Taylor’s first drive - Eeek!

OK, this may seem like a pretty standard picture, not very exciting, not a lot of creativity, but it’s fairly significant to me.

Taylor got his Learner’s Permit! It’s both exciting and scary for me. He takes everything in stride, so not a lot of outward excitement, but I could tell he was happy to start learning. He’s sort of smiling in the picture because he can’t believe I’m taking a picture of him while he’s trying to drive.

I’ve been asking if he wanted to take Driver’s Ed ever since he turned 15 and he never seemed interested… that is, until he girlfriend signed up for the class. Then, he couldn’t get signed up fast enough. Go figure. I’ve been replaced! I’m no longer the leading lady in my son’s life. Once again, exciting and scary for me!

After work today, I took him over to our church, which has several parking areas, plus a road going all the way around so that he could practice. After mastering that parking lot, we headed over to the Evergreen State College and he drove around campus a little. There were quite a few more cars out there, moving and parked. By 7:00, I decided we should head home. The native’s were getting restless in the back seat and wanted dinner.

I took over the wheel and drove out to the elementary school near our house and let Taylor drive the rest of the way home. You could tell he was a little nervous (although probably not more than me), but he did awesome! He’s got to put in 50 hours of drive time before his class ends in July, so we’ve already logged an hour and a half.

It’s FINALLY Saturday!

Even with the holiday on Monday, this week certainly hasn’t seemed shorter.  We’ve been so busy at home that I’ve fallen behind on my blogging and commenting.  Just so you know I haven’t been slackin’, here’s what we’ve been up to recently.

We’ve been dreaming of a garage/shop since the day we first put an offer on this house…. which was almost 4 years ago.  Since then, we’ve been storing our “junk” in one or more storage units.  In the past year, the storage unit has been so overrun with stuff, that’s it’s been more than a little difficult to find anything. I’ve missed my books and kid’s movies!

While we’re still not completely done with the garage, it’s finally time to move our stuff home.  Jason gave notice at both storage unit places and we’ve been on a deadline this week to get moving.  We had to empty one by Wednesday and the other by today. It’s amazing how a deadline can move things along!

Here’s a before picture of our backyard, taken last summer just after Jason setup the kids’ awesome playset and cleared the spot for the garage.

Here’s what it looks like now. Keep in mind that it’s not done, but my point here is to show that we’ve been busy!

I also thought it might be fitting to show Jason after a hard two days of priming and painting. You now he’s just going to be SO flattered that I posted this pic.  : )

What’s up for this weekend you ask?  Well, it started out with chocolate chip pancakes that I made for the kids… which I later learned tasted like total poop.  (I don’t want to know how they know what poop tastes like!) And, I’m currently hanging out at Sydney’s dance class.  She has a performance in June, so we’re not allowed to see what they’re practicing, so I might as well get caught up on my blog, right?

I Heart Faces - “Silhouette”

I tried several different ideas for this week’s contest. I live at the bottom of a steep driveway and our yard it surrounded by trees, so getting low enough to get under my subject was challenging, but fun at the same time! I finally caught this pic of Chase on his swingset in the backyard.

If you’d like to join in on the fun, hurry out and capture a silhouette and post it over at I Heart Faces, or just check out all the other great photos!

My new favorite blogging tool! Windows Live Writer

I’ve been blogging for a few months now and I may be the only one doing this, but typing in that little box and uploading photos that mess up my spacing is driving me insane.  I have also noticed for awhile now that many of my photos that look crystal clear in Adobe Photoshop Elements are quite blurry once I post them.  I’ve looked at several other blog sites and found that their pictures are much more clear than mine.  I finally got up the courage to ask someone what they were doing.  This tip was given to me by Angie over at The Arthur Clan.  She’s co-founder of another blog that I’ve fallen in love with… I Heart Faces.

I’m currently typing this in Microsoft Windows Live Writer. It takes a little bit of time to download and install the program, but I’m typing in a screen that looks just like my live blog.  Flower border and green in the middle.  I can actually see both paragraphs as I type. And, the coolest part of all, once I upload a picture I can click and drag a corner to resize it instead of editing the HTML.

If you’re all smarter than me, you’ve already found a cool tool to use and it’s just me that’s behind the learning curve, but if you’re not and you’ve been doing it the same way I was, let me know and I’ll send you the link where you can download the software.  This is only my second post using it and did I mention that it’s AWESOME!!!

Thanks again Angie!

SOOC – Time out with my favorite Girl!

