Now We're Movin' On Uuuuup...

If any of you are still out there, I'm going to bet that you think I've all but abandoned my blog? I swear, I haven't. It has really just been a crazy 2009! After I took my Lent break, it wasn't long after that, when we found a GREAT deal on a house here in our town. Long story short, we are moving! We should be in our new home by July 1!!

That's great news, for sure, but there is a full ton of "stuff" to do between now and then. We are remodeling the kitchen before we move in, painting almost every room, landscaping and more. Not to mention the packing up of our current house. WHEW! But it's all good, and I daresay, even fun. We are soooooo excited!

We really needed a little more room for our largish family, so this was a big and perfect answer to prayer. Most importantly, we've got another bedroom so we don't have to cram the kids anymore, wahoo!!

Anyway, hopefully this will explain why I've been so scarce in the bloggy world lately. I've been thinking of you often. And I always think of a million posts to make, but it's grabbing more than 5 minutes to get it on here that seems to be the challenge.

I *did* just buy some of the most beautiful flowers that we are planting tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get some pictures that will do them justice and share them on here in the next day or so.

Flowers make me a very happy person and since I have them so heavily on the brain right now, would you please tell me what your very favorite flower to put in the yard is?

I've always been partial to petunias, especially the purple ones, but I love my roses and day-lilies, too.

I'd love some ideas!

Ballet, Boys, and Bowling

Good Morning, friends!

I am sitting here sipping coffee while keeping my eye on the sky for the trillionth time this Spring because we are in line for some severe weather. Oh well, that's just the way it goes here in Sweet Home Alabama. :)

We've been pretty busy lately with ballet recitals, campouts, baby showers and more, but those are the things that make me happy. Exhausted but happy. Just look at these little girlies:

Julianna had so many of her friends taking ballet where we take this year, that recital was like a great big party! I have no less than 10 pictures just like this one that we snapped with each of her little buddies as we saw them. SOOOO sweet!

But just TRY and get a picture with her brothers where the boys don't all look like they've eaten a tablespoon of horseradish. HAHAHA!! Oh well, I guess they can only take so much. After sitting through an hour of ballet, pictures were flat-out sending them over the edge. ;D.

Last weekend, Mark took my girlie-girl and headed out on a Father/Daughter campout.

Leaving me with the Motley of the Westie Crew. I had no choice but to find something to do that burns energy, and fast, so we used up one of those free bowling coupons that I mentioned in the post below.

We discovered after the first game that bowling without bumpers is not exactly our forte (I bowled too, and I could NOT be any worse... seriously). Here is Ty insisting that I "put that thing down" so that I don't capture the insanity.

Hoping....hoping.... hoping....gutter.

The second round was complete with bumpers...

....which made us feel like champs when our scores were around 100 each.

A great time was had by all despite our lack of skill (hee-hee). We ended up heading out for Krispy Kreme and new tennis shoe shopping afterward. I love my sweet boys and I'm so glad that, by default, we had an unplanned, but awesome, Mama/Son weekend.

This week has already been full of Dr. appointments for regular check-ups and an orthodontist consultation for Ty. Tomorrow, we start into the world of braces. WoW! I had no clue that they were SO expensive!! Talk about precious metal. :D

Well, it looks like the rain is about to start, so I'd better go.... Have a good Wednesday!

This and That

Hey there, ho there, hi there! I thought I would pop in over here and tell y'all about a few things that might benefit you in one way or another.

The first, is that I was pretty sure I was going kick over from excruciating pain yesterday. THAT part may not benefit you, but the torture device that caused me such anguish just might. Do you ever watch The Biggest Loser? We LOVE that show around here. One of the trainers on it is Jillian Michaels and she is dadgum MEAN. But she gets the results, peeps. So when someone recommended her DVD called 30 Day Shred, I checked it out. It has over 1,000 reviews and almost ALL of them are 5 star.

