It's amazing how a few days off can really help relieve stress. I've been stressed to the point of tearing my own eyes out the last few weeks and I took off Saturday and Sunday. It was great. I didn't do a thing, well except housework but that was more therapy. It feels good to have a clean house :) It was great to be home with the family all day Sunday and not have to run the entire day. Of course we went to church which was great too. Sunday night at church I didn't have to worry about whether or not the people behind me could see the paint in my hair cause I didn't have time to shower after paintball that afternoon. And I wasn't dead tired when I got home so I feel very rested.

I may not be taking my trip to Nevada to see my brother as I had planned. We have a lot of stuff coming up in the next few weeks and I'm afraid if I take off for five days it's going to really put me in a bind. I also have been dreading the long drive with five kids... three of mine and two of my sisters. I feel guilty because I would really like to go hang out with my brother and lift his spirits after his accident but I'm just not having the best feeling about going. Usually before taking a road trip I'm excited so this constant dread feeling isn't very comforting. I am not looking forward to telling my sister though because she'll be pretty disappointed. Maybe this summer we can go and it will be better timing. I just know right now is not a good time.

My brother seems to be doing better. There is still no word on whether the authorities will press charges and he may have to move because his landlord is totally freaked out. I really don't blame the landlord. I would be having a cow too if my renters were playing with explosives. I haven't talked to JR in about a week now so I don't know if there are any recent developments but I assumed he'd call me if there were. I better not assume though :p I'll have to call him when I get home tonight.

We are having a big paintball game in April. I'm hoping it will really help boost our attendance on Saturdays throughout the spring and summer. We're going to give away lots of prizes and it should be a fun for all day since its not really a tournament. We are having trouble lining out people to help us with the event. All of our friends seem to be uninterested and there's just not enough of me and Chris to go around. It's funny how you lose friends when you stop giving them stuff. I guess we're better off to lose those friends though.

Oh by the way just to be weird today everyone meet my friend Chris. This is not my husband Chris this is my friend Chris. He's a single white male, and he's not one of the bad gimme friends. Meet Chris. Nice boat :p

I had a horrible dream last night. Horrible and weird as usual. I don't remember all of it but here's what I do remember. For some reason Chris and I were afraid that someone was going to come in our house and shoot us. Weird cause I don't have any idea what the reason was. So I set up this trap that would alert us if anyone came in the front door. I don't know why we didn't just lock the door lol. I always do the weirdest stuff in dreams. Ok so we left the door open a crack and I stacked a whole bunch of cups right against the door. It was rigged up so that when someone would open the door the TV would get louder. Very strange lol. Ok so I set this trap up and went in and laid down in bed. Chris and I were talking and all of a sudden the TV starts getting louder. So I freak out and grab my pistol. I don't know why Chris didn't grab the gun, he is the man after all. He just lays in bed lol. Then this guy comes to our bedroom door and starts shooting. He hits Chris once in the side and me somehow in the butt... no fair... Ok so then I start shooting him. I hit him like three times and the dude just runs out the front door.

So then my handgun is empty and I don't have any ammo so I grab the shotgun. We spend a sleepless night waiting for this dude to come back. In the meantime it seems Chris doesn't suffer at all from his gunshot wound. I however pulled a bullet out of my butt cheek. Man that's weird.

So then all of a sudden I look out the bedroom window and there is this car down below our house. Apparently I'd had a dream the night before in my dream about a car bomb blowing the walls off our house where our bedroom was. So when I seen this car out the window I immediately knew something bad was going to happen. So I grabbed the kids and yelled for Chris to get out of our room. Seconds after we ran out our bedroom door the car blew up and of course blew all the windows and walls off the side of our house...

Then my dream turns into something totally different. All of a sudden some chick is in my house hitting on my husband! I'm like "hey what the heck." Now I used to have dreams all the time that Chris would cheat on me or be mean to me because of another girl and I would always wake up mad at him. I know it didn't "really" happen but I seen it in my dream so I was upset when I woke up :p.

Anyway this was the same kind of thing. In my dream I was all upset over this girl cause Chris was nicer to her, wanted to hang out with her and just wouldn't listen to me that I didn't want him to. This time I didn't wake up mad or anything but I hate those kinds of dreams. After my last dream I was ready to do some reading and find out why you dream weird stuff and if it even means anything. I never did, I'm lazy. I might this time... or I might not.

