Faith's Golden

I have got to get better at this blogging thing. I either need to be better, or just stop altogether, either way.....

Faith turned 12 a couple weeks ago. Because I'm so on top of things (sarcasticgigglesnort) I'm posting about it two weeks later!

We discovered last year that she developed this love of archery. Since we live in an awesome small community where they don't outlaw ridiculous things like that, they were taught about it in P.E. at school and she said she showed some promise. We thought nothing of it, just maybe that was cool. We took a small family trip one weekend and stopped at a Cabelas and spoke with one of their archery specialists there.  He took her into this room, fitted her with the same bow they used in school, and let her fly...and she did....dead center every time.  After we picked our jaws up off the floor, and the specialist guy informed us she did have some talent, we knew what her birthday present would be.

We did a super fun Hunger Games themed party (and by super fun, I mean we did squirt guns and pools filled with blue and green colored water and water balloon wars and paint filled balloon massacres, not like actual gladiator style slaying of children for the benefit of a corrupt government...just in case anyone wanted to get all "judgey" on me) She turned 12 on the 12th of 2012, so it was her Golden and we did it up RIGHT!  Any chance for a "themed" photo shoot is awesome for me, so I worked up this little ditty of an invite, and we were on our way!

She's turning into this........grown young woman. She looks so old in those pictures it freaks me out a little!  I have a billion more pics from the actual party, but Verizon is a dirty tramp and it literally took about 20 minutes just to upload that one picture of the invite.  Someday I will have actual working technology out here....some.day.

We celebrated with 12 girls and boys the Friday before her birthday, and then celebrated with our families on her ACTUAL birthday and it was an amazing, fun and completely exhausting weekend.  I would do it all over again for her. She is such a good kid. She works really hard to rise above all that stupid preteen middle school girl CRAP that seems to just want to jump allover kids these days. Seriously......as I was told by someone once, dealing with middle school girls is like living on the dark side of the moon.  They're mean and manipulative and catty and I honestly want to punch most of them in the face if it were socially acceptable to do so.  I can honestly say that the group we had here (and there were 10 girls in that group!) were all fun and carefree and just genuinely seemed to have had a good time. No fighting, no whispering, no backstabbing, no leaving anyone out....just good clean (well....not clean clean since everyone left soaking wet and covered in paint) FUN.  We need to do that more, just show our kids that we CAN have a good time with them and their friends.

She ended Sunday night (the night she got her actual big, nice bow) by showing all the family how good she is at shooting.  She did really well til her arm got tired, and I think she shocked a few.  She hit dead center right from the start and my father-in-law chuckled and said "lets see if she can do that two times in a row"....she showed him, and he said "Well!  Guess she can!" She refuses to every kill an animal and says she'll never hunt with it, and that's totally fine. I'll continue to buy her foam targets for her to practice with:)

I have to now end this post since Verizon has shut me down like 8 times from the last two paragraphs.  A lot has changed since the last post, mainly I got an "actual real live job" and am taking a bit of a break from the photography.  Maybe forever, maybe not. It's just nice to have someone else responsible for my paycheck for a while.

Catch up

I feel like I'm in a constant state of "catch-up".  Except nothing...NOTHING is getting caught up on.  I run and run and run, and nothing happens.  The heat is playing a factor as well in that all you want to do is sit in front of an air conditioner and pant. And it's making us all...er....irritable?  Yeah...that's a good word for it.  Irritable.   In fact, the other night as we're all piled into the car, the kids, Russ and I, and the hundred-something-pound beast all in the back of a glorified station wagon.  Russ is out pumping gas and the kids are just pick pick picking at each other. Mae elbowed Faith in the face for like the 137th time in 3 minutes and I literally turned around and through gritted teeth and in my scariest voice said "Maebree...I SWEAR if you DO that again....I..will CUT you".  I have no idea where that even came from but she was not amused.  The rest of the kids and my husband were highly amused and laughing, but she actually believed me a little. I may have to break that out again in the future.

So, here's some bullet points of what's goin' down with the Houston's the past month or so...

