The Snake Whisperer

1 snake + husband in Europe = a very freaked out Brook

Yesterday I heard 4 little elephants running up the stairs screaming at the top of their lungs. What were they screaming......"THERE IS A SNAKE IN THE BASEMENT!!!!!!!" Normally like any good mom I would have shut the door and waited for hubby to come home and promptly send him right down the stairs and tell him not to come back up until said snake had been caught. Oh but I unfortunately did not have such a luxury seeing as hubby won't be home for 4 more days.

So I put my best "mom" face on and pretended like it was no big deal while inside my heart was POUNDING. I grabbed the biggest pot I could find and made my way down the stairs. I had the kids point out where it was and I saw it. Sure enough a living breathing slithering snake was curled up behind some toys. Ok so I must admit it was not a large snake. Seriously any husband would have laughed and picked it up and thrown it outside. But hello......I am not a husband. I feel fine admitting that I am a girly girl and I don't enjoy slithering creatures in my house.

After a few minutes of snake wrangling I caught it under the pot. I told Abby to sit on it and not move. I taped together some fedex boxes and slowly slid them under the pot. SUCCESS! I then carefully carried it outside and let it go out in the woods where it will hopefully stay.
Don't ask me where it came from. I seriously don't want to know and pray that it was a freak circumstance. I can now add one more notch on my mommy belt as doing something I NEVER thought I would have to do but some how managed to keep a smile on my face while doing it.

This is the closest picture I could find of my little friend. Needless to say while a snake was in my house my first thought was not to grab my camera and take a picture of it. Please don't laugh you will just hurt my feelings. Doesn't it look deadly?????

Hysterical Cards

Ok so I just found some of the funniest cards I have EVER seen...I had to share. I will for sure be picking some of these up! Check out the rest of them at http://www.lineuponlinecards.com/.

1st Day of school

The summer is over :( It all went by too fast. I really enjoyed having the kids home and I loved that they got to spend some great quality time with the new baby. But alas....the new year has begun.

Abby started 2nd grade. When she got home she said, "Mom, I know you are really nice but I think my new teacher might be even nicer than you". Well, I guess I'm glad she likes her teacher!

Ethan started kindergarten. What a big day for him! He was so excited to ride the bus he could hardly stand it. I love that Abby gets to ride with him and walk him to his class each morning. It was easier to let him go knowing that big sis would be watching out for him.

Morgan is in preschool and LOVING her new teacher. She also has a good buddy in her class with her and I think they will have a great year together.

I look forward to a few hours each week with only 1 child instead of 4. Wow grocery shopping is going to be a breeze!!!!!!

Bad Luck

Last time I checked I do not recall walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror or even seeing a black cat cross my path but I still have managed to apparently bring upon myself a streak of bad luck.

Let's recap shall we....

1. Replace a $500 pressure pot in the basement that was never broken in the first place.

2. Water problems that led to our hole digging extravaganza.

3. I lost my cell phone

4. While biting into a raisin...yes a raisin...I broke my tooth on a pit that has led to several dentist appointments and a crown.

5. Our lovely night at the movies that I will now refer to as Butter Fest 2008!

Here is our new list that I have not blogged about yet...

6. Our lawn mower has decided to be temperamental and will only work if you cut the grass at the highest setting so it looks like you did not even cut the grass.

7. Our dishwasher started leaking and the racks were all rusted out so we decided to get a new one. Yay new dishwasher right????? Well some of the buttons are already not working so here I am blogging away waiting for someone to show up to "FIX" our brand new appliance.

AHHHHHH and now we arrive to this morning.....

My husband has BAD luck with car keys. The stories begin with just plain loosing them, to throwing them away in the trash at work, to leaving on a business trip and taking BOTH sets of van keys with him leaving me stranded at home with no transportation until the FEDEX envelope arrived the next day.

So this morning I get up and managed to get 5 people dressed, fed, teeth brushed and ready to go by 8 A.M. Before Charlie left he pulled the van keys out of his drawer and set them on the counter and left for work. I hauled all the kids in the car and was feeling like a proud momma to be ready for the day so early. Then it happened....

I went in the house to get the keys off the counter. Hmmmmm no keys. So I start to look around. Still no keys. Ok...no problem I will just use the spare. Hmmmmmm no spare either. So I start to call Charlie. No answer. Finally he calls back and sure enough in his pocket are the keys that after he put on the counter he immediately picked back up and left! So there he sat with his keys, my keys and yes also the spare keys! He brought them home and we got Ethan off to his class an hour late. And so my day continues.....

I admit that all of these things are really mostly minor irritations, and for that I feel lucky, but I am ready for the streak to end. Maybe I should go buy myself a rabbits foot and search out in the yard for a four leaf clover :)

Wish me luck!

May I have some popcorn with my butter?