I got the thing on Friday afternoon, so on Saturday morning, I started shredding. Dear Heavens. By Saturday night I felt like someone had put a vice grip on my heiny all the way down to my ankles. But don't let that deter you! As painful as it is, that means that it is WORKING! It is a great workout and once my body recovers from Reveille, it'll be all good. ;)

The second thing is this: KidsBowlFree.com As the URL suggests, this is a program that offers coupons for kids to bowl for free in bowling centers all across the country throughout the summer. It doesn't appear to have any strings attached, although they do try to get you to sign up for a Family Pass, which we did not do, and we still got our coupons. Check it out if you are looking for something to do with your kids. Also, they are calling it a summer program, but ours officially started today (we won't go until tomorrow though).

I guess that's all for now. Please don't forget to pray for the Compassion Bloggers who are in India right now. They seem to be seeing some things that are so heartbreaking, yet it is necessary to get the word out. Tough stuff.

Love and crunches,

If I Have to Pull This Car Over....

I usually try to keep things pretty lighthearted here on The Westie Crew, but every now and then, something captures my attention that isn't exactly lighthearted and I want to know what you think.

So, if you haven't heard, there is this Mom who had really had it with her 10 and 12 year old girls scrapping in the backseat. She got to her breaking point, pulled over, and told them to walk the rest of the way home. Long story short, it all ended in her being arrested (you can read the full story here).

This got me to thinking; I have been to the point that this Mom was at on the road with my children, too. Many times it's shameful to admit such a thing, but I'm doing it. I mean, here you are, trying to operate a vehicle, which if messed up, could kill or seriously injure all of it's passengers, and you've got kids screaming and maybe even duking it out... all behind your back while you are strapped in. I'm not going to lie, it makes me pretty crazy. Anyone else? The only difference is that when *I* envisioned putting them out of the van, it didn't involve stopping. MWAHHHAAAAAHHAA.

Just kidding. Don't call DHR on me. ;) Seriously, though, the true difference is that I obviously didn't/wouldn't do it. She went too far when she drove away and left her little girl there to be picked up by a stranger. I mean, thank God it was a person who had the little girl's best interest in mind. It had to have been terrifying for the child and that breaks my heart.

Now, here are my questions. What *should* she have done here? Chances are, they weren't listening to her when she tried to get them to stop fighting earlier. I can't honestly believe that this was her first attempt at getting them to stop. So what in the world does a parent do in a situation like that?

Also, do you think she should have been arrested? Do you think her kids should be taken away from her (this is a possibility), or that Child Protective Services should be a part of their lives from this point forward? I have to tell you, I think the latter is going too far, but I am on the fence with the former.

What are your thoughts on this whole story? I'd love to hear them, even if you disagree with me.

Shhhhh...

Don't tell anyone that I'm sitting on my fanny. We are scheduled to go on a camping trip first thing in the morning and it's All Hands on Deck here in the Westie Home. It never ceases to amaze me how much work it takes to ensure the survival of 6 people who will be away from home for a few days. By the time the process is completed we all need a vacation.... from each other. :D Just kidding. Sorta.

I think the process would go a trillion times smoother if things like THIS wouldn't happen, though:

What you are seeing here....

happens to be the contents of my freshly purged closet.

A closet that a mere week ago...

held approximately 3 LARGE garbage bags full of extra stuff. After purging it, I have been so very happy. I have even been known to walk in there and just sit. On the floor. Because I can.

About an hour ago, I heard this hellacious CRASH. After making sure each of my children still had all of their limbs, I discovered the above. Apparently, the shelving decided that it HATES me and did a little purging of it's own.

Perfect. And I deeply appreciate the timing, too.

What stuns me more than anything, is that I probably lightened it's load by about a 100 lbs last week, so why now? WICKED shelving.

Now that I've got you in my horrid closet, let me ask you, what in the world should I do with some books, pictures, and records that were given to me, by my Dad.... some of which belong to my great-grandparents? We are talking late 1800's here. If I were closer to my home state (Pennsylvania), I would donate it to our town's museum, but I'm not. So do any of you have any ideas? My shelving thinks it should just be destroyed.

Back to packing...

Why I Gain 65 lbs Right Before Swimsuit Season Each Year

I adore carbs, folks. I mean really, really adore them. I know it's wrong, but I could eat them in a box and I could eat them with a fox. I could eat them in a train and in the dark and in the rain....