Here’s my submission for this week’s SOOC over at Slurping Life. On Saturday, after dance class, Sydney and I went to the salon and got pedicures. It’s so much fun to hang with my favorite girl. This was her first pedicure. She got her nails done, too. Luckily, she’s 1/4 of the price, so it’s not too crazy to take her.

Sydney picked out her own polish, so I thought I’d share her lovely nails with everyone. Aren’t they just the cutest?

All Dogs Go To Heaven

Tonight we had to say goodbye to Jason's buddy of 13 years, Bo. While my heart just breaks for Jason and his loss, I just felt compelled to celebrate Bo's life and share the things I will remember and miss most about him.




Bo ...

Was a sock lover, but not an eater...

Had to be the biggest, heaviest lap dog I've ever seen...

Was the stinkiest farter on the planet... (ok, not sure I'll miss that part)

Was a bigger bed hog than Jason...

Made me feel safe when he was around....

Loved fetching a ball and always wanted to play...

Loved playing in the water... and riding in Jason's truck...

Loved to be where ever we were and followed us from room to room...

Chased rabbits in his sleep... (at least that's my guess...)

Would pop tires if given a chance (pressure washer tires, bicycle tires, whatever)

Thought Taylor was a chew toy once when Jason was holding him up in the air...

Could "Sit, Down and Rollover" with one command... SIT.

Had the silliest grin I've ever seen on a dog... always made me laugh...



Bo will be forever missed.

True Story Tuesday - The Things Teenagers Do

Just thought I'd share a blast from my past. You may have to be from a really small town to know that this is fantastic fun when there's nothing else to do after 10:00 at night on the weekends! (My parents said the only thing you could find after that time was trouble! - and they were probably right.)

I'm sure most of you have been TP'd someones house before, known someone who has or at least seen someones handiwork. I don't know why when I was in high school, we felt the need to twist even the most common traditions. In my class, the funny thing was using Saran Wrap to wrap someones car doors shut or in extreme cases, Fork someones yard.

On one particular night, I slept over at my best friend Serena's house. I'm not sure how we knew, but we had the sneaking suspicion that the boy's (there were 3 of them... and I can't believe I'm so old that I can't remember who it was. If I had to guess, it would be Fred, Tommy and Jim) were going to TP her house. We kept the lights off and periodically checked to see if we could catch the boys in the act. By midnight we guessed they must have changed their minds.

That was... until we looked out one last time and just saw streaming toilet paper in all the trees right outside Serena's bedroom! I'm still totally baffled as to how we didn't catch them. We ran out the front door to survey the damage and that's when we saw it.... they'd forked her entire front yard. I wish I had a photo because it's something you'd almost have to see to believe. They had bought boxes of plastic forks, spoons and knives and stabbed them all over her yard, circling the flower beds and lining the sidewalk. There's nowhere you could have walked in their front yard without stepping on a utensil. (It must be a great aerator!)

Serena's Mom came out and told us to get to work cleaning it all up. By now it must be 1 or 2am. By the time we'd picked it all up, we had a Piggly Wiggly (here's a link in case you've never heard of Piggly Wiggly) paper sack full! After much begging and pleading, Serena's Mom gave us about a 1/2 hour to go out and get our revenge. We forked all 3 boys lawns in one night, which must have been a record! We broke all the utensils in half so we'd have enough to sufficiently cover all their yards. It was "classic"!

OK...maybe you had to be there.

Sorry Mom & Dad... this is probably the first you've heard about this. ; ) I'm sure my kids will do worse!

If you have a True Story you'd like to share, head on over to Once Upon A Miracle!

I Heart Faces - Blurb Book Contest

I have too many pictures to choose from for this week's contest. We're suppose to choose one of our favorite up-close pictures. I took this photo of Sydney over the weekend. I had another one that I liked, too, but my Dad liked this one. So, here's my submission for the I ♥ Faces {Blurb Book Contest} this week.
I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb Book photo contest. I am granting I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites.

It was a beautiful day!

Another beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest! It was so warm today that I thought the kids might like to have their pool inflated. I wish my hubby had been home to help with this part. He would have whipped out the air compressor and blown that bad boy up in like 20 seconds. Me? I only know how to work the manual, break your back kind. I was huffing and puffing after only a few minutes. Here are a few pictures I took of them jumping in and out of the freezing water.... and I kid you not... I'm pretty sure there were some floating ice chips in the water!


As you can see, I didn't exactly blow it up all the way. Ha!

I finally caught Sydney with a great smile on her face. Chase is always a ham for the camera, but Syd is a little harder to catch!

It's obvious Sydney understands the importance of sunscreen!

