Sorry

Sorry that it has been so long since I wrote on here! Things have been a little busy for me and I haven't had much of a chance to keep up!
Let's see first of all I am on break for the next three weeks from school. I finished off the fall quarter with 3 A's and one pesky A-...which got me on the Dean's list with a 3.94.
Savannah is turning 3 on Sunday...it is amazing how much she has grown in the last 3 years and how well she is doing compared to how she was born!
Claud will be 30 next Sunday...he has grown up a lot too! And turned out pretty cute also lol!
Christmas is coming and I think our family is ready for it all!
I hope you all have great holiday season and I hope to be back writing once in awhile soon!

Not much new

It has been a nice weekend I suppose, I got nothing done that was on my to do list...which seems to be the growing trend around here. Friday morning Claud got a 3 point with his bow, which is great because he had been starting to get real depressed that he had gotten nothing yet. I went out hunting with him yesterday...mainly for my chance to scout before season starts...but with the weather the way it was the only thing we saw was a doe and 2 little ones that we kicked up while walking to our blind.
See this weekend is the opening of deer season, it is also the very first time that I will be going hunting all by myself...I have always sat with Claud or at the very least near him. To be honest I am not sure I want to get anything, simply because I will not have Claud there to share in the excitement if I do.
Right now I am just checking in here and having my coffee before I head off to class. I suppose all the work that didn't get done this weekend will be getting done this week, so I will be pretty busy. Everyone have a nice week!

The Report Cards Are In....

I got both of my little angels report cards yesterday~ Dillion had an excellent marks he got all M's (which is like what the S's used to be) They mean Meeting Grade Level Epectations...so he was all good on all of the things he has been taught, with a comment saying he is a joy to have in class and he is a good friend to everyone!
On to CJ, who did not have all M's like in the years past. As far as the academic aspect goes he is right on target...it is the social skills and study skills that he is lacking in. He hasn't been doing his homework, which I thought for sure was going to fall on me, but suprisingly his teacher agreed 100% that it was his responsibilty and he is well aware of how to do the homework and that he has it to do. I am planning to try a little harder to say "hey nothing else is going to happen in this house until homework is done" everyday. But I have to be honest I can't spend hours reminding him over and over...I have my own homework and two other kids and a house to tend to. I do want him to learn better habits now though because I know he has the potential to do great!
So anyway it wasn't too bad all in all.
Today they have the day off of school, and I think we are just going to hang around here I have a lot of things that I need to work on. Claud is leaving in a week for deer camp and he may need some clean clothes to wear while he is gone.
Have a great weekend

What is this funny letter???

So two of my grades for the 5 week sessions I was taking are in: one is an A- the other is an A...yeah for me!!! I joked with my Dad that they must have forgotten to type the rest of my name in those spaces (A)manda....lol.
Tomorrow I go to conferences for CJ, I mentioned it tonight and he sighed and said "I know" this was not a real promising response, so I am hoping it was just a normal reaction and not a sign that he is doing poorly in school. Of course it will probably be like last year and it isn't him at all, but me instead. I forget a lot of things, like reminding him to do his homework...actually making him do his homework and also to send his snack with him. I try to remember but with my own homework and trying to run a household and bills and kids and dogs and whatever else may pop up sometimes I forget to tell him! (And yes I feel like the worst parent ever!)
Dillion on the other hand did not need a conference so I can only assume he is doing well!
Savannah is turning into a drama queen to the worst extent! She is always "sick" and always needing to be babied. The only thing I can think of that is causing this is the fact that I am in school now and she is with a sitter 4 days a week instead of with me all week 24/7
Friday is a day off for the boys which I am sort of looking forward to, although I really wish that more of the neighbor kids went to WPA because they get so bored on days off with nobody to play with them.
I plan to clean and catch up on Friday...just like I do every Friday it seems like.

Well I hope you all have a good week and weekend in case I don't get back here before then!


****10 days left until opening day********

Envy Me!

You are all going to be so jealous it isn't even funny! This Saturday my loving husband and I are going away for the night! We are going to Dundee to Cabela's which was my idea this year strangely enough. The reason for the night away (we actually are leaving Sat. @ 9am) is because on Monday it is our 7th anniversary! (More on that later)

Normally we take a 2 night trip but with Halloween being on Friday night we obviously can't leave on Friday night unless it was really late and we have no place for the kids to stay that night anyway.

This week so far has been nice for me, I only had class Monday and Tuesday this week so that has been nice, I have been able to get things done around here. I am working on the laundry and cleaning the whole house.

Savannah has a bit of a cold, so she is pretty much down for the count this last couple days. I feel so bad for her because she is not feeling well, but I also have to admit that not having to chase after her all day isn't the worst thing in the world lol.

So that is pretty much how it is going, and now I am off to finish all the work around here that I hope to have done by tomorrow night!
Have a great Halloween and a great weekend!!!!

Our Week Was Nice

Wow I haven't actually written here for a whole week! I should have lots to say then right????

Let's see here, ok I know. Claud is back from working up north which is great because I missed him so much while he was away!
While he was gone the kids and I had a somewhat busier week than we normally do. I did a lot more just to pass the time! On Sunday we went to my parent's for dinner, that was kind of fun. Then on Monday, we went to get pumpkins right after school, they each picked their own and they loved it. Then after picking up our pumpkins it was raining so we went to my sisters for dinner and the kids got to play with their cousins which they love to do!
On Tuesday they got home from school and we carved pumpkins, well I should say I carved pumpkins because I don't let them use sharp objects! But the told me what they wanted and I did it. They helped to scoop the pumpkins out, then they talked to me to tell me what they wanted. So there we all were my 3 kids and 1 neighbor kid on the sidewalk cutting pumpkins and having a nice little bonding moment. Within a few minutes I look up and see that it is only Savannah and I outside, the kids all went in to play X-box. Oh well maybe next time we can all bond longer:)
On Wednesday I went to the school to get the kids and was met by my mother in law who wanted to take them all to town with her. So she said she would be back about 7:30pm. So I had the afternoon to myself. I just kind of hung out, I went and helped a family friend clean a little and then I went to try to sight in my gun...ha ha ha that didn't turn out well!
Thursday and Friday we all just kind of chilled out, Claud came home Friday about 4 or so, the kids were so happy to see him back...well 2 of them at least. CJ knew that Dad being home meant he wasn't going to get to sleep in Mom's bed anymore so he was kind of bummed lol.
Last night Claud and I were kid free so we hung out and watched a movie together and we were supposed to go hunting this morning and he did but I woke up not feeling very well so I am here at home wishing I was in the woods with him. I don't bow hunt but it is still fun to just sit and see what we see.
Well that sums up our week. I will try to write again soon, but for now I have to try to get something done in this house!

Transformation

It was a long week for me. I took on the task of painting my Dad's resturant on my own! This was something I have wanted to do for the last few years but never really was able to get to it for whatever reason. Well this year I took it on! I have to say it looks beautiful, there were also new lights and baseboard installed along with new outlet and switch covers, it is amazing the transformation that took place in there with some paint and lights!
I do have to say however that I will never take on a task that big by myself again. It was a lot of work and a lot of hours but in the end it was so worth it.
The bad part was it took a lot of my nights with Claud away, and that sucks more because he is working out of town this week, he is leaving in about four hours and I won't see him until Friday night sometime.
There are good things that come with Claud being out of town though, my house gets super clean because I don't go as many places when he is away, and the kids get on a better sleep schedule because I enjoy my quiet time. Of course the negative is my lonely bed and not having a second set of hands to help me with the kids.
Speaking of a second set of hands, my daughter is yelling for me from her room...guess there is no nap today, so I better end this for now!
Hope you all have a nice Sunday

Dillion Update!

Surgery went great....Dillion had a lot of work done, I feel like a failure as a parent....but we are going to do better from now on making sure he is brushing and taking care of those teeth like he is supposed to! All in all he ended up with the four top teeth out and 5 crowns.
He will be home from school tomorrow so that I can feed him all soft foods which I know he won't get at school, he really doesn't have any pain yet, it is 9:30 pm and we have been home about 2 hours, he is sleeping now after I gave him his tylenol.
Thank you for the thoughts and prayers, he did great and so did we! I will put up pics soon, but not tonight since he is sleeping soundly, and do you think I thought to bring the camera to the hospital? Of course not!
Well have a nice night!

We Are Still Here.....

I think I will use today to give you all a little update info on the whole family;

Monday is Dillion's surgery, I am still slightly nervous but I know he will be okay. He is excited about taking a long nap and getting his teeth fixed. Speaking of Dillion, Friday he was in a lot of trouble with me! He for some unknown reason decided to write on the outside of my van with a marker! I know it was Dillion for a couple of reasons, one it was his writing (5 year old writing) and the fact that the day before he had the marker outside. I however didn't notice it until Friday afternoon, and when I did I was flamed! Wish I would have taken pictures of it now. Luckily I did get it off. I really didn't want to drive around with random letters on my hood and numbers on the front quarter panel...I think he was making the van into a race car, not sure!

As far as the other two go, it is business as usual. CJ is doing much better with enjoying school this year, my thought on this is it is harder and that is why he is enjoying it more. I think he was bored in kindergarten and first grade to be honest.

And Savannah is almost 3 so yeah that pretty much sums it up. I have to admit this is really not my favorite age group, mainly because at least with my kids this is the clingy age. The age where I go no place in the house without her. It is also the age where kids get their own ideas and thoughts and they also say them out loud! This is not always a good thing.

Claud is fine, he has been working which is a very good thing! He has also been out bowhunting but not nearly as much or as often as he would like. In fact as I type this he is in the woods, so I will say that as of right now he hasn't gotten anything but that may change in the next hour or two!

As for me, I am busy with school and kids and still trying to fit all of it into my day. I am trying to figure a way to keep the housework up, hang with the kids, spend time with Claud and do my homework. I am hoping it will get easier as I figure out how to budget my time. Oh and I took my new gun out yesterday to practice and shot it for the first time. It was ok, I have never shot without a scope but if you look at the group I shot it would have been a dead deer, so that was calming. Now all I need is for season to start in a month and a deer to come in at 50 yards or so and I am set! LOL

Well I hope you all had a great weekend. I will be trying to get on here tomorrow night and post an update on Dillion!