On a totally different subject, my wonderful children who I love dearly have lost my keys. I had to call someone else to get a key from them to open the pawnshop this morning. I called Chris all upset because I know I didn't lose them. I had them yesterday afternoon when we loaded the paintball stuff because I used them to unlock and relock the door. One of the kids had to have taken them out of my purse at the paintball field. Chris kept telling me to look in the van and the house and my purse because they would be there somewhere. It was really making me mad because I'd already done all that. I'm not stupid. I know where they're not, I just don't know where they are. It's kind of a stupid way to start the day crying over lost keys. I'm a wreck. Hopefully this day gets better ;)

Do you ever feel like you're going through a Desert phase in your life? That's me right now. There's not a lot going on and usually I could find something to blog about anyway cause I have tons of useless stuff popping around in my brain. For some reason I've been having a really hard time with that lately though. My brain has been totally empty! Ahhhh! I sit down trying to think of something... anything... to write about and I have NOTHING... Strange. Maybe my mind has been taken over by aliens :o.

I started closing the store on Thursdays. Chris is off most every Thursday so it gives us a chance to spend more time together and since we're not going to open the paintball field for games on Sunday's anymore it's another day we can have games out there and not have to do it on Sundays... Ok did that sentence even make sense? Anyway I'm tired of missing church all the time, or being plain worn out at church because of paintball. I really like to play and it is also a business but I think the whole family has been feeling the stress of being too busy.

I was happy last week when Chris told me he was wanting to slow down. I told him I no longer wanted to work in a pawnshop... well actually I originally told him that when he decided he wanted to open one so I finally was able to speak up for myself and make a decision for me. It might sound selfish but here's my perspective. If I have to work I would like to be doing something I don't absolutely hate. I know there are lots of perks like being able to take off whenever I want and being able to have the kids at work with me, but that job just drives me insane. I spend all day scared to death that someone is going to come in and cause trouble.

I haven't said much on my blog about the pawnshop, mostly because I hate it so much. When I met Chris he had taken over his dad's gun and pawn business. After being with Chris for a year I started working in the pawnshop so he could do construction with his Dad. Finally, after doing that for four years I told Chris I really wanted to try being a stay at home mom. I was pregnant with Logan and I was already having so much trouble packing Emily up to the store every day and as nice as it seems to be able to take your kids to work with you, it's a lot of work.

I really feel like God wanted this for our family as well. I would be able to devote more of my time to taking care of my family and that's what I really wanted to do. Then I was disappointed when Chris said that we would have to sell the pawnshop instead of just close it. I thought for sure that it would never sell and I would be stuck working there forever. It did sell, in only three months. I was officially a stay at home mom as of August 30th 2002, one month before Logan was born. :)

Now in a way I feel like we went backwards... Last year Chris wanted to have another pawnshop. I was pregnant with Brett and had started working for Chris's dad in his outlet store. We really needed the money and I have a hard time trusting that God will provide. So I went to work when I should have stayed at HOME. That was my big mistake because I got sucked into doing this pawnshop again. Chris really wanted to do it and I refused. I said NO NO NO. I couldn't have been more clear, or rude about it. Eventually I gave in and he opened another gun and pawnshop.

Then I had to run the pawnshop while he did construction with his dad... It's felt like going backwards to me. Now Chris has a really good job and he doesn't want to close the pawnshop but he knows that he is not going to be the one working in there so he gave me the choice to make. It's a hard decision because Chris's dad has a lot of interest in the store. If we close it we owe him a lot of money. I want to close it so so bad but I don't know what the right thing to do is. I said above that I'd already talked to Chris and we're going to close it. That's the final decision we came to but I've been feeling so guilty.

I hate it because I said in the beginning NO I want no part of it. Now I feel like I'm hurting people by saying no again. I also feel like my family and my spiritual life is suffering badly because I am in a situation I hate and feel trapped in. I just don't know what the right thing to do is.

Funny I guess I did have stuff to write about after all. Even if it is just complaining. I did some bad things a month ago. Things that I know are wrong and I feel like God has turned his face from me. I know he won't leave me but I also know he won't look upon sin. I don't know how to get back to where I was so I can grow again. I'm so stuck and I'm so sad, I just don't know what to do.

BOOM BABY!!!