And I can pile my plate with them for Easter dinner with nary a healthy thing in sight and feel NO SHAME. Well, at least I have no problem with shame at that moment. It's sitting at the Dr.'s office with a cholesterol level of 272 that the old shame kinda kicks in. Anyway...

Behold, a thing of unparalleled beauty:

But look a little closer (at this really crappy quality picture... I'm losing patience with my little camera, y'all):

This is the thing that makes me thrilled that I draw breath (and probably will be directly responsible for 10 or so years being taken off of that breathing time).

It's Bean and Corn Casserole. Such a paltry little name for something so luscious. It should be named something like Bean and Corn PIZZAZZ!

I was first introduced to this dish right after I gave birth to my last baby. You know how you're so completely ravenous right after you get home, and if you are blessed enough, all of those sweet women from your church bring you AWESOME homecooked meals? (I swear, that's reason enough for me to have a child a year.) Anyway, this was a side dish to one of them.

And the angels sang.

I have never been the same since. I think it's the topping, really. Because other than that, there isn't any good reason for it to be so yummy. But it is what it is, and I love it.

Here's the recipe:

1 can French style green beans (drained)

1 can whole kernel corn (drained)

1 can cream of celery soup

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

pinch of salt

1 roll of crushed Ritz crackers

1 stick melted butter

1/2 cup slivered almonds

Mix first 6 ingredients and spread into a casserole dish. Melt the butter, then add the crushed crackers and almonds. Mix well and spread on top of the first layer. Bake at 350* for 45 minutes (uncovered).

Ridiculous, I tell ya. Now tell me, what is a must-have side for your Easter dinner? And Krista, if you are reading this, tell Bunga she has a jewel in her crown for that postpartum dinner.

Tap, Tap, Tap,... Is this thing on?

HELLOOOOOOOO!!!

Well, that was hard. (Ha-ha!)

Seriously, it WAS hard, but it was SO worth it, folks. I needed some serious time with the Lord and, boy, did He come through. I now have clarity in areas that I didn't, provision where I needed it, and strength where the monster of insecurity had robbed it. Among other things, but I'll mix all of that in with upcoming posts.

So how the heck are YOU?! I've missed you all something fierce and thought of my sweet bloggy friends often. I've said it 780 times before, but it bears repeating, that this community of friends is such a huge treasure to me. Y'all make me run the gamut of emotions (sometimes all in one post!), and being the emotional girl that I am, I LOVE it. :D I look forward to catching up with you.

Lots has happened here in Westie World over the last 6 weeks. Everything from getting FOUR inches of snow here in Sweet Home Alabama....

....to the acquisition of a chihuahua.

We'll call this "Yo quiero keep me?". The kids named him Taco, but I nixed that pretty quickly. We ended up settling on Mikey. He's a zillion kinds of rotten and I'm a huge pushover. The end.

We still have our Oreo and if you'll look in the top left of the snow picture, you'll see her in all of her glory. Sorry. :)

Let's see what else...

*Jacob bridged over to Boy Scouts which caused even more emotional trauma for a Mama who feels that time is flying faster than the speed of light.

*Julianna lost her first tooth. She's 8. To say that it was a much anticipated event would be a GROSS understatement.

*The flu decided to strike my boys while they were on a campout in Tennessee with the Boy Scouts. Thankfully, Mark was there and was able to get them home early. Sadly, it was not before 90% of the troop was exposed. I bet I won't be winning any popularity contests with the Mom's there any time soon. :/

*We spent some time at the nursing home where my Grandma lives. The kids and I watched as she commenced KICKING SOME ELDERLY BUTT on the Wii. I'm still pretty amazed at her mad skillz. I am so taking my camera next time.

*Speaking of my camera; My beloved little Kodak EZShare... I fear it is on it's last leg. It won't toggle anymore and the do-hickey that closes over the lens won't open all the way. I am deeply saddened, especially because replacing it requires coinage, and coinage is being utilized for such luxuries as FOOD right at the moment. Hopefully, she'll hold out for a little while longer (7 years should do it) before I retire her. ;)

I guess that's about all for now. Hope each of you have a most blessed Easter! Please go to the song I posted below and just listen. It's perfect.

Much love,