Pretty in Pink

Last night I got my birthday present from my husband, you see a few months back we were in Jays Sporting Goods and I saw a gun that I really liked, I really liked the stock and forearm I should say, anyway it was only offered in a 22...and I need a shotgun for hunting with. Well he and his Dad were in Dunhams and found a 20 gauge shotgun with this design and so it is now in my possession! I know there are many conflicts on if someone using a pink gun is a real hunter or not so let me clarify...I am sure this gun will kill a deer the same as one with a different stock, I am also sure that I LOVE hunting I simply want to reflect my personality while doing it and I like pink.

This not my gun...but it is the same pattern as my gun...I will post pics of me with my new gun and my new hair (which is red now) later on but for now this will have to do.

So all in all it turned out to be a pretty great birthday with an added suprise that I would have never guessed would really happen!

Oh boy Oh boy...

Happy Birthday to me...happy birthday to me....happy birthday deaaarrrr meeeeeee....happy birthday to me!
I am 27 now for those that care to know! And although it sucks to get older I love my birthdays because I was raised believing that they were my special days and everyone had to be nice to me and now I even have Claud convinced lol!

Oh I almost forgot....the funniest thing!!!

So yesterday Savannah and I went to pick up the boys from school, and there was another little boy there that was about Savannah's age....he looked at her and said "you have pretty eyes..."
Wow, they really start young nowadays don't they? The other mom and I just laughed she said she had never heard him talk like that before! I thought it was pretty cute...and accurate, I think I am going to have my hands full later on!

My Week

I have spent my first offical week as a full time mom and student. This has made me decide my house is not going to fair well for the next 3-4 years! I am willing to admit publicly that the laundry is piled in the back room, and there is a sinkfull + of dishes that haven't gotten done this week. Of course this week I had to take the boys to the Dr. too, each on different days of course, and I don't know about anyone else but when I leave my house during the day, by the time I get back all my ambition is gone! So this weekend, I suppose I will be trying like hell to play catch up with the dishes and laundry. I have plans most of the weekend too which doesn't really help a lot! I am going out with a friend tonight who I haven't spent much time with lately, and on Sunday we are due at my parents for my birthday dinner, plus we have a party at my in laws on Sunday for something else. Truly I can't remember the last weekend we had just to ourselves that didn't have plans to go here or there and do this or that!
Back to me taking the kids to the Dr. this week, the first appt. was for Dillion...he only has a couple things going on that I wanted to talk to the Dr. about. One was the skin tags that the poor kid has, I found out they are called moluscum (sp) and they come and go on their own so no big deal. I did talk to them about something I have been avoiding for a long time, his activity level. I have put it off because of many things; one being I don't want him labeled adhd, and two I don't want people to think I am a lazy parent. But I bit the bullet and talked about it with the Dr. the reason I decided to was that I believe that I have add...not that I want to diagnose myself but I am fairly sure, and I know how difficult it can make things for me. If this is something Dillion is dealing with I don't want him to just fight with it all the way through his school years like I did and eventually give up and drop out...I really just want the best for them! I was told that it would be something to talk with his teacher about and then go from there with it, this is the way that they diagnos this with kids. And maybe it is just a definace problem in which case, that is our problem and we need to work on fixing it. I felt better after talking to them, even though I left there crying because I felt embarrassed to even bring it up.
The next appt. was CJ, I found out that he is on the low end of the scale for his height and weight which I already knew, he is only in the 10th percentile. I did talk to them about his "accident" issue, he is still having them at night every night and sometimes during the day, not to mention he just goes a whole lot in general. So they ran a urine screen and said it looked normal but I will still need to take him in for bloodwork to check for sure, they are checking to be sure it isn't diabetes, and then we will go from there on it. One thing they mentioned trying was a bed alarm, so if it isn't something medical this will be the next step to try to help him.
The Dr. I switched them all to has a wonderful office, the staff is very nice, and they really make you feel at ease talking with them these are all quailties I have been looking for in a Dr. for the kids for a long time and I think I finally found it!
So that is my week in a nutshell and now I am off to finish my coffee and think about cleaning or some other domestic duty I should probably be doing!
Have a great weekend!

School Update

This week has been so different from normal for me, I feel like I am on the go all the time...of course that could be because I am! I have been up at 6 every morning, and I know right now there are people reading this going...."welcome to my world" and that is fine, but 6 a.m. is not in my world dang it! But I feel very proud of myself that I have been up and on time every morning and excited to go and learn something new. Tomorrow is my last day for the week, but also the day when I have more running to do, since I have to go to get my tabs after school.
I am going to be picking up my Comp 1 book soon and reading the things we were assigned, although I do have all weekend to get them read, I am so not a put it off person so far with this school stuff, which I think is going to drive my husband nuts. I think he is starting to miss me. Last night I was working on my work for the class I have tomorrow, and he was like "can you tell her to not assign so much it is taking away my time!" I have no idea what any of my family will do when I have a job!
Anyway, other than one instructor that I am not sure how I really feel about yet, school seems to be going good for me.
I hope you all have a great week!

School is Cool!!!

I went to school today! I am the oldest person in both of the classes I was in today, or at least close to the oldest....but ya know what? Until just now I didn't even notice. The instructor in my Comp 1 class is hilarious and I hope that amongst all that fun, I will learn something and become a better writer than I am now. The only negative thing I have found yet is there are 2 girls that were in my College Sucess class that are fresh out of high school, and very very giggly, they laugh about everything! The problem being they are in my Comp 1 class, when I saw them I went "oh man!" But I suppose I deal with my kids, and truly these girls don't act much older than them:) So I guess I will handle it ok.
I had homework for my Info Systems class, that I already got done....since Savannah is sleeping, and it isn't even due til Monday. The class is a Mon./Wed. class and the teacher has told us that we don't have to attend the Wednesday session as long as we email her and let her know that we are working on our assignments or that they are done. I am not sure though I may just go up there anyway, I am already up that early to take the boys to school and I do have a class at 10 after that one. Who knows?
Well I just wanted to pop in here and say hello, I am sure as the week goes by I will have more to tell you all. Have a great day!

I wish I could.....

Ok now today's blog is more of a bitch session than anything else, I am wanting to let the world know something that has always been a pet peeve of mine! There are some people in this world who love to treat service people like crap, it could be your waitress, the kid working the drive through, the person taking your dry cleaning, the list could go on forever...the point I am coming to is don't. If someone makes a mistake think of a tactful way to say "hey this isn't what I wanted, can you fix it?" 9 times out of 10 it is not an issue for that person to say "sorry I messed up, I will fix it right now." Instead there are those people who say something along the lines of "damn it I told you I wanted it this way!" with a very bad attitude, I can tell you that changes the response you will get from the person helping you. Now I ran across this the other day, and thought of all the people who are treated this way on a daily basis...although my customer not only treated me like a complete moron for messing up (which I fully admit I did...she wanted one thing and I was only half listening to her, my fault) later that evening she came back in for a pizza and made sure to point out my mistake while laughing at me and talking about me as if I wasn't even standing there. The truly frustrating part of customer service is the old saying "the customer is always right" this is not always true and when someone is belittling you and you can't say a word back it really gets you.
And now that I have bitched about this I feel much better about it.

Today is laundry day around my house....such a fun and exciting thing to do, and I was reminded by my eldest son today that they don't have school on Friday...so I need to get most of this house done before then, cause once they are home it will be hectic all day long. Especially since most of the kids around here go to another school, so there won't be anyone to play with.

Late Again...

Well it is the countdown to clean....I am beginning my clean sweep of my house today no matter what! I really hope to get at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the house finished by the end of the day! The kids were late to school this morning, it is so hard working until 11pm and then trying to be up and have them to school on time!
Yesterday I switched them to a different doctor office, see the kids have been seeing different doctors since they were born, CJ had a Dr. here in town who I really didn't like but that was who he was assigned to...Dillion went the same place I went while pregnant, and Savannah was required to be at a ped. office since she was a preemie. So I finally found a Dr. who could take them all, and hopefully this will be much better for me. Although I was on the phone for what seemed like forever trying to get it all switched and now I have to call 3 different doctors and have their records sent over to the new Doc.
I went to Baker yesterday and got my books, that was a long line....I can't believe that for 6-7 books my total was $360...but luckily for me financial aid covered it, and I still have enough left that I will be able to get a backpack (to carry all these heavy books) and some little things like pens, paper etc.
Not too much new to tell you all about. I guess I will try to write when I get another chance!

I am sleeping

Wow, my arms are killing me! We spent the day painting Claud's grandmothers house today, I am the type that only paints for a little while and then quits so helping to paint an entire house was very tiring. But the good part was in total there were 5 of us working on it which made it go a lot faster.
At the moment it is 8:30pm and I just woke up from a small nap, the bad part is later I will wonder why I can't sleep! I am hoping to get some of the house cleaned up before I go to bed, along with getting the kids clothes and whatnot around for tomorrow.
I have been hunting and running all last week, so not much got done around here. I really would like to get the house all clean and sparkly by the end of this week since my classes start next Monday. I am starting to get nervous about school starting now. Knowing that I have to carry a B- or better in all my classes to get into the surgical tech program is not helping me.
Oh and before I forget our 5 days of early hunting yeilded no results for me...so I suppose my sister will have to wait another couple months for her burger. Sorry Sis!
You guys have a wonderful week!

Hunting! Do not read if you are anti hunting...please

Yesterday Claud and I spent a good majority of our day in the woods. We got up at 5:30am and headed out, at around 7:30 I glanced behind us and saw that there were a whole line up of deer headed our way. This is highly unusual since in all the years we have been there they have been coming from in front of us, Claud planted food plots in the field this year and I guess the deer must like them because that is where they were coming from. Anyway, I got into the window and got my gun up, I watched them as they walked in and waited....breathing as much as I could to calm my nerves. I watched as the first doe approached who seemed to be a good size, I waited until she was in my sights and fired....I saw her kick a little as if she had been hit and Claud told me to rerack and hit her again to be sure...so I did and then I watched her limp off towards the south. Claud fired a lot and did hit one doe which dropped right where she was.
After a little while we got up and went to see Claud's deer and look for blood on mine. After we saw where Claud's was laying I started looking around for blood, and found a nice amount...we followed a good blood trail for a long ways, including finding a couple spots where you could see air bubbles in the blood, which means I hit her in a lung, I know she is going down now that I saw that! My excitement was very short lived however, we followed the blood trail until we came to the place it stopped...directly in front of the swamp which is very flooded and impossible to get through. I am a firm believer that if you shoot a deer you should track it as far as humanly possible...and we did, but unfortunalty she somehow managed to elude our efforts. I feel terrible that I was unable to find her not only because I know I killed her and she would be my first deer, but because I hate leaving deer lying...I hate hunters that shoot a deer say "must have missed" and never try to find it. This has always been my pet peeve and now I am stuck knowing I had to leave one behind.
So I suppose you can say I shot my first deer, but to me it wasn't tagged and I didn't bring it home so I can't claim it.
We also went out last night but all we saw was the same huge buck that has walked past us at 150-200yards and waved every year for a lot of years....he is a beautiful deer but he is also very smart and the chances any of us willl ever hit him are slim!
We are going out the next two evenings and Sunday morning. I am hoping for better luck, once I get my deer we are calling it quits until season however, we really don't want to spook the deer this early anymore than we did yesterday.
Well have a great weekend I will write more when I can!

