Easter Morning At Our House

 Well, here are some Easter pics.  It's another quasi-religious holiday that I wasn't thrilled about being involved with this year.  I struggle with the idea of filling young, forming minds with horrific notions about some religion that you decided for them.  I want my kids to use their minds and form decisions on their own, with what feels right and comfortable TO THEM, not what feels right and comfortable to me.  I was raised in a faith that was detrimental in so many ways(as they all are) and I refuse to do the same to them. So instead of worrying about all that other stupid crap about the holiday, I embraced the damn Easter Bunny.  I mean if we are believing in things we have never seen or have any actual evidence of, I'm going to promote the cute, fun fairy tale about a nice bunny that brings me eggs filled with yummy candy and fun stuff rather than the one that threatens me if I don't worship him in whatever wacko way he chooses, I am doomed to hell.  What a downer, lol, who would want to hang out with that guy, hah!!

 I went to four different Dollar Generals in the surrounding area to find all these Easter Baskets for just $5 each!  Lol!  I was determined.  I filled em full of a bunch of crap (cool adult coloring books, memory books, reading books, toys, candy, stickers, oh and EGGS) and then we.....Jeremy and I....erm, the EASTER BUNNY, hopped all through the house and hid the baskets.  I do love how every Easter morning the kids wake us up with whose baskets they have already found and those that they just can't seem to find!  There is a lot of teamwork between the kids Easter morning and they are all genuinely nice and excited to help each other find baskets and see who got what. 

 Well my teenagers are starting to not have quite the excitement they had in previous years, LOL!  And that's fine with me.  I remember being that age. and I love having a little of the pressure relieved of being "on" for the holiday, when you don't have to necessarily "hide" things form them or create some kind of perfect thing for them.  

 Eden got Piggy Paint in her basket.  It is safe, non-toxic nail polish for little girls that says it is as safe as mud???? Hmmm, not sure what that means, but whatever, it sounds good! :)

 A lot of my kids and myself are getting into the adult coloring books recently.  I bought a set of really nice professional colored pencils and we all just sit and color together sometimes.  

 Don't mind all the pizza boxes, we had Trapp Easter at our house this year and Nicci, Trey, Alina, Will, and Sam stayed later into the evening, the day before Easter.  For supper we had Will, Tristan, and Cedric drive to Keokuk to get pizza for us.  

 I don't know how I didn't snap any pics at all of Cedric, what the heck!?!?!? 

We all got ready for the day and went to Kelley Family Easter first, then to another Trapp Easter and Vicki and Dan's house for supper, both of which will be in a different post. I have to say though, pretty dang good Easter this year even with my recent "Faith Crisis".  

Here We Go Again

  So the "one post a day" thing is going GREAT!  I  mean, just look at all the catching up I have been doing! SMH.  Oh well.  I am trying, which is proven by my many repeated attempts, lol!  So, we are going through another life crisis right now.  Looks like there is a good possibility that our house in Nauvoo will be sold out from under us again.
  *ASIDE:  To be clear, this is not at all like the situation last time where there was an immense amount of lying, cheating, and stealing, in the name of God, no less!  The Hasek's were very clear in the beginning of all this and this is what we agreed to, knowing full well all the possibilities.  We cannot fault them at all, they have been great the entire time we have lived here and we consider them friends. END ASIDE*
  I am doing my best to remain calm and not freak out but, it is a minute by minute thing. I way over-analyze every little detail of every little thing and that can be good to a point but, mostly bad for my mental health, lol.  The good thing is that we are not in the horribly crappy financial situation that we were the last time this happened but, our options are still limited.  We haven't sold our pain the ass Carthage house yet either which is the main kink in the situation.  That house has been the bane of my existence ever since I saw the damn thing. We are waiting on Lowe's to install the carpet and we are going to call it quits on fixing anything else in that house.  Really we did most of it.  The rest of the work is more cosmetic and something that most people do and change when they buy a house anyway. ( I wish I had taken before and after pics of the house from when we bought it to now....I don't know why I never remember to do that.) Anyway, we are meeting with a new lender today to see if we can go ahead and finance this house, while we still own our Carthage house.  We have been making two house payments, two electric payment, two insurance payments, two water/sewer/trash payments, two gas payments, and one payment to the lawn guy who takes care of our yard in Carthage for two years now and never missed a payment.  Obviously we can make the payments on both houses, we just wish it were that easy instead of making people come up with an absurd amount of money out of thin air for a ridiculous down payment.  *sigh*  
It's great timing too.  The mad rush at the end of the school year is in full swing, Cedric and Vivianne's birthdays, kids graduations, its the busy time of year for photographers, and a million other things.  I guess there is never a "good" time for anything.  I am trying to not fight the universe and let things happen as they need to.  We can only do so much, so we will do our best and call it good.

