KIDDOS

Sand creations~

Some of the sand castles we attempted. The closest we got to an castle was to build an mote like structure with an island in the middle. The little kids wanted to sit on the side & destroy everything we did. At the end we ended up doing some pools as well.

Out of order

Oops, I skipped the ferry pictures just in case your interested here they are~ Click on the question mark to see a funny one of Justus, I guess the sun was in his face.

Aquarium

I only have one picture from the aquarium. I thought that I took more in the beginning but they must be on someone elses camera. Here is Zeke checking out the fish. This is the only time for the three hours we were there that he cooperated. Another reason for no aquarium pictures.

Waiting for the ferry~

Being on time for anything with fourteen is pretty unheard of, at least in our family. We missed the ferry by ten minutes. I was fuming!!!!!! I got over it!!!!!!! While we waited we had time to eat lunch and have a potty break.

Eating lunch & feeding the birds!

Trying to get a picture for Grandma~

Still not cooperating~

Hanging out on the tree~

Check out their expressions....they did not want to share 'their' tree. They were promptly removed so other kids could enjoy as well!

Surfing the waves

These are action shots so there isn't a lot of close ups. We went to the beach after getting back from the aquarium. The sunsets were hard to see but the sky itself was still spectacular. Click on the pics for a better view of the boys faces. These are of Justus and Brandon. They weren't intimidated at all by the waves. We kept a close eye on the fearless boogers.

This first picture is my favorite. You can see the waves coming in back to back pretty quickly.


Caught one in the face~

So many waves!!! It wasn't as rough as it looks in this picture. We were able to stay hoursssssssss at a time.

We were there at low tide there was plenty of beach to run on which Justus loved every minute!

Morons

The people at LUVS are morons...OK, sorry for those of you who think LUVS are the bomb. I went on their website & voiced my complaints about their diapers. They kindly responded to my email...seriously they were nice. And then they sent me a coupon for more LUVS. Um, not gonna buy LUVS. Don't like anything about LUVS except the 'Blues Clue's design & only then because Zeke recognizes it & its fun to see his excitement.

I will compliment them on an excellent coupon ($10 off a jumbo or larger pack). However a coupon for other P&G products like Pampers would have been nice since I clearly DON"T LIKE LUVS! The plans are to use the coupon when CVS has a good deal on them & pass them along to a LUV's lover.

Trying again

Hey!!! SO I tried last night to post pictures twice, either my computer or the www wouldn't cooperate. So I will try again to put some up real quick while the kids are quite. A rare moment indeed. My sister got a job (finally)--good for her--so I am watching her kids. Everyone is watching Tom & Jerry, my kids favorite especially Zeke.

Here are pics of Zeke, since blogger is working now I'll post more! Can you tell he loved it??

We're back!!!!

We had a blast at the beach with all fourteen family members. The weather cooperated wonderfully so we went to the beach every single day! I went through two bottles of the 50spf spray & no one got overly sunburned. The boys are a perfect golden tan. I should have used a lower SPF because I barely have a tan. A little bit of tan would have been OK.

We found a park close to us & used it as our personal playground after supper so the kids could run off a little bit of energy. We visited an aquarium & the ice cream parlor. What else?? Basically we spent as much time at the beach that the kids & weather would allow! Much smoother than I anticipated---THANK GOD!

Posting pics soon!!!!

Leaving for vacation tommorrow. Talk to you soon!@

What a rollercoaster!

We have our ice cold van back in our possession. We drive it around for a day or so and the BAM out of no where there's trouble. Our machanic thinks it is either the transmission or the front pump and neither are a quick/cheap fix. So, I guess we will be parking the van for now because all of our money had gone into vacation & bills. SAM is so upset. I feel real bad for him!!!! Right now we're praying for a miracle! Something simple like a random belt that causes things to go haywire that we can fix without selling our limbs. LORD HAVE MERCY & I don't mean that as a cliche' that is an actual prayer!!!

We tried LUVS diapers this week, I'm not feeling the love at all!!! Two diapers were ripped right out of the package. The tabs for the ripped diapers were on other diapers. And Zeke leaked. And, well I just didn't like them. Some people do LUV luvs, ahem----but not me! I think I'll get my money back. I prefer huggies only because they stretch while my wiggle worm wiggles and the tabs don't easily rip off. I like pampers as well but their tabs rip a bit too. If I could combine the fit of pampers and the stretchability of huggies I'd have the perfect diaper. For now we get the Sam's club, they are somewhere in the middle of the two & at the cost of LUVS. And they don't leak overnight. So that works! Our cost of diapers, & wipes average about $50 a month. I'm all about making that bill lower but no if it causes me frustration every single day!

