Owen's Big Fat Lip!

A few days ago, my sister Melanie called me frantically looking for the Poison Control phone nubmer. (800.222.1222 - I've had to use it a few times!) :) I ask her what the problem is, and she tells me that Talon ate a bunch of berries off a bush in her yard, and she doesn't know if their poisonous or not.

Not 3 minutes later - no lie - Owen is screaming crying. I run to the backyard, and he has a mouth full of blood! I actually really kept my calm - suprisingly I DID NOT END UP IN THE ER!!! But he had quite a few deep cuts in his lips from what appeared to be his teeth. I quickly ask Brett what happened, to which he replied - very calmly - "O - I just pushed him." And he went on his merry way. "Oh no buddy - you get in that house right now. I'll deal with you in a minute." Poor Owen was so sad. I, of course, quickly took off his shirt - would'nt want to ruin a good shirt, right? - and assess the situation. Once I realized he was O.K., I quickly took a picture, (because that's all I can do these day to keep my sanity - just capture the moments in pictures, so I can laugh at them 20 years from now)and then set out to get Brett. (I'll keep those details to myself) ;)



Thankfully both Owen and Talon are just fine! It just goes to show that Melanie and I can do NOTHING alone - whether it's being pregnant at the same time (which we were for all three of our kids) or going through a little crisis or just going through the chaos - at least we're doing it together, and that's AWESOME to have someone else to lean on through these - let's say - "trying" times! :)

We have the greatest "Auntie!"

On Wednesday, my AWESOME friend Katie gave us her Barbie Jeep for the kids to use! My kids have been wanting one of these for so long, and I just didn't want to spend the money on it. Well, lo and behold - Auntie Katie has one, and her kids have outgrown it!

You should've seen the excitment in my children when they finally had one of "their own." It was a bit of a struggle at first, because Chloe didn't know how to drive the thing, but after this morning, she's "ready to get her driver's license!" :)

We didn't eat dinner last night until about 7:30, so that the kids could ride in the Jeep until the sun went down. Boy, did they have a blast!!!

This morning, first thing, that's what they wanted to do. Finally about 8:00, I gave in, and allowed them to take it out. I told Chloe to get dressed, and she came down in her sequin top from Christmas last year, and her diamond studded cords - whatever. The boys had the sweatshirts that they slept in and I just threw some jeans on them. So don't mind the eggs on their shirts, or their bed head. :)






See those two Cozy Coupe's in the background? Ya - those came from Auntie Katie too! :)


Thankfully, Owen didn't put up too much of a stink to ride in the Jeep. He was content on the Bronco Rider!

Seriously though - I'm gonna get a bit sappy here - Katie is the greatest friend ever! She's the most caring, genuine, fun and generous friend that anyone could ask for! She's always passing down her twin girls clothes to Chloe, and let me tell you - that is a HUGE blessing!!! She's always there when you need a shoulder to cry on, or just an ear to listen to you. She's the best! THANKS AUNTIE KATIE!!!!

I'm ahead of the game!!

Owen's birthday party isn't for another 3 1/2 weeks, and I actually have the invitations done!! Thanks to my sister Melanie!!

We came up with the idea together, and she magically puts it on paper - in her awesome way!




This is the envelope!


The propeller is off of the helicopter, because we cut them out by hand and then reattached them with brads - too cute!!! Thankfully I only had to do 9. My fingers got sore - you know, using my fine motor skills! :)

These may be cuter than last year's invites, it's close, but I still think last years are my favorite! We made those too!

Once all of our kids are in school, my sister and I would love to do this as a "job" it's so fun for us! We do a little bit now ~ here and there for baby showers and party's, but we'd really like to do more of it.

SO ~ if your interested in having us make some invites, or anything else creative, e-mail us at tulipsanddaisies@sbcglobal.net.

Wordless Wednesday - Me and my boys!

For more Wordless Wednesdays visit 5 minutes for mom.

Wordless Wednesday - Someone is afraid of thunderstorms...

This was taken earlier in the summer when we were bombarded with thunderstorms. Brett was in our room pretty much every night. This is what I came upstairs to when I came to bed one night.

Can I serve you a little cheese with that whine?

