Emily Gayle

These are pictures of Emily's ankle six days after she sprained it. She still cannot put any weight on it and the doctors reviewed the X-Ray's again and said there are no breaks. Tomorrow summer school starts and I am going to go with her to see if she'll be able to make it through the day.

On to a happier subject... We had a really fun weekend. Every Memorial Day we get together with Chris's family at his Dad's farm for a big fish fry. It was a lot of fun and great family togetherness time. I only regret that my Mom and Stepdad couldn't be there with his kids. They had come out the past two years and we always had so much fun picking berries and fishing. I miss them a lot, but I bet fishing is a lot better in Hawaii ;)

Emily got to be pushed around in a stroller all day :p

Logan Keeping Cool

Brett trying to escape as usual.

What a week! I don't even know where to start. Last Wednesday is when it all began to get crazy. I posted a nice little post about my garden and how happy I was and then got the urge to go out and pick gooseberries. So I loaded up the kids and we took off to Chris's dads farm outside of town. We were having a ton of fun picking berries, Emily and Logan were playing around climbing tree's and Brett was eating the berries :p... Then we found this bush that was just loaded down with berries. So I got to pickin' and Emily found a really cool tree to climb.

Well it didn't take long... I heard a snap and looked up just in time to see Emily falling out of the tree! She had tried to go out on a limb and it was dead so of course snapped right off. She only fell about five feet but that was all it took. I seen her hit the ground with her left foot underneath her. She cried of course as any child would and I helped her limp over to the gator. The gator is an ATV four wheeler type thing that we can ride around the woods in.

Well I thought she was just a little shaken and would be ok and she said she felt ok so I went back to picking some more berries before we had to go. Well even though she said she was ok she kept on complaining and whining so I went back and checked on her and noticed her left ankle was swelling up really bad. I loaded up the berries and the kids and we headed back out of the woods to the van. Chris was at the shop building cleaning paintball barriers when I got there and I told him we needed to go right away and take Emily to the Emergency Room. So we took Brett and Logan to Grandma Judy's house and headed for Springfield with Emily.

When we got to the Urgent Care department they took X-Rays of Emily's ankle and couldn't see any fractures thank goodness. So they wrapped it and told her she should be able to start moving it around in 24 hours and in about 48 hours she should be able to start putting a little weight on it and walking around. Well it has been almost a whole week and Emily still refuses to use her foot at all. We have to carry her everywhere we go and she just crawls around the house. Her ankle is still swollen and badly bruised. I will post some pictures I took when we get home.

I took her back to the doctor today and they redid the X-Rays and once again said there are no fractures. They gave her a special brace to put on her ankle and I don't think we'll be able to get it back off very easily. Emily screamed and cried when I put it on. Summer school is starting this Thursday and Emily really wants to be able to go, but I just don't see how she will be able to if she can't even walk. I am trying to get her some crutches to use so she can get around better but no one has them in stock they have to order them. Hopefully by Thursday Emily will be able to put a little weight on her ankle at least so she can walk.

I am so excited!!! I was so sad and disappointed this year because I wasn't doing a garden. I didn't do one last year and the year before I tried for the first time and nothing even grew! Chris helped me put out a really nice garden this year. We borrowed a tiller from my Uncle and Aunt and Chris worked his butt off getting the ground behind the house all tilled up. There were, and still are tons of rocks to pick up but we got some fertilizer put down and plants in the ground. We planted 7 tomato plants, 2 habanero pepper plants, 6 cucumber plants, 6 sweet bell pepper plants, 6 jalapeno pepper plants, a row of onions and green onions and a row of green beans. We had some problems with the rabbits eating the plants but Chris put up some fence and now the rabbits are out of luck.

Here is Emily helping water the garden.

This is Emily watering her watermelons that Daddy let her plant just for her and Logan.

Here are my hard workers LOL poor Brett was so dirty and he got hold of the gas can and spilled gas on himself so we had to strip all his clothes off him.

Logan looks beat. He got hit in the head with a rock when we were throwing them out of the garden... He started watching where he was running after that poor fella

I am very proud of my garden and I'm so lucky to have the greatest husband who helped me! I couldn't have done it without his help :D

Emily has graduated from kindergarten... I can't believe how much she has grown! She is such a sweet, smart little girl. She was awarded a certificate and a gold medal for her books that she read. She also won a certificate and free ice cream certificates for having perfect attendance all year. It was really sweet, she won like four different gift certificates and gave away three of them to some of her friends in her class that didn't win anything. I am so proud of how thoughtful of others she is and how kind she treats the other kids.

Lauren, Dominique, & Emily

These are two of Emilys school friends.