Why So Stupid!?

Here is something that I want to talk about. I am sick and tired of the world telling parents that everything they do and say is wrong or somehow going to scar your freaking children for the rest of their lives.  Like we don't already have enough on our minds as parents, without worrying about judgement from the entire world.  Guess what???? Parents aren't perfect.  Guess what???  Neither are kids.  Do we all handle things the wrong way sometimes?  Yep.  Do our children handle things the wrong way sometimes? Yep.  Do we forgive them?  Yep.  Do they forgive us?  Yep.  So, the question is, why can't society let parents mess up ever?  I'll tell you why.  Because society is stupid.  That is all.

Today's Post

I have not wanted to blog like I said I would but, I am forcing myself.  Yesterday I woke up and the wind was finally not blowing like a hurricane.  The wind has been absolutely bonkers for the last week or so and our yard was a disaster.  I couldn't burn our cardboard or sticks that fly around our yard because it was so dang windy.  So, when I woke up and the air was still, I called everyone outside to help in the yard.  We picked up sticks, cardboard, trash, toys, and whatever else had blown around.  We burnt a big pile of crap in our big firepit and then started a fire in our patio fire pit to have an impromptu lunch around the fire.  We had foil dinners, hot dogs, chips, and smores.  Then a new girl from school texted my phone to ask if Eden could come over and play.  She was so excited.  And we found out that they live really close to us and can play together all summer.  Sweet.  Later in the afternoon, I took Cullen and Eden to Happy Joe's in Burlington and out to see the movie Zootopia.  I'm not really in to telling this right now, in case you can't tell, lol!

Tidbit

I am seriously annoyed with myself and what a horrendous job I have done keeping up with this blog for the past year or so.  I AM going to do better.  I also have slacked on printing the blog books.  That will happen too.  The past year has been different for me in so many ways. There has been a lot of discovery, learning, growth, introspective, and change in all areas of my life. I am going to try to keep a goal of posting one post a day to try to catch myself up a bit.

Yesterday I posted these pictures on Facebook of all the kids at Kelley Family Easter.  Grandma and Grandpa Kelley had gotten these super cute Minnie Mouse outfits for Eden and Viv for Christmas.  They hadn't had a chance to wear them yet and I thought, rather than get new Easter dresses, they could wear these and be freaking adorable!  And adorable they were!  Oh my goodness, I these two girls are just too much cute!

 My boys have totally made my life complete by giving me an awesome photo of ALL of them STANDING STILL, LOOKING AT THE CAMERA, SMILING, AND NOT THROWING SOME KIND OF FIT!!!!  I am in heaven.  I love the rainbow shirts I made them wear too, lol!

 

Round and Round We Go, Where We Stop, Nobody Knows!

My life is like an endless carousel ride.  Only I feel like I am on the wrong ride, getting nowhere.  Just running around and around in circles.  And it is exhausting.  I am just hoping there is a point to it all.  *sigh* 

My Vivianne Lucille

I love this little lady so much.  This picture is from late in August but, as I try to catch up on my blogging, I will get some more recent ones on here too.  Anywho, she is growing like a weed in so many ways.  She is BUSY, BUSY, BUSY....and that is an understatement!  She is curious about everything she sees and wants to understand what it does, how it works, and wants it to be hers, lol!  She is extremely bright and catches on to words, actions, ideas, and just about everything super quick!  She LOVES to dance and sing, which is one of my favorite things about her.  She can shake her booty like nobody's business!  Whenever she hears a song or a beat, she will automatically start dancing!  She talks and talks and loves to imitate sounds as well.  One of Vivianne's favorite things to do is snuggle and boy oh boy, is she ever a pro at it!! She will snuggle on people, pillows, blankets, with stuffed animals, etc.  At bedtime or naptime, she will go around and collect all her doll babies and snugglies and toss them all into her bed first.  And when she gets out of bed in the morning, she must bring one or more of her "friends" and at least one blanket.  Then we snuggle on the couch for a few minutes or more, depending on how she feels, while she wakes the rest of the way up.  

Vivianne also is the cutest when she is saying Good-bye.  She waves the cutest little wave, blows kisses, and says "bye-bye" in the sweetest little girl voice.  She is super affectionate and loves to snuggle and play with her brothers and sister.  The boys are mostly pushovers with her still at this point and will do whatever she wants them to do for or with her, lol!  Eden loves her sister too but, likes Vivianne to not do, play, or touch anything, lol!! Although Vivianne has a little more attitude lately and is not afraid to show when she is mad at someone by very intentionally walking over to someone and hitting them to show that she is upset.  We are working on that. ;) 

At her 12 or 18 month check-up, Dr. Davis told me that it was time to take the pacifier from her while she was still at the point where giving it up wouldn't matter as much and it would be easier.  I laughed at him.  We all know that if there is an easy way to do something, that I will find an easier way that benefits me short term and make it more difficult long-term, because, ya know, that is how I roll!  So, what I am trying to say is, she still has her "paci-boom-boom" as I have somehow ended up calling the darn things after all these years. 

