Happy New Year!!!

Just wishing everyone a Happy and Blessed 2010. Wow, that sounds weird...2010. Do you say "twenty-ten" or two thousand ten? I think twenty-ten sounds very space odessyish.

We spent New Year's Eve at the Harr's house down in Flora. It is always great seeing them. We also stopped by to see Emily's first babysitters, Kari and Evan. Kari only has about 18 days until she will be having a little one of her own-can't wait to meet him or her.

Emily was able to make it until midnight and then was able to sleep until 9:30 the next morning thanks to us sleeping in the basement with NO windows. It was awesome!

After we got home, we ate a light supper and had a relaxing end to the first day of the year. Hope you all enjoyed your day as well.

Until next time...

July in a nutshell

WARNING, THIS POST IS INCREDIBLY LONG AND FULL OF PICTURES-Proceed at your own risk... :O)

This summer has flown by and I can't believe that school starts this Friday (albeit, only a 3 hour day??) Anyway, since the posting has been sporadic at best, I thought a jumbo post covering July would catch us up a bit. Here goes............

The first week of July ushered in a new experience for Emily. Our local YMCA hosts a day camp called Camp Osage and Emily LOVED it! We went on vacation so early this year that I was worried Emily would have a long BORING summer at home. But never fear, Y Camp is here!!! She has learned how to fish, play lots of new games, learned several new songs, seen many friends from school and met lots of new friends. Here she is on her first day and a picture with Delaney, her friend from down the street.

Here is a song that she learned entitled, "God Bless My Underwear". Just in case you can't understand here are the words (to the tune of God Bless America):

God bless my underwear

My only pair

Thru the washer

Thru the dryer

On the clothesline

In the air

Oh, God bless my underwear

My only pair......

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Repeat until it drives your parents CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, this time was hysterical. She was just belting it out in the shower one night after camp. Cracked me up!!!

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July also brought the first fruits from my garden, go figure, it was zucchini.And who doesn't need a little more mulch on their garden in the heat of summer? Certainly not I. And our neighbor, Emily's best friend Don, was willing to share his grass clippings with us and Emily helped him out with the rake.Still keeping with the garden theme,I am proud to say that I learned how to can. My dad's friend Mel gave me a rather large bag of green beans that I used as my "guinea pig". Back in June, I had told my step-dad Bob that I wanted him to teach me how to can as my birthday gift. So he came over one day while Emily was at camp (mom came with him to keep an eye on my little ones that I babysit) and I had my first (and only) lesson. Here are some pictures from the experience.

Beans before:
Necessary tools:
Me and my teacher. Final results, MMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These jars sat on my counter all afternoon and evening and every time I walked by I just smiled and felt so proud that I had provided food for my family. And it was all free! The jars came from Freecycle. I was also blessed with a pressure canner as well as some other items needed. And I was presented with the Ball Blue Book for Canning and Preserving by my teacher. THERE'S NO STOPPIN' ME NOW!!!

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THE CHICKEN BORDER COMES DOWN!!!

From the day that we moved into our home, I've not particularly cared for the border in my laundry room. After all, what to chickens/roosters have to do with laundry??? Anyway, one day I got a wild hair and started pulling it down.

Before:
During:

After:

The aprons are mine and Emily's cooking aprons. Delmar's mom gave me the black and white checked one and I love it! I would like to get some other vintage ones. The pink one has a ladybug on it and Emily loves to wear it when we cook. As you can also see, I still haven't decided what color I'm going to paint the doors.

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Relay for Life

Most of you know that I've been participating in Relay for Life since my sister Lori was diagnosed with Kidney cancer in 2002. My first one was in 2003 and I've been doing it every year since, making this my seventh year WOW! Our team is now sponsored by our church and we had a great night this year. The weather was beautiful but cold. But, I'd much rather it be cold than hot.

This year our camp had a hippy/Woodstock/Age of Aquarius feel to it. Here is a picture of our mascots. (Thanks David, Delmar & Gene for keeping us laughing well into the night!)