Thank you, thank you Jesus you're so good to me.....I'm singing the song! Today we got our AC fixed in our van!!!! Our church paid more than half! And we found a great deal thanks to Staci & her dad! In the end we paid less than $150!!! The original quote wass $1200 then we got one for eight hundred. All I can do is say thank you, thank you Jesus, you're so good to me!!!

Please excuse the other post, I was having a moment!

Today we put locks on our doors. They look terrible but I just got sick of things dissappearing. I hate living here.

Faith Fair

We had a good time at the fair tonight. We bought twenty dollars worth of ticket but could have survived on half that! We ended up giving six of them away. Tonight was dollar night so each ride was just a dollar instead of the $3 a piece, that's the only way we can afford it. This fair is family friendly! Justus had a blast, the last three pics are of him & Uncle Josh riding the 'big' rides that neither Sam or I were interested in but made Justus' eyes light up. I rode ONE ride & it was over! I rode the berry something. It was hot in there & it spins in circles plus one of the kids passed gas, by the end of the ride I was sick to my stomach. No more rides for me, I'm getting old! The best part of the night was when we first got there & Justus says: THIS IS AWESOME!!!! He makes me smile!!!! We rode a few rides with Chris & Staci before they went home and my sister & her kids before they left, only J & A stuck it out with us but that was because they rode with us! It was fun, enough to last me another year!!

For Nicole~

Our grape tomatoes, we only have one of these but it has six or seven bunches like this one.

They look like clusters of grapes until they start turning red.

We have several rows of green beans & the yellow wax beans. They are delish right of the vine. We get about two handfuls like this every other day. It's been a while since we've grown beans so I don't know how long they'll last but they're SO good!

There are two rows of squash/zuccini. We've already pulled some off & grilled them on shish kabobs!

Closest to the front of the picture are the biggest of the tomato plants. There is another row that we started behind it. No red tomatoes yet but our mouths are watering! If they don't turn soon we'll be having fried green tomatoes! At the very back of the garden is two rows of corn, I forgot to get a picture. The middle blank space is where the smaller tomato plants are & where we have put some transplants that aren't doing great but we're trying to grow some watermelons that sprouted in our compost bucket. We'll see what happens.

I'm having an off day. Do ever have a day where you're just not yourself. A little more emotional than others??? Cranky? Tired?? ANd can't make up your mind what exactly you want to do??? Well, that's been myday. No it's not PMS or pregnacy related. But I'm on overload. Tommorrow we're supposed to go to a family fun fest but I don't want to go. And as Sam so clearly reminded me I just said all I ever do is stay around the house. Yes, I would like to get out of the house with my family but NO I don't want to be around (hanging out with) other people to do it. I do understand that it doesn't really make sense but at the same time I'd like it to be just us. Sam doesn't understand this very much b/c he is a social butterfly & I like it close and personal. Anyways, I'm just feeling a little bit funky today. Tommorrow everything should be back to normal, I hope.

ps, We had a great day at the park today. The one we went to had a creek for the kids to play in. Justus LOVED every minute of it and wanted to roll around in the clay & sand all day. The water was too cold for Zeke so he screamed bloody murder everytime we put him near the water.

We're getting geared up for our vacation my 'to-do' list is still pretty long and my 'buy-this' list is even longer. Thankfully Sam is back in town & the weekend is coming up so I hope that we will be able to cut my lists in half. I've started collecting coupons again & am working the CVS angle so I'm trying to save every last buck so we can splurge a little bit later.

Sam came home a little early today so I had a great afternoon. Neither Sam or Justus wanted go to the Y tonight so Aubrey & I took the little ones and went. I only walked 1.5 miles, I try to do two or more. By then I've warmed up some so I get on the bicyicles. I usually average somewhere between 7-8 miles. Ten is the most I've done but that was only a few times & I was exhuasted.

Tommorrow we're going to meet Sam & some of the youth at a different park that is closer to our church. They're doing a cookout. Each student is supposed to bring a new friend. It's supposed to be HOT & HUMID, not really where I want to be but these days I escape the house as often as possible. When we get back the house should be at least three people quieter (niece & nephew will be at their daddy's.)

Suppertime~ We had breakfast for supper tonight! I LOVE breakfast anytime! The choices were sausage, bacon, pancake, gravy & biscuit, grits eggs & fruit salad too. Tasty! Plus we didnt have to fix it since we ate at the church tonight. Double the pleasure; good food with little effort.