*On a side tangent here:  I think it is downright HILARIOUS when younger people, doctors, people that raised one or two kids, or just plain ignorant people try to give me advice on how to raise kids!  Like anyone REALLY knows, LMAO!  I am pretty sure that we are all just muddling through the best we can.  But, really, do people think I haven't tried just about everything under the sun and learned along the way!?!?  I might have ADHD, PTSD, Mom-brain, and quite possibly some kind of hormonal weirdness but, I am not stupid!! Haha!  And one of my favorite pastimes is watching all the new generation of moms have mental break downs over every little thing they have read and how it is going to either turn your child into a rocket scientist with no health problems or they will end up shattered little souls with all kinds of health issues.  I was the exact same way when I first had kids and couldn't fathom how in the world my parents raised me the way they did.  You know, with NO carseats (oh, the horror), didn't read to us before bed(and I STILL LOVE READING....how is that possible!?!?....I actually do read to the kids before bed though), feed babies formula instead of the clearly better breastmilk, giving kids medicine, blah, blah, blah. I was always up to date on car seat regulations, etc.  You know what is funny??  All those studies, those "do things this way because it the best and your child will grow horns and die if you don't do things this way" articles, the car seat regulations, the "put baby to sleep on his back-put baby to sleep on his side-put baby to sleep on his stomach", the don't eat lunchmeat when your pregnant and other such advice.....they have all changed at least three or four or more times since I had Tristan.  What I was "supposed" to do as a mom changed remarkably from when I had Tristan to when I had Vivianne. What I have learned along the way, is that we all need to do what works best for us and for each individual kid.  And whatever the newest studies have shown about whatever subject is great and good information and all that but, if you don't do whatever the newest trend is, your baby is still going to be fine.  I haven't med any formula fed adults that have any kind of effects that anyone can trace back to not being breast fed. K, well, that really was a tangent, now wasn't it!?!? End side tangent**

So, Vivi Lu has a pretty big vocabulary going and she is putting together short sentences too.  Like I said, she will try to repeat everything.  Her hair is getting long enough to start to "Do" it.  She has the cutest little curlies and the color of her hair is gorgeous.  I seriously have the most beautiful girls I have ever seen.  I know I am biased but, for reals, I can't believe that I made half of them!! I guess it helps that they have a super handsome Daddy too. :)

Grape Fest Feature Parade 2015

 We took the kids to the Grape Festival feature parade this year at Grape Fest.  The parade (and all of Grape Festival( needs a kick in the pants or something.  It has slowly been going down hill for a few years now.  We enjoyed ourselves anyway though.

 Tristan was with his girlfriend(at the time, they are no longer "going out"), Hannah.  

 Vicki and Dan

 My little Froo.  

The Money Pit (not starring Tom Hanks, unfortunately)

The heat decided to not work at our Carthage house, I guess.  We stopped by there on Friday and found the heat off, an actively leaking pipe in the basement, and a mess.  Joy of my life.  We turned the heat back on (how it got turned off is beyond me because even if the power went off...which id did....the furnace should still kick back on....whatever), turned the water to the house off, and left it until we could get to it as we discovered it about 9:00pm.  I just can't even. 

Lil Cheer Night

This past week, I signed Eden up for Lil' Cheer Night at the high school.  The big cheerleaders teach the lil' cheerleaders some cheers and a dance, give them a lil' cheer shirt, and they perform at the half time of the high school basketball game.  I wasn't sure how Eden would do, I was nervous about it actually.  But, she LOVED it!  And she did so good!! She participated and was excited and engaged the whole time. 
The night of the performance there was a stupid snow storm, Jeremy had to work late, I was batshit bonkers, Eden had to be there at four, Cedric had a game too(it got cancelled thank goodness), on and on.  I had to run around and around and around in the crappy snow(luckily we had four brand spankin' new tires on the Expedition and I put it in 4x4 to give me more hope in the snow.  I couldn't find a parking spot when I got back to the school to watch her perform, I was walking in when Vanessa called me and told me that they were already on the floor! Gaah!!! I hungu p, ran inside like a for real crazy person, slid in on the floor in front of people and threw my camera bag open, and caught her dance performance! Whew!  She looked happy to see me too because she was looking for a face in the crowd. 
Anyway, despite the craziness of performance night, both Eden and I had a blast doing this.  I for reals want to get her and Viv in a dance class.  And heck, if any of the boys want to do it, they totally can.  There is just something about a guy that can dance.  Yep, I should totally get a couple of the boys to do it too. 

Eden- Lil' Cheer Night