Ok today has been THE longest day EVER! We got up at 6:00 am to get all ready for this paintball tournament. We had to drop the kids off at Chris's parents house for the day and be in Springfield by 8:00 am. Everything went smoothly and we got there early :D because I drove :p. (No offense to Chris's driving)

Ok so this is the first real tournament two of us on the team have played. We're Bomb Diggidy :p that's our team name. Anyway Chris T. is a friend of ours and he and I have only played one other tournament and it wasn't on airball and I don't really consider it a tournament. My Chris has played some, but not for five or six years. So this was supposed to be a Novice Beginner Tournament. Two of the teams were way over qualified to be in this game but no biggie. There were a total of twelve teams. We made the finals in second place in our division and then took fifth place overall.

I'm not complaining cause I had a great time but there paintball is all about cheating. I called all my hits and didn't try to play on but there were some really scandalous players out there. To top it all off the reff's were super lazy AND we were all using this dark blue paint that was impossible to see anyway. So there were three games I know FOR SURE we would have won had it not been for cheaters but I was able to walk away happy with the way I played. I really thought going into this that I would be really ticked off by the cheaters but I was having so much fun I really didn't let it get to me. Chris T. our friend on our team was fighting mad when we left though. Hopefully he'll cool off after a couple days. He had a right to be mad considering how scandalous things were but, it is afterall just a game. I had a blast. In the pictures I am the one in the black with the beanie cap on... Chris Thomas is in the blue and my Chris is in the black and yellow pants.

After the tournament we had to rush out to our field because there were people waiting to play. I swear we are cursed. The days we go out and open the field we don't get hardly any players, but the few times that we are actually unavailable people are lined up to play. We've decided to end games on Sundays and play on Saturday's and Thursday nights. I'm really sick of running around like crazy trying to go to church and get out to the field on Sundays. We'll be able to spend family time together and relax which is something we really need.

What a day this is going to be. I'm skipping out on paintball this afternoon so I can do some chores. Having small children is so overwhelming at times. Emily is a super big helper. She can't do much yet since she is only five, but she helps a lot by picking up and putting away. I started having her carry all the dirty laundry to the basement, which is a big job but she gets it done. Logan is three so whenever it's clean up time I have to keep telling him constantly to pick up. He helps some but he mostly tries to find hiding places so he can get out of picking up. If he's wanting to play on the computer I can get him to help out by telling him he can't play until it's done. Brett is only one but he likes to put things in bags. :p He will pick up blocks and stuff but he doesn't know he's picking up. He usually dumps them out right afterwards too so it doesn't really count.

So I was sick yesterday and left work at 10:30 am and came home and crashed on the couch until 3:00 when I had to go pick Emily up from school. I am still not feeling well today but there are no clean towels and no clean bowels or cups :p so I really need to find some motivation to get myself moving. We've locked Brett in the kids room with the baby gate and he's really hating life. Even though there are mounds of toys in there he just wants to stand at the gate and cry at us. He likes to get into the stuff under the kitchen and bathroom sink. Little stinker.

We have a paintball tournament tomorrow. I'm so nervous. I love playing paintball but only for fun. I've watched some videos of professional tournaments and if this one is anything like those I will never play another one. I don't cheat and I don't want to play with cheaters. It seems like the "thing" to do in pro-paintball. When a guy gets shot he'll take off running up the field trying to shoot people from the opposing team. The reff's have to pull you if you have any hits so even though the guy that took off running was out if the reff's don't get to him before he shoots someone else then they're both out. I don't like those rules and it's gonna make me mad if people try to be scandalous to win. Oh well, I shouldn't be so worried about it. I even had dreams about paintball last night lol. I'm totally freaked out.

My mom flew out of Hawaii yesterday to go to Las Vegas to see my brother. She is going to try and keep me posted on anything new that's going on with him. The only thing I really know right now is he'll probably be in the hospital two weeks longer and they still haven't done surgery on his foot. They are waiting for blood circulation to return before they operate. I don't remember if I posted that in my last blog post :p so if I'm double informing you, forgive me please :p.

Emily still has not lost her tooth yet! I thought for sure it woulda came out by now. It's still loose and she's still wiggling it. Surely it won't be in there for another week. :p

It looks like I'm going to be taking a road trip soon! March 20-24 is spring break for Emily so I'm thinking about driving to Las Vegas to go see my brother. I will pick up my sister Misty on the way through Oklahoma and we'll go together. I think my mom is leaving today for Nevada which kinda stinks. It would have been cool to get to see her when we go out. JR should be out of the hospital by then and Misty and I can bug him all the day long since he probably won't be back to work yet. I'm excited to be going, well hopefully to be going. I haven't even talked to Misty yet to find out if she can come with me and there's no way I'm driving all that way alone.