Phew! The last few weeks have just been so whiny at our house. Not sure why, but man, am I sick of it! If it's not whining to get out of bed first thing in the morning, it's whining to go to bed at night - and let's not forget about all the whining in between!

Brett is by far the worst of them! I love you my dear Brett, but the whining MUST.STOP.NOW - if only he could read! I don't know if it's the middle child syndrome coming out, and his worst side effect is whining, or if it's because he's three, but it is pretty much constant. And we've all met his shadow, Owen, who does pretty much EVERYTHING Brett does. Yeah, well he's learning how to whine now too. I've got to nip this thing right away - before it gets worse! Anyone have any good tips on how to stop this?

Sorry, this is coming out as more of a vent than a good post.

With that being said, I better go prepare lunch - I'm sure we'll have some "whine" with it - yum!

An Awesome Summer!

There is a family that is at the same campground as us, up at the lake. They are just a really great family. Their two daughters took pictures of our kids all summer long and put them on a disc for me. I made a slide show for you to check out.

Keep in mind - most of these kids are related - cousins, brothers/sisters, etc. But most of all these kids are friends! They really do love each other, and have such a fun time together. I'm just so thankful that my kids are growing up with such awesome "friends" - even if they are related! :)

P.S. Thanks Hope and Heather!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A great video

You've got to check out this video. It's a dad - David Crawford, singing Pachelbel bedtime. It's is totally hilarious! It reminds me of a day at my house! Take a few minutes to watch it!

My husband - the professional tuber!

With it being the last day of summer, I thought I'd give a little shout out to my hubby! You see, he's not just a hillbillie who spends most of his nights in a garage building a duck blind to hunt in, he's actually a man of many talents! ;)

Here's one...



We spend most of our weekends in the summer at a lake in Michigan. Ryan absolutely LOVES tubing. If I can't seem to find him on land - he's most likely on a boat with somebody tubing. It's actually really fun to watch! He's constantly trying to "get air" or land on another tube trying to! :)

Goodbye summer - Hello sweaters and jeans! It's a little bittersweet for me!

My daughter has two boyfriends?!?!?!

I picked up Chloe from school yesterday, and she was in a great mood. I was quite suprised with the morning that we had, I didn't expect her to be in such good spirits.

She got in the car, started to eat her apple, and proceeds to tell me about her day. I actually LOVE this part of the day, because I get a little peak at what she does all day.

After the usual questioning from me, she proceeds to tell me that she has two boyfriends.

WHAT?!? I tried to stay calm - she's 5! She doesn't even need to be thinking of boyfriends.

Me: "Oh really," I say in my calmest voice.

Chloe: "Yep - Brett (another boy in her class) and Sean - I just got them today."

Me: "How did they become your boyfriend?"

Chloe: "Well, Brett just looks at me and smiles, and I smile back at him, and Sean - I just asked him to be my friend."

Me: "So their just friends right?"

Chloe: "Yeah, they're just friends and they're just boys!"

PHEW!! I didn't want to start dealing with that already!

Boys are way easier than girls...I think?!?!?!

Today is picture day for Chloe. I sent her to school in an outfit that she HATES! Every bit of it, down to the shoes. Now, I spent a little bit of money on this outfit - not too much, but definitely worth wearing. She complained and cried all morning about not wanting to wear the outfit, and then when it came time to do her hair - WATCH OUT!!! I finally had to bribe her a bit (I know, I'm bad) and told her that as soon as she gets home from school she can change. My boys on the other hand could care less what they are wearing. It is just so easy for me to pick out their clothes, get them dressed, and we're done. Easy as pie!

For the most part, Chloe is not a whiner - which is a good thing, but she does complain alot when I ask her to make her bed, clean her room, set the table, etc. Brett just LOVES doing these things! He makes his bed without me asking him to, and he just LOVES to clear the table after dinner! And Owen, being Brett's shadow, is starting to love these things too!

At this stage of the game, I'm just so glad that I have two boys and one girl. Ask me in about 13 years, when Brett is learning how to drive, breaking girls hearts, and getting into trouble, and we'll see if I have the same answer!

Wordless Wednesday - Where's Ryan?

Here he is!!!