What is a night being up until dawn without a little food?Kids lap (Emily is in the orange shirt right in the middle of the pic):Me and my man. Stay away ladies...he's all mine!! :o)One of the chiropractors in town was selling massages (all proceeds went to the Relay). Pat tried it out first and convinced MANY on our team that it was awesome and it was!What???? Mike is asleep and SNORING??? No way!

Each year they make a banner of hand prints of survivors. This banner is from 2003, Lori's hand print is the pink one and it overlaps our dad's (the upside down one). I take a picture of it every year.

What a great end to Relay week, the stargazer lillies that I planted in my garden in memory of Lori bloomed! I honestly didn't think they were going to this year but one day, there they were! These were Lori's favorite flower and were in all the bouquets that Mike would send her.

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Our final adventure in July was tent camping at Weldon Springs. We were invited by our neighbor Jenny to join her and some of her family and friends. What a weekend! Friday night was great but Saturday it rained almost all day. We didn't care, we stood around under umbrellas around the fire and at one point gave up on the umbrellas and sat at a picnic table in the rain playing Scrabble. Fortunately, the Scrabble game was mostly wood and plastic!!!

Here is princess Jenny in her castle. Not too bad considering she started Friday with a ridiculously small tent with a queen sized mattress in it. She was movin' on up!!!

Lilly trying to learn to ride a 2 wheeler:

Rise and shine Emily and Kyla:

Here I am helping Sal make breakfast. This covered screen room would have been a great idea BEFORE it rained. Here are a group of campers putting it up and you can't tell but it is pouring!! HA!UHHH...Delmar....Emily....everyone else is up!!

I pray that you all had a blessed summer. While it has gone incredibly fast, Emily and I are both excited that school is starting in a few days. She has already met her teacher and we've heard that she is great!

Vacation Bible School

Emily has loved VBS this year. Thru school, she knows many of the kids, which makes her want to go even more. Tristin even got in on it a couple of days and then got nervous about going. They had theme days and were able to dress appropriately each day. We missed the theme for Monday which was hat day.

Tuesday was crazy hair day. You can't tell in the picture very well but Tristin's hair is spiked:

Wednesday was mismatched or backwards clothes day. As you can see, Emily chose to do both:

Thursday was beach day. Tristin was dressed for it but decided at the last minute, he wasn't going to go:

Today, Friday, was PJ day. (I didn't get a pic before she changed.) Emily LOVES PJ days! She was able to wear them all day a couple of days of Kindergarten and 1st grade. The fun continued into VBS.

The kids were also raising money thru offerings to help Barb O'Donohue's work with Pokot children in Africa. According to a newsletter, if their goal of $1111.00 is met, Ernie (the children's minister) will dye his hair blonde! The must be really getting behind this since as of yesterday, they were at $904.27 and the last 2 day's offerings were over $300 each!!! GOOOOO KIDS!!!!

We may have to go to 1st Christian this Sunday just to see Ernie!

Next week starts Lunch Time Bible Club at the Baptist Church, Emily is excited about this too. I'm also considering sending her to Camp Osage at our local Y several times during the summer just for something else to do.

Must run for now, she will be getting of the VBS bus in about 15 min and I like to have her lunch ready for her or otherwise she wants to go out to play and then eats too late!

Have a blessed day,

Emily's Dance Christmas Party

Unfortunately, Delmar and I neither one were able to be at the dance Christmas party this year but thanks to the blessings of a good friend like Jenny, Emily was able to go and we were able to see pictures of the great time they all had!

Emily & her bff, Lilly:

Emily's dance class and one of the teachers, Miss Sarah:

Have a blessed day,

Brownies on Parade

The Clinton Christmas parade was a COLD one. But our Brownie troop weathered the snow and sleet to have a wonderful time being the parade. The theme was "It's A Wonderful Life" and you can see from the pics that our girls were angels! Ready to go!