We are taking off early today to go out to the paintball field and practice for the big tournament. I'm so nervous! I play just for fun and I'm worried I'll come up against bad sports who will make me mad. I'm not afraid to get shot, that happens every week ;) But I am afraid of bad sportsmanship. Nothing is worse than a liar and a cheat and I would rather avoid those altogether in the game of paintball ;)

Well I suppose that's all there is to say for now. Not much is really going on lately. Lots of marital drama but mostly over my bad judgment. It's taken care of but seems to keep resurfacing. GO AWAY! :p I can't help it I make too many mistakes. I'm getting the hang of it though ;) Going on seven years being married. That is quite an accomplishment and I'm pretty proud of it. I'm not going to let anything get in the way and ruin it. Thanks for all the prayers for my brother and God Bless everyone.

How exciting! Emily has her first loose tooth. She noticed it the other night when she was playing on the computer and she totally freaked out. She ran over to the couch and was practically yelling at Chris and I, "MOM DAD I have a tooth and it's loose... IT'S A LOOSE TOOTH!" Kids are so funny. She was so excited because her older cousin Devin has lost two teeth already. Emily's is the front bottom tooth. When she went to bed Chris told her to be careful not to mess with it so she didn't choke on it in her sleep. Then she was all paranoid. When she got up the next morning she'd forgotten about it until I asked her. "It's still loose," she says. So I told her if she brushed her teeth it would probably help to loosen it up. She went in the bathroom and brushed her teeth for like thirty minutes! Crazy girl. She told me, "Mom I have a bloody tooth, and it's the loose one." It should fall out in the next few days and I'll be sure to post a picture of it.

I still haven't heard anything new about my brother. They say no news is good news, right? Well I didn't get any calls at all yesterday and I remembered to bring my numbers for the hospital and stuff with me to work today. There is a two hour difference so I am going to try and wait a few more hours before trying to call anyone. Maria and JR defiantly need their rest so I don't want to wake them up. I'll keep posting any extra information I find out.

Here I go again slacking on my blog postings. I'm sorry Mom! :) It's been an eventful week. To start out with I got in a bunch of fights with my husband. We worked things out of course, and are closer now than before. Marriage is great when you have someone who loves you so much that they are committed to never giving up. Plus I need lots of forgiving because I make some of the dumbest mistakes of all time. I have to say I have the most forgiving husband. He is great and wonderful and I love him. I just hope that I can measure up and quit being such a dummy so he won't have to keep forgiving me.

Ok now for the really bad news. My older brother JR has been hurt really bad. He was apparently grinding up the sulfur from matches to make home made firecrackers to scare moles out of their holes on a golf course. He knows the man who owns the golf course and he was trying to help rid him of the moles. Well there was an explosion and he was injured badly.

He lost his pinky finger on his left hand and his foot was badly burned. I've not had a chance to talk to my brother yet and this happened Sunday afternoon. I've heard from family that he had surgery on his hand yesterday and they are supposed to be doing surgery on his foot today. My cousin Jennifer told me she wasn't able to visit him after his surgery yesterday because when he woke up afterwards he was screaming and thrashing around because he was in so much pain. The nurses finally had to put him to sleep because the pain medication just wasn't helping him. I couldn't sleep at all last night. All I could think about was my brother and how he is in so much pain. I just prayed all night for him to be comfortable and not feel so much pain.

I am worried about him as well because the police are saying he was building a pipe bomb. That is a felony and if they press charges he will be in a lot of trouble. Please everyone pray for my brother and his girlfriend Maria. They are supposed to be getting married in June and I know she must be really going through a lot right now. Thank you everyone and I'll try to post more regular.

Lookie what I got for Valentines Day. I was actually surprised even. This is the very first year I have received a surprise on Valentines Day! I was just going with the dinner and a movie plan but now I feel like I should surprise Chris somehow. Oh I know! I'll let him pick the movie :p That will be a big surprise. What's playing right now though. I don't wanna end up seeing some Jackie Chan movie...

Emily gets out of school early today. It's a good thing because she was complaining about an ear ache and upset tummy this morning. I was going to keep her home and she was so upset because today was their Valentines Day party at school. Since it's only half a day I let her go. She brought Zebra cakes and got her teacher a stuffed Zebra. This is Z week apparently too LOL each week they pick a letter of the alphabet to study.

