Getting Ready for School

I can't believe that school starts in a month! It seems that the summer is flying by (as it tends to do). We are getting Adriana ready to go back to school again this fall. She LOVES going to school and its so good for her (and me!). Since she has kind of outgrown the whole Elmo and Dora stage, we needed to "upgrade" the school supplies this year. I got her this book bag at Goodwill for $3, and it looks brand new. I bought it because I thought it would look really cute to have her name monogrammed on it. I got that done today and love it! Having her name put on it only cost $10 so she got a new personalized tote bag for $13. Of course, we got a new lunch box too the other day, that wasn't the deal of the day, but still not bad. Its worth paying a little more when she loves it so much. Like I said in my last post, she sleeps with the lunch box that has Cinderella on it. She is all ready for school and to see her friends again.

I know this love for school won't last forever, so I'm going to enjoy her getting excited about it while I can.

Weekend Recap

We didn't really do much this weekend. It was a pretty laid back, easy going past few days. Saturday it rained for the majority of the day and I found myself the only one awake during the afternoon. It was a good day to take a nap and Ryan and Adriana took advantage of that. I made homemade Zucchini bread for the first time and was quite pleased with how it turned out. Saturday evening we went out to some friends house for dinner. We had a good time and Adriana LOVED playing and helping out with their 11 month old son. I think she is going to do good with her little brother when he comes in a few months.
Sunday we went to church, ate lunch, took naps and then headed down to Branson to get a new Wii Video game Ryan put on hold. It was a quick trip down there, but a lot of fun. We went by Staples because they had some nice mechanical pencils on sale for 25 cents for like a 5 pack. We then went and ate some good pizza and then headed to Target to get Ryan's game. Adriana loves walking around and looking at all the toys. We also got her a Cinderella Lunch box for school and she LOVES it! She had to take it to bed with her last night.
Like I said we had a pretty low key weekend, but it was nice. I'm going to be getting ready all this week for our garage sale this weekend. I have been trying to do it a little at a time, but there's still a lot to price.
Hope everyone has a great Monday!

Adriana's New Bed

Here are some pictures of Adriana's new bed. I know that she just moved into a big girl bed, but I was looking for a captains bed back when I first switched her from the crib to a big bed and couldn't find one that we could afford. Brand new Captain's beds are about $400-$500. I'm not going to spend that much on a bed. Anyway, I was at Goodwill about a month or so go and saw this cute captain's bed for $99! I was very excited because you could tell it was homemade with real wood and just seemed to be a good sturdy bed. With a lot of help from my mom, we painted it white and I'm so happy with how it turned out. Its taller than I thought it would be, and Adriana is still trying to get up and down from it, but it won't take her too long to catch on. I love the bed because it offers A LOT of storage, which is always in short supply, so I think this bed will help with that.

Hard Saying No

Its funny, when we become teenagers, we think our parents are out to get us when they tell us no when we want something. (Or so I've heard, I never wanted much, I was such a good child!) :) We think that life isn't fair when we are told no, especially when its something that we really want. Kids learn this real fast in life. Adriana is starting to notice things while we are out and about and LONGS for us to buy it for her. Luckily, she is still young and doesn't have a full blown tantrum when told no, but I know that age is coming. Its so hard, as a parent, to tell the person you love more than anything in the world, that "no, they can't have that". You can't buy your kids everything they want, even though you may want to. I think we have all seen what that does to a kid when they are used to getting whatever they want, whenever they want and the wrath when they are told no.
I say all that to say that Adriana is really in to Cinderella (or in the words of Adriana, Cin-rella). She can spot Cinderella a mile away! She get so excited and its so hard to tell her no, when she really wants something. I am thankful that she does good when told no, but it still breaks my heart. You would give your child the world if you could, but you also have to do whats best for them. They can't get whatever they want, because that's not the real world. We don't get whatever we want as adults and parents who give into their kids at every whim, are doing more harm then good to their child.
I don't know why I feel the need to write this blog, maybe Adriana and her siblings can read this in about 12 years and know that no matter how much we say no, it doesn't mean that we don't love them and it doesn't mean that we don't want to give it to them, but sometimes, no can be the best answer.

Our New House!

Well you read the title right, we are getting a new house! We have been talking to the builder of our subdivision about doing a builder trade on a house that would be bigger for us to grow into. We decided that we don't stand a chance to sell our house right now with the market the way it is. Plus, with us only being here for less than 2 years we didn't have a whole lot of equity to work with by the time we paid realtor's and everything. Anyway, we had come to the decision to take it off the market and try to talk to the builder about doing a builder trade on a house that they are building up the street. I figured it was a long shot, but worth asking. Well, that thought paid off. He had no problem doing a builder trade with us. We've been keeping the news kind of hush hush, just in case something didn't go through, but we signed the contract yesterday, on our anniversary. We are very excited. We love the house we are in now, but we're just outgrowing it. By doing a builder trade, we forgo going through a realtor, therefore we have more wiggle room.