Emily was so embarrassed over all the attention she was getting with all the certificates and perfect attendance. She's a humble child ;)

Emily receiving her book award certificate.

This is some of the kids from Emily's class posing for a picture together. There was so much commotion going on that some of the kids got left out of this picture.

Emily was sad to be out of school. She says she is going to miss her friends and her teacher Miss Lenz. I am so proud of how much she's grown and I couldn't ask for a sweeter little girl as my daughter. Summer school starts June 1st and I almost didn't let Emily go because I wanted to be able to spend time with her this summer. She really wanted to go and she even got Miss Lenz as her teacher so she is very excited and looking forward to going. They do lots of activities and field trips in summer school and I know she will have lots of fun.

Thursday was a long day for me. My youngest sister Mandy was graduating and I had to be there! She lives six hours away so I left Missouri at 9:00 AM and drove to Hydro Oklahoma! Logan and Brett came with me. It was a really fast trip, no problems at all. We got there and I was so excited to get to see my sisters Mandy and Misty. I also got to see Mandy's mom who was my stepmom for a long time, about 13 years, before her and my Dad divorced. She now has three small boys besides my sisters.

So here are a few pictures of everyone BEFORE the big graduation ceremony. You will have to excuse the red eyes. I am using my new camera and haven't quite got all the settings figured out yet, and I'm too lazy to fix them on the computer right now.

This is my sister Mandy posing with my niece Macey who is Misty's oldest daughter.

This is my sisters Grandma Shirley and my other niece Mattie who is Misty's youngest daughter.

Here we have Mandy in her curlers :p

This is Misty & Mandy's Mom Brenda also in curlers ;)

I Love this shot. I couldn't get many good ones because like I said I am still figuring out the settings on my new camera but this one is just beautiful.

Here she is! I'm so proud!

Another really pretty picture. She gave me a flower I felt so loved :p

This picture is cute. It's Mandy hugging her little brother!

Me and My sisters :)

I look so horrible from my six hour drive :p but here's one of us all. From the left is my Dad, my little brother Clayton, Mandy my sister, ME, Misty my sister and her daughter Macy and Mandy's little brother Tyler in the front.

Mandy and her Mom

So after the graduation ended I took off back to Missouri... Yes another six hour drive. I got home at about 4:00 AM... I was stinkin' tired. I'll be goin' to bed early tonight :D

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Every year on Mothers Day our pastor always gets all the Mothers up in front of the church. You can see me holding Brett I'm in the second row right in the middle. Of course Brett wouldn't look at the camera man. It has been a pretty good mothers day. I called my mom and talked to her for a bit and Emily got to say hi as well. My kids and husband helped clean up the house and things are pretty peaceful other than the occasional fit from Logan.

I hope everyone has a great Mothers Day.

KAUS PLEADS GUILTY TO CHILD PORN CHARGES!!!

Reading the newspaper today this is what I find on the front page! DISGUSTING! Waylon Kaus is a former local public school teacher. He worked with the Head Start program that my daughter attended last year! Lucky for us I don't believe he was there last year but unfortunately for other children he was there the year before. This man was also a scoutmaster!!!

I am reading here that this man COULD BE subject to a minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison and a maximum of 30 years. What the heck is the COULD BE all about??? Why do we even need a trial when he has pled guilty of these crimes against innocent children. I am becoming more and more disgusted over the way our society handles child molesters... Authorities are not doing enough to protect children. They worry about posting pictures and addresses of registered sex offenders on the internet because it violates the rights of the offender and endangers their safety??? WHAT??? Personally I think we should be a little more worried about protecting our children. Their rights should come first and if this means a convicted sex offender has a little less privacy or higher risk of being assassinated SO BE IT!!! It should be part of their punishment for the horrendous acts they've committed.

I got an early Mothers Day present ;) A new digital camera :) It's pretty nice I really like it :D Here's my first picture LOL Yea I look tired and missing makeup but I had to play with the camera. Chris and I spent all day in Springfield today. Chris got a new game for the computer and he's been playing it since we got home ;) I'm glad I am not into computer games anymore. They take up so much time.

So everyone is all worked up over the NSA having phone records. What's the big deal??? Personally I think unless you have something to hide what's the big deal if someone know's who you've been calling??? Once again just my opinion but I think Americans take their privacy a little far. If you're not doing anything wrong who cares if someone knows a little about what you do. Sure I don't think the government should be allowed to pry into private areas of our life for no reason but why is a phone record so private that everyone is freaking out so bad?

On a whole nother topic... can you believe American Idol!!! Holy Cow I felt bad for Chris but I was really really happy cause I LOVE Katherine McPhee! :p I would really like to see the Yamin guy go and have the finals be against Taylor and Katherine.

