Meg's wedding

My little sister is getting married this summer and I am so excited! Unfortunately, we are a few states apart. Thank you God for the internet and instand messaging, and facebook and Pinterest. Oh and Ebay. We have spent the last couple of days looking at flowers for bouquets. Without the internet we wouldn't have been able to do this together so much. I found some different ideas through Google, pinned them to Meg's wedding board on Pinterest and she checks them out from her end. If I can't be hand-in-hand with her this is the second best thing. We found a beautiful flower and it took me a while but I searched and found that it is Plumeria, they use them to make leis. They are beautiful as a wedding bouquet. Also found lemons in vases wrapped in ribbon as centerpieces. So much more fun than when we got married and you had to thumb through every book and idea that they had.

We are already planning our trip in July. We have been on Mapquest more than ever. Mapping out routes. Proving to the boys that the Grand Canyon is way too far out of the way. Figuring out if Jeff will fly back home to go back to work so as not to take more than the week off.

Weddings bring out the best (and the worst, for some) of people. Right now I am full of smiles and happiness for this beautiful girl who is now a woman who is looking forward to a very happy day!

We have friends and neighbors that we have known since Keegan and Karli (above in blue, top in blue hat) were in kindergarten. (actually we met them before that, but that is when things really took off). Keegan and Karli are just 3 months apart, Konley and Megan are 1 year and 5 days apart. The week that we had Snowmaggedon we spent the week with these girls and their mom, Karen. Their dad was out of town and Jeff was working so we could play outside, scrapbook, and do dinner all together. I know that there are so many people that couldn't wait for the kids to go back to school, I on the other hand, was reminded of what life was like when it was just us and I was staying home with the boys. We played all week. I went outside and sledded down the hill with them. We got sick of being at home and went out for lunch and to the grocery store. Our lives have all gotten very busy. When the kids were little we could hang out all the time, now we have soccer and gymnastics, high schoolers and middle schoolers and elementary schooler and we are crazy. It was great to take a week out and just hang out again.....my favorite part of the snow.

busy December 2011

 Every year we have a skating party put on by Jeff's company. They have a great Santa and a present for each child. THe older boys got apples to apples and uno, both travel sized. Jack got some kind of Transformer (I think). Notice we have 4 boys in our picture, not just 3. Keegan's best friend Jake is so frequent at our house that this is the second year he has gone with us and been in our Santa picture. One year we took Jeff took him, Konley and Jack, Keegan and I stayed home sick as dogs. It's great to have friends that share their children so much that they seamlessly blend into our lives.

 We have a 2nd cousin with Down's Syndrome. Richie turned 50 this December. He wanted a big party with bowling. So, a big party with bowling it was...in Vegas....with over 50 people from all over. As my sister now lives in CO I take every opportunity I can to see her. This picture is me, Jeff, Grandma, Beau, Dusty (Meg's fiancee and the one making the face), Dianne, and Megs. The best thing that day? we all rarely left each others' side. If someone was out on the casino floor and not with the group a text or phone call came every few minutes..."where are you? we are on our way?" It was an amazing great day! It does remind me how much I miss having my sister around, and seeing my brother more often. I will have to see what I can do to fix that.

Me, Megs, Ashley, Grace, Kelse (cousins & all 3 sisters) and Tara (cousin)

Jeff & I...having a great trip together.

Having 2 weeks off for the holiday has been great. Jeff took the 4 days off to get 10 and we have just hung out, played Farkle on my Kindle Fire, gone to the movies, played with the boys, ate (ate some more, cooked and ate some more OY!) and watched movies. I don't really want to go back to reality, but.....

follow up

so you know that you have a good doctor/nurse practitioner when she is worried and wants to dig into something even when others tell her that it is all good. i got a phone call on friday and she wants me to see a breast surgeon. She kept telling me she just wanted to be sure. She was trying to convince me to go when I had already said, "ok" and "sure" three or four times. Oy!

I was stressed enough during the last appointment. i don't think anything could strees me out more. i will just do what i did during my ultrasound: pray. know what I prayed? please God, don't let me worry. i know that nothing was going to change in that very second so what else was there to ask for? so i will pray for the same thing...not to worry....

maybe you could too...

mammograms

What a stressful way to spend the afternoon. I have had some weird issues going on so the doctor said, "Let's get that checked out". So I made an appointment and went in today.

Stressful.

Have the first "boob-squish". go sit down and wait. Oh, um, we need some more pictures of 2 specific spots. Hmm, ok.

Thanks. Go have a seat.

Oh, we need to do an ultrasound, so I am going to go get that ready. OOOOOOOOOk.

Hang out here and wait.

Come on in. Ultrasound, hmmm. Take a picture of that. Oh, take that one too. Hmmm,  click, click, click.

Wait here I need to ask the radiologist if she want to check this out.

Wait.

Oh, yes. She would like to check it out herself.

Hmmmm.

Well, looks good. Alot of cysts, but they don't do anything or mean anything. don't know why you are having the issues, but it's all good.

Well that's good, but really? Did you have to put me through an hour and a half of stress? They were nice. They were sweet. They tried to make me comfortable, but i was totally wiped out by the time I got home.



Fall

Except for the wonderful warmth of summer? Fall is my favorite time of year. Actually around October 1st until January 2nd. It's my favorite. I love to decorate. I love to sew. I love to craft and create. I love sending Christmas cards and receiving "real" mail everyday with some other family smiling from their Christmas card.
Right now I have been building Halloween table runners. Every time I go to the fabric store, which is too terribly often (I think it's where my paycheck goes after soccer) I find a few new Halloween fabrics and have to build another table runner. I think I have made 10 or so now.

This one I sent to my sister and Dusty. They truly only take 10 minutes and I just need to move on to the next holiday.

I am also working on another quilt. I just finished the "pink one" that Haley requested. I also found the cutest Christmas card holder, but I think I need to ask mom for help in making it. I will let you know how it turns out.

I am off to finish the squares that I am currently working on. It's a surprise, so I hope that it's a good one. I will post it after I have made the surprise!

the last 2 weeks...

What a crazy two weeks! For someone who only works 3.5 hours each day I am never home. Never! For the last 2 weeks I have been taking a class on our school citizenship program. I have had physical therapy on my shoulder twice a week. The Thursdays? Leave home at 8:30 and get home at 6:15. I only work for 3.5 hours. But I was at school for over 7. Hmmm definitely doing something wrong here.

So, Friday was my home day. My day to actually get Jack off the bus day. My cook dinner at home day. My hang out day. I needed that, cuz today? we left at 8:30 and got home at 5:30. Two sets of soccer pix and a soccer game in Tacoma, (That they lost.) and late lunch afterwards. Pick up Konley from a friends and wait up til 12:30 for him to come home from his paintballing party. Can't let him spend the night cuz he has a soccer game tomorrow.

I never realized what a crazy life this would be. I don't regret it at all. I just really wish that there were more hours in every day!