We're so excited about this house. Its a split foyer house. 4 bedroom/ 3 bath and 2 family rooms. It has a HUGE garage (which we need with 2 vans and lots of junk!) and lots of extra storage. They are close to finishing it, but we were able to ask them to do a few upgrades throughout the house. Such as, sodding the whole yard, putting up a privacy fence, a flat top stove, ceiling fans in the kids rooms and lots of other little nit picky things, that we would like to have done in our house, so we knew we wanted it in our new one. We are looking at closing on the house on or before Sept 1.
We feel very blessed to be getting a bigger house. We are going to miss our neighbors and our field behind our house, but we are still getting a good lot that backs up to a tree line.

Here are the pictures of the house so far. Now that we have more room, there is NO excuse for you people not to come and stay with us!

The front of the house. They just laid the sod

today!


View off the front porch. The horizon is

breathtaking when the sun is setting.

Our backyard. Its bigger than it looks here.


The dining area off the kitchen.

The kitchen. The room through that doorway

is the laundry room. Its really pretty big and

I'm having a pantry and cabinets put in there

for more storage.

I love the light fixtures they are putting in.


Adriana's room, with a nice walk in closet.

The nursery, also with a big closet.

Our bedroom.

The master bathroom.

The 4th bedroom in the basement which

I'm going to make into my scrapbook

room, I can't wait!

Part of the basement family room.

Downstairs bathroom

A little better shot of the downstairs

family room.

The upstairs family room.

The garage.

A lovely evening out

Last night, on our anniversary, Ryan took me out to dinner and a movie. You don't know how much you take for granted, going out whenever you want, when you don't have kids. It was a real treat last night, and not something we do very often. My parents were kind enough to take Adriana for the night, so we wouldn't have to rush back and get her before bedtime (plus I had a doctors appointment first thing this morning, so that saved me some time too.) We went to a pizza place, that we love. We used to go there a lot before we had Adriana, because it was within walking distance from our apartment. It was great! Service was horrible, but the food was wonderful. After that, we went to the movies and saw "The Proposal". It was a cute movie and am glad it was good, to make it worth the money to go. We also splurged and got popcorn and a soda. I was very excited to get that, because, for some reason, I had been craving it all day, but boy, what a rip off! For a large soda it was $4.75 and for a small popcorn it was $5.50! No wonder I haven't bought concessions from the movies for over 10 years! Nevertheless, it was really good. I ate like a pig, but thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was nice to sleep through the night and not make myself get up to make sure Adriana was doing good. What a treat! Its the little things in life that are luxurious these days, I guess! Thanks Ryan for a fun night out on the town!

Our 4th Anniversary

Today we me and Ryan celebrate our 4th anniversary. In a lot of ways it has seemed every bit of 4 years. I don't mean that in a bad way. Me and Ryan agree that a lot has happened to us in the last 4 years that makes it seem like a long time. We have moved more times than I choose to count, are expecting our second child, have changed jobs several times, and all the other "life" things that happen along the way. Even though none of it was our plans, I can see how God has taken us through each step and has lead us through. God's plan is always better than ours. God has blessed us both and I am very lucky to have such a great husband who is patient, loving and caring. Ryan has so many qualities that I wish I had, but we balance each other out. Thank you Ryan for great 4 years, and here's to many more!

Here are some of my favorite wedding pictures. It was right on the cusp of the digital age, so these were taken with film and scanned in, sorry the quality isn't the best.

Zoe On a Diet

I guess our cat is fed up with the fat and lazy jokes, so she is taking action. She started by eating a lovely salad left over from dinner last night. Maybe I need to take my cues from my over sized furry friend!

P.S. We threw the salad out after Zoe was finished. Please don't be afraid to come over and eat dinner with us....

A Really LONG blog

WOW! What a week! We have had the best time with Ryan's family in town! They were able to stay an extra day, so they were here from Friday, July 3-today, July 9. This was such a great thing, because they are normally able to only stay 2 or 3 days. We had a jammed full week of lots of fun and activities.

4th of July

Well, for the 4th of July we had a pretty relaxing day. We didn't really do much on the 4th during the day, but in the evening after all the kids naps, we headed out to my parents house and at some good ol' fashion pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad and baked beans. It was so good! After filling up on food, we headed out to the City of Battlefields fireworks show. They had games and inflatables for the kids, and the best part, it was all FREE! The kids had fun while we waited for the sun to set. Then the fireworks started! They were some of the best fireworks we had seen! They really went all out and put on a great show! We were all pleasantly surprised. It was a great time and the weather was great too! Here are some pictures from our festivities.

Twin cousins ready to celebrate the 4th!

Everyone waiting for the fireworks to start.

Adriana sitting with her HeeHee and Mimi,

Fireworks

Adriana sitting with Daddy watching the fireworks.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!
Well on Sunday, we had a great time too! We went to church and then had our traditional lunch, when Ryan's family is in town, we went to Cheddars. It was good eating, like always. We came home and took naps and then headed out to Nixa to this little go cart track and mini golf place. Of course, I couldn't ride the go carts being pregnant and all, but all the kids got to ride and they had a BLAST! After riding the go carts we had a crazy game of mini golf. We thought the kids would enjoy this, but they were too busy running around the course and throwing things in the fountains. Pretty much we played 18 holes as fast as we could so we could try to tame the wild beasts (our children) before we got kicked off the course. We had a great time and it was, again, wonderful weather. It was such a fun time together.