If you go to the movies and decide to get a tasty treat and there is a very blond girl behind the counter helping you when she asks, "Do you want butter on that?" say NO!!!!!

I should have known something was very wrong when I went to fill the girls drinks up and I looked down and the baby's brand new car seat was COVERED in melted butter. It was a good thing the canopy was up or I would have had one slippery baby.

I was smart enough to take Morgan's box back and ask for a new one (minus the butter) but for some reason I never thought to take back Abby's as well. This is the sight I saw after the movie was over.


How Abby managed to get it all up her backside as well is a mystery to me. It was also all over their shirts but you can't see that in the pictures.

So after our girls night (the boys were at a father son camp out) I got to go home and scrub and scrub and scrub some more. Things are looking a little better today but I think I still have some more work to do if I want to try and make their clothes wearable again.

I jokingly referred to my girls as butter ball turkeys for the rest of the evening. What a funny night!

Nauvoo

We are home from our family reunion in Nauvoo and Chicago. This was the first time my whole family was all together in several years so it made this trip extra special. We all had a blast and the kids (even the baby) did so well given the long car trips and long hot days outside.

We woke up one morning in Nauvoo to a ton of fog. Charlie ran down to the temple and got some really cool shots. I loved this one of Joseph and Hyrum.

This was one of my favorite moments in Nauvoo. This is an area where they have lots of pioneer games and dress up for the kids to just play with. My kids could have spent all day there.

I loved these pictures of our adorable pioneer girls!

Here are a few of our attempts at getting some family pictures...boy was it hard!

This was Samuel's baby blessing. Charlie's sister came with her kids and her new baby that was born just a few weeks after Samuel. It was so nice to be able to bless the baby with family around.

The kids all played a big baseball game in the backyard and the girls were the cheerleaders.
I could not have asked for a nicer trip. I only wish I could see them all more often. It was hard to say goodbye this time especially since I was saying goodbye to the home I have many wonderful memories in. My parents have moved to Utah and the movers came the day after we left. Charlie and I have been making the drive between my house and his for over 14 years!!! This was the house where we had our first kiss, where I got my first car, where I blessed two of my children....the list could go on and on. It was wonderful to say goodbye on a good note all together as a family.

This was taken on the front porch of our beautiful home.....what great memories!!!!

HOLES!!!

Have you ever seen the movie Holes? Well, Charlie and I have been playing the lead roles in the reality version of that movie for the last two weeks. Over the last 14 days our lives have consisted of spending every spare minute we had digging hole after hole after hole and paying a lot of people a lot of money to fix NOTHING!!!!

I hope you enjoy a visual documentation of our not so fun adventure :)

This is where it all began...hole #1


Here we are at lovely hole #2

This is hole #3 but it was already filled in

Welcome to hole #4

We are now approaching our final destination at hole #5

And then it happened...we finally found it! The cause of all of our problems.
I have never been so thrilled to see a nasty dirty ball of roots in all my life. I could hardly believe my ears when Morgan came running in the house saying, "They fixed it, they fixed it!" I am so glad that the digging has finally ended and the holes are close to being all but a memory. I have to give one more big shout out to all of our friends that helped us dig all of our lovely holes. It would not have been possible without them.

We are going to celebrate tonight by falling into bed and watching the movie we rented....Holes! It should give us a good laugh at the very least!

Two new favorite finds

Here are two of my new favorite finds:

#1 Sam's Choice Towering Apple Pie

I for one happen to LOVE a good apple pie but I am not one to spend hours in the kitchen making one. So I have been in search of a good frozen apple pie. Most of the ones I have tried have been quite good but I finally found one I loved. They sell them at Walmart and everything about it is yummy even the crust. Give one a try sometime they are only $4.98 and all you do is throw it in the oven. YUMMY :)

#2 Blockbuster disk repair

Our Blockbuster video has just started offering a service where if you have scratched Cd's, DVDs or video games they have a special machine that takes the scratches out for only $2. I took in one of my kids music Cd's in that has been scratched forever and it worked like a charm. The disk I took in was badly scratched not just a little scratch and it works just like new. I am now going to round up any other disks I have and take them in as well.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Why it is the worst of times....

1. Monday...replace entire water pressure system just to find out that all we needed was a $7 filter. We are still waiting for the bill to come but it is not going to be pretty.

2. Wednesday...Charlie runs over his golf clubs that had fallen down in the garage breaking several of them.

3. Saturday....I loose my cell phone.

4. Saturday afternoon....the basement is not flooded but having a major water problem that has done quite a bit of damage that we are in the process of trying to remedy.

5. Monday....I get to spend the afternoon at the dentist getting a crown.

Why it is the best of times....

1. FRIENDS!!!!!!!!

2. FRIENDS!!!!!!!!

3. FRIENDS!!!!!!!

We ended up not being able to go to church on Sunday because of the water problem in the basement. One of our good friends had come over the night before to let us borrow his wet vac and I guess spread the word of our issues at church that day.