Lots of Things Running Through My Head.....

At this point I have a whole slew of things that are running through my brain, it is terrible! First and foremost is that I am trying my best to plan a suprise party for my dear husband for his 30th birthday (not worried about posting this as he doesn't read my blog) I have the hall all set and I am working on the guest list which is an ongoing process as when you make a list like that you undoubtly forget someone along the way only to remember them later. Lucky for me this won't be taking place until Dec. so I have a long time to remember all those people I will forget. I do however think that he knows I want to have a party for him, even though I have assured him that I don't want to upset him anymore than he already is about turning 30 wink wink!
The second thing at this point is the fact that thanks to the no work situation we went through awhile back, I am still trying to dig us out of that hole...which seems like a neverending process, but I am making progress slowly but surely.
The last thing is that my depression issues are back in full swing I believe, I find myself dying out at about 1pm everyday and my brain is very foggy, not to mention the irritablity. I have fought to control this problem for 7 years now without meds. I was on them for a short time after Savannah was born, but I have tried to maintain this on my own. But with school starting and all the new responsibilties I am going to be taking on I think it is time for me to go to the doctor and let them help. I know I can't keep on living this way.

Tomorrow we will be attending a funeral in the morning. I can't imagine losing my parents and the more people around me that lose theirs the more I think of my own parents. Don't get me wrong my parents are in pretty good health as far as we know, other than my Dad has serious eye problems that require injections every 6 weeks. But I also know that they are not spring chickens, they are 61 and 62. I was born 12 years after my sister which makes me the child of much older parents than most people my age, over the years I have thought about the fact that because my parents are older there is a chance that I will lose them earlier in my life than I would like. But I just live everyday and try my best not to dwell on it, that is until something happens that makes me remember.
Other than this there is not much else to say, I hope you all enjoy your day, mine will be spent cleaning and laundrying.

Better than expected

Last night didn't go as badly as I thought it would, in fact not one person complained about the prices! And according to my Dad nobody complained during the day either. So either they just didn't notice, or they understood...either way I was happy.

Before I went to work however Claud gave me some bad news a friend of ours lost his Dad this week, he was a nice man and a friend of the family. He was always at our functions, while he could still get out, unfortunatly his health has been fading over the last few years and he finally lost the battle. I am asking you all pray for his family during this time of need.



As for me I am going to be spending the day doing all the things that I didn't get done yesterday, like the cleaning and whatnot. I was hopeful all night that my wonderful husband would suprise me while I was at work and clean the house, but alas it is still messy. So I am finishing my coffee and going to do what I should have done yesterday.

Hi

It is going to be a long day I tell ya'. I have so many things that need to get done and so little ambition to do anything. I need to make phone calls, clean house, do laundry and then tonight go to the resturant and fill in for my Dad. The last thing will be good because it will give me a chance to read the book for my class Saturday, without too much interruption...that is a whole other story! I can already see the effects of our local shop laying off so many people as far as the local economy goes. It is amazing how many people work there and eat at my Dad's also, we aren't sinking but we aren't overly busy either. Not to mention that my entire night will be spent listening to the customers complain because my Dad was forced to raise the prices across the board, food costs are up all over the place and our prices were not reflecting this rise, and even though the customers see the increase in their own groceries they refuse to see why we had to raise our prices! It happens every time we have to raise prices, which is not often enough if you ask me.
I want to get so much done today and I feel that I may not get to it, for some reason when I know I have to go to work at night I don't really want to work too hard around the house.
I am getting more excited about hunting on Thursday though! I can't wait to get into the woods and hopefully see a doe! Actually I'd like to see a buck too, just to assure myself they are out there LOL. And for another bonus I have found out that Claud is not going to take a gun or bow out with us, he is leaving the hunting to me Thursday! He is only going for moral support...this is a good thing! I have to say he has tried very hard to be my teacher, and I know he is only going weaponless so that I may have a chance to get my first deer! Which I have to say is awfully sweet.
Well I will try to get some more posted this week, for now I am off to start making phone calls!

100th Post!!!

Wow I can't believe that I have posted 100 entries on here already! It seems like I just started doing this yesterday.
Today was my first real college class...I was there for 5 hours today, and learned a lot about myself, which may be what is leading me to my post for this evening. I reflected a lot about where I have been and where I am going in my life.
The first thing I reflected on is the people that made me who I am today, those few people in my life that I will never ever forget even though they are in my past. Through my middle/high school career I really only had 4 people that I considered my true friends, those that were by my side no matter what. If I had a problem they were always there to talk, to laugh with me, to cheer me up or to serve me a beer or ten until I forgot what was wrong. I was lucky to have them in my life and there are times that I wish I still had them, although for all different reasons I am not close to most of them anymore. I will let them remain nameless for the purposes of this but some of you reading this may know who I am talking about if you know me at all and that is ok. First and foremost there was the neighbor to the west of my parents, he was my biggest confidant, I told him everything that happened in my life. If I was sad he was there in a heartbeat to cheer me up, during the summer months we seemed inseperable, if I got a boyfriend he was friends with them too so we could all hang out. If he was out riding his dirtbike I was watching, if I was out swimming he was with me. There was a short time we tried to be more than friends and it didn't work, and before I ended up with Claud he wanted to try it again, but in my eyes he was nothing more than the brother I never had, which is why we are no longer close...it makes me sad to think all we are now are people who pass each other in cars and wave, and say hi if we bump into each other, but I guess that is how life works.
The second person lived around the corner as with the first one her and I were insperable, but over the years our friendship just kind of slipped away, I can't really say why or when but we just drifted, there are times that I wish I could just talk to her about my life and kids and ups and downs, but I know now and have learned to accept that we will not be like we were ever again. No matter how much that hurts.
The third person lived on the east side of my parents, he was much older but was a terrific friend to me, the story with him goes a lot like the first neighbor boy, but my problems with him were more to do with age than anything. I miss talking with him about life and learning about the world outside of Leslie, he has lived in so many different places. He moved out of state and I haven't even seen him in 6 years or so.
The forth person is the only one I still have in my life, and that is Claud. Although many people didn't see our relationship over the years he has been a rock for me since I was 14. He has always been the one I called at 11 at night because my best friend hurt my feelings, or my boyfriend dumped me, or just because I was having a bad night and needed a shoulder to cry on. The funny thing is we never planned to be a couple again and here we are threee kids and 8 years later.
I guess that I just wanted to take the time to actually write out all these feelings, I have had very few true friends in my life and I want those that meant something to me to know it. I know that after all these years I should be ok with not having these people in my life, and I am to an extent, I am very satisfied with the life I have and the people I have in it my family is my number one priority, but there are there are those days like today where I miss the people that helped make me who I am today.

Early Season Fast Approaching!!!

I am starting to get very excited about the upcoming early antlerless firearm season! For those of you that don't know, not only is my husband a die hard hunter I have been joining him for the last 3 years! Although I have not killed a deer as of yet, but as every hunter/huntress says "I think this is my year!"
I can't really say that I enjoy the hunting as much as I enjoy the quiet and the fact that him and I are together doing something we both enjoy alone. For the longest time I thought that the only reason I went was to escape the kids and spend time with Claud, but last year I was more into it than I have ever been! A few things happened last year that made me realize that I was serious about hunting. The number one would be that Claud took a 7 point during the bow season, as I don't bow hunt I was only there to watch. When I saw him shoot and realized that the deer was definatly hit good I grabbed my husband, hugged him, kissed him and kept repeating "you got him" I remember well the feeling of adrenaline that rushed over me. I can't explain in words how happy I was...the bad part was I think I was more excited than Claud...lol.
The second thing that happened was on the very LAST day of the late doe season, mind you I hadn't even fired my gun that year...we had 3 does come out...on MY side...and Annie Oakley the male version jumps out of his seat and positions himself on the floor of the blind directly in front of me!!! He shoots, he misses...the does stay. He fires again and hits the largest of the three...the other two stay. Now he knows damn well he got her....he also knows the others are still there and his wife may want a shot at one...he stays in his spot watching, in front of me and well for lack of better terms in my flippin' way! Then he turns around, looks at me and says "are you going to shoot?" Well cowboy where do you propose I lay my gun? On your shoulder? Long story short he did hit a nice doe...which I REFUSED to track. And I didn't speak to him for a day or was it two? I don't remember well...all I do know is in 8 years our biggest fight has been that one, and that folks has taught me I truly love hunting!
So tonight, one week from opening day of this early season my husband and I will go to the woods unarmed to watch and see what kind of chance we have next Thursday morning. I am going to be doing a lot of praying for the next week, and lucky for me Claud is using a bow....so hopefully I can steal a shot from him!
Until Next time.....

Dum Dee Dum

So far this week nothing real eventful has happened. I am still waiting patiently to start school, I am sure that I should be enjoying this time...as I know it will be much more stressful once school starts. The boys are beginning to adjust to the new school schedule, although Dillion has had a harder time than Cj with the sleep schedule. He seems to be cranky in the afternoon still but we are working on it.
At the moment we are still trying to find Claud a truck, this has been a long and tiring process for us. But we aren't giving up hope completely yet, and we aren't settling like we have done in the past when car shopping.
I have a class on Saturday that will teach me how to suceed in college, or something like that. I am really not looking forward to it as it is 5 hours long, I have to be there this Saturday and next. But it is required for all incoming freshman, so I will be there with bells on my toes!
There isn't a whole lot else going on, wish me luck!