Such a good big sister... making sure her little brother is safe, too! : )

After playing in the pool, we had a picnic lunch, complete with cucumbers (which nobody ate but me), grapes, apples, cheese, sunbutter/jam sandwiches, and brownies. Mmmmmm!

And last, but not least, this is where I found Sydney at the end of the day. You just never know what this kid is going to do!


This is what we did for fun today! What did you do?

New Design : )

Did I mention that I get bored easily? I've changed my mind about my blog design again. This one is still a work in progress, but I needed something a bit more cheery! I liked the last one with the picture of my kids together and I had fun trying to figure out how to build the header, but it was sort of dark and not very "Happy".

I've been working on it for a couple of hours now and think it's time for a little shut-eye. If you've visited my blog before, let me know what you think of the change. If you're a lurker, let me know you stopped by.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) Saturday

The kids and I have been hanging around in the backyard today, just enjoying the sunshine. Sydney dragged a blanket out onto the grass for a little sunbathing and I snapped a couple of shots of her. Got any pictures of your own to share, post them over at Slurping Life.

I'm including a second photo of the little critter we caught slithering around our rhodies. This one has been cropped a bit.

Friday Night Out!

I finally got a night out with my Sweetie! And it was soooo much fun. We went up to the Tacoma Dome to see Larry The Cable Guy and it was awesome! Here's the sign outside the Dome. There's nothing particularly special about the sign, I'm just posting it because I wanted to tell you that I played around with Photoshop and lit all the bulbs that were out. There were 16 in all! You can't even tell, can you?

Larry the Cable Guy is just hilarious. My face was hurting within 10 minutes from laughing so hard. If you're into a little redneck humor, you'll know what I'm talking about. One of Jason's fellow firefighters got us fabulous seats. Thanks Kevin! We were right down front in Row 6. Seriously, I'm hardly zooming at all in these pictures.

He had us in stitches for nearly two hours. I don't know how that guy remembers all of that stuff. He barely caught a breath and didn't even take a break. I was pretty impressed with the way he thanked the crowd for coming at the end of his performance and he stayed around afterward for a really long time, signing autographs. I haven't been to a lot of concerts or comedy shows, but I heard lots of chatter after the show about how awesome it was that he stuck around so long. That gave me the idea that most people don't.

Anywho.... it was an awesome show and I recommend if he ever comes near your town, you head on down and see him in person. GITERDONE!

I've drawn a blank....

I must be having some sort of blogging ADD. I just can't seem to make myself sit down and write these days. I may think about it for a few minutes, but then I think of something else to do (always distracted by new shiny things).


I got this great idea to paint the kid's room. Yeah... that was two weeks ago and so far, all I've managed to do is move them out of the room and into my room. I've been going bazerk with the clutter in my house, waiting for the garage to be completed, but here I go, in the middle of all that, emptying out an entire bedroom and piling the stuff all over the house! What is wrong with me? I create this chaos around me?!? Does anyone else do this or is it just me?


I actually started writing this over an hour ago and I've written and re-written only two paragraphs, and now I'm already too tired to continue. I have to be up early for work, so I'm heading to bed.


Before I go, I thought I'd post a picture I took last night while Jason and I were working on the garage floor. We're so close to completing this project! OK... Jason is so close to completing it. Last night was my first contribution. Jason really wanted to have an epoxy coating on the floor, so I helped mix the paint while he did the painting. My part wasn't difficult. Each kit had two cans of "stuff" that I poured together and then mixed for 3 minutes, waited 30 minutes and then stirred again before passing it off to Jason to apply. Jason did a really great job and the floor looks great. (I'll have to attach a picture later).


I got a little bored while waiting on the paint, so I played around with my camera a bit. Thought I'd do an add for QUIKRETE with my sweetie in the background. Don't laugh! The only thing that bugs me is that stupid handle not standing up? Why don't I notice these things when I'm taking the picture?



See... now my blog is distracting me from bed! But my bed is finally calling, so I'll try to focus tomorrow!

I Heart Faces - Laughter

Here I am, 10 minutes before the I Heart Faces challenge ends, scrambling to get mine in. Here's a favorite pic of mine. Sydney was full of giggles. She just loves the swing!

SOOC Saturday - No Girly-Girl Here!

You can put the girl in a dress, but you can't take out the tomboy! I have more to post about our adventures today, but I wanted to join the fun over at Slurping Life and share a picture I took of Sydney this afternoon. I'd dressed her up to go to Aidan's birthday party and luckily she kept herself semi-clean.... until we got home!

I Heart Faces - Hats!

