncle Randy, Auntie Lizzie, Ashlynnie, Ryde and Gage man!!!!!!

You what?!?

Ashlynn bytes:

"You know what I really want, don't you? I just want to be, you know, my favorite. I just want to be one-eight." Referring to wanting to be 18, apparently the age she perceives her life will begin?!? Though I did put them on restriction from playing with the couch cushions until they were seventeen....maybe that has something to do with it.

"When I grow up, I guess I'll get married (very obligatory sounding), but we are just going to live here." Casually, I informed her that her husband probably wouldn't appreciate that and she gave me the 'you have got to be kidding me' look and responded: "Then I'll just take all of my toys to the new house, but you know what that's gonna make you right? A grandma." Lord have mercy.

More snow and attitude.

That pretty much sums up my day. It's still freezing here and more snow is on the way. I'm trying really hard not to have a bad attitude about the cold, but it is definitely getting to me.

My patience is shorter, my smiles less frequent, my skin is cracking on my hands and feet, my kids have cabin fever like I've never seen, my gas bill......oh, stop me now.

Then, Randy came to me last night after talking to his dad on the phone. One of his cousins up north has been battling brain cancer and has now been confined to a wheelchair, they're not giving him much time. He has a wife and three young children. Two of Randy's aunts are also battling cancer with not much hope either.

Hits like a gut shot. I'm complaining about what? Yes, the cold stinks, stinks, stinks. But.....I'm not visiting Randy in a hospital, weak and broken, knowing I may lose him any moment. He's not wondering if the mastectomy will rid me of cancer. Or hoping the hysterectomy gets all of those nasty, body ravaging, mutations of cancer.

And, if I'm honest, I didn't have the best attitude when I looked out the window to more white today. It's really that imperative choice of spending time with Jesus, everyday. To be in contact with Him in prayer all throughout the day, asking Him for the strength to let go of what I can't control and live with the fullness and joy I should be.

How different my day might be.

Exactly.....

On Valentine's Day we took a plate of cookies to our next door neighbor, who was kind to enough to invite all of the kids inside. After giving us a tour of her lovely home and treating the kids to some goodies of their own, we finished delivering our other packages.

On the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's, Ashlynn remarked how "beautiful Miss Shirley's house was". She actually kept going on and on about it and then asked: "How come our house isn't as pretty and clean as Miss Shirley's? I want our house to be that nice, let's work on that."

I glanced back at her in the mirror and saw her wheels were still turning. The next statement made it all come together: "I guess Miss Shirley doesn't have kids though. All the mess at our house is from kids, kids, kids. With all of the toys and all of the games and all of the books and all of the puppets." She kept thinking quietly.

"I have an idea", I replied. "What if I sell you guys in the next garage sale and then the house will be able to be like Miss Shirley's? Then I won't have any kid stuff around and the house will be clean as a whistle."

Ryder pepped in at this point: "We only have to get rid of Gage, he's the messy one." How sweet, brotherly love in action.

Realizing some of the *cough* (Ryder) children might have taken me seriously about selling them, I went on and on about selling them and the goofy ways I would get rid of all the toys. Assured now I was completely joking, they began to go along with it.

"I can't sell you guys, though. How boring would that be? I would have nothing to do, but clean, clean, clean all day long. No one to play with, no one to make me laugh, no one to hug and kiss all the time. Nope, way to boring. You guys have to stick around. Forever."

Bedtime routine.

On the nights Randy is home, the kids have a very specific routine. After getting their jammies on they either race daddy upstairs or, their favorite, daddy loads them up, one on each shoulder, or one on his back and one on a shoulder and runs upstairs. Now usually I race with them, but these days I am lagging a little bit behind. My center of gravity isn't what it was a few months ago, but I put in a 'good effort' according to the kids.

Once upstairs the race is on to brush teeth, get last sip of water, and go last potty time. Then the fun begins. Ashlynn and Ryder each get several turns of being tossed up in the air and thrown on our bed. Yes, they actually beg for Randy to throw them "as high as you can, daddy". They even have names for what flip or toss they want and they have the option to close their eyes for "more fun". This goes on and on with giggling and silliness until 'mean mommy' says "that's enough, time for bed". Oh yeah, they're really calm and ready. Right.

They get one final toss into their own beds while I'm repeating "calm down, it's time for bed" a million times.

Thanks daddy, who's the kid around here?

Tonight daddy's on shift, so it will be "so boring" at bedtime. I could always "squish" them (which they beg for as well), the extra weight I'm hauling around will come in handy after all.

Wednesday night I'll try to get a picture of their moves so you can share in my joy.

Happy Anniversary to James and Stef!!!!

Happy 7th Anniversary to fabulous couple......how has it been seven years already????

Congrats, we love you!!!!

Credit to the South.....

As most of you know, we have been struggling to find a name for our little girl. The other day, I called Grams to get some family names, you know, maybe open up some possibilities. Here's what she had:

• Cortie Lou
• Minnie May
• Betty Jane
• Lonora
• Lura
  
• Edwina
• Iona
• Iola
• Lizzie Lonie

Ok, so you get the idea. In more of an effort to help, she referred our dilemma to the "lunch group" at Aunt Betty's. Yesterday I received the following email:

"Lizzie, At lunch today Aunt Mildred mentioned that you were having trouble with thinking of a baby name and needed our help. So she, Mom, Dad, Marilyn and I put on our thinking caps and came up with several. They nominated me to email them to you. Now I know you are probably going to wonder how us simple Arkansas hillbillies can can come up with such awesome, unique names, but we are more talented than most folks think! Anyway, here is our list, trying to stay with the fireman or hunter theme. Feel free to alter the spelling to your liking, also, we won't take all the credit on the one you choose.