• The House: Still working on it.  There are times I actually wonder if we bought The Money Pit. You remember that movie with Tom Hanks and the chick from Cheers?  "Two weeks!"  I hear it over and over and over again except two weeks has turned into months and months and still I have no closet or kitchen floor (well, I have a kitchen floor, but the new floor is sitting in the family room) and there is foil foam boards over my large windows because putting in the french doors is just not in the budget this year cause everything else came up and we have to deal with those issues first.  And were busy.  Like...reeeeeallly busy.  I just want to finish all the other projects we started so we can take a break for awhile.  I completely realize we have our entire lives to "finish" things...but I like things to be done and checked off a list.  I don't even feel like I want people to come over because it's still in construction phase.  I can't wait to at least get our room stuff done, then maybe I can post before and afters of those small things.  
• The Kids:  We just celebrated Emmy's 9th birthday, and we celebrated Mae's 5th a few months ago. I can't even believe this.  Faith will be 12 on the 12th of August in the year 2012 so we of course will be planning a fun party for that.  This summer is flying by.  We went camping a month or so ago, and it was...not a vacation but still fun.  Russ took on a racoon in the middle of the night, and we did get to do a little swimming in Lake Michigan, but it was kind of chilly and we didn't get to swim much. Isn't it gorgeous there?  Why do we drive 14 hours to Panama City Beach, Florida every year?  Geesh.....

They will all be in school this August. Everyone asks "What will you do?" and my honest answer is....I have no idea.  I really don't.  I'll discuss this more in the "job/career" section. 