Headed Home

We made it through the weekend and are now headed home. I think we have about an hour left before we are there, I am so ready to go home. This was our offical end of summer trip, even though school has already started.
Dillion did a lot of fishing this weekend, he managed to catch a few. CJ really didn't do a lot of fishing. We took Savannah out in the boat a couple of times and she really suprised me, she did pretty well considering she is only 3 (almost). I even let go of my nerves long enough to take her out in a canoe, I carefully explained that we can't move around in the canoe or it will flip over and we will get wet. I put her in the front and I rowed and she did awesome, she sat still and just looked around, we didn't go to far from shore but enough for her to get a chance to ride in one. The main reason I did that was the boys and my sister in laws kids, were in the lake learning to run a kayak! If you would have told me 7 years ago that "7years from now CJ will be rowing a kayak all alone in a lake" I would have freaked and said no way! That is dangerous. But he did EXCELLENT and I was so proud! I truly enjoyed watching him learn something new.
Well that is all for now. I will update on our week as soon as something new and exciting happens lol.

Updates

Well the boys have been in school for 2 days now and seem to like it just fine. Cj really likes his teacher this year, and Dillion has known his teacher since Cj had her and always liked her. The only negative thing is the getting back into the swing of things with the boys. They are not used to getting up so early in the morning so by the time they get home from school they are quite the cranky little guys. I know this will take awhile to get the hang of.
This weekend we are going to go camping again, we are leaving on Friday and will be back Sunday. This time it is a trip with Claud's parents and sister's family. I am hoping to have a good time, and hoping it doesn't rain the entire time we are gone. The only thing that I don't like is that Savannah is really to young to get out in a boat, and most of the trip is spent fishing. I think it will be ok though, her and I can find other things to keep us occupied if need be.
I just booked a party for Oct. 18th it is going to be lots of fun. It is an adult party and hopefully the turnout will be good for it. I am thinking of hosting it at my sisters house however so there is more room for people.
Well I hope you all enjoy your weekend, I doubt I will be on here again before our trip.

It's Quiet....Too Quiet

As I sit here it is 8:30 in the morning, and the boys are at school where they will remain until 3pm. Savannah is still sleeping soundly in her bed and I am thinking of how very quiet it is here. I have waited and waited for this day (well kind of...I've waited for all of them to be gone) and now that it is here I am a little sad, which suprised the living crap out of me this morning! I really thought I would just drop Dillion off in his class and dance away from the school....didn't happen that way. I did drop him off and pulled myself out of there, my theroy is the longer I stay the harder it will be for him. Then I wandered down to CJ's class and settled him in. As I walked back down the hallway to head home, I found myself peeking into Dillion's classroom one more time just to be sure of what I don't know...to see if he was crying? To see if he was still there? To see if he missed me yet? I am not sure what I hoped to see, but I know that he seemed content, and off I went.

Here are some pictures for you all to enjoy.

School Shopping DONE!!!!

I finally finished my school shopping, not only did I get the boys stuff all set but I managed to get a few new things for me too (for school that is)
The only bad part was I went with my Mom and left the kids at home with the husband...in a clean house. Well long story short the kids and hubby are still here but the house is no longer clean! I am at the moment sitting on my butt watching Claud pick things up, and I will continue to do so until he is finished. As it wasn't me here this afternoon! I truly wish I was Supermom and could do it all, but I am tired of that role and plan to change the way things go around here, as soon as I watch enough Supernanny to tell me how to get the family to help me out!
Well I am finished complaining for now, I hope you all enjoy the rest of your long holiday weekend!

TMI : ok you have been warned

I am so sick and tired of the week before my period!!! I am a total basketcase for the week before and the week of that it is insane! I go from tired to wide awake, from crying to yelling and every emotion in between. Not to mention the physical pain that I am in, my back, my stomach(right on the line where my c-section scar is) and of course my breasts...I hate this time of month!!!!
I know that my weekend is not going to be getting any better as I have to do the school shopping that has been put off the last 2 weeks, I am not looking forward to dropping over $200 more dollars down! I just went on Weds. and ordered shirts for the kids....$110.00 and I got to leave.
I know that kids are expensive, I know I spend a lot on them that is spread out and I don't realize it then, only when I have to spend it all at once does it bother me this way.
Anyway, I hope you all have a good weekend I am going to curl up and be lazy the rest of the day!

Surgery Date Has Been Set...

They called me today from the dentist office about Dillion's surgery. It is scheduled for October 3rd. On Spet. 26th I have to be available to take the call from IRMC for the pre-op interview. As of right now I know that the surgery is scheduled for 12:30pm but I don't know what time we have to be at the hospital, that I won't know until the 26th.
I am slightly less nervous than I was before, I have decided that this is the best option for him and it will be a great thing once it is done and over with. My neighbor will be watching the other kids for me that day, so that is one less thing for me to worry about.
Please just keep Dillion in your prayers that day, it will help more than you may realize.

I Did It!!!

Last night I had to retake the math portion of the compass test, I went in there with the attitude that if I passed...good....if not the only thing that would happen is I would have to take basic math. Well I passed and was bumped up to pre-algebra!!! I guess the last 6 weeks of refreshing really did pay off for me. The only negative thing about passing was that they had a limited number of classes left that would work around my schedule, so I ended up stuck with a Thursday night class (6-10pm) I had really tried to avoid taking classes that ran until after dark because my eyesight is not so good at night and I hate driving in the dark. Although it is all highway from here to there, so I suppose I will do ok that one day a week...and the other positive is it will cut my babysitting costs a little.
Today will be a major cleaning day for me, last week and the last two days have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to do much around here, but finally my week is coming to a slow down.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about how it will feel to only have one kid home with me during the day once my boys are both in school? I have a feeling it will feel funny to me, but who knows. The one thing I do know is that I will be able to get more errands run and things done duing the day than I can currently.
Well I have nothing else exciting to write about....I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!

Wedding Time!!!!

This weekend we were very busy! My nephew got married on Saturday...it was a beautiful wedding and I was very thankful to see that it all went over so smoothly, which was all that Kyle and Rachel had hoped for. I have watched these two "kids" since they started dating in high school. I have watched Rachel go from a shy and quiet outsider in our family, to a really big part of it. I have of course seen Kyle go through all of lifes stages even the 16-18 year old stage where it took all my energy to even be around him for 5 minutes and even more not to kill him. I have been witness to this relationship growing over the years, I have seen the good times and some of the bad. I got to see Rachel stressing on Wednesday over the last details of their special day, and I tried my best to help calm her, and let her know that no matter how things went over the day would be beautiful because her and Kyle were going to be married by the end of it and after all that is the whole point right? But even I have to admit what I saw Saturday was the most precious thing I have ever seen in my life. I saw how much love those two truly have for each other, it was expressed so obviously through the night.

It was emotional for me, as in most ways Kyle is more like a baby brother to me than a nephew because there is only a 5 year age difference. Although I wanted him to get married, it is still hard to let go of him being a child.

Well now that I have rambled on I will let you all enjoy some of the pictures from Saturday!

Medical Problems...please pray

This morning we took Dillion in for his dentist appointment with the specialists in Lansing, wow that is one nice office with a great staff! But here is the part that I knew in my heart would have to happen but I prayed that it could be taken care of differently. See Dillion has bottle rot more or less on his front teeth, and some things in this back teeth that were caused from the decay on his front teeth. Well there is needless to say a LOT of work that must be done in his little mouth. I was given 2 options: The first was doing the work in the office under a sedative(such as giving an adult a valum) but having to go there 3-4 times to get all the work completed...in the mean time scaring him from the dentist which at this point he is a tough boy when he goes to.
My second option is him going to the hospital, and being put under gene ral anestiea (sp?) in an operating room and all the work being done and over with in a day's time. I chose option 2...although I REALLY didn't want to, the thought of having my baby put under scares the living hell out of me! But I would rather he got it done and over with so he does not get any more decay and is not scared of the dentist for all of eternity.
This is going to be sometime within the next 6 weeks, and when we go it will be an all day thing...the Dr. told me to plan it for all day as it can take with all the pre op etc....like 6 hours to be done. I plan to find a sitter for CJ and Savannah and then make Claud go with me so I don't have to sit with only my nerves the whole time.

On top of this, I had to make an appt. for Claud to go to the Dr. on Monday as he finally showed me something on him (that has been there a year) that I am concerned about. At this point I will not say where or what it is, hopefully I am overreacting and it is nothing, but I want to be safe rather than sorry. I will let you all know more about it when I do.

Oh and I have yet another kidney infection, I get them once in awhile and I have to say I am sick of them. For the most part it only hurts in my back but the pain sometimes is worse than others, so I am laying around today...and trying to feel better.
I hope you all have a good weekend!

Random Ramblings

Here it is Tuesday and I already have a long list of to do's for the week. Last night I worked at the resturant until 11. Today I have to clean the house...again. Then go get my niece so she can babysit in between my going to class and Claud getting home from work. I have class from 4-7 then I have to go and try to find a pair of flip flops for Savannah to wear this Saturday in my nephews wedding.
Weds. I have a funeral to go to for a friend of the family, the nicest man I think I knew...no matter what others may think of him I think he was a wonderful man who wore his heart on his sleeve. He was one of those few people in this world that really had nothing to give but who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Also on Weds. we have to go to Jackson and pick up Claud's tux for the wedding...hopefully it fits!
On Thursday we have to take Dillion for a dentist appt. that I am not looking forward to, he has some teeth in pretty bad shape and I assume they will remove them, but they will have too sedate him to do it..and that is the part that scares me to death! Plus I again have class on Thursday.
On Friday, we have rehearsal and rehearsal dinner to attend....which will take us well into the night.
Then on Saturday is my lil' nephews wedding day...it seems impossible to me that he is getting married...but all I can do is wish them both all the happiness in the world.
So as you see I have a long week ahead of me, and at the moment it is 10am and I have a house waiting for me to clean it...so I better go and do that now. I hope you all have a good week!

WE ARE BACK!!!!!

Hey did ya miss me??? We are back from vacation! We got back on Friday around 2 or so I guess. We were greeted with some bad news that we did not get selected for the Habitat house, but oddly enough I am not as sad about it as I thought I would be, I suppose because the entire time I kept an open mind and didn't get my hopes up too much about it.



Anyway, off of that subject and on to telling you all about our trip!