I know this is supposed to be "wordless," but I felt the need to explain just a bit. This is Ryan's duck boat/blind. He is a HUGE hunter, and each year he sets out to camouflage his boat. He actually did all this work, and then decided he "needed" a new boat. CRAZY! This one wasn't big enough, or safe enough, in case he wanted to take the kids with him. (Not so sure about that one.) Anyway, on Sunday we headed out to Monticello, IN (yeah, it's mostly corn.) and got yet another new boat for our family. 2007 must be the year for new boats! :)

For more Wordless Wednesday go to 5 minutes for mom!

Thankfully it was just a sprain!!

I went away Friday night to Saturday to a little retreat with my MOPS steering team. It was loads of fun. Of course, we stayed up till 3:00 a.m. - others (I won't name any names) stayed up till 5:00 a.m., and still yet, others didn't even sleep at all! The next morning we woke up and went to Lighthouse Premium Outlets in Michigan City, IN. Needless to say, we had loads of fun!

I came home on Saturday to find Brett limping. Seems he went down the slide, and landed on his ankle the wrong way. We decided to wait a day to see if it would get better, but come Sunday afternoon he was still babying it and limping pretty bad. Of to the ER we go!

After about a 3 hour wait, we get x-rays and a splint, and they tell me that they can't tell if it's fractured or not - better go to an orthopedic doctor.

We did that yesterday, and thankfully he is just fine - just a sprain!

Now today, I have Chloe home from school "feeling sick."

Not a dull moment around here.

And yet another trip to the ER...

And we ended up with this and a follow-up with an orthopaedic doctor tomorrow.




Can you guess which kid this is?!??

An awesome freebie!

So those of you that know me well, know that I LOVE anything FREE! Well, I just found an awesome freebie!

Visit the Fisher Price website.

Their is a new product that they have called Planet Heroes. It looks really cute - I think Brett will LOVE this. Anyway they are giving away free DVDs!! Absolutely Free!!! No shipping and handling charges - nothing. Now, it does take 12-14 weeks to get it, so I haven't gotten mine yet - hopefully it's worth the wait!

Give it a try!

Wordless Wednesday - Two boys and their Grandma, playing the piana! :)

For more Wordless Wednesday, visit 5 minutes for mom.

Wordless Wednesday - Where's Ryan?!?!?!

Here he is!

Remember my post about...

Boys being boys?

Well, this is going to be a little continuation of that...

Yesterday, while grocery shopping, the boys noticed a couple covered in tatoos. And they both started saying "Eeeewwwwwwwwwwww! Gross!" Owen said, "That yucky!" I think he had a bit of prompting from his big brother. Let me just add that I am not against tatoos in any way, but these peoples arms were covered in them, and I think that's why the boys thought it was yucky. To them, they probably thought is was just dirty. Anyway, the couple turns around and looks at them, and then me, with sort of a smile on their face, while I just say, "out of the mouths of babes, right?" I wanted to crawl into a hole.

We got home from shopping, ate lunch and got them all into bed for nap! Yeah!! Two hours of me time! I made myself a sandwich, got a Diet Pepsi, and plopped myself on the couch to watch T.V.! I heard the boys making quite a bit of noise, but I just chose to ignore it so that I could eat my lunch. Everything quieted down, so I went upstairs to check, and this is what I found:




Fast-forward to this morning - my husband is back at building his duck blind again!
He spent most of his night last night, and well into this morning building it. He didn't come to bed until almost 2AM. Anyway, this morning, the boys were playing with him in the garage. I was doing some stuff inside, when Ryan came barging in the door, saying, "Guess what just happened right now?" "What?" I say. Before I tell you what he said next, let me just tell you that our neighbors are getting a new driveway. They were pouring the cement real early this morning. SO, do I really need to tell you what happened, or can you figure it out yourself? I'm sure you can guess - there are four little footprints across the entire new driveway! Again - I wanted to crawl into a hole, as did my husband, because he was the one who heard the neighbor yelling, "No, No, No!" Ryan, of course, asked to help fix it, but he just said he would do it himself. I, of course, wanted to go get a picture of the cute little foot prints, but Ryan wouldn't let me! :)

Does it get any easier?!?! Sorry Michelle I said that it was fun having 3 kids so close in age, but boy is it ALOT of work! :)