• Jobs:  Photography is something that I love, but right now, I just don't like it very much. It's become a job, but people still treat me like it's my hobby. And it makes me zero money. Raise your prices you say?  Well I did, but then I get complaints that "Your getting pricey....I have to think about it" or my favorite "I'm gonna just get an 8x10 and I'll order more later and later never comes.  That's not a problem, except that I spend an awful lot of time per session (maybe a solid 25-30 hours from shutter click to upload) and when its all said and done, a $12 order just kills me.  It's frustrating. And I'm not sure if your aware of it, but EVERYONE is a photographer now.  DSLR cameras are affordable to most these days, and it's just one of those things people don't want to pay you to do it when they can "take just as good a picture myself" *sigh and typed with a hint of sarcasm* I've applied to several places, and we'll see what happens.  I have no plans to get a job til the kids actually start school, and I'm just praying that God will just intervene and the right situation (if getting a job outside the home is the right situation) will present itself.  We're fortunate in that Russ has a great job and the hours will enable us to not have to worry about childcare except maybe 1-2 days a week, and maybe only for an hour. Faith is getting to the age where she can babysit, so....we'll see.  I don't know.  I take each season of my life in stride and with a grain of salt.  Is this the end of my season at home with the kids, or not?  Ok...that just choked me up a little....
• Russ and I: We just celebrated (well....I guess we didn't "celebrate" because he was at work and again, I was chained to my desk) 15 years from the day we met.  Ah...that fateful day.  A coworker wanted to introduce us. He described Russ as a "not too tall, kind of 'stocky', country music loving, blonde hair, brown-eyed country boy" who was "perfect for me".  IF you knew me back in the day (well..and today even) you would know that was in fact NOT my idea of a perfect guy.  I walked in expecting to see a short, dumpy hick with a cowboy hat and spurs and I see this clean cut, muscley, perfectly dimpled smiled hottie and actually said the words "dang...if it doesn't work out with the fat guy, I will take him".  Thank God that fat guy never showed up, and the rest is history:) 
• Health:  Well....I'm frustrated.  I have dizziness pretty much frequently. Again, I can mask it well. If you are talking to me, you'll notice I'm leaning on something typically.  I've gained about 30 pounds since last December and nothing fits (thanks stressful house renovation) so were trying to excersize more, but it hard to even get through a workout. I try to get up and walk the dog, but it's dang hot.  And he doesn't do heat well.  IIIII don't do heat well.  So it's a bad combo.  I've ben dieting and excersizing for about 2 weeks and have lost zero...read....0.none.nada.zilch.nothing pounds.  And THAT REALLLLY makes me mad.  I feel like I need to make a blanket apology to the world:  Dear World. I'm sorry, I'm off the sugar. Which means Cake.  Which means you get to deal with a seriously witchy (read slightly psychotic) me for the next...oh....3 months. Maybe that's another reason I threatened to "cut" my daughter. 
• Beasts:  We almost got another giant. Like....put money down on him and it was t-minus one week and counting til the day we were gonna meet and bring him home. Moses momma went and got herself knocked up again (those two crazy pups can't keep their paws off each other! :) and looooong story short, the largest pup became quickly available due to a mixup with the original guy who was gonna get him.  For some reason, we thought...yeah, lets do it.  I mean...Moses is awesome. He was a fairly easy guy to train.  He's lazy and sweet and loves our kids.  I do want another, and it's the same parents, so lets just do it. So we did, put a deposit on him and waited.  Some friends and neighbors to my mom put a deposit on another in the litter and this would be their first. Their first pup together, their "Baby Brinks".  Then that week before they were due to come home, Little "Brinks" developed some stones in his boy parts and had to be put to sleep.  Can you even imagine having to make the decision to have your little sweet puppy put to sleep before you even had him in your arms?  UG.  When it didn't look good for him, Russ and I just looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and said "yeah" with that knowing look.  I let her know if she wanted to take ours, they were welcome to him. We still have our puppy, he's just north of 110 pounds. I knew God's hand was in it because we didn't tell a soul (except a few family members).  We couldn't even think of a name for that little guy, and it was all, I'm convinced because he was never meant to be ours.  We were just meant to "hold" him for them so that when this situation arose, they wouldn't have empty arms.  So now they have little "Brinkley" in honor of his brother "Brinks" and in a few months Moses will have a playmate that he can actually play with on his level:)  Speaking of Moses...I'm just gonna say this: I wouldn't advise anyone...ESPECIALLY a male to just "show" up at the house.  He's taken on this role of "protector" and he very well might eat your face;)  He's pretty protective of us. Were working on it, but I do have to remember...this is what he was breed for.  Back during the Wars, these dogs were breed to stay home and protect the women and children, so they just gravitate towards that. It's in his DNA.   If you wanted to meet him...its a process.  He's not a dog you just go up to and start petting and getting in his face (you shouldn't do that with ANY dog fyi), that makes him nervous. I say all this and he just graduated puppy class with flying colors;)  He's not aggressive, but when that hundred-something-pound beast starts charging down the road at you, lips flying and teeth showing (only cause his lips are flying...he rarely shows his teeth) he can be pretty intimidating:)  I must say...I feel pretty safe walking around with him.  I rest pretty assured knowing nothing will try and mess with us! All that being said, don't you just wanna get up in that face?  ug:)

I think that pretty well covers most of whats going on. I know I've missed something. I don't really even care if anyone reads this, sometimes it's just therapeutic to actually type it all out. I have to go and do about 1000 things today before we get to go and sweat our booties off for cookouts and fireworks.  Happy Independence Day!  

Sweet Emmy-Lou

A ridiculously large amount of time ago, May 29 to be exact, my #2 turned 9.  I can't even believe that she is 9 now, but I guess that's what happens when you feed them, they grow.  She is our beauty queen. I can't even look at an image of her and think "Wow....wow wow wow...WHY are we not capitalizing off of this?"  I mean, yeah, I know I'm a little bias, but she's just stunning.  Everyone says she's the spitting image of me, but she's better cause she's got the best parts of her daddy as well.  She can thank him for those dimples, that cute button nose, and the thick, amazing head of hair.  

She's grown a lot in the past couple years, and I'm so proud of the young woman she's becoming.  We love you Emmy-Lou!!  

Bucket full of Beavers

Last night Maebree came into our room about 2:30 because of a bad dream.  This has become the routine as of late. I go into her room, pray with her, snuggle her a couple minutes, then head back to bed. I vaguely remember that she mentioned it was something about a plane and beavers last night, but I asked her again today in my less-fuzzy state.   Our conversation was as follows:


*Remember I type in "Maebrenese". And no, I make no plans to correct her speech.  That will happen in school and that will be a sad day for momma.*

Me:  What was your dream about again last night Pumpkin? 

Mae:  Well...Me and Faifey and Emmy and Mikayla were all standing by the barn and we saw dis plane go by and it was shaking yike REAWY crazy.

Me:  And...something about beavers in it?

Mae:  Yeah.  There was dis bucket and it came down and there were beavers yike ALL inside it.

Me:  Beavers. 

Mae:  Yeah.  And the bucket was dropping out of the plane and it was shaking yike REAWY a yot.  And the plane was yike going back and forf, back and forf (at this point, the hand motions are flying...baby girl loves talking with her hands). 

Me:  Wow.

Mae:  Yeah....and den yike they were flying the plane and it was just shaking...

Me: The beavers were flying the plane? 

Mae:  Uh...No..PEOPLE were flying the plane...

Me:  Cause beavers flying the plane would've been ridiculous.

Mae:  YEAH!  Anway, they were just dropping the beavers out of the plane.

Me:  In a bucket.

Mae:  Yeah. In a bucket.

Me:  So, it was like "I gotta bucket, gotta bucket full of beavers" (sang to the tune of "Pocket full of sunshine") wasn't it? 

Mae:  Uh...no...THAT's ridicuwous mom. 

Me:  Oh...sorry. 


Apparently beavers dropping out of a plane is very scary to a 5-year-old.

The "eye's" have it

We've been struggling with Emmy's eyes for the past few weeks. They've been red and itchy and generally kind of gross looking. I took her into the doctor a few weeks ago and we left with a diagnosis of pink eye.  Or so we thought. Picked up the  $8 antibiotic from Meijer and went on our way.  Only it didn't help and we were back in the clinic Monday.  Allergies...we think.  Back to Meijer pharmacy, $5 allergy eye drops....didn't work.  I called Monday evening and the doctor felt she needed to see a pediatric optometrist.  SOoooooooo....(after not hearing and having to call for the appt time, not because of her doctor, her doctor is the most amazing woman ) Tuesday we were back in and he diagnosed it as severe allergies with cysts inside her eyeballs. YIKES!   Glad we got it handled, glad we caught it before something really bad happened, and kinda sad that she's gonna struggle with it every year.  Back to Meijer pharmacy only this price tag was a bit different: $175.  One-hundred-seventy-five-dollars.  HOLY FREAKIN WOW!  You have got to be kidding me?  The pharmacist is soooo nice and tells me she had already called to see if there was something a little more affordable knowing we had been in there several times  and there was not.  I asked her if the drops were made from the urine of a unicorn and she laughed and told me no.

So we are on day two of operation "Unicorn Pee" drops and she seems to be slowly clearing up.  Thank God.  Hopefully she will be completely cleared by the end of the week and back to normal!  I am three days behind on my work (throw in a well-visit for Mae and 3 dentist appointments), I have just completed "Operation Stinky-Pup Clean-up" and am gonna have to tackle the pigsty that IS my house because I gotta start back allover again come this weekend.

I need a nap.

Spiders

I have this completely irrational fear of spiders.  It is my understanding that no matter what size the actual spider is, if I go to kill it (or even if I'm around it's general vicinity) somehow it grows 15 times its size, jumps on me, sucks all my blood out, traumatizes my kids who are of course going to be there to see it all, and then they will be left motherless orphans.  That's worse case scenario.  Best case scenario is it's supernaturally radioactive, bites me, and I end up like Peter Parker aka "Spiderman" and who needs THAT kind of pressure.  Not me. 

Well somehow I let my husband talk me into moving out in the middle of nowhere if nowhere was surrounded by trees and a creek and cornfields.  And all of those things are prime living places for bugs.  I don't "do" bugs.  I could handle mice.  I don't LOVE mice, but I'm not scared of mice.  I could set traps and throw them out when they are dead. I get freaked out even looking at a dead spider.  Well, we found some unwanted creatures starting to pop up when the weather got warmer. It's to be expected considering the winter we had. Knowing that it takes a minimum of 35 minutes for me to get up the nerve to even think about finding something to kill a spider with (and if it's on the ceiling, forget it, I'm out the rest of the day) and considering that my husband is gone for 24 hours at a time, and considering the fact that paying my kid $10 for every spider she kills starts adding up, we decided to call Orkin and have them take care of us.  The house and the barn...it's a bargain. 