About an hour after people got home from church our phone started to ring. Men started showing up shortly after with shovels and were ready to work. Wives showed up ready to help keep kids busy, help with food, hold the baby...and most importantly keep me from breaking down in tears.

We could have NEVER accomplished what we did yesterday without them. Thank you does not even cover the amount of gratitude we feel for these amazing families. Thank you to the wives who were willing to give up their husbands on a Sunday even though all of them have many crazy things going on in their own lives right now. Thank you to the husbands who just showed up without even being asked and never complained once. Thank you to our sneaky friends who did the dishes when I was not paying attention.

Thanks for answered prayers that no one was hurt and that the men managed to not blow up the house or drop Charlie down the man hole as they dangled him by his feet!

I really can't express how after a week like this I am more filled with gratitude than frustration and it is all because of our friends. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

Here is part of our wet basement

The STRONG men digging away. Notice the smile on Rich's face. Believe it or not I think they were actually having fun!

Notice how carefully they are digging around all our cable and power lines. This picture was taken before they discovered the gas line!!!!! I still have no idea how they did not cut a single line but I am soooooo glad that no more problems were created while trying to fix this one :)

Here is to hoping that this week goes a little smoother than last!

Spur of the moment fun!

While I was out this morning with friends one of them asked if she should get her ears pierced. We all agreed that it was a good idea and that we should all be there to go with her. So off we went in our caravan of cars with our 10 children off to the mall. We were all like giddy high school girls, picking out earrings, taking pictures....it was so much fun. I never thought I would be in my thirties taking a friend to get her ears pierced! What a fun memory with great friends!

Here she is all done. Now we just have to get her to leave them in. Apparently she blocked from her memory that she actually has done this before but took her earrings out within hours of having it done! We are so proud of you and they look so cute! Oh and if anyone who reads this knows her hubby keep your lips zipped.....we want to see how long it takes him to notice!

Ethan's Birthday

Today is Ethan's official birthday but we told him it was yesterday because Charlie is out of town today and we did not want him to miss it. We let Ethan choose what he wanted to do so below are some pictures of his fun day!
We started with a trip to Dunkin Donuts which Ethan calls, "The Donut Store". The kids stuffed their faces with donuts and got good and loaded up on sugar as all kids should on their birthday.
We then went bowling and miniature golfing. Ethan is actually REALLY good at bowling and he loves to play.
When the kids play mini golf they start and are finished in about 8 minutes. It hardly seems worth the money. They pretty much pick up their ball put it next to the hole, hit it in and then run as fast as they can to the next hole. They have a blast though so I guess it is worth it.
We then went home and opened presents and ate cake. I again tried my hand at a new cake and it was quite the hit. It made it all worth it when Ethan was eating his cake and said, "This is the best cake in the whole world!". I thought it turned out pretty cool.
Ethan has been LOVING playing baseball lately so we got him a ton of baseball stuff. So after cake Charlie and Ethan went out to play ball in the yard for a bit. The kids all then slept in Abby's room for a sleepover and stayed up way too late. I think he had a great day and the month of birthday's is finally over!

Happy Birthday Buddy!!!!!!

Father's Day

Need I say more???? I think Charlie enjoyed his day!

My Birthday

For my birthday Charlie made the kids these adorable shirts. He made them the night before my birthday and put them on the kids when they were sleeping. They all woke up that morning wondering why they were wearing "funny shirts". They each had something different written on them but Samuel's shirt was the funniest. It had a picture of me when I was pregnant and on the bottom it said, "Great job pushing". My husband still manages to surprise me with his creative ability.

The night ended with a get together at my good friends house. It was so nice to spend the evening with girlfriends eating brownies and ice cream and feeling somewhat like a "normal" person again. I also had the chance to see my friends baby who was born 6 days before Samuel. I can't wait to see them grow up together and hopefully be good friends. Yet another great birthday!!!!

Soccer Anyone?

I've hijacked Brook's blog for a noble cause

To the Wives in Midland.

Please make your husbands aware of this and pass it on to them. I'm trying to arrange a Men's soccer game for July 4th in the morning.

http://fathercarnage.blogspot.com/2008/06/soccer-anyone.html

Chuck

You be the judge

Everyone keeps asking who I think the baby looks like and I am not quite sure. You be the judge and let me know what you think!



Abby/ Ethan



Morgan/ Samuel

Samuel James

I thought I would add a few new pictures of the baby as well as announce that yes he finally has a name!
He has been an AMAZING baby so far. I feel so blessed to have my mother in law here helping. It is so nice to have an extra set of hands to worry about cooking and cleaning and keeping the kids entertained so I can spend time with little Sam.

How did I forget how much I LOVE this tiny baby stage????? I love holding him and feeling his little body just melt into mine.