And what's a parade in the winter without a snowball fight!!!
Have a blessed day,

3rd Lost Tooth

This one was knocked out with a little help from her friend Lilly. Apparently they were fighting over a toy and Lilly just let go and Emily popped herself in the face with her own hand and knocked out the tooth! The toothfairy was gracious and left another 2 golden dollars and the tooth.

My First Scrapbook Crop Night

I've always wanted to go to one of those crops that they have at scrapbook shops, etc. but time never really allowed for it. I'd dreamt of scrapbooking into the wee hours of the morning. So, when I was approached by our pastor's wife to work with her to host one at our church for our ladies ministry I thought HECK YEAH!

So there we were lost in paper, adhesives, embellishments and 3 Cricuts having a ball. It was supposed to last from 5 PM to midnight but I called Delmar at 12:30 AM to let him know that some of us were staying a little longer. I got home at 2 AM!!! I was so wired, I didn't get to sleep until after 3! Of course, I was dog meat all day on Saturday but it was so worth it. Tori and I were actually supposed to go to the Assembly Hall in Champaign for Chris Cringle but we decided not to go.

We decided that we are going to try to get together once a month and scrap as a group. YEAH!!!

Here are some pictures of the night. I'm going to post my pages after I get the pictures on them.

Also, not sure why but I'm missing pictures of 2 of the other ladies that were there...I'll get them next time.

4th of July Weekend

WARNING: THIS POST IS INCREDIBLY LONG...AND FULL OF PICTURES...ENJOY!

OK, so it's almost a month late. But we had such fun I couldn't NOT blog about it. Delmar was asked by someone at church to be on a pyrotechnics crew this year. The guys all went down to the St. Louis area Wed. morning and worked their butts off. Emily and I were asked to go down too. We rarely saw Delmar except when he slinked in bed at night (actually early morning) and for a few minutes before he left at the crack of dawn to start his day. The crews were responsible for setting up the firework displays, running wires and setting off the fireworks themselves. Delmar's first night was in Metropolis on a barge on the river. Those fireworks were set off by a flick of a switch. Here are a couple of pictures that he took that night.

On July 4th the crews were setting up fireworks in and around the Belleville area. That night at the St. Claire Country Club, he set off fireworks himself with a flare. He came in that night and said he had sooo much fun. He was like a kid in a candy store! I'm sure if I could have seen him, he would have been beaming.

So, what did Emily & I do for fun while daddy was working? Thought you'd never ask!

We spent the 3rd at the St. Louis Zoo with the wife and sons of the friend from church that asked Delmar to help. Trena and I went to Jr. High together and our moms when to school together too. Small world. Anyway, here are some pics from the zoo...

This is Timmy, Emily & Connor at the zoo entrance. We had the hardest time all day trying to get all three of them too look at the camera at the same time!

Did I mention my daughter is a ham! She has really gotten into doing the posing thing for pictures lately.

I ran across these flowers and they were just too pretty to pass up. Not sure who has the bigger mouth here...

All of the kids enjoyed brushing the goats. Not sure how the goats felt about it. This one seems to be trying to get away but Emily was very persistent!

So, for the 4th, Trena, I and the kids spent the day just hangin' until it was fireworks time. We started out at a little park area at Horseshoe Lake. The kids played and we had a great view of the St. Louis skyline that I'm sure most people around here haven't seen before.

During the play time at the park, I took time to play with some of the settings on my new camera.
The St. Louis skyline.

This is one CRAZY mushroom! Looks like a burnt carrot coming out of the grass.

After playing, we went back to the hotel to swim a bit and get rested up for the big night. Emily loved the pool and the hot tub was just close enough for mommy!
This fish tank was in the hotel lobby. All three kids like watching the fish.

We got to go up close and see the fireworks set up. I was kinda cool.

These are called "cake boxes"

We thought it was funny that all 3 of our kids had on Walmart 4th of July shirt then we ran across these kids...

Finally, we got settled in to watch the fireworks themselves. I wish I could insert the video here because it was AWESOME!!!!

HAPPY BELATED INDEPENDENCE DAY EVERYONE!!!