Well I hope everyone has an extremely wonderful Valentines Day.

I've been slacking in posts lately so I wanted to add these little cuties to spice things up :p Poor Logan needs his hair combed and face washed, but I was lucky to catch him long enough to take this picture. Boys are boys ;)

Wow I'm such a slacker. It's been days since I posted! I bet my mamma is about to kill me :p Sorry Mom! I'll try harder to think of things to write about. Poor Logan is still sick :( I had to give him a breathing treatment last night because he was coughing non stop. After the treatment he slept like a log and didn't even snore. I'm going to have to start giving him one a day until he gets over this cold. Brett still has the sniffles and a little cough but he's not had a fever and the shakes like Logan. Emily is still coughing her head off as well. I sent a note to school with her today asking that she be kept inside during recess for a few days. She didn't like that very much but I really think this cold weather is the cause of all her coughing. Tomorrow Emily's class is having their Valentine's Day party. She is so excited that she gets to give out Valentine's tomorrow. In preschool they didn't celebrate any holidays so this is her very first time.

I LOVE MY NEW PAINTBALL GUN! It is the coolest thing EVER! It's a Proto Matrix and it totally rox :p To make it even better I sold my old gun already so now my new one is paid for! I got to play with it Saturday. It was cold and snowing off and on but we die hard paintballers still snuck in a few games. It actually wasn't as cold as I was expecting it to be. We had a nice big fire to stand by in between games to keep warm. I had to be sure to keep my gun warm too ;) Not because I love it so much but because the lubricant turns to gel if it gets too cold, and then it won't shoot.

Poor Chris his gun has issues. He didn't get to play with it all weekend. He has a new Bob Long Intimidator or Timmy for short :p It's supposed to be an even better gun than mine is but he was having tons of trouble with it. He couldn't get the velocity turned down, it was shooting like 390 feet per second! We cap ours at 280 so that would hurt lol. Anyway it kept breaking paint and just wasn't working, so he took it home Saturday night and disassembled it completely. He cleaned every last piece of that gun. Then he put some paint in it and shot it out the front door. It worked perfectly other than the velocity was still extremely hot. So he took it out Sunday and it wouldn't work again. He took it to Springfield today to have it worked on. He was so disappointed to not be able to play with it. There's always next week though ;)

My poor boys are sick. Brett and Logan both have the creepy crud. Emily is getting so lucky this year. I'm crossing my fingers and praying she will make it the rest of the week without coming down with whatever the boys have. Poor little Logan has made about 500 trips to the bathroom today and he threw up everywhere last night. I would give anything to be sick for them. I hate seeing little ones not feeling well. I'll probably be going to church solo. Emily will go with me :). I don't want to spread the crud so gotta let Chris stay home with the boys.

Chris is still loving his job. I am so happy for him and I've even been a little less bored down here in the gunshop. I've been ebaying everything in sight LOL so that keeps me busy. When I'm not doing that I'm chasing down, and cleaning up after Brett and Logan.

We are getting the airball barriers for the paintball field this week. I am so excited! Chris bought me a new paintball gun too. We are entering a paintball tournament in Springfield February 19th. I'm so nervous! I am playing with my Chris and our friend Chris and they are soooo much better than I am. I don't really know for sure if I want to play in competitions. This will be my first real tournament so I guess I'll know after this. We're supposed to practice this weekend but I'm not liking the looks of the weather. Playing in the cold just stinkin' hurts LOL. I don't like doing it. When it's really cold I usually build a fire and sit and watch everyone else play. The Chris's won't let me this weekend if we have to practice. I know too many Chris's LOL.

Well I really haven't had any interesting bits of information to blog lately and not a lot is going on so suffer through my endless ramblings and misc pictures. I'm allowed though it's my blog. :D I'm going to have to start sitting somewhere else for my pics though. The background is the same in all of them lol. I'm always glued to my chair in front of my computer. I can't help it I'm an addict.

