My Baby Boy!

My Baby Boy Taylor will be a one year old tomorrow! It's amazing how fast children grow. I don't remember growing this fast!!! Taylor has been such a blessing to our family. I'm sure having an eight year old daughter to help me out has been a big part of how easy things have been. I also think the fact that Taylor is the happiest baby ever has a bit to do with it as well.

ANGRY!!!

This morning Emily was helping me get ready to go to Chris's parents house for our annual Memorial Day Fish Fry. We were loading food and stuff in the van, making trips in and out of the house. On one of the trips Emily took Taylor out and was buckling him in his car seat. As she was doing this our neighbors pit bull started barking at her and chased her. She slammed the van door and ran to the house.

We have had constant problems with our neighbors dogs. One is a little dog that uses our yard as a toilet and gets in my garden. The other is a half grown pit bull. As it gets older it is getting more aggressive. So I was of course furious. Luckily Emily had gotten Taylor buckled into is car seat before this happened so he didn't get hurt.

I called the police because our city doesn't have a real dog pound that will deal with dogs, I don't think they're even open on Holidays... Anyway the police officer pulled up and I explained what happened and that we've had constant problems with these dogs. The pit bull is not full grown but it's still scary for an eight year old and this town has a leash law. The officer looked at me and asked me, "so what do you want me to do?" I thought that was odd and I asked her, "what can you do?" The officer proceeded to tell me there was a leash law and that she could ticket them but it probably wouldn't do any good. She said she's been to their house over their dogs before and they say they're always leashed. Well we were standing in the road and the dogs were roaming around in another neighbors yard so the officer obviously could see they were not leashed. I sarcastically said, "so it's going to take someone getting bit before you can do anything?" The officer looked at me and replied, "pretty much yea."

So basically I'm supposed to hope as this dog grows into a full grown pit bull that it won't attack my children or someone else. When it finally does then we'll be able to take action??? That is the most screwed up thing I have ever heard. I am so mad I don't even know what to do.

Pictures For Mom!!!

My Stepdad Ken is visiting for a few days from Hawaii. He has to come check out the house he and my Mom are moving into in a few months when they move back. Well he came bearing gifts so we took pictures for my Mom who wasn't able to come with him.

Emily with her journal and pen. She is the queen of doodling and drawing she loves it.

Brett got some bug glasses.

Brett trying his bug glasse on.

Logan with his bug glasses.

Logan trying on his bug glasses.

Taylor is turning a year old next week so he got a fun birthday present. A leapfrog bug. He loves it and it makes lots of noise.

Taylor really likes Ken they're pals.

Taylor playing with his bug.

This was totally funny! Chris left for work before Ken woke up so they didn't see each other today until about 7pm and LOOK they dressed the same!!! Haha :p They didn't want me to take their twinkie picture! TWINS!!!
And last of all we have the video of Taylor playing with is bug! He was dancing.

Just call me the plant lady....

I love plants. Every Spring and Summer I think I learn more and love them more. I was out in the yard enjoying this beautiful spring day and decided to capture some images to share on my blog. I've seen a lot of flower pictures from other blogs and such but I've never taken any of my own. So here are some pictures of my roses. I love roses. My red and purple roses have not bloomed out yet so I don't have any pictures of those. I also took some more pictures of my tomatoes. Yea I'm proud of them I can't help it. This is the first year I've had good plants and I'm just so excited! I put some pictures up from May 5th to show how much they've grown.

This is out in front of my house. My goal is to get the roses to grow over the entire trellis and mix together. One side is darker pink so it'd look cool if they were all mixed together. The bush on the right is two years older than the one on the left.