Here's my entry for this week's I HEART FACES challenge. The theme is "hats". Check out all the cool photos other people have entered. That's half the fun. :)

Chase is once again my "kid" entry. I've posted this picture before, but it still makes me giggle when I see Chase's hat! Yes... you are correct. It is a Dora the Explorer potty seat!

None of this happened ....

If you wish you had something to write about today, but seriously did nothing blog worthy this week, just follow me to MckMama's site and tell us what you didn't do either!On Sunday... I did not convince my husband to go to church with me by saying "you don't have to go with us, just don't be mad when me and the kids go do something fun afterwards". Nope.. that would never work anyway. : )

We did not drive 30 miles after that just to get breakfast at some restaurant in Matlock (yes, the city, not the tv series with Andy Griffith!), but if we had, we would have eaten at the Loggers Bar & Grill. I may have eaten a plate full of french toast, eggs and bacon..... but I definitely didn't eat a plate full of fried gizzards (cuz that would be WAY too Southern for my husband to handle!)

While at lunch, the waitress suggested we take the little ones over to the local school where they were having some sort of festival. Since we'd already messed up our plans to work on the kid's room today, we set off to find the festival.

Once we got there, I figured I might as well take a few pictures. Lately, I've been carrying around both of my cameras trying to figure out which one takes the best pictures for me. So, when we first get there, I did NOT snap my first picture and then get a message on my camera that the CF card was full, because I NEVER would have left home with a full card and no backup!

As I'm walking back across the football field to my car to retrieve camera #2, I'm thinking to myself how lucky I am to have a backup. Once I've got the camera in hand, I ran back across the field to take pictures of the kids riding on a sled pulled by a steam engine. (Bet you'd like to see a picture of that!) At that point, I did NOT get a message that there was NO CARD in the camera! Are you kidding me!!! I would NEVER be dumb enough to forget to put my card back in the camera.

Then, I did not run back across to my car to get camera #1 again. I did not flip through the pictures and delete anything that looked remotely blurry or too bright just so I could have room for a few pictures to document our day!

Nope... not me. But if I had, I would have taken pictures like these....

We also stopped at a little coffee shop in Shelton that had a great espresso sign and you know how I can be about coffee!

I'm so excited!

This won't come as any big surprise to many of you because I've already called you on the phone, but for the rest of you, GUESS WHO I RAN INTO TODAY? You'll never guess! OK... I can't wait for you to guess.

Rachel, Mr. Daddy and Itty Bit

Yes, way!

Sydney and I were just leaving the grocery store when I heard someone say something that made me look up... and there in the driver's seat was Mr. Daddy! I almost screamed! Well, maybe I did... I can't remember. I was so excited. I immediately started scanning the car for Rachel, and there she was... in real life. I felt like a high school cheerleader wanting to jump up and down. (and I wasn't even a cheerleader!) She jumped out of the car and gave me a big hug. I could have stood there and talked longer if we hadn't been blocking traffic. : )

It took me a minute to get over the initial shock to start looking for Itty Bit. He's just as adorable in person as he is in Rachel's pictures. I can't tell you how many times I've scanned the grocery store or Red Robin looking for this family. Heather, who is the only bloggy friend that I know in real life ran into Rachel a few months ago. I kept wondering, "what are the odds that I'd run into them, too?". Well, I guess Olympia is smaller than I thought. Then, when I got in my car to come home, I looked in the mirror and thought "OMG! My hair and face are a mess! Why didn't I get myself ready before going to town today?!?"

Alright, I'll stop now so I don't sound like some kind of lunatic. (Is it too late for that?)

Room painting update.... NO, there's no new paint or primer on the walls today, but I did get started on repairing some shoddy sheetrock job in the kids' room. There used to be a weird window in the their room that looked into the foyer. I don't know what the first homeowners were thinking when they put a window there. The last family that lived here took out the window and covered it with sheetrock, but you could still tell exactly where the window was. I thought since I already had all the furniture out I might as well do a little sanding and re-do the drywall mud to try and make it look a little better. Now I have to wait 24 hours for that to dry and then put on another coat tomorrow. Maybe I can prime the rest of the room while we wait.

And lastly, I told Sydney if she minded her teacher at dance class today, I would take her to get her nails painted and let her pick out whatever color she wanted. Here she is with her GREEN nail polish! She wasn't thrilled about getting her picture taken, but at least she sat still for a minute.

SOOC - It's Chase's Turn

I'm going to have two posts today and here's the first. Chase was looking particularly cute today, so I made him hold still for a quick pic. OK... so he wasn't completely still, which explains the slight blur to the picture, but I find his smile contagious so I had to share. : )If you have a picture to share, join the rest of us over at Slurping Life and add your name to the list.