Ok so I was taking pictures to update my profile. I like to do that about once a month or so. I mention to Chris (not my husband a different Chris) that I had to keep my donkey kong shirt out of the picture so no one would make fun of me. So he says "who would make fun of a donkey kong shirt?" So I said okay and took a picture with the shirt too. Now MR CHRIS is making fun of my donkey kong shirt! Scandalous friends :p

I signed into my MSN messenger this morning and as always that little pop up box with the latest MSN news comes up telling me the latest on the this's and that's. The Entertainment section never ceases to amaze me. Usually I just glance at the headlines, I'm not big on the what star is sleeping with what star thing that seems to be so popular so I rarely click on the links. Today there was something about Jessica Simpson and how she will not be outdone by her ex-hubby hooking up with some beauty queen... So she's been hooking up with three different guys... Uhh is that supposed to be a good thing? Anyway it was disgusting but from there I started looking at some other stuff and I remembered here a while back I was going to post my two favorite actress's. So since a blog is a blog here I blogged :p

Rachel McAdams and Scarlette Johansson

Happy Monday! Whew I am just glad it's almost over. This has been such a boring long day lol. My dad is in town and I got to see him, my sister, my little brother and my sisters two kids for about an hour. I'm pretty bummed I didn't know they were coming and couldn't talk them into staying here with us instead of somewhere else. I never get to see them and I wish I had more notice when they come to town. It's usually just a quick trip and I get the five minute pity visit as they're heading out of town. One of these days I'm gonna pack up my kids and go stay a week end with them :p That'll show them.

I picked up some library books for Emily today. She is still doing the book it thing at school and so far she has the most pages turned in from her class. There is one little girl catching up to her though so she's really excited to read some more books. I love doing this because it makes me take the time to read to her and Logan. It's so easy to make an excuse not to but when there's a little something extra to give me that push it helps a lot. I'm the worlds worst procrastinator.

Emily told me that the one other girl in her class who had perfect attendance missed a day of school. She was so sad for the girl but so excited that she is now the only one in her class with perfect attendance. Emily cracks me up. She got a little sick over the weekend but made it just fine to school today. We were a little worried Saturday and we stayed home from church with her to make sure she got enough rest. Emily has gotten so lucky this year. She's had a bad cough all year but everytime she's gotten any sicker than that it's been on a weekend. We just have to make it to May!

My mom told me her husband Ken broke his leg the other day. Poor guy. Apparently playing football or something. His birthday is tomorrow so if you're reading this Ken, I just want you to know that's what happens when you get OLD :p Bones get brittle. Drink more milk :p Oh and Happy Birthday.

The weather has been so nice here this last week. Now the big mean weather man is saying it's going to get cold again. I know its February but I was so getting used to the wonderful Spring weather. There is now snow in the forecast for Sunday. I suppose it won't be so bad and at least it's moisture in some form. The farmers will like that. :p I am just so ready for spring, my favorite time of year. Not to hot, not to cold, just right ;)

After dropping Emily off at school this morning Logan, Brett and I went to Wally World (Wal-Mart). I had forgotten that Chris was doing his route in town today so we were really excited to run into him there. I seen him as he was walking out the door so I whistled at him. It was so cute to see his head whip around trying to see who was checking him out. Logan spotted him immediately and said, "Hey it's Daddy!" He was surprised. I got to talk to Chris for a few minutes before he had to take of to do his route in another town. It's so great that Chris really enjoys his job.

I was going through the poor me's yesterday. I really didn't want to work in a pawnshop again after we sold our last business in 2002. Now that Chris has this great job he really loves it looks as if I have no choice but to work in our store. I'm trying my best to try to find a bright spot because I know God asks us to be thankful in all things. I know God has a plan and I really think this will be a really good business in the future, it's just getting through these hard times that brings me down. My biggest problem is feeling sorry for myself. Sure I have plenty of reasons to. I did say in the very beginning I did not want to do any of this, but there's tons of stuff I start out not wanting to do and then loving it. I originally never wanted to get married or have kids, or go to church. I do all those things now and love every bit of it. Why is it so hard to stay positive? :p I'm such a whiner.

There's lots of good things about being self employed. I should start noticing them more. Like I can go fishing anytime I want :p I can play computer games all day and no one can tell me I can't. I can surf the web and blog and chat. I get to bring my little kiddo's to work with me, I save a ton of money on daycare ;). My new goal is to try to be more positive. :D

Oh BTW does anyone have any good plans for Valentines Day? Chris and I have this agreement where we don't buy presents we just go out... Mostly cause he stinks at buying presents :p I'd like to surprise him this year though. He really wants a paintball gun but it's too much money... I could be mean and get him a picture of the gun :p

I had another freakish dream last night... I got to work as soon as I could so I could get it all wrote down before forgetting it. It's strange how you forget dreams so fast. I never remember the good ones, I just wake up with a happy feeling all day. The bad ones stick with me longer for some reason.