This is a picture of the tomato plants on May 5th 2009
Tomatoes on May 5th 2009

Tomatoes on May 19th 2009

Tomato plants on May 19th 2009

Long Awaited Treasure Hunt

I forgot about the pictures I had of the kids treasure hunt. Chris sets up a hunt for them every Easter and they use the GPS to go find their treasures. When I say treasure I mean boxes full of candy... Anyway we had to keep putting off the treasure hunt because of RAIN. It rained every Sunday since Easter. It even was rainy last Sunday but there was no way we could put it off again, the poor kids would have had a stroke. So this is Emily, Logan and Brett and their two cousins Damon and Devin hunting treasure!!!

OFF TO FIND SOME TREASURE! Brett forgot his coat he had to borrow Grandpa's ;)

Emily working the GPS

This way to treasure!Okay maybe not this way time to back track!

Treasure Hunter #1

Treasure Hunter #2

$5 Footlong!!! mmm Subway

Treasure Hunter #3

And the battery on the camera died so we don't have any pictures of them with their loot! :(

May 8th Tornado 2009

I was reading my cousin Tiffany's blog the other day and she had a post about how she liked to watch lightning. When I lived out West I used to like to watch the storms move in too... Then I moved here to Missouri and have learned that lightning brings much scarier storms. We had one last Friday and as I was watching it all I could think of was Tiffany's blog and how I really don't like the storms out here LOL. I took some video with my camera out my back basement door. The wind was coming from the North and my back door faces South so it was relatively safe. There was a point I got scared and retreated to the kids room where they were all huddled listening to the tornado sirens.

It was pretty scary and the worst storm I think I've been in. We didn't have any damage and I'm so lucky the wind was coming from the North because our house blocked the wind from destroying my tomato plants. Other's were not so lucky. Chris got stuck in the storm on his route and had to take shelter in someones house. Chris's Dad lost his hay barn and had a tree land on one of his other buildings. It missed the house though praise God for that! We were without power for almost two days but things are back to normal now. I just hope the rest of the storm season is quiet.

This video was probably the worst o the storm. You can see the sky darken in just a few seconds.

Walking Today... Driving Tomorrow???

Our little Tater Nugget (Taylor James) is growing so fast! I can't believe he will be a year old this month. He has been such a blessing to our family. Emily is "the little mamma" and won't admit that he's now too heavy for her to pack around. Logan and Brett are an endless source of entertainment and they're always pleased when they get a smile or giggle out of their littlest brother. He took his first steps when I wasn't home so Chris and the kids got to witness it and call me to gloat! When I got home we tried to take some video but he was getting tired. You can see him take a few steps though. Pretty soon he'll be running around here getting into everything.

My Garden Lookie Look!!!

Yesterday I did some serious spring cleaning. Today we decided to tackle the outdoors. I mowed the lawn and tried to use the weed eater but the string ran out so I had to give that up. I uncovered my pepper plants so they could get some of this rain we are supposed to get soon. While I was out there I took pictures of my garden to share with all! I've grown all my plants from seed and they're all heirloom plants which basically means I can save the seeds from the stuff I grow and not have to buy them again :)

These are the raised beds that Chris built for me and the hothouse frames. We decided it' easier to just leave those on lol. These two beds are my tomatoes.

This was my first bed of tomatoes I planted. I grew the plants from seed indoors and they are huge already. I'm so excited!!! I've never had plants this nice.
This is my second bed of tomatoes. I used different method of planting because these were so tall and I didn't want to dig down into my yucky old soil. So these were planted trench style. They're not as big as the others but they were planted later and they're healthy.
Another view of my tomato bed... the kids and I made us a brick sidewalk lol cause we were sick of walking in the mud.

And look I already have tomatoes!!! YAY!

Another view of the tomato beds.

This is the kids part of the garden :) We put all the toys where I could watch them play while I'm hard at work :p I like to keep them close.

My bed of peppers. I have 10 different varieties of heirloom pepper plants in there. Yum. I grew these from seed as well.

These are my other garden boxes. I have squash and cucumbers in some and I am going to plant beans in the three down the middle. There will be three when Chris builds my last two boxes. You can look at my soil and see why I needed to use raised beds. It's terrible soil! I've filled my raised beds with good stuff and laid down straw to help with the weed situation I always run into.