Shutterfly

They're giving away 25 free prints...with nothing more to buy. This sale ends on Friday. I've used this company quite a few times before & I love their quality. But they have changed somethings around & now it's taken me forever to get the pictures upload & to the checkout. As far as I know it's not on my end but how can you ever tell??? IT took me several times to upload them and now I"ve tried three times to purchase them but it's not working. Attn: now at shutterfly free prints with purchase of a headache! Hopefully the problem will be fixed by tommorrow since the deals run out at the end of the week!

Fun at CVS~ I went today because Sam had the day off so we went to different location just to see how it was. On the way Ezekiel fell asleep so all the boys stayed in the car while I 'ran in real quick". Thirty minutes later ALL the boys came in. Sam was flustered & Zeke was being a grinch b/c he got woke up. Justus is saying quite loudly...I GOTTA GO POOP! The girl who has been helping me at the checkout giggles & take them back to the bathroom. On the way home I explained to Sam what took so long. IT was something like this. I found all my bargains pretty quick, five minutes or so. Then I go to check out & a few kinks pop up. Plus the fact that I needed to do three or four transactions b/c while it was payday the money wasn't in our account yet---makes life super special. SO we had a tiney tiny bit of money in our account.

As I am passing on my way to other items I see the spin brushes that have been mentioned. I look down & it says 2.99 get 2ecb's back, pay .99 That is a GREAT deal. I get the three that were left. Right below that are some adult toothbrushes for 2.49 get 2ecbs, pay .49. So I take those & go grab my other stuff and head to the cash register. Everything went smoothly until the GREAT toothbrush bargains which were marked incorrectly. Spinbrushes first. 6.99 she tried to charge me, I wasn't having that. I politely go back & get the sticker, which for some ungodly reason was in the wrong place(that's what she said but I didn't really believe). She was nice & gave them to me for 2.99 a piece which was still a great price but not the .99 I was planning on. Then the adult toothbrushes, the same thing happen. This time she follows me back there & looks. The sytem was wrong & I was right but it wouldn't give me the ecbs so she voided all those transactions & gave them to me for .49 Having ECBS to spend is great but getting a good deal trumped it this time. Because of my slim budget I used my 7ecbs & payed only 1.24 in cash.

All in all it was a good day. The cashier was super friendly & very patient with my transactions and questions. I will go there if we're ever in the area. I didn't get a picture but I got three spin brushes, Smart Rinse, 5 adult toothbrushes, 8 soyjoy bars & a pack of gum including ECBS & cash I paid about ten bucks. Pretty good considering that one spinbrush is usually $6.99! I'm officially an addict who can't support the habit....once again NOT having my liscense probably saves me from trouble.

For Staci~

Questions...
Do you have a set way you clean your kitchen? I used to when I had my own kitchen. Now I just get in & out as soon as possible.

What is the purpose of the Magic Erasers? Are you suppose to use cleaner too? Magic Erasers are really good to get crayon marks off of plastic toys when the kids decide to 'decorate' or off of plastic furniture outside, it really cleans it up well. No cleaner needed, just wet with water & wipe til your hearts content.

Do spend your entire day keeping house? Or just wait and clean it all at one time? I like to switch it up. When Sam is home it's clean the house day, a deeper clean than most days. During the day I am constantly cleaning up small messes or having the boys 'help' me clean up so they can learn to pull out one bucket of toys instead of ALL they toys at one time.

Do you get Hungry at 4 pm and 11 pm??? Depends on if I took the time to eat a good lunch.

If you are ONE day late do you take a pregnancy test? No I wait for a little bit just to make sure.

Do you ask your children if they want a spanking? Have they ever said yes? I have before but they never reply with a yes.

Do you wash your feet before you go to bed? I usually take a shower before bed-yes.

Do you wash your face before bed? Or just in the shower? Yes in the shower.

Do you consider yourself artistic? NOT AN OUNCE!

Do you change your clothes more than once to find the right outfit? Only for Sunday. Any other day, I just throw on what's clean & not full of wrinkles.

Does your husband fold clothes differently than you? completely different!

Does it bother you to clean your toilet? EWE. Four big boys & three little guys...YUCKA!

Okay so those are random. But answer if they apply or if you can....
Thanks.

Extreme Play

After just a few hours of this place & we were all pooped. IT's lots of fun! Zeke mainly likes to run around and be chased. The slides are his favorite. Justus likes everything but his number one favorite is to just sit down and play video games. After Extreme play we headed to the mall and picked up a gift for a baby shower on Saturday. And finally home!!!!!

ONLY ONE MORE DAY....less than 24 hrs until daddy comes home! YEAH!!!!