On your marks, get set,.....GO!


Poppop and Riley



Ryan and Adriana


Kara and Jack

HeeHee


Kara's Power Shot

Jim trying to mess up Sandy. Although it didn't

work out, since she was the only one of us to

get a hole in one!

Tiger Woods, oh, I mean, Jim. He was the

champion, but it was probably because he golfed

with so many clubs in his hands!

Heehee and Adriana on the putting green.


2 Little ones looking for trouble while golfing.

A Day at the Park

On Monday, Ryan went to work, so it was my chance to entertain the family. Well, everything I wanted to do, was either closed on Monday's or it was too cold to do, like swimming outside. We ended up going to the park in Nixa, this is Adriana's favorite park. The kids had a great time swinging, sliding and running up and down this huge hill. We didn't stay for too long, but we had fun. We went to Wendy's for lunch, and then home for a nap. When Ryan got off work that day we took everyone to the Community Center that we are members of and we went swimming. We had a great time and I think the kids really enjoyed it. We stayed at the pool for over 2 hours and didn't leave until after 9pm. We had a big day, but it was so much fun!

Kara and Jack


PopPop teaching the kids how to roll down the

hill, the kids didn't really get it. They enjoyed

running down the hill instead.

Riley and Jack swinging

Ride The Ducks

On Tuesday, Ryan took off work and we headed to Branson for the morning. We had planned on going and doing the "Ride the Ducks" attraction. It was so much fun! We see it every time we are down that way, but never have done it. It was so worth the money, and would suggest doing it, if you are ever in the Branson area. My mom ended up coming with us for the day too. My dad was going to go, but was feeling under the weather, so she came alone. The first thing we did down there was the Duck ride. We had the funniest driver, "Captain Wild Thing" and he really made the ride everything it was. We got to hear some history about Branson and the surrounding landmarks as well of plenty of corny jokes. He picked on Jim and Sandy a lot and a couple of other poor souls that were aboard our ride. We had a great time and had many laughs along the way. (Picture Note: I just realized that I don't have a picture of Jim and Jack on the Ride the Ducks, Imust of taken that picture with their camera, sorry!)

Our Ride. You take your tour on the bus part

and then the take you right into the water. It

was so cool!

Captian Wild Thing

Daddy and Adriana with thier "quackers"

Me and Adriana

This was too stinkin' cute! While we

were driving around, our tour guide

told us to be quiet for a minute so we

could sneak up on these people on a mini

golf course and "quack" at them real loud.

Well, when it got quiet, I guess Adriana thought

we were going to pray, so I look over and she has

her eyes closed and her hands together like in prayer.

It was too cute. Of course by the time I took a picture

she was out of her pose, but you can still see that her

eyes are closed.

Kara and Riley

Riley driving the boat, while on the Lake. She

was the only one of the kids that was brave enough

to get up there and drive.

The grandmothers being loud and out of control

with the quackers.

After the ride, we went to lunch. Nothing special, just something quick and easy, McDonald's. Then we were off to Bumper Boats. Unfortunately we didn't have any pictures from that, since we were all riding in the boats, but it was so much fun. The kids had a great time and the best part was, it was only us on the water and no one else. We really just ran out of time, that morning, we wanted to do more, but as with toddlers, they need their naps, so we headed home for rest time. That evening we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese, which none of them had every been before. We all had a great time. With it being in the middle of the week, they weren't busy at all, so we got to play a lot of games. I think the adults had just as much fun as the kids. It was a great end to a great day.

Adriana and Riley, "riding" on a roller coaster,

they couldn't care less.


Adriana in a BIG rocking horse

Chillin' with Chuck E. Cheese.

Loving this ride. It was slow as

molasses though.

The Last Day

Well, Like I said, they ended up staying an extra day, which we were so glad of. Ryan went back to work on Wednesday so I took everyone out to the Wilson Rutledge Farm. Its a public park of sorts, that houses animals that you can pet, picnic areas and a playground. We ended up meeting my parents out there for a picnic. The kids had more fun feeding the ducks their food, than eating it, but nevertheless, they enjoyed it. After we ate, we went through the barn and saw all the animals. They enjoyed this a lot. After that, we headed for the playground. The kids had a good time playing, however, it was getting so hot and past nap time, they didn't really get to play that long.

That evening, we just took it easy and hung around the house.

Grandparents and grandkids

Milking the cow

Adriana petting the cat that roamed around

there.

Adriana in the flower garden

Don't let this look fool you, she wasn't as innocent

as she looks.

We had a great time with them and are sad to see them go. We may not get to see them for a while, so we did as much as possible while they were here and made lots of fun memories. Adriana LOVES her cousins and all her family from Alabama and were so excited they were here. Thank you guys for coming all this way to spend your vacation time with us. We love you and miss you already!