It was a lot of fun although I have to admit I don't think my parents had much fun if any. I knew that them going too was a bad idea from the start. Don't get me wrong I love my parents and enjoy being around them they just don't feel the same way about us, well they do but 3 kids is a lot to handle when you aren't around them very often. It was ok though they did better than I expected and I didn't have to cook:)



Well on Monday we took the boys fishing at Fletchers Floodwaters, Dillion had the most fun, and caught the most fish..lil' booger! We spent the majority of the day there fishing with them and it was a good time, I so enjoyed just watching them.



Tuesday we went to Mackinaw City/Island. This was a fun trip but a little too much for Dillion and Savannah, they are just too young to really care about it. Cj was interested in the fort and the lighthouses. I will say that they all enjoyed the ferry ride, which is my least favorite part, but the water was not choppy so that made the ride a little easier on me. It made for a real long day though, we took my parents with us and they were not prepared to haul 3 small kids around the island. Especially up the hill to the fort...which is a hike for long legs let alone short ones:)



On Wednesday we went to Gaylord and visited tourist trap #3,458 The Call of the Wild. I am just kidding about the tourtist trap part, kind of lol. Both of my boys had already been there, but it was 3 years ago so they didn't remember it. They both really liked looking at all the animals, and even Savannah liked it. Which suprised me, I figured some of the exhibits would make her cry but she is a tough girl! While in Gaylord we went to Jays sporting goods....because in this family you cannot go north without stopping at Jay's...Savannah got a fishing pole (which she pronounces pissing pole) On the way out of Gaylord Claud took a turn to try and avoid the city traffic in downtown, and we came across an elk pen....that was way cool! We had to go around the block to get a better look but it was SOOOO worth it! None of us had ever seen a live elk before, it was great! We took pictures and fed them a bit...then the biggest bull in there came to the fence where of course my husband and I discussed where we would place the bullet given the chance...to which Mr. Big Boy (as Dillion named him) decided to blow his nose all over us...in all reality we deserved it LOL!

On Thursday which was supposed to be the day we left we decided to stay one more night, but my parents left as planned. This made me more relaxed, and we just sat around and enjoyed our day with the kiddos!

On Friday morning we packed up and headed home. And now here we are, I arrived to a clean house thanks to my neice who watched our dogs and now after two days of being home this family has trashed it...so my plan for today is to clean it all up! Sigh....back to the daily grind!

**I will post pics on Myspace because I cannot get them to load here for whatever reason...so you can look there! Just look under Family Vacation 2008...and if you aren't one of my friends just add me!
http://www.myspace.com/mom2_3_iswhatibe

Crunch Time!

Today is really the final day for me to get all of the things done that I need to get done to leave on Sunday, yet here I am blogging! What a procrastinator lol.
We ran into a BIG problem yesterday! We don't have a hitch on my van yet to pull the trailer, so we went on Sunday to Autozone and ordered a REESE hitch, when Claud picked it up yesterday he noticed the box said PUTNAM a lot cheaper and not what we paid for or ordered....so he told them and they said sometimes the boxes get mixed up. So he took it, I brought my van down to the in laws and he tried to put it on...it didn't fit. So we call Autozone and explain it, ask them if they can get the right one by Saturday a.m. Well they jerked us around for a long time and finally we just started calling other places, we found a place that had one in stock but not the 2" that Claud wanted, but they could have it in by today at noon! So we got our money back from Autozone and went and paid $40 more for this one, although at least it is a REESE and it will be here...most other places said it would be 3-7 days to get one in. Yesterday was not a good day...if I had waited until the last minute I can see this being my fault but I didn't.
So I am planning to clean the whole house, which if you remember I did a day or two ago and my family has trashed again, also I need to get things packed and clean out the van! At some point our hitch will be here and Claud will need to put it on, I had planned on him doing that tonight, but it may be in the morning depending on how things go today here. So far it is not looking good, Savannah is in one of her moods today...she is whining about EVERYTHING!! When she gets like this I can't get anything done besides get a headache.
Well I am off here for now, got to get to cleaning or it isn't going to get done, the maid did not show up this morning....I think I am going to fire her LOL
Have a great day!

This IS Funny

This has been a busy busy week for me! I am at the moment catching a break from my morning work, which involved cleaning the house or at least part of it, and beginning to get the kids clothes around for our trip. My goal is to have everything packed and ready by Friday night so I can help my Mom get the rest around on Saturday. I still need to clean my van out, which ought to be a thrill! I don't understand how so much crap can build up in that thing!
I have however decided that a family of five needs a lot of things to leave for a week in the woods. Did I mention that there is no electricity where we are going? This is the way I have always loved to camp mostly because there are less people there, although now I am a little nervous about it because it really does require more stuff believe it or not. When Cj got up this morning he asked me if they had cable at the campground because he has a show he NEEDS (lol) to watch on Sunday night. When I informed him there wasn't even electricity for a TV you would have thought I told him the sky was not blue! The look on his face was priceless. I do hope though he will still have a good time without his video games and TV. In fact I am looking forward to showing him that there is a whole big world outside of the normal things he does.
I am getting excited about going, although I am NOT excited about the 5 hour drive to get there and get back. That part is going to suck! I know that we have taken 2 hour trips and it about killed the kids to drive that far so this ought to be interesting. And since we are leaving at 10 am the chances that anyone will sleep are slim, but I remain hopeful. We do have "fun boxes" packed with toys, coloring books, notebooks etc. to keep them occupied. And since my Mom is driving separate, one of the boys will ride with her, this will keep the "he's touching me!!!" to a minimum.
Well I have to get back to cleaning now, so I better go...I will update asap!

De da da

Well I have managed to get some laundry done, of course there is a lot more that needs to be done. There is not a whole lot new going on with our family...I wish there was a lot more to blog about but sadly there isn't.
Oh I know one thing that I have yet to mention and that is we are in the process of potty training Savannah. I am kind of sad that I am finally potty training my last baby. I will not have anymore kids....ever. It is a sad realization for me, I really don't want anymore kids I am happy with having three, but I guess when the option is taken away from you it makes it different somehow. I still believe we made the right choice by have my tubes tied...I guess it is just in the last 7 years, I have had a baby every two years or so, which means I should have one right now...makes me a little sad.
Ok enough rattling on and on. I am just trying to keep my mind off of the habitat decision to be honest with you. I knew this was going to be the longest month ever...I have looked at it from both sides of the fence, in a open mind kind of way for the last week. I know that if we are not picked I will be disappointed because we want this so much, but I will also be happy that someone (whoever it is) will have a home. Honestly that is the hardest part is not knowing who the other family is. I kind of wish I knew because it would make it a little easier to know what their situation is and kind of guess as to what our chances are. Does that make me a bad person? I hope not. I do know that they are planning to build in Mason sometime in the near future so whoever doesn't get picked for this house will be automatically included in the selection for the one in Mason. Although I have to be honest with myself, I don't want to leave Leslie...I have grown up here and would really like to stay here if at all possible. Ok I am back to rambling so I will stop now and go back to my laundry and the kiddos!
Have a good day ya'll!

This is going to be a busy week....

I have so much to do to get ready for our camping trip, packing a family of 5 for a 5 day trip is a lot more work than I would like to think about at the moment. Pair that with normal housework and classes and filling in at the resturant tonight and it is making for a busy week.
There is laundry to do, so I can pack clothes and of course floors to sweep and mop, dishes to do and rooms to pick up. My neice will be staying here while we are gone so that she can watch the dogs, I couldn't see paying a small fortune to board them for 5 days. And of course I want to have the house nice and clean before we leave so that I may come home to it the same way.
Also at some point this week I need to go do some of the blankets and things that go in the camper for my Mom since she is out of town, and clean the camper out too. I don't want her to have to do a whole bunch when she gets home from working at the end of the week.
I need to go this weekend and pick up my bridesmaid dress for my nephews wedding which is in 2 weeks, in case it needs any alterations to it. There is so much to do and so little time to do it, now if I could just get the motivation to do it all.

On another note I want to thank you all for your kind words and thoughts while we are waiting to hear back from Habitat on their decision. I am still very nervous but trying to maintain a positive point of view from both sides. We will know soon enough, and I know what is meant to be will be.

I hope you all have a nice week, I will try to update later in the week...if I have time!

7 Days and A Wake Up

Next Sunday we are leaving for our once a year family vacation. This year it is yet again camping, this time however my parents will be joining us. We are leaving for 5 days...this is the longest vacation that we have ever taken as a family. I am a little nervous but I am sure that we will have a great time.
So far we have plans to take the boys fishing for one day with just Claud and I and one other day we are going to take a day trip with everyone to the bridge. It should be lots of fun for us although I am not sure that my parents really know what they are getting into....3 kids is a lot of work and they do yell and play since they are kids. But I am sure it will be ok.
Anyway, my week is going to be spent packing and cleaning and laundrying to get ready, not to mention I still need a hitch on my van which I was hoping to do this weekend but due to a job we did that we have not been paid for as we expected the hitch has to wait.
Well hope you all have a nice weekend!

Another Low Sleep Night Coming...

As I sit here typing away it is 2 in the morning, my family is all sound asleep...and I am wide awake with all these emotions and thoughts flooding through me. I am nervous to find out our results on this house. It is a very stressful thing, I am ok with the idea of not getting the house...I am actually more nervous to be selected. Don't get me wrong I would be THRILLED beyond any explanation, but the thought of packing and moving is scaring me along with the thought of having to try to sell the place here in the trailer park. We have had to sell a place here before it took 7 months at $300 a month in rent, we sold it for 2500....a profit of zero....since we paid 2100 in rent and we had paid 3000 in the beginning for it.
I am not even looking at making a profit on this place in fact I know I will not get what I paid for it back out of it. Not if I want to sell it in a timely fashion.
Anyway, that is just one of the many things I have thought of lately....probably worrying for nothing that is me though always in the what if's in life.
Well, I really need to get in bed now the sleeping pills I finally broke down and took are kicking in and I keep having to retype things....talk to you all soon.

Hmmm....wondering out loud

So today was our home interview with the folks from Habitat for Humanity, it was a nice chat. I learned a little more that I didn't know about them and got to meet two very nice ladies.
After they left I got to thinking about the different things people have said to me about us applying for this house. I wish that they all knew what was involved with becoming a partner family (which we are not as of yet)
So I thought I would write it all out for people to see.
Step One: You happen to get lucky enough to see that Habitat is accepting applications for homeownership.
Step Two: You contact your local Habitat affiliate and get an application.
Step Three: You fill out a lengthy application.
Step Four: You wait nervously. (lol)
Step Five: You send more information to Habitat
Step Six: You wait nervously again (lol)
Step Seven: If you have made it this far you are very thankful...you are scheduled for a home interview.
Step Eight: A home interview is conducted by commitee members to assess your need for a house.
Step Nine: You wait again....(this is the step we are on)
Step Ten: Either your family is selected or they are not....let's say they are...
Path to homeownership:
You complete 300hours (per adult family member) of sweat equity not only on your home but on others homes also so that they may experience home ownership.
You are also required to take classes on finances and home ownership.
Then you must give a down payment of X number of dollars
You then take on a mortgage with a no interest loan, and repay it.