It started out with me waking up late. It was 8:20 AM. I was so upset because I hadn't gotten up to get Emily to school. So I started running through the house like mad getting Emily to wake up and get dressed. While I was getting Logan and Brett ready I was trying to call Chris on my cell phone. I was trying to get him to come and bring Emily to school, but he couldn't because of work.

So I finally get everyone ready and we are getting in the car. We don't have a garage in real life but in my dream we were in the garage. The garage door was open and as I was getting into my seat we were approached by two younger men. They were bullying us, I don't really remember what about but I know it had something to do with them picking on my kids. They tried to shut us in the garage so I couldn't take Emily to school. So I lost my temper and ran the car through the garage door and then started trying to run them over. They got away and I proceeded to take Emily to school.

This is when I realize that I don't live in Missouri but I am back in Las Vegas. For some reason I can't recall I have to take a different way to get Emily to school. I am not familiar with the roads in Las Vegas because I haven't lived there in over ten years. This is all stuff from my dream but some of it is true in real life. I did live in Las Vegas and I could find my way around but I am not familiar with the roads at all. So I decide that my best bet is to get on the Freeway. In Missouri they call them Highway's but there it's a Freeway :p So we start heading that way.

When I exit onto the freeway we are stopped by what appears to be military police. The commander orders us to get out of our car and sits us on the sidewalk under an overpass. All this time I am trying to explain to him how Emily is late for school and I really want to get her there because she has perfect attendance and if we're too late they will count her absent. I was being extra polite because the guy was pretty intimidating. He tells us that we cannot go because we've been "exposed." I realize that they are doing secret tests on humans and they have a bunch of people locked up in cages. I try to act oblivious to this so that maybe he will let me go since I don't expect foul play.

In real life I am extremely careful with my children in public places. I never turn my back on them for a second and I have a hold of them at all times. I've been called paranoid but I've heard too many stories about kids just "vanishing." I am so weird about this that Chris hates going anywhere with me. I'm always telling him "don't let go of Logan's hand," and "don't turn around and leave Brett in the cart." One time he lost track of Emily in Wal-Mart and I about killed him. We found her twenty minutes later but it was the longest twenty minutes of my life. I've never been so scared. Anyway I'm getting off topic but I just wanted to point that out to help show how weird this dream is.

So I'm sitting there on the sidewalk with my kids and this Army guy in charge wants to "check" them. He starts pointing out a rash on Brett and saying things like "he's got it he won't last long." I'm still acting like I don't know what they're doing with they're human experiments and I tell him that Brett has sensitive skin and he's had that rash it's from laundry detergent. That is true and he was trying to take Brett from me and throw him in this ditch of putrid water. So he let me keep Brett. Now all this is taking place under an overpass and just past the overpass is some sort of base. They have it fenced off and guarded and inside it is where they have cages stacked up on each other. They are suspended over the yucky looking ditches.

All of a sudden I can no longer find Brett. I start to panic and look around for him and the Army guy points to the ditch and says "I told you so." There I see Brett floating in the water and he is obviously no longer living. I'm heartbroken and I grab Emily and Logan and we're all crying. The Army guy takes us to some cages and sticks us in one together. It has openings that we can escape from if we want but I'm trying to be good and act like everything is ok and I don't know what's going on. I overhear two guards discussing how they need to eliminate some of the others so that we can be put in a cage without holes.

I am sitting in my cage trying to comfort my kids and I feel my cell phone start to buzz. I realize the battery is going down every second and I want to save my phone for a time when someone isn't looking so I can try to call for help. So I turned it off and some sort of alarm goes off in the camp. The guards come to my cage and start scanning me with these devices that detect cell phones and tracking devices. They eventually decide to take my keys because they think there is some kind of tracking device in them... Ya I know strange. But I still have my cell phone.

We are still in our cage and singing trying to pretend like nothing is wrong when a guard comes up to us and throws something in the cage. I am shocked to see that it's Brett and he's ok! Logan is very upset and really wants to get out of the cage and nothing I can do will calm him down. I am scared that the guards are going to take him away from me. The guy in charge comes over to our cage and lets us out. He takes us out of the camp and to a spot by a river. There are some people camping down there and I try to get their attention without the Army guy noticing. When they finally notice us and come to help us I get out my cell phone and call Chris to ask him to come help us. The Army guy looks at me like I've betrayed him and he's brokenhearted that I lied about having a cell phone. That's when I woke up. Last thing in my dream was the disappointed face of the Army guy because I told a lie.

Strange strange dream but it was nice to wake up and have Brett crawl in bed next to me. He wanted to snuggle up under the covers which he only does when he's sleepy. It did make me feel so much better after such a weird dream.

This was a pretty fun weekend. It was raining Saturday so we didn't have paintball games. Instead Chris and I took the kids to Bolivar and had fun. It's silly how just going to the arcade and letting the kids spend $5 can be so much fun. Chris wanted to show Emily and Logan what he does for his new job, so we took them to Wal-Mart where they have all the games and kiddy rides that he maintenances on his route. Emily and Logan both won some little plastic toys and I won Emily a rag doll. We rented some movies and spent the rest of the night just hanging out at home.

Sunday was great. In our Sunday school class we had an interesting discussion about how we are afraid to express ourselves in worship. We have some people from many different denominations and we all shared experiences in other churches and compared them with the worship experience in our church.

I grew up going to the Mormon church... well at least for the first ten years of my life. What I remember were boring, quiet worship services. I don't remember what was taught even. I do remember the occasional testimony or song and children were encouraged to as they call it "bare their testimony." It's funny I still remember the testimony they taught children. "I'd like to bare my testimony I know this church is true I love my mom and dad my brothers and sisters Amen." It's more like programming than testimony.

Anyway some of the others in the class had been to other denominations where worship service was much different than our services today. Basically I left the class with the feeling that there really is no right and wrong way to worship. Most churches follow a ritualistic way of worshipping, they do the same thing, the same way all the time... I suppose there is nothing wrong with that but it does seem to get monotonous. Other churches have a spontaneous type of service. I think they're all fine and dandy. The one thing I believe is anything we do in a worship service should be prompted by the Holy Spirit. The motive should be to bring Glory to God, not attention to yourself. The people in our class talked about going to other churches and feeling like people were competing with each other to show who was "holier." For example during the pastors prayer others in the congregation would pray as well, so loudly that it became a shouting match between the different people giving the prayer. I've never experienced this so I don't know how I would feel about it. Maybe it was just God's spirit leading and everyone may have been really blessed. I also suppose you can't please everyone. There is always going to be a handful of people not happy, no matter how you conduct worship.

After church we headed out to the Paintball Field. The weather was so nice yesterday, just perfect for playing. We had some new players come out and all together there were eleven of us. I even got to sneak in two games. I reffed the rest of the time. I even got shot right in the middle of the chest the very first game. I was like HEY what the heck don't shoot the reff LOL. It hurt. There was one new kid who'd never played before and I felt so bad. The two games I played I shot him out both times. The first time was in the midsection... yes it's where you're thinking... and the second time was right in the butt. He really thought I was out to get him.

I did take a few pictures but didn't get any of me since Chris was playing both games I played. It was really enjoyable and even though a few of the new fella's were not the best sports I think everyone had a good time. Emily and Logan invited their cousin Devin to come out and play with them. They didn't play paintball but they have fun running around picking up the balls off the field before and after games. The picture of the kids is Emily my daughter and Devin my nephew. Also the picture of the little kid in the mask and armor is not the one I shot :p

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Today is pretty dead for a Friday. I'm just sitting here reading the newspaper... not much really going on. These are some of the stories in this weeks local newpaper ;)

Bautista trial for shaking baby will begin March 20....

Ok I totally don't understand WHY it takes so long for a criminal to go to trial. This woman Melinda Bautista, a state certified day care provider, allegedly caused the death of an 11 month old baby from our town April 14th 2005. It's such a sad story and I don't understand how a person could harm something as innocent as a little baby. The family of little Madilyne Wentz started a shaken baby foundation for the Ozarks.

Survivor to hold a Nixa casting call...

Six seasons ago local Heidi Strobel got her wish to be on the Survivor tv show... She's the one who stripped for peanut butter... Joy! Hopefully if anymore Missouri residents get their chance to be on national tv they won't be so fake... Just my humble opinion :p

Nothing else really interesting in the newspaper :p But Logan sure is being funny. I brought Oreo cookies to work with us today and he keeps trying to do good things to get another cookie.

I found these the other day and just wanted to post them cause they are so funny. Chris was probably around 18 so his would be from 1992ish... I was 16 so mine is from 1996.