Working the Weekend

You know how I said that I like unpacking? Well, I retract. I *did* like unpacking in the beginning, but now that we are down to the last 7-10 boxes, I've run out of steam. The stinkiest part is that it's the classroom stuff.

Organizing a classroom is a fine art, I wholeheartedly believe, but I think I'm overanalyzing, a bit. I want it as practical as possible, yet, I don't want it to feel like we've walked into a How to Create Bulletin Boards with 5000 Pieces or Less seminar. In other words, I'm having a hard time putting my History Timeline, ect. on the wall because it clashes. HA! Isn't that ridiculously vain? Oh well. There will be time for perfect Southern Living style dining rooms when all my kids graduate, I guess.

We've had a nice, productive weekend thus far. Mark and the boys tore down one of the existing sheds here so that we will have room for ours (which is only a year old).

All of our shed's contents are in the screened in porch area until that process is finished, which we are all ready for! It probably won't be until the beginning of the week though because it's storming today (blessedly). I've got big plans for the screened in porch and those plans include my swing... one of my favorite things in the world.

I can't wait for my outside haven. I had one on my back porch at our old place so it's pretty important that I have a place outside here for my sanity. It's where I go in the mornings first thing after I get my coffee and it's the most important time of my day.

What about you? Do you have a haven either inside or out? If you don't, get thyself to a corner somewhere and make it yours. It works wonders for the soul, I swear!

Diego's Got Nuthin on Us...

Today has been a long, but good, day (and it's only 3:00 in the afternoon!). We started by heading to the Alabama Wildlife Rescue first thing this morning because we found a sweet little baby bird who was about to die last night after dinner. We gently scooped him up and placed him in a cloth-lined shoebox where I fully expected to find him already gone this morning. But, this is what I saw instead:

He kept opening his mouth and peeping at me, so I soaked some bread in milk to feed the little thing. He gobbled it right down!

Then we headed out pretty early in the morning to the Wildlife Center:

When we got there, we learned that he is a Brown Thrasher and that he probably sustained an injury when leaving the nest for the first time since he landed on concrete. Thankfully, they gave us a way to track his progress via mail, which I thought was a nice service to provide.

After we came home for awhile, we decided to go celebrate Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. We eat there more than any other fast food place, so why not join the party, right? If you dressed up like a cow, you would get a free meal, so we were all over that one.

Well, at least the younger two and I were... Ty and Jake thought that a chikin sammich wasn't worth their dignity, so they decided we were ridiculously uncool and kept their distance. Ha! I have no fear that they'll come out of this stage simply because it's in their genetic makeup to be a goober.

By the way, that's my front room if I may kill two birds with one stone (oops... that's a completely inappropriate analogy given the above content, huh?).

Anyway, we had a GREAT time when we got there. So many people were dressed in their various and sundry bovine digs, that it made the whole place happy and lighthearted. And who can't use some happy and lighthearted, huh?

Hope you're having a wonderful Friday!

Ignore Madame Pink Elephant, Please...

Let's pretend that it hasn't been almost 2 months since my last post, mkay? I can't believe how time flies, though, for realz.

I thought about telling you about how the USB thingie on my internet card got smooshed thereby leaving me without reliable internet for all of this time, but... well... it's boring. I'm all connected with a cable modem now, so all is right with the world. :)

Charter truly swooped in just at the brink of insanity though, because I tell ya, being without a viable alternative to television when Michael Jackson dies is something akin to waterboarding, I swear.

Anyhoo, we are all moved in to our new home now and we are VERY happy that the moving process is over! The last time I moved, I only (said loosely) had 2 small children and not nearly as much "stuff". Factor in 10 more years of marriage, 2 more kids, and homeschooling and packing was kind of overwhelming. But, it's done, and I actually really enjoy the process of unpacking. It's fun to find a new place for all of my old stuff.... kinda like rearranging a room, only with different walls... in a different neighborhood.... yeah. Someone will be able to relate despite my weirdo analogy, maybe?

One thing I absolutely love about this place is that the kitchen is perfect for having big dinners with lots of friends. I'm a firm believer that awesome friends and abundant food together, at regular intervals, make life way more sweet.

On that note, and to celebrate my recent reunion with the Food Network, I will give you a recipe that I made of Rachael Ray's that is a PERFECT side for a grill-out (or anything, really). Corn Muffins with Bacon Bits and Cheddar Cheese It's YUMM-O, as she says... and she is absolutely right.

Ok, I need to go get my boys from Summer Reading Program at the library. Hope you are all having a great Summer!

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.