Heirloom squash I grew from seed :)

And that's my garden so far! :)

These are cherry tomatoes :)

This is what I have indoors still that I need to find good homes for! Lots of squash and cucumbers, and a few melons I haven't got mine planted yet I'm still looking for tractor tires.

Homeless plants...

Emily's room mates.

God is in control.

I was looking back through my blog that I've kept for the last four years... Wow four years I can't believe I've been at it that long. I am shocked at some of the things I've put on here. LOL I'm a nut. I am a big journal keeper. I write in my journal almost every night and I keep one for each of my kids that I try to write in for them on occasion. I even have one for Chris. So reading back over my blog I realized I was journaling all over again, except I was sharing it with the world. Sometimes I think about people reading my journals and yes the thought is intimidating. What would they think about the things I've written. That's kind of how I felt about some of my past blog posts. I was even tempted to erase a few, but I didn't. I don't sensor my journals for fear of someone reading them in the future either.

When my Grandma Sheila passed away I received a copy of one of her journals. I gained insight on her life and felt closer to her knowing her true thoughts. When I write in my journal I write what I'm feeling and thinking and things that have happened to me. I am as human as anyone else and I change my mind and opinions as I grow and learn. I'm not afraid to admit I have been judgemental and harsh. I have been wrong in my views when I thought I was right. Sometimes I will go back and read old journal entries and I'm ashamed at myself. I love it though because I can see myself growing as a person. If you read my blog and you do as I've done and go back and read my old posts take this all into consideration. I am human, I am a sinner and I'm still learning.

One person in my life I've been the hardest on is my older brother JR or Dallas as he'd rather be called, but I can only call him JR as I have all my life, sorry bro. My choices in life are different from the ones JR has made. When I see what he does with his life I have gotten angry wanting better for him and being mad that he wouldn't make better choices. I've learned over the last couple years that I am only in control of the choices I make. I have to love people and not condemn them for the choices they make.

A few weeks ago I heard a radio broadcast about intentional living. I decided I was going to make a better effort to love my brother. I called him just to talk and I intended to do it every week. It didn't happen... I didn't call him again and then I got a call from my Mother last night saying he had shot himself in the chest. That is all the information I had at the time. I didn't know if he was alive or dead. I was scared to death that my brother had passed from this life and I would never get another chance to tell him I loved him.

I frantically ignored the advice of my husband to be calm and I began calling my family desperately trying to find out more information. As I was scrolling down the list of contacts in my cell phone I saw the name of my best friend Amanda. She dated my brother in high school so I called her to tell her and cry to her. When we were done talking I told her I was going to hang up and call my sister Mandy. She told me "Kristie no, you hang up the phone right now and get on your knee's and pray." She was so right. I did just that when we hung up I prayed and begged God to give my brother one more chance. JR can do great things and I believe God has a great plan for his life. I felt peace after I prayed and I was able to calm down.

Little by little I gathered more information and God has given JR another chance. I know JR has a hard road ahead. Things are not going to be easy for him but I have faith in God that he will lead him through whatever comes at him. I just pray that JR has the strength to endure. He has a lot of family who love him and want to see him do good. I believe in him.

Writing this blog has been therapy for me in a way. When my Mom moved to Hawaii this was my way of keeping her informed about my family and I used it as a public journal. It's a strange thing that millions of people do and it makes me wonder why? Why we all feel the need to share piece's of ourselves with the world. Times are changing so fast and things get more and more hectic every day. We don't know when our time on earth will end. Some of us don't even think about our eternal souls and where we will spend eternity. Don't get so caught up in this world that you are caught unaware at the end of your life. Don't get so wrapped up in your own life that you ignore those around you that need your love and support. I have reassurance that I will be in Heaven with Jesus. My faith is from God's word and what he has shown me through it and through my life. I intend to try to be a better sister to my brother. I am just thankful I am getting that chance.

My Brother & I