My problem is this I think a LOT of people think that Habitat gives these homes away...they do not, this is a myth. The homes are for low income families to give them a hand UP not a hand OUT.
I am praying that we will be selected of course, but I also will be just as happy to know that even if it isn't us that gets that house, someone who really needed it for their family will.

I am sorry to just rattle on and on, but I wanted to share a little of our personal life with you all. I normally wouldn't tell anyone about this sort of thing, but I am not ashamed to say we are trying to better our lives for our kids!
*stepping off my podieum to go to bed now g'night*

Not a Good Day

Have I mentioned before how much I hate my kids getting sick? It puts me in such a bad spot I can only do so much to help them and I feel, well helpless! A few ddaays ago Savannah had a fever for about a half a day. We gave her tylenol and by the next morning she was fine. Today I was woke up by Dillion who said "my tummy doesn't feel so good" in my sleepy haze I felt his head and it was indeed warm so I told him to lay down with me. He did and fell asleep for about another hour or so...now Dillion is my very up and adem boy, so him going back to sleep was a sure sign he is not well. The rest of today he has been laying around with a cool washcloth and of course I gave him tylenol for the fever, well about an hour ago he threw up all over him and the couch (luckily I didn't join him but it was close)
So I gave him a bath and put him in some jammies and he has been asleep in my bed since he got out of the tub. Poor kid, I have to leave him to go to work in a half an hour so he will be left with Daddy, I hope that Claud will wait on him tonight as I have been today.

Our Weekend!

I am just now home from "work" if that is what you call the one night a week that I fill in at my Dad's resturant. Anyway, it is 11:30pm, I hate Mondays because I am not tired when I get home and know it will be midnight or later before I hit the shower and get ready for bed. What a perfect time to blog!

Our weekend was long to say the least. Friday night we went and got CJ's birthday present, and Claud fitted for his tux. We finally got back home at 9 or so that night, then we had to be up at 8 to get ready to head north to a friends cabin (about an hour or two away) which is a short ride with just us but with the 3 kids and the boys arguing it made for a LONG trip. We did what needed to be done there, then went to my sister's cabin which is another hour or so north...by the time we got there I was wore out and so was Claud, so after some prodding we decided to stay the night (note to self: too damn old to sleep on air mattress lol)
*Finishing this up Tues. morning*
Then we got up on Sunday morning and headed home, we had a party for Cj planned for 3pm...his party went well. He got an Xbox from us (used the original of course) and a couple games, my mom got him a few games for it, and he got some cool new clothes from my mother in law. After a long afternoon of swimming, we finally got to go home to stay!

I start classes today (Tuesday) at Baker for math...hoping to test out of the low level math they have me in...and if I don't at least I will have taken something to help me with my math skills as it has been so long since I was in school and most of what I learned there has since flown from my brain.

Well Miss Savannah has just woken up and I have a bathroom to scrub and laundry to do so I better get going. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!

Just Rattling family update stuff!

This has been a rather unexciting week around here, just the way I like it! I have been keeping up on the housework which makes it very easy to get things done during the day. I can pick up and throw in some laundry and then I have the rest of the day to myself with the kids! This has been a blessing for me, since it is insanely hot this week!
This weekend is pretty full of plans for us, on Saturday we are going to a family friends cottage to check out some work that he wants done next summer! At first it was supposed to be my father in law and hubby going but that was before I invited myself and the kids to go along:)
Also on Saturday is Mister CJ's 7th birthday, and trust me I have been reminded daily how many days until his birthday all week long ;) We are planning a pool party on Sunday at my parents as normal, that is the great thing about these summer birthdays...they are able to have pool parties!
I think Friday night we are going to get his birthday present, and get Claud fitted for a tux. He is in my nephews wedding in a month...along with me and Savannah!
This summer the kids have been running all over our street and making new friends left and right! We have had very few problems with them doing this, and the times they took off a little too far they have been stuck for a day in our yard, this has seemed to get the point across fairly well! Dillion spends 3/4 of the day outside, Cj spends 3/4 of the day inside...he says he is a bump on a log. As for me and Van, we go outside together most of the time visiting with the neighbor. I have decided that when our family leaves this park, we will all be very bored people!
I am not sure if I mentioned it on here or not yet, but our family did apply to Habitat for Humanity this year, they are still working on their selection process which includes a home visit that should be occuring next week, I am not sure but I think that is one of the final steps in their selection process and we have made it that far...we may not get this home but we will be in the files and won't have to reapply in future years with them to be considered. I am sure there are people that have been on the list longer than us, so I am not counting on us being selected. I am however thrilled to have learned so much about the organization while dealing with them, it gives you a whole new appreciation for what they are all about.
Well I think that is about all I have to talk about so I suppose I better get somethings done around here for now!
Have a GREAT weekend!

I Am a College Student

Now it is official, I am a registered student in college! I will be going to school,Monday through Wednesday as of this point, with 3 classes. I am debating adding one more to that and changing things up a bit which would put me going Saturdays also...I don't have to take it to be full time, but it is a class in my major. My advisor told me if I follow the step plan they have it will take me three years to get through, and of course I have to do all the pre-req's before I can apply to the surg. tech. program. I would like to take that class only because I am not 100% sure that this is what I want to do (surg tech) and I hope by taking a class dealing with that I will know a little better.
Tonight is another date night for Claud and I! We are going to the races, we go once a year these days...it isn't like it used to be for us. There are less people that we know that race, but we do enjoy going on this night. It should be nice, we like this alone time...it is good for our souls! ;)
Well I have to get on with the laundry and pick up a little, then make a list for my niece for cleaning etc....she wants to make extra to clean and babysit so she can go to a concert next weekend! I am all for that!
Have a great weekend!

The Weather

I hate it when the weather is like it has been the last two days, I am extra tired...yet for some strange reason in one of my "super mom" kicks. That is what I call it when I am running around and cleaning up after the kids all day long, doing a small stack of dishes, and cooking big meals for the family (which is normally whatever is easy to make)
I am at the moment waiting for chicken to cook that I just put on the grill....it will be awhile yet, an hour or so.
Dillion has spent the last 20 minutes distributing popsicles to every kid in the neighborhood, which I don't mind too much since the other moms give my kids stuff a lot too! Oh and the neighbr guy down the road who always has candy to give the kids even though his kids are all grown up and gone now.
Cj has been playing on the computer and Savannah is well being a 2 year old, she is wanting to drive me crazy I think...but I am ok with it.
As for me I am off to search ebay for a game system for around here as that is what CJ really wants for his birthday which is coming up VERY soon. And mom can't afford new at the moment.

LONG WEEKEND

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! Ours was fairly full of fun. On Friday night we went to my parents and had dinner, hung out and did fireworks in the backyard. Most of the family was there, and we ended being able to sit back and enjoy a few (too many) adult beverages which hardly happens, which allowed us to relax and be super silly, we were all responsible however and got sober rides home!
Saturday, I woke up to a ringing phone as I had to return one family member to their car at my parents. When I go there my mom and I decided to head into town to get the chairs to finish off my new patio set. (The best part of my weekend) I got a nice little setup for under $150. That would be the 2nd great deal in a few weeks for me, the other being my $250 digital camera that was clearanced to $80!!!!
Anyway, after I got back we hung here for awhile, then headed to the in laws for a bonfire and weenie roast. Claud, Me, My father in law, and sister in law played a few games of horseshoes...decided we aren't real good at it, but we tried! It was fun anyway to laugh at each other. We didn't stay there too late, I think we were home by 10.
Then on Sunday, I locked us into the house until all the housework was done that I needed done, that was all done by 1pm or so, I laid Savannah down for her nap and then was able to half catch one for myself. Sunday afternoon we were back at my parents for awhile, ate lunch and the kids swam. I ended up taking Claud back home so he could take off and mow some paths in the woods where we hunt, he had asked all day and I figured he had been nice to help me with the housework so I let him loose from family fun day lol!
So that was our fun weekend, and now it is Monday and back to reality. I have lots of laundry to do and I also get to work tonight at the resturant, so I better get my butt in gear.
Have a nice week!
*On a side note, Thursday is my Baker orientation!!!*

Family Pictures

Today we went to my Mom and Dad's and had my sister take our pics, this is something I have been wanting to do for so long now and we just haven't gotten around to it. I also didn't want to have the pics like the one on here that are all dressed up I wanted a pic of our family the way we really look daily! Ok so I brushed Van's hair and washed Dill's face but for the most part this is us enjoy!

And For Becky....sorry it took so long to post, I just got a good camera

CJ's missing tooth!

Date Night

So Claud and I had our date night tonight, I was hoping to go and get a nice steak dinner...that didn't happen. We ended up at Pizza Hut, ok it isn't that I don't like Pizza Hut it is just that for obvious reasons pizza in general is not one of my top picks. But it is what Claud likes so I went with it to be a "good wife" and follow that one thing I preach about marriage being give 80% and expect 20% yada yada yada.
Although our night wasn't anything fabulous we were together without the kids or the dogs or the everday chores. So it was worth it to me. We have decided that we are going to do this from now on no matter what because we have been having tiny little issues forgetting that we are more than Mom and Dad lately.
The kids are all asleep and it is 11:45 so I suppose it is probably bedtime around here for now.
I hope you all have a good weekend!

