blessings

I thought that after my last post i should bust out my "blessings" books. Andrea made me one in high school and Elizabeth made me one before Paige was born. Here are some from then and some from now:
*Cosby show reruns
*Getting a card or letter in the mail
*Thunderstorms at night
*The pool at Ludington
*Thanksgiving dinner
*Archie dip
*Paige and Ethan's little drawings
*Samantha's giggle when she knows shes doing something she shouldn't (like playing in the toilet)
*Max Lucado books
*A good book
*Rootbeer floats
*Ethan trying to say delicious but saying "awicious"
*Paige walking away from me and saying "peace out"
*Samantha rroaring at me:

*Paiges picture from when i was pregnant with Sammy: on the bottom there's mommy, daddy, ethan and paige and the little circle with a dot above mommy's head was samantha in mommy's belly.

*Reading people's blogs with Samantha

Bad Week

I haven't written on here in like a week and let me tell you why. I'm grumpy. I am annoyed. I'm depressed. I am tired of (i can't say s. t. u. p. i. d anymore, so we'll go with...) stinkin' michigan weather. Is it cold..is it warm..should i wear a coat? a jacket? a long sleeve shirt? WHAT?!?!
I'm tired of being sick. First the flu, now a cold with major chest congestion. I had it first and still have it and now everyone else has it.
I'm tired of never feeling well and trying to work out but then having major heart palpatations and dizziness and feeling like i'm going to pass out or have a heart attack. I'm tired of going to the doctor with these problems and them telling me it's nothing. IT'S NOT NOTHING IDIOTS! Obviously something isn't right here.
I'm tired of things going wrong with this house. I try to be positive. But it's teeing me right off.
I'm tired of being fat.
I'm tired of all the skinny pretty people around me.
I'm tired of people taking advantage of us.
I'm tired of s. t. u. p. i. d teenagers driving fast down our street
I'm tired of my neighbors dog coming into my backyard and scaring my children
and last, but not least
I'm tired of people who are idiots and swear in front of my children at the store..(i could beat the crap out of them)Do they think they're cool? They are making fools of themselves. I have never been so mad.

I'm done. It's been a long week. Thanks for letting me vent.

I wear my sunglasses...

Here are some pictures of Samantha in her sunglasses. She was rockin' in them. I also took a picture of her hair because in the wind today it was so cute. Like little feathers in the wind.

When do we know our kids are safe? Let me tell you, I am an pretty overprotective Mom. Over the last couple years of having kids and different furniture I've had/have plug protectors, baby gates, things to cover the water faucet in the tub,duckies that tell you when the water in the tub is too hot,locks on the toilets,none slip stickies in the tub, padding for the edges of corners and tables, alarms on the kids bedroom windows, hooks on dressers to attach them to the wall so they can't fall on the kids, door stoppers so you can't pinch fingers, door hooks so the kids can't shut the doors at all, latches on all the cabinets and cupboards..the lost goes on. It really does..i have done so much it would drive Jim crazy at times. And yet..today..I failed.
The family is home with a sinus cold of sorts so Samantha and I were asleep, Paige and Ethan were in the living room watching TV and Jim had gone downstairs. I wake up to Jim screaming that he can't find the kids and that the front door was open, so I run out in the living room. he's yelling for the kids out the door. Luckily they come in. They had decided that they wanted to go outside and play. Paige in her pj's, Ethan with just a shirt and underwear on.
Unbelievable.
Here's where I thought I was OK. I had had my Dad come over one night when Jim was working nights and he put chains on the doors as an added security from burglars. I also thought it would be good since the kids couldn't reach it.
Well, now I know that Paige can with a stool from the bathroom. That's how she did it. She also had to unlock the screen door that I didn't realize she could.
What an awakening.
How easily this could happen any time. I leave the kids upstairs all the time, if I have to go downstairs to do laundry, or clean or maybe just watch a different show than them.
Neadless to say, Jim's going to move the chain up to the top of the door and tomorrow i am going to buy those ding dong things that goes off when you open the doors or maybe something else. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Sammy's 1st birthday

We had Samantha's 1 st birthday party today I actually don't have any pictures from it that i can get on my computer, so if anyone has any can you send them to me? I do have some from after when she was enjoying her new swing and the kids were playing outside in the dirt:

Nice Day

Yesterday was such a nice day. I wish it could just be spring and be done with winter. The kids didn't know what to do first. They ran around in circles for a bit thinking, "bikes, slide, swings, sidewalk chalk...which one do we do first?!" They had so much fun. Even though it was a bit muddy they loved being outside. Both Jim and I took them on walks around the block. Here are some fun pictures:

Happy Birthdays and Hospitals

Well, today was Samantha's 1st birthday. And what a day it was. Let me start at the begining. Paige had a doctors appointment scheduled for 8 am. At 3:30 am. Ethan woke up throwing up. He threw up about 7 times and since he had had the flu earlier last week we decided to bring him with us to the doctors. The doctor said she thought it might be appendicitis and that she wanted us to take him to St. Joes in Ann Arbor to the Pediatric ER . Jim stayed with him while I took the girls shopping ( we went to Borders and got Ethan a Pirate book ..eye patch, pirate hat and sound making sword included) and to Grandma Connie's. They did tests on his urine, blood, x-rays, gave him an IV of fluids, had him jump around a little bit and decided it was just this evil flu virus rearing it's ugly head again in this sweet little boy. Bad flu..BAD!So here we are, pumping him full of fluids, trying to sing happy birthday to samantha, while also trying to lysol the house every 3-8 minutes so that the rest of us don't get this bug and doing endless amounts of laundry since the kid either pukes or touched everything (i'm not taking chances, if he was in the same room with it, it's getting washed...carebears included). Samantha fell asleep in the car while her and I went to go buy more lysol and air freshners, Paige fell asleep in my bed and Ethan just zonked out on the couch.. So here I sit, on Sammy's 1st birthday, typing this in the dark, using a flashlight and trying to fold laundry at the same time. All in all...it was a day we'll never forget and Samantha will probably never remember. Except by the pictures i took of her eating a cupcake and opening her presents from Ethan and Paige.
(by the way, his hand in bandaged in a picture becasue they left his IV in in case he needed to go back to the hospital for more fluids)

It's the final countdown

Samantha is turing 1 on Wed. I am not ready. She needs to stop growing up so fast. I wanted to post some of my favorite pictures in the next few days: