If Obama wins the presidency again, I am going to lose any faith I have left in humanity. 

Lately I have been so extremely tired.  And achy.  My back is getting those weird lumps again.  My lower half of my body is constantly aching.  I pop tylenol, advil, or ibuprophen like at least twice a day, usually more.  My head is constantly pounding.  I can't focus on ANYTHING.  Am I just getting old?  Or am I sick?  Or are my kids getting crazier than usual?  I don't know but, it must stop.  UGH.  There is never any down time.  Dumb.

Chase's 2nd Birthday

 Chase turned two on October 9th.  They had the party this last Saturday at Trisha and Josh's house in Nauvoo.  Trisha asked me to make some fresh guacamole up because they were having mexican.  Yummy, my favorite kind of food!  Cullen and Eden had a blast with the balloons and became pretty possessive of them.....so did Asher, actually. 

 Milo was sleeping on the couch when we got there.  I HAD to pick him up so that no one would sit on him!  lol!  I miss having a baby around! They are so dang perfect and cute! And he smelled really good too, kinda like a cabbage patch doll!  haha!

 Eden loved Chase's cozy coupe.  I had the brilliant idea of building a little cardboard house around it and then she could be the UP house for Halloween! ha!  But, we already have her costume and I'm sure she is going to be extra cute for sure!  She will be Minnie Mouse and I think she is pretty excited about it.  She calls both Minnie and Mickey, "Mow". 

 Milo taking a bottle from Grandma.  So far Chase and Milo have been similar to Tristan and Cedric when they were the same age.  Tristan was a tiny little guy and Cedric came along and was huge!  What's funny is that they both are average sized now. 

 Chase opening his presents from us.  I am annoyed with myself becauseI always forget something.  I had bought his gifts a couple of months ago...and a card.  I always forget cards so I was pretty pleased with myself for being so organized and ready for things.  Well, the day of the party, I forget the card and didn't get the sticker I was going to put on the inside of the book in it.  Doh!  Then I thought I would mail the card but Grandma Kelley got the same card for him so I think I will just save it for some other 2 year old birthday, haha!  Oh well.  We got him the third piece of his birthday train that we started for him last year.  It's Precious Moments and he gets a piece of the train every year. 

 Chase's birthday train.  

Chase and Eden couldn't keep their tiny little fingers out of the cupcakes!

 She REALLY like the cupcakes!  She pretty much inhaled two right in a row!  It reminded me of that video on youtube where the college girl is at a party and shoves three whole cupcakes in her mouth and nearly dies!  

 I'm not sure why the picture below looks like that????  Hmmm, weird.  Anyway, he blew his candles out super fast and no one got to take a picture so they re-lit the candles and did it again!  Happy Birthday, Chasers!

Asher's Mohawk

Asher got his hair cut and requested a mohawk!  He was pretty proud of it when he got home from the salon. Of course we had to take pictures! 

Cullen's Bunny Hop

Cullen LOVES to slap these bad boys on his head and hop around pretending he is a bunny.  He will even put his hands up by his face and hop with both feet saying "Hop! Hop! Hop!" the whole time!  It's really cute!  Just like him.  And do we mind that he has pink bunny ears on his little head? Not in the slightest.  What a cutie!!!

A Little Bit of This

Here are some things that are going on.  Just a few. 

• Cullen likes to go potty in the toilet.  But, he also likes to not wear pants.  If he is wearing pants, he usually doesn't make it to the toilet in time.  the next thing to work on with him is staying dry AND wearing pants, lol. 
• Operation "Boom Boom Bye Bye" is on hold.  Remember there are six kids here, all with different needs and wants and things to tackle.....everything will happen in time.
• This is the year that all the kids want to be involved with the extracurricular activities.  Now, how to make it all work!?!?  Cedric is in band and is joining the basketball team...I think.  Liam and Asher are joining the Charger youth wrestling.  
• I ate all the caramel candy corn so we don't have to worry about that anymore, phew! 
• I have taught Eden all about chocolate and why it is so important.  She calls it cott, not to be confused with 'cot', which we all know is something we sleep on and not something we eat.  She gets very excited when I put ovaltine in her milk.  
• The bank sent out my Christmas club check and now the clock is ticking to see how long I can wait to go shopping with it.  
• I love my new dryer.  It's so dang quiet that now the washer is too loud.  Whereas before, the dryer was so loud that I couldn't ever hear thew washer anyway! lol!  Now, I want a new washer too!  It is a whirlpool so hopefully it has a long life.  *fingers crossed*
•  We bought some new shelves for the basement to put our canned goods on.  It worked out really well.  I have been iffy about keeping them in the basement but, it really is the best spot for them.  Now, I just need to get my can organizers and I will be set! woot! 
• The Walking Dead Season 3 premier was awesome as we thought it would be.  We let Tristan and Cedric stay up with us.  Asher and Liam too.  Liam doesn't like the Walking Dead and went upstairs.  Asher was thrilled and uber excited about a "party" but then once the show started he remembered that he doesn't actually like scary shows! lol!  But, before hand he made Walking Dead signs and pictures for decorations that he put all over the house.  I finally had to stop him because he was going a little overboard.  
• I am going to start doing zumba up on the square on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  It should be fun, I hope!

My Current Obsession

This holiday season is going to do me in!!  I already found egg nog and then I found these little gems!  Caramel Candy Corn!?!?  Shut the front door!!  I can't stop eating them.  I mean it.  I really can not stop!!  I think I'm going to make up this year all the holiday goodies that I didn't eat last year! 

Golden M&M's

I went to the M&M's website to get some personalized m&m's for Liam's birthday party.  We had wanted to take him and Cedric to Chicago to Legoland for his birthday.  He came to me the other day and asked if he could have a party with his friends. Yep.  anyway, I ordered the two colors I wanted and then personalized them with a few things like Liam's 8th Birthday and such.  Then I went to check-out and the total for 5 lbs. of M&M's came to $130.something!!!! WTF?!!?!?  For M&M's?!?!!  I hope to God they are lined with gold or something.  So, nevermind on the personalized m&m's....

Brain Burps

Also, when we were cleaning out the coat closet, I found a bag full of little Mickey Mouse treat bags that I had put together for Cullen's birthday party.  I was going to give one to all the kiddies that were here.  *sigh*  I always forget stuff.  My brain tries to focus and get it together but, I swear it is because I have a million voices in my head ALL THE TIME!  No, not crazy voices....little(big) kid voices!  And they never stop!  One day I will miss everyone needing me so much and all the chatter and noise and chaos.  But, not today, when they are upstairs doing their best to wake Eden up as I type.  So....anyone need treat bags??? Trisha??

What the Heck!?

 I started this earlier in the week and worked on it a little two days ago....and never finished it!  lol! And I'm not going to finish it.......




Things have been busy here.  As usual.  This past weekend we had the Grandmas keep the kids and we tackled some projects around the house.  First we went to Burlington and got some supplies we needed.  We restocked up on paint supplies, more paint, a wall thingie for the kids school papers, and a new dryer!!!  Then we came home and started.  We got most of the garage organized enough where there are paths and things in spots so we can get to them.  Still need to do more in there but it is a HUGE improvement.
We converted Eden's bed into a day bed and put Cullen in the new IKEA toddler bed I bought from Tammy.  We organized Tristan's closet which was ridiculous.  Jeremy did the rest of the hardware in the bathroom and fixed the one that was coming off the wall.  We got another coat of paint in the dining room.  We just need to figure out what to do with our HUGE armoire because we can't get to the last wall in the dining room.....it is so heavy we could not move it by ourselves and we have no truck to put it it......and no where to go with it?  We may have to rent a storage unit or something but we still have no way to get it there.  It's very annoying because I am ready to be done in the dining room already!! UGH.
 Painted three coats on the dang trim!! The trim is the bane of my existence!! It is so time consuming~! Also, if you ever have a whim to save yourself a couple of bucks by NOT buying the 3M or Scotch or whatever it is painters tape....and decide to get Blue Hawk painters tape instead....DON'T!!!!  It wasted SO MUCH of my time!!  I had to go back over everything I painted because it totally bled through the dang tape!!!  See, all the stuff we are learning about!?!?  Things we didn't even want or need to know! lol!
We organized the shoe and coat closet and got the new (broken) shoe rack in with the shoes on it.  That closet is a beast and kinds of ends up being a catch all.  We replaced the filter in our furnace.  But, the darn thermostat still keeps flashing the word "filt" as us??  We are not sure why or what we are supposed to do about that.  We burned tons of boxes in the fire pit.  Which I need to dig out....when we made it, we made it four landscape stones high.  Now it is almost full of ash and whatever.  And I have a grand idea for the fire pit area for next spring maybe???  We will have to see how everything goes but, the ideas are flowing!
We dug out the Christmas boxes just to have them handy in a month or so when I can officially set up for Christmas without looking TOO crazy.  We found surprises though!  Both of us had totally forgotten that we bought new Christmas tree decorations after Christmas last year on clearance!! woot!! I will finally this year have the crazy, pretty, bright, and colorful tree I have wanted to do for awhile now.  The colors are a bright blue, pink/fuschia, purple, and bright green....also silver!!  I am so excited.  Usually I am a very traditional in my Christmas decorating because I like it....it reminds me of when I was little and it is classic.  But, this year we are doing something different.  I'm still keeping my other stuff because I am sure I won't want to do it every year.  And once we finish the house or move (can't decide which will be happening, agh!) I'm sure I will have room for two trees anyway. 
I did about a gazillion loads of laundry and folded them all and put them all away because I thought they were going to be delivering the dryer on Saturday.  But, it turns out that they are delivering it today!!  If anyone has heard my dryer or tried to call or knock on my door while the dryer is running....then you know why we NEED a new one! Hahaha!  It is the loudest, most annoying, least drying dryer on the planet!!  I hope my electric bills go down after we get this new one.  They need to because right now our electric bill is sitting at about $400 a month, which is bat-crap crazy!!!  We bought a high efficiency/energy star one so I better see some difference.  I pretty much run my washer and dryer constantly.  All day, every day.  And lately I have been leaving the dryer on as I go to bed so I don't have to be downstairs to listen to the beast try to dry my clothes! 

The past week has been EXHAUSTING!! 

January 2007

 Baby Asher about 4 months old!

 Brothers!

 Cedric used to love to hold Asher for me.  My two blue eyed boys!  (And of course Cullen came along and made it my three blue eyed boys!)

 Tristan cheesing for the camera at Adventure Zone.  

I'm not quite sure what we were there for????

 Me and Denae at the The Hawkeye in Keokuk, I think? 

 They had freshly painted and it looked AWFUL!  haha!

 Little Liam Pie....what a cute little munchkin!!  I miss them all being so darn small.  *Sigh*

 Asher....I LOVE this picture.  He still smiles just like this all the time! 

 It's one of my favorite smiles ever.

 

 Classic Liam face! 

 The two headed Beast!!  This picture was entirely an accident but one of my favorites of all time!  It's just too perfect!

This was on New Years Eve that year.  We just stayed in at my parent's house and played games with the kids and ate food!  The last Christmas and New Years I would have with my Dad still alive so I'm happy we spent it with him that year/

More Vaccine Info

This girl has a great blog post on WHY she chose not to immunize most of her kids after doing research.  These are just a few of the many reasons I have made the same decision. 

http://blog.greensmoothiegirl.com/2007/09/26/why-i-chose-not-to-immunize-my-kids/

This site gave met the links I needed to the forms for school to refuse the vaccines.  And has a memorial page for those that have been affected or died from vaccines. 

http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Memorial.aspx

The link to the forms needed to give to school:

 http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements/illinois.aspx

Me, Today

I need to get out of the house!!!! For reals, I'm losing it here! 

I love that we have a routine and certain things happen every day but, DEAR GOD!!!!!!

I'm gonna go bat-crap crazy!  I feel like I'm living the movie Groundhog Day! 

It's the SAME THING EVERY DAY! 

 I even have charts and lists that prove it to be so. 

 Every. single. day.