• Hosely---not sure that the shortened name Ho would be all that good

• Flammabelle

• Kevlar

• Ashely--most of us think that would be too close to Ashlynn, might be confusing!

• Elfira- a good variation of Elvira

• Sireen or Sireena

• Engilina- better than Angelina, you know like instead of Angelina Jolie, it could be Engilena Polie! you'd have engine and pole! wow!

• Enjie- instead of Angi

• Fira Poe--Dad thought of that one, pretty bad huh

• Henny Penny

• Fawn- phillip's favorite- besides being a sweet little animal it could also stand for Fire And Water Now, covers both fire and hunting

• Feather

• Bo Arrow- there is a Bo Derik you know

• Arrowlynn

• Arrow Lee

• Coaleen- much btter than coleen

• Coaleeta

• APRIL- an acronym for All Purpose Realtree In Layers

• Camolil

• Camille-Phillip thought of these last three this evening since he wasn't there for lunch, so he's putting his two cents worth in now

Umm, maybe we better keep thinking! But these are better than the old family names, don't you think? With much love and thoughtfullness, Marla, Marilyn, Grams, Aunt Betty and Uncle Kenny"
*Per Grams, I am also to add Burnice (instead of plain Bernice) to the list.

So Randy is leaning toward APRIL and FAWN, apparently he like acronyms? My vote goes with Cortie Lou or Flammabelle (at least we could just call her Belle).

What would we do without family?

Happy Valentines Day!

If you know me, you know I don't go all out for most holidays. Valentines Day has never been a super important one to me, just not into all the romantic, lavish me with flowers and gifts kind of thing. Just the thought of knowing what was spent on the flowers and the fact that they were going to be brown in a few days just isn't appealing to me. That being said, I went all out for the kids this year. I figure since they're not "in school" I would be providing the fun for the day, so here are some pictures......



We started the morning off with some heart shaped pancakes with strawberries.


The kids LOVED them!!!!



My sweet little Valentines (Gage was "not available" for photo).



The goodies we delivered to neighbors and the fire station.



The whole "look" (Gage, once again, was not "available" for photo).

They had a great day and I even bought them a *gasp* Happy Meal for lunch! They said it was the best time they ever had and I must say it was a fun day. Now, if I could just get the motivation to clean my kitchen......

95,000 baby names??!?

You would think with a title like "The Mother of all Baby Name Books", all one would have to do is flip through a few pages and surely one of these 'over 95,000 names and their origins' would pop out at you. Um, not so much.

Last night I started the arduous task of narrowing down some names for the baby. Naturally I started at the A and made it through K before conking out, literally. The first letter of the names all started blurring together and looking really odd to me. Was that a 'greater than' or 'equal to' symbol or a K?? I blinked again and again, but my brain was definitely crying uncle.

After barely making it through K, I set the book down to close my eyes for a few seconds. That was at 8:45. Randy woke me at 11:30 from my sound sleep to tell me he was going to bed and maybe that is where I should be heading. I dragged myself up to bed, didn't even change my clothes, did brush my teeth and fell immediately back to dreamland.

All night the most bizarre string of dreams played out in mind, none having to do with baby names. The one where Cole and Bekah were meeting me at Disneyland was my favorite, but what was going on? Did someone slip me some crazy sleeping pill that wouldn't allow me to wake and had me lost in Hollywood looking for the exit to Mr. Bob's Carpets (Nicole told me that was the exit I needed for the park)??

I'm scared to open up that book again, apparently the mental exhaustion it incurs is more than I can handle. Maybe I should just drive around town and start looking at street signs, or better yet, I could just look in my kitchen cabinets. Surely that is how certain celebrities came up with names like 'Cocoa' and 'Apple', right? How hard is it supposed to be????

Duuuuuuude.....

Happy Birthday Bro!!! Hope you have a relaxing day and enjoy every moment! You are such an accomplished husband, dad and photographer (which is why this is the only picture I have of you!!).

We love you! Ran, Liz, Ashlynn (she specifically said "I love you!!"), Ryde and Gage

Congrats!

Congrats to my cousin Jason and his lovely wife Cara on the birth of their baby boy, Owen. Can't wait to meet him!


Also, congrats to some great friends, Andy and Kia , on the birth of their son Beale!

On the mend....

Ryde and Gage are feeling much better, woohoo. Randy went to the doctor and surprise, surprise, he has bronchitis. Yuck. He's on several meds, thank goodness it's him and not the kids-I hate giving them prescription meds!

We woke up to more snow this morning-ugh. I going to have the kids start running around like monkeys to release some carbon dioxide into the air to help warm things up. Maybe I'll drive Randy's truck all over town to let off some more "evil" emissions to speed up this global warming, I'm sick of the cold. Bring it on.

Something is not quite right...

When your 3 1/2 year old, who stopped taking naps months ago, falls asleep on the sofa in the middle of the day, you can bet there's a fever lurking. Sure enough, after three hours snoozing, he woke up with bright red lips and a forehead on fire. Bummer.

After spending the afternoon and evening vomiting (the berry smoothie all over the couch was the highlight), he perked up a bit around nine. Unfortunately, Gage began feeling warm after dinner and was up most of the night. Just a note, pizza vomit in your hair is really smelly.

Ashlynn braved through with a fever and seemed to escape the troubles the boys had. She went to Grandma and Grandpa's house yesterday to avoid any further contact with this nasty bug.

Randy still feels horrible, something about a chest cold and the ice water rescue classes he gave to the police department just don't mix. I told him he needs to go in to the doctor to rule out something more serious, six days is a little long to be sounding like he does.

I will continue to run the washing machine all day. The towels, the sofa cushion covers, the pillows, the clothes. You get the idea. What a fun day, at least it is supposed to be 65 degrees.