It's been an interesting week...

This will be a short post since Taylor has started our movie (Transformers) and is insisting that I pay close attention.

OK... the movie is over and it's getting late, but here's an update (Dad... now you can't say I haven't updated my blog!)

It's been a busy week and obviously I haven't had much time to blog. I've got a lot on my mind that I'm not going to go into right now, but just like everybody else.... I've got my share of "stuff".

On Sunday.... I spent a good bit of the day preparing the kids' room for painting. I moved Chase and Sydney's beds into our room for the duration of the room remodel. I have to admit, I like having them in my room. I still wake up and wait to hear each of them breathing before I can fall back asleep. I often wonder when that will end and I can sleep all night. Probably about the same time as they get their driver's licenses and I find a new reason not to sleep.

Monday was back to work as usual. Just trying to get caught up. Although I've been assured that my job isn't on the chopping block and that even if it were, there's another person that I would bump for a job, there's still a certain amount of stress waiting for the cuts to come. We've already lost about 30 positions in our agency, although I hear they've all been offered at least some other job within the agency. I believe there's another 30 that they have to figure out where to cut. I have a bad habit of feeling stress, heartache and grief for other people, even if I don't know them. I hate the thought that someone would lose their job. I just know how devastating that would be for my family.

Tuesday was another typical work day, but just me and the little ones in the evening. Taylor was still at his Dad's and Jason was working. Sometimes it's a lot of work being here alone with those two, but it's still precious time that I get to spend with them. They stayed up a little late and watched American Idol with me and then went to bed without much fuss.

Wednesday I was up early. I had a 7am dentist ( I guess I should say "ortho") appointment. I finally got braces. If any of you actually knew me in person, you'd say I was crazy for getting them. My teeth seem really straight to everyone but me. Most people ask if I've had braces before, with I haven't. As silly as it sounds, I have one tooth that drives me nuts! It's been out of whack for as long as I can remember. I can see it in every picture of myself and I feel like it hangs out of my mouth like Nanny McPhee's. (You'll know what I mean if you've seen the movie). OK, so it's not quite that bad, but I'm double covered on my insurance right now and I qualified for the Express Invisaligns, so why not? It's only going to be $300 out of pocket! Highlight of the day... Taylor came home. : )

Thursday.... I don't like braces already. My teeth ache, but Jason assures me the pain will pass. He's had braces (the regular wire kind) for over a year now. My whole face is sore. Oh well, no pain, no gain, I guess. On another topic... today was beautiful. It was warm and sunny. Jason stopped by and had lunch with me at work, something we haven't done in a long time. It was nice to see him and spend time together without the kids, even if it was only for 45 minutes or so. When I got home from work, Taylor has mowed the grass and was weeding around the edges. Jason has promised to pay him $50 a month to keep it mowed and take the garbage out. Taylor was asking if this was a good deal and I asked how much he was paid before to do it and he said "nothing". Anyone that can add 2 + 2 could tell you that's a good deal.

Friday - I can hardly believe it's finally here! I was starting to think that time was standing still at work. Today was my short (8 hour) day, but it seemed like 10! Had a good night here with the kids. Jason is at work tonight. I'm guessing he's pretty busy. He's getting to play the role of lieutenant today. He's probably up writing reports as I write this. This is just another step towards preparing him to test for the lieutenant's position when one becomes available. I know he'll do great once he decides he wants it. At home tonight, me and the kids had a good dinner together, complete with sweet potato casserole for dessert. Sydney fell asleep on the couch at 8:00, so it was an easy process getting her in bed. Chase was up a little longer, but he, too fell asleep in the chair in the living room. I think the sunshine and playing outside at daycare has taken a lot out of them.

Saturday.... is only a half hour away now. I had previously planned to participate in the YMCA Spring Run in the morning, but the later I'm up typing this, the less likely that becomes. We'd have to be there by 7:45 and the 8k run/walk starts at 8:30. Syd has to be at dance by 10:15, so I think we'd be cutting it a little close anyway. I really just want to get out and participate in something and I thought this would be fun. Anyway, don't count on an update about the run/walk.... I'm planning to sleep in tomorrow! : )

Sunday... I really hope to make it to church. It's been awhile since we've been and I could use some one on one time with God. I've had lots more to pray about lately and he's always there to listen and comfort me... and I need both. If any of you have an empty spot on your prayer request list, please include me and my family. I've seen what the power of prayer can do.... Stellan is "LIVING" proof of God's power.

I guess I lied about this being a short post : )