Having Second Thoughts

I am having a hard time lately deciding what to do. I am not sure that this surg. tech thing is for me really, I am not sure I can handle the stress and 12 hour work days or watching people getting chopped open daily. The sight of a deer being field dressed does not bother me but I am not sure that I can handle the same with real people. Also I am afraid that I will not get to see my family.
There is a limited amount of choices in the medical field at Baker that interest me, one is opticianry, but not sure if that is what I want either. My Dad's advice was to leave myself open...in other words don't change my major just yet as some of the classes will be the same for either one. And of course my first year is my basic classes anyway. That way I can get a chance to talk to other students etc, about each course.
Anyway, I knew this would happen...that I would change my mind and be unsure of what I want to do. Claud told me last night to just keep in mind money is nice but if I hate my job and dread going to work it isn't worth it. I suppose he is right.
Oh and as for the kids, is it August yet?? Just kidding, they have been pretty well behaved for the most part this summer. They are old enough now that they play with the neighbor kids and ride bikes so most of the time they are outside, I see them just enough to check on what they are doing and where they are at.
Oh and a bit of excitement on my end for today! Claud and I are going on a date tonight, he thinks we should have some dinner, rent a motel room and sleep...LOL. But really we are going to go to dinner and then maybe get some groceries and call it a night. His neice is babysitting and since she is just starting out I don't want her to have to stay too long alone with the kids. Nonetheless it is a night out alone and we need it.

The Last Eight Years

*This is a story I have been working on for a few weeks now, any comments are appreciated*