Except that I'm starting to find spiders in our car.  I literally took my shoe off and smashed one while driving down the highway a couple days ago. It was God, cause I'm sure I would've wrecked had He not had something supernatural take over my body for a few seconds.  And it was one of those long, leggy (Not THE daddy long leg, but close) spiders.  These new POC's are  those fat, ugly, black and white ones. I'd google them but I'm terrified of what I would find out about them and I can't even look at pictures.  It's kind of like getting your medical advice off the internet.  Today I had to run a bajillion errands and I knew that one turd had crawled in between the back seat cushions.  I grabbed the Ortho Home defense and started spraying like an insane person. I'm sure our interior is ruined and there is a good chance the paint will start bubbling off the car, but the thought of driving allover Champaign with a spider waiting to attack me was a little more than I could handle.  I seriously considered trading the car in today and thought about how I could get up to Rick Ridings in Monticello and do it without Russ's signature and then realized that was just silly.  I mean...whose gonna give us any kind of a trade in with the car looking the way it does. It's a hot mess.  I'd at least have to clean the inside and vacuum it out before that. For now, I found a couple old slippers that I'm keeping in the front seat with me so that if one decides to crawl out I can smash it and hopefully not wreck and total our car or seriously injure our kids.  

Maybe I'll get a complete car detailing for Mother's Day.  

Pinterest Shminterest

Pinterest is full of a bunch of dirty tramp liars.  Seriously.  They give you all the fabulous ideas, and you see them and say "Psh...I got this. I can so do that" and you rush to the nearest craft store and develop severe "Craft ADD" while in there and buy a bunch of stuff and go home with the grand attempt to become the next Martha Stewart. Problem is...Martha is rich and pays people to be creative for her.

I found this extremely cute dresser idea for Maebree.  She's eclectic, and I thought this was perfect. 

Nice idea right?  Right.  Well...let me give you a little background on the dresser.  Russ and I somehow aquired this dresser when we were first married.  It came out of some family member of my grandmas who I believe smoked herself to death.  (it's sad....but true)  The dresser came out of her trailer and REAKED of cigarettes.  I don't even know how we managed to get the smell out, but we did.  We were poor, pregnant, and needed a small dresser to fit in our closet so it worked.  This dresser isn't even made out of real wood. It's particle board with a thick, contact-like paper that is SUPPOSED to look like wood grain covering it.  And it weights about 1457 pounds.  That might be an exaggeration, but it feels true. We used that dang dresser in our bedroom up til we moved when somehow Maebree acquired it in her closet because she really needed a dresser. Our kids have never needed a dresser because our old house had closets the size of bedrooms and we just hung everything or had it nicely folded in the shelves.  This house....all three need dressers, but I needed a bathroom first, so in order to save money...I decided I would attempt to revamp this one.  It's been in her closet, and it couldve stayed there, but she has so many toys, and I HATE clutter, so I decided that having a cute colorful dresser outside and all the clutter and toys inside would be a better idea. 

Here is the finished product. Poor kid, it looks like mommy was drunk when she did this. 

Before you start in on the "that's not that bad" speech...let me say this: the picture gives it TOO much justice.  You cannot modge podge over particle board.  it doesn't work.  Also, no matter how much you coat it, a 5-year-old will figure out how to tear it apart.  So I covered it in clear contact paper. And then I stapled it to the drawers (which you can see all the staples) And then I got tired of measuring so all my lines are crooked.  And then I figured out you couldn't regular paint it so I spray painted it.  I also spray painted the pulls.  It looks like mommy was drunk while refinishing it. 

Looks like Mae's in the market for a new dresser.  Side note, she loved it.  I know.....your shocked.