Chris and I got to get away for the weekend :) We went to a paintball tournament in Harrisonville Missouri. Chris had to help his ref but it was still fun going up and spending the night in a hotel and not having little kiddo's running around. I was sure glad to get back to them though. I would go insane if I didn't have little munchkins tugging on my shirt all day long. ;)

I am trying to concentrate on posting something here on my blog cause I've really been slacking and my Mom has let me know about it. Sorry Mom :D I'll get to work... if only this hamster would stop running on his wheel. It's hard to concentrate.

My little sister Mandy is graduating from highschool next week. I am going to drive down to Oklahoma to attend the ceremony. I am so proud of her :) She is the first child of my Dad's who has actually graduated highschool LOL. My brother, myself and my sister Misty all dropped out :( I did finish a homeschool course and got my academic diploma with a 3.8 gpa ;) I'm smarter than I look, but I wish I would have just finished highschool the normal way.

My mom had a bad scare recently. My stepdad was being deployed for Iraq in July. He is still recovering from a broken leg though and the doctors would not clear him to go. So now he is scheduled to go in January 2007. They just moved to Hawaii last August and I really don't think my Mom is ready to be out there all by herself. She's already homesick missing her grandkids if her husband gets sent away too I don't think she'll be able to handle it. Everyone please remember my Mom in your prayers. She's a great woman and pretty tuff but under a lot of stress.

Ok it's rant time... everybody brace yourselves. This morning on Good Morning America they were talking about President Bush jokes. Now I know how it is... I have had people make jokes about me and I can usually laugh right along with anyone, unless the joke is derogatory and made to make me look stupid or foolish. I don't think it is ok for ANYONE to make a joke about another person to make them look foolish. There is a line that has to be drawn when it comes to whether or not a joke is all in good fun or mean and hateful.

Good Morning America has a section on their home page today where you can vote whether or not the Bush jokes are funny. As of 11:oo AM CST 71.5% of voters think the jokes are still funny keep them coming... Only 28.4% think the comics have gone too far. I am in that 28.4%. Americans listen up. What are we showing all the other countries in this world??? Even if you think our president is uneducated, or a liar, or even worse why can't we show a little respect?

In the Old Testament before Israel had kings they had judges. The people wanted to be like all the other kingdoms though, they wanted a king. The prophet Samuel tried to tell the people that this is not what God wanted. God knows best and he knew that having judges was better than having a King, but God didn't force his will upon the people. He gave them what they wanted, a King. That King was Saul who was good at first but then went against God and lost God's blessing. God was bringing a new king to power, David. If you read about Davids life you will see that even though he was mistreated by Saul and had every excuse in the world to get rid of him David never raised his hand against God's anointed King. David was a man after God's own heart and he knew that he had to follow God. In time God bought about Davids rise to King.

My point is that President Bush may be in your eyes a bad person, or stupid, or whatever you wish to call him or see him as BUT he is the man AMERICA voted for. God has put him where he is and we need to have some RESPECT. Jokes are fun and we should all be able to laugh at ourselves but how in the world are we supposed to gain respect from other countries if we cannot even show that we respect ourselves and our leaders?

What are we teaching our children? There is so much school violence and you're always hearing in the news about how cruel children can be to each other. Bullying has become punishable in schools. By ridiculing our nations leaders how in the world do we have a right to expect our children to treat anyone with respect? I think we should all quit with the Bush jokes and in spite of his faults try to show a little support at least for the sake of uniting together in one accord as Americans. We don't all have to agree on everything but we need to quit acting like bullies and making fun of him everytime he makes a mistake or says something stupid in a speech.

Logan had his appointment with the neurologist today. He absolutely does NOT have autism :) It was a great relief even though I was beginning to think we were wrong to think he might be to begin with. Three months ago we found information on the internet that led us to believe that Logan might have autism. Well the pediatrician made Logan an appointment three months later to see a neurologist. That appointment was today.

The doctor was really nice. He came in and played with Logan for a while to evaluate him. He said that Logan has some speech delays and we will have to keep working with him on that. He has improved so much the past three months that I am confident he will catch up without too much trouble.

I rearranged my bedroom yesterday :) I just moved my dresser and put a TV in there on the night stand. Now I can watch the news in bed instead of on the couch :p I don't know why that makes me so happy but it's great to have a TV in my room :p Just as long as it doesn't keep me from reading my Bible at night.... I didn't think about that when I put it in there.

I think I'm going to try to have a yard sale this weekend. I went through all the clothes and stuff from winter and dug out all the summer stuff and there is just so much stuff that needs to go. Our house is small and we don't have a lot of room so I try to get rid of stuff that we don't use as quick as I can ;) I hate having yard sales but I love going to them :p