For about the last eight years I have been in a relationship with the most wonderful man that anyone could ever hope to be with. So many things have happened for us, and so many more will come.
We began dating in October of 2000, after he had gone away on a bow hunting trip and apparently decided that after years of friendship that the two of us were meant to be together. The first few weeks were spent getting to know the people we had become over the years in comparison to the people we had been before. Within two months time we were in love deeper than I had felt in a long time. Also around that time I began to feel different somehow, mostly physically…things were sore that had never been and let’s face it they were getting bigger too! So one night Claud and I went out to buy a pregnancy test from Meijer…well I chickened out and said “no I can’t be pregnant” and I took him home. Well somehow after I dropped him off I decided that I should buy that test after all, so off to the local grocery I went to get one…well I bought two just in case. I headed back home, to my parents, and off to the bathroom I went with my little bag from the grocery store. I took the first test and within seconds it was positive, after checking the instructions again to be sure I read them right I took the second test, hoping for different results. That one too was positive, I remember how scared I was that night. The first thing that I did was started crying, my mom asked me what was wrong and I remember not even thinking before I told her to come into the bathroom and see. She thought for some reason that I was crying because I had broken up with Claud….not sure why she thought that but I told her “no I am crying because I live here with you guys, I am 19, and I have only been dating Claud for 2 months and I have no idea how far along I am!” After talking with my mom I went for the phone and called Claud, I got his voicemail and left him a message, half sobbing and asking him to meet me at my parents ASAP! The next phone call I made was to my best friend, and told her to please come over, then to my sister who called me a dumb ass.
The steps from there are long and kind of boring, I found a doctor and found out how far along I was, I knew then that Claud and I together had created a life and I felt much better knowing that I was not going to lose this wonderful man. Although he tells me now and then that even if I had been 6 months along he would not have left me. He was in love with me no matter what the circumstances.
I think that has always been the hardest part of this relationship for everyone around us, is not knowing that we did not marry because we had Cj, but because we were and still are very much in love. Claud did not “do the right thing” and marry me, I can assure you that if that were the case I would not have married him…the same way that if I hadn’t been in love with him I wouldn’t have made the walk down the aisle.
In January of 2000, I moved into Claud’s parents house, this would not have been my first housing choice, but living with my parents any longer was not an option. Not because they kicked me out but because I didn’t feel that it was a safe place to be while pregnant. A few months later Claud and I started getting serious about finding a place of our own before the baby was born. We looked at houses but quickly found out that we couldn’t afford the down payment on a house or anything else on it for that matter. So we ended up finding a place in the trailer park that was cheap and just the right size for our little family.
In June of 2001, we moved into our new place all alone in the great big world., the world inside our trailer was not very big…two small bedrooms, a kitchen and living room and one bathroom which held the washer and dryer in it’s cramped space. Still it was home for us and all we wanted or needed at the time, a place to call out own. The first year was a trying one, I had to learn that there really weren’t magical fairies that came in and cleaned and did your laundry for you. The house was a total wreck all the time and laundry was piled so high that it would take a bulldozer to move it all! I am very embarrassed to admit I was not a good housekeeper at all and didn’t really know how to cook anything that didn’t go from freezer to oven. There were many fights and arguments over my lack of domestic abilities. There was a flying box of mac n cheese which is one of my favorite stories to tell, although for the purposes of this story I will skip it.
In July, we anxiously awaited the birth of Claud John Leach 11, he was due July 31st but as most parents we hoped he would show up a little early for us to meet him. On July 19th I woke up to what I thought were strong contractions, Claud and I had already been to the hospital more times than the staff that worked there over the last few weeks, so there was no way that I was going to ask him to take me in again. I waited until he left for work then I called my sister to take me in for what I thought would be another trip there and home. When we arrived at the labor and delivery unit they took me into a room and asked me change into a gown and give a urine sample. I went into the bathroom and could hear my sister talking with the nurse in the room, she said to her “they have been in and out of here a ton of times in the last week, can’t you just induce labor?” I didn’t hear the nurses answer to her question, I came out of the bathroom and waited for the doctor to come into the room. When he came in he said something that I found hard to believe, “I am going to break your water, congratulations you are going to have a baby today.”
As soon as the Doctor left the room I called Claud, once again sobbing I told him “they broke my water…” now keep in mind that he didn’t’ know I was even at the hospital as I spoke to him, so the first thing he said was “I will fix it when I get home” I explained as calmly as possible that it wasn’t the water that was broke but my water and that he needed to come to the hospital and meet me. My sister and I went for a walk and ended up outside, we happened to get out there the same time that Claud and his dad were arriving. There I was standing outside in my hospital gown, water broke and scared as all hell. Claud Sr. called Joyce and she came up. At some point I or my sister called my mom and she also was there, so here I am in this room with my sister, fiance, mom, and soon to be mother and father in law, I am in pain at this point and really wanted to be with only my sister…as bad as that sounds she is the one that comforts me the most. I had planned to have my sister, mom and Claud in the room with me from the start, but now here I sat with Claud and Joyce in there and trying to think through the pain how to politely tell them to leave. At about that exact moment my soon to be father in law said “does it hurt yet?” So he gave me the reason to tell my sister to take them out and please don’t bring them back. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, I was just not yet comfortable with them enough to let either of them share in such an intimate occasion. I asked the nurse to be put in the whirlpool tub to help ease the pain of the contractions as I heard this helps. She cleaned the tub out and before she put me in she checked to see how far I was dilated, it was to 5 so she went ahead and let me in the tub. It felt wonderful, I had one contraction and felt ok, then another that was a lot less painful, then the third came and I turned to my sister and said “Sissy I feel like I need to push” She immediately pulled the cord to call for help, and her and Claud helped me from the tub and onto the bed in the room. A nurse came in and asked what was wrong, my sister explained and the nurse said “there is no way it has only been a few minutes and she was at only 5” Beth told her to check me again to be sure, so she did and I was at 10! Her eyes were the size of half dollars as she ran to get the doctor, not before saying to me “pant do not push!!”
When the doctor got there he simply grabbed a chair and sat at the end of my bed, never really saying a word to me. After about 30 minutes of me pushing and falling asleep between contractions, Beth asked them for a mirror at the foot of the bed so that I could see what I was doing. Within 10 minutes after that Claud John Leach 11 had made his way into the world. The funniest thing happened when he came out, he pee’d on my sister, the doctor actually spoke then saying “never seen that happen before!” So here he was my little baby boy 6 pounds 13 ounces and 19 ½” long. Born at 3:43pm, just in time for me to watch Ricki Lake at 4:00.…that was the running joke that I couldn’t miss the second part of the two parter I watched the day before. Claud cried as soon as he was born, it was the most emotion I had ever seen come from him. He was just overwhelmed...to see me in all that pain and there being nothing he could do to stop it for me. His parents thought something had gone wrong when they saw him, his face was pale and he could barely speak, if I didn't know it before I knew then that he loved me more than anyone ever could.
A day later we were home with our brand new bundle of joy. I had a hard time adjusting to being a mom with all it’s responsibilities. It took awhile and lots of advice to get a general hang of things. Claud and I started shared parenting rather early with CJ, we would take turns watching him and taking him places with us so that the other could have a break. Because after all it was just too hard to load up the diaper bag and carseat to go anywhere. If I only knew then what I know now. We made it through the first year with CJ without too much trouble, only the normal problems that new parents face.
After awhile we decided that we wanted to have just two kids, two years apart a little boy and a little girl would make us a perfect American family. In October of 2002 I found out I was pregnant with baby number two, due July 18th 2003. Wow they were really going to be two years apart! It had happened exactly as we had it planned.
The pregnancy with Dillion was fairly uneventful in the beginning, but the last three months were trying to say the least. Even in the womb that boy was ready to go go go. I had a lot of preterm labor, and was in and out of the hospital getting shots to stop the contractions, finally in the last month of my pregnancy they gave me some pills that were supposed to stop all the contractions and give the little guy a chance to grow some more. That worked well through May and into the first part of June while I had the pills, but on the day that I took the last pill, holding off was no longer an option. At the time we were house sitting for my sister while she was in New Mexico, that night at about 3 a.m. I started having contractions, I started watching the clock knowing that if they weren’t in a pattern they weren’t real. I watched them start at ten minutes apart and over the next few hours go to 5-6 minutes apart. We had CJ with us and I didn’t want to wake up Joyce to come and get him any earlier than I had to, but once they were 4-5 minutes apart I decided that it may be time to call.
I remember trying to wake up Claud, who might I add is not the easiest person to wake up. Finally I lied and told him that my water had broken, that got his attention and got him out of bed, and then of course I told him the truth. Joyce came and picked up CJ and we headed to the hospital. When we arrived they took me into this little exam room to check me out, I explained to them what I had been experiencing, the nurse put me up on the bed to check my cervix, while the Doctor was reading the chart. The nurse said “she is dilated…..” the doctor cut her off saying “she has been dilated to 3 for a few weeks” then the nurse said “yeah well she is at 5 now!” I let them know what had happened with the first baby once I was at 5 and how quickly he had made his way into the world. They were soon off to find me a delivery room!
Claud looked at me like a scared child and said “can I call your Mom now?” He remembered vividly the last time we were at 5cm, so I guess he felt he needed someone else there to help him, oh I mean me.
Once things got rolling, I opted again for a natural birth, as I had with CJ. Only this time there was no tub to relax in, but it was okay with me because I was very calm and cool. In fact when the Doctor came in to check on me the nurse said “now she hasn’t had anything for pain although she looks like she has.” This was my favorite nurse out of all of my deliveries, she was an excellent spokesperson and really seemed to care. When the time came closer, the Doctor decided to break my water, she started to put on some latex gloves and the nurse explained her theory that if she broke my water the baby would soon follow. And because I hadn’t gained that much weight they were also afraid that because he was 4 weeks early he would be small. Therefore, they also didn’t break down the bed. When the doctor broke my water, I asked the nurse to grab a mirror, I knew that it helped immensely the first time. She did and within a fairly short time Dillion Gabriel Leach had made his first apperance in our life. At 6 pounds and 19 ¾” long, he was a fairly good size baby for a “preemie”. As a doctor told me that day, if you could hope for a size for a vaginal delivery that would be the size.
After Dillion was born our life changed a lot more than I thought it would. Back to an earlier statement about how hard it was to load up one kid to go away. Now we had two and both were still in diapers and carseats. It was when Dillion was born that I made the decision to become a full time wife and Mother. I knew that we couldn’t afford to pay daycare for two kids so we could work, and I wanted to raise my kids not let someone else do it. Also we wanted to spend time together and not always work separate shifts all the time so one could watch the kids while the other was at work. This method of parenting worked well for us, although others didn’t always agree with the choices we made, they were our choices and were the best ones for us.
I remember when Dillion was a baby I found myself less worried about what other people thought of my parenting abilities and more worried about doing the best job that I could for our family. I knew then and I know now I will never be the soccer mom cheering my kids on at all the games, or the room mom baking all the treats and going on every single fieldtrip that my kids have. I am just not that way. I try the best that I can to enjoy my children on a daily basis and sometimes it is harder than others. Once Dillion was born I learned a little more to accept my fate as my mother, she was never really a kid person and I knew that was how I would end up being. That is not to say that I don’t love my own kids or enjoy the things that they learn on a day to day basis, but I am not the one that offers to babysit or hold playdates at my house.
As Dillion grew we watched the bond grow between him and Cj, despite the fact that they fought a lot, they still seemed to stick up for one another. It has always been a “I can pick on him but you can’t” kind of relationship.
As the first 5 years of our relationship passed along, we lost a lot of friends due to the changes in our lives. We could no longer come and go as we pleased, and most of our friends at the time were still single and out every night. Although we always allowed each other the freedom to use our “free” time as we wanted, we found more and more that all we wanted was to be with each other and the boys as a family. It takes a long time to accept that people change and friendships fade, but once you accept it, you can move on with your life a lot more easily.
We continued to live in the little trailer of ours until 2005 when we started getting serious about finding some place a little bigger. We still had the problem of not qualifying for a mortgage but this time it was due to being self employed more than anything else. So we knew that buying a house was still not an option for us, we didn’t really want to stay in the trailer park, but we knew we didn’t want to rent a house either. We couldn’t see spending all that money on something that would never be ours. Shortly after we started looking I came across a trailer that was bigger than ours and a lot newer, it so happened that Claud’s cousin owned the place and was willing to sell it to us on a land contract. So we bought it, we were so excited because we were finally going to have more room. The boys at the time were 4 and 2 and didn’t mind at all sharing a room, therefore Claud had a gun/hunting/office room all to his very own.
About two months after we had moved in, I found out I was pregnant again! I really was not planning on having any more kids, at least not for 3 or more years from then. Again we took the news in stride and starting planning things out for baby #3.
This pregnancy was different from the start, for one I had all day sickness some people get morning sickness but not me I was nauseous all day, everyday. This went on the entire first trimester, the second trimester brought on more things that I never had dealt with like swelling. I was swelling so badly and nobody thought that it was an issue although I brought it up many times. I knew there was a problem when during week 29 or 30 I had gained 12 pounds in one week! I tried to tell the Dr. that it was not right, that I had only gained 14 pounds the entire pregnancy with CJ and only 3 pounds with Dillion, I am just a person who doesn’t gain weight while pregnant. It was written off as normal and my next weeks appointment was set. At my 31 week appointment I had gained a little more and they had found protein in my urine, I had to have some blood work done that I had procrastinated about so I was told to go into the hospital that night and have it done.
When Claud got out of work that night I asked him to take me in, my sister had taken the kids for me to go. I went in and they started me on the monitors because that is what they do in labor and delivery no matter why you are there. They began explaining the urine test that they wanted to run and that I could do it at home and bring it back to the lab the following day. As I laid there waiting for the testing supplies, I began to notice small contractions, soon the nurse came in and said “can you feel those?’ I told her just barely. She came in with the shots that I so dreaded as I had already been through them with Dillion, and the bag of IV fluids that I knew took forever to drip into my body. Claud and I both looked at each other and said “ughh!” knowing we were stuck in the hospital for at least 3 hours more and by this time it was already 8 pm.
A while later a Dr. came in to check my cervix to see if I was dilating at all. I was, to 2 cm. She seemed slightly concerned about this as it was really too early to be happening. She left the room saying she’d be back in a little while. Soon she was back with an ultrasound machine, I had never had them do that before while in the hospital. She did the ultrasound and said “that is strange there isn’t a lot of fluid around the baby.” This freaked me out a lot, I knew that fluid was vital and wasn’t sure what they could do to add some…funny what you think.
Shortly after she left the room another nurse ,whom I nicknamed “the pokey lady” because of how many times she had to poke me for the IV, came into the room I was on the phone with my sister at the time and told her I had to let her go. The nurse told me she had to take me for another test…..I said “do you have to poke me again?” she said if I failed the test then she may have to. She wheeled me down to the ultrasound room, I was thinking “didn’t we already cover this?” The tech took me in the room and began the ultrasound on me, while she was doing the u/s she kept shaking my stomach and asking me if the baby normally moved a lot, I said yes…and looked to Claud who could see the monitor, he just shook his head at me and the look on his face said it all. The baby was not moving and tears began to fall down my face, I tried to stop them but I couldn’t hold them back. Instantly I felt numb, had I really lost the baby girl I had so long hoped for? What did I do wrong to make this happen? Could I have prevented it? Do you bury a 31 week old baby? I don’t’ know why that last one came to mind but it did and I was damn scared!
The tech finished the u/s and told us someone would be down shortly to get me, then she wheeled me into the hall and half shut her door. We heard her on the phone calling upstairs, we couldn’t hear much but the one thing we did hear was “there is a heartbeat.” These four words calmed me so much and I began to relax a little more.
Pretty soon there was another nurse there to wheel me back upstairs, she got behind me and started pushing, to say she was speed walking would be putting it lightly, this lady was running. I asked her to slow down so my husband could keep up, she apologized and said she needed to hurry to get me back on the monitors. When we got back to the room I was in before, there was people in there that I had not seen before, most of them were in surgical caps. They got me on the bed and a Dr. said to me “we have to take your baby now, Sparrow’s neonatal team is on the way to care for her.” At that point the tears were uncontrollable, I started bawling and shaking and crying so hard that most of the things after that sentence are a blur. I remember them prepping me for surgery and telling Claud to change into scrubs, I remember him going into the bathroom and them taking me out and wheeling me down the hall to the OR. Mostly I remember them saying Claud couldn’t come in because they had to put me under. My mind raced for the very few minutes that I was awake after that, what if they can’t save her? What if they can’t save me?” Why can’t I stop shaking?” Why are they taking her?
The next thing I remember is waking up in a terrible amount of pain and looking to my side to find Claud sitting there next to me. I asked him how she was, and he said something to the effect of little. I was not allowed anything for pain until the NICU people got done talking to me about Savannah’s condition. When they came in to talk to me I was told my baby girl was alive and a machine was doing her breathing for her. Savannah Dianne Leach was born December 21st 2005 at 11:37pm, weighing a mere 2 pounds 5 oz. and 14 ½ inches long.
I was devastated to think that I may still lose her, but remained hopeful the entire time. It was like a little voice was with me saying that it was all going to be okay. After that first minute of hearing the news I never again thought of how long I had with her, but instead how long until I had her home with our family.
After a short month in the nicu Savannah was released to come home and be with her family, the day we brought her home she weighed in at 3 pounds 7 oz. I can’t remember her exact length but it was pretty small still. I was excited and scared all over again at the thought of having her home. I was happy to be able to see her daily and hold her without the barrier of wires, but I was so nervous that I wouldn’t do things right and that she would end up back in the hospital again.
About a week after she got home she got a cold. I rushed her to the Dr. who told me everything I had been doing was right and under no circumstances was I to take her to the ER, if a problem arose I could page them and they would see her. They didn’t want to chance an unknowledgeable Doctor putting her back in the NICU for no real reason.
We got through that cold fairly easily with the proper home treatment, since then Savannah has been about as far from a preemie as you can be. All of her milestones were hit right on target for a full term baby instead of for her adjusted age, she truly was the biggest miracle either of us had ever witnesses.
Once Savannah came home we had to try to learn to function as a family of five, from just the normal everyday to the expense of having 3 children and ourselves to support. It has been hard to adjust to the fact that the world is really priced and made for families of 3 and maybe 4 but a family of 5 is not the norm these days.
Like every family we have our good days and we have our bad days, but no matter what the five of us are a family and no matter what we are always there for one another. Our kids may not be the most well behaved kids in the world, and our bickering may sound to others like the verge of divorce…but it is our family and our world and the love we have for each other is unconditional.
I cannot now imagine a life that Claud and my children were not in, I love them all with every piece of my heart. I am luckier than most in that I have a supportive husband, and I am aware of all the things that he does for us. He is always there to hold me when I need it, and make me smile when I feel like the world is against me. I have never had a best friend that I could count on all the time and now I do in my husband.
My kids are the best that I could ever hope for. They love me unconditionally and there are so many times when I am having a bad day, that sometimes they caused, that they are there to hug me or cuddle me to make me feel better. As I said before I am not the “soccer mom” type, and I may not always have the energy or time to sit and play house, tea party, or army men with my kids, but they are my world and I will always make sure that I do the nest I can to be their mom.
So as you see the last eight years have been a ride to say the least, but I have learned and grown from it year by year. I know there will be more adventures for us in the coming years, and I know that we will continue to grow and learn as a family and as a couple. I also know there are those that will want to bring us down, and push us apart but one thing I know for sure is that the love this family has is strong enough to survive anything as long as we are willing to try.



****And if you have managed to get through all this I am forever grateful that you care enough about us to read some of how we got where we are today*****