On a side note: due to the above mentioned stir-craziness, I might have formed an addiction to online shopping.  I just love for packages to show up on my door step or in my mailbox!! It's like the highlight of my day! lol!  Stupid story: About a month or so ago, I bought a new shoe rack thingie from Kohls online.  They shipped it (and I have discovered that Kohl's has the slowest, dumbest shipping methods of anywhere I shop) and I finally got it.
I opened the box immediately and started putting it together because I was really excited to re-organize my shoe and coat closet.  On the second shelf I was installing, it broke!!!  AGH!  Dang it!  Something I do love about Kohl's is that they have the no-hassle return policy so the next time we went to Quincy, I returned it.  They didn't have any more in the store so I went home empty handed.  I went home and tried to order it again online and they were not carrying it anymore!!! GEESH!!!  What the crap,people!?!?!
 So, I shopped around a little more and couldn't find what I wanted anywhere else.  That project was kind of put on the back burner.  Then a couple of weeks or less ago, Trisha sent me a message reminding me that my Kohls cash would expire (thank you, Trisha!).  I logged onto Kohls and they had it in stock again!!! It was more expensive now but, I also had some Kohl's cash to help with it.  I ordered it.  I actually got here fairly quickly this time.  It came yesterday!! SO EXCITED!  I ripped open the box and started putting it together again.  On the second shelf....I freaking snapped it again, and it broke!!!!! CRAP A FRICKING DOG!  I kinda half laughed/half cried.  Then, I just finished putting it together and said to heck with it.
When Jeremy came home, I told him to figure out some way to fix it so that we can use it.  I don't want to wait forever to organize my darn coat and shoe closet because it is now to the time of year where we will use it like crazy.  Coats, boots, hats, scarves, school bags, you know.....all that stuff.  There is my story of the shoe shelf.  I know it's is uber interesting.  For those of you that are new to my blog.  This also gets printed into a big book of memories for my family each year, so you will find many, many different things on here! lol!

I need some new girlfriends or something.  My best girlfriends from childhood are either too far away or have new interests that don't include me.  My family girlfriends are in other towns.  I don't have any friends in Carthage.  I have people that I know, but no one that I hang out with.  I wonder if I'm annoying or something, lol!!  You never know!!!  Anyway, I am in a rut.  Ugh. 

Annoyed

So the middle school called yesterday to tell me that Cedric is not up to date on his shots.  That is crazy since he got his full round of shots before I got wise and quit doing the stupid immunizations!!  I have to call the doctor now to get a record of it or they said he would be excused from school!! LMAO!!!!! Sure, sure.  I know what my rights are.
What really gets me is that people listen to their pediatrician and school officials and government officials....all of which have to follow the APA's regulations or risk losing their jobs and livelihood!!!!!!  There are SO MANY bad things associated with vaccines....so many.  It really makes me wonder if the "ADHD/ADD" thing is from the vaccines as well.  So, today, I will be on a quest to prove my point to the government run school.  The same government that puts flouride in our public water supply and try to tell us it is for the benefit of our teeth!!!!!! Everything about flouride is BAD NEWS!!  There may be a few more fun fact filled rants here on the blog as I gather my stuff to take to the school.......lol!

So, so tired.  Ever so very tired.  My kids wear me out!! 

Halloween Woes

Eden wants to be Minnie Mouse for halloween.  I thought it would be cute to have Cullen dress up as Mickey.  And to that he says: "NEVER!" He also says that to every.single.costume that I have presented to him.

I don't know if he will ever dress up for Halloween.  Do I even bother getting him a costume?  The answer to that is yes because if I don't, he will be sure to want one on Halloween night. 

7UP Biscuits

 These are my new favorite biscuits.  My kiddies and hubby love them too!  

Thank you pinterest!  And the best part....wait for it........EASY Peasy!! 

Seems to be my slogan as of late! haha! 

RECIPE:

2 cups Bisquick

1/2 cup 7UP

1/2 cup Sour Cream

5 T. butter, melted

 Mix the Bisquick, 7up and sour cream together just until combined.  

Lightly flour rolling surface. 

 Roll out to about 1/2 inch thickness and cut into biscuits.  

This recipe should make 12 exactly.

 Put melted butter in pan, then lay the biscuits in the butter. 

 Bake on 450 for about 12-14 minutes.

And voila!  You have the best biscuits ever!  You don't even have to butter them because they are so buttery and moist already!  Mmmm, makes me want some right now!