Honey I'm HOME!!!!

Yep, sick and mopy Sandra has LEFT the building, she took her yucky feeling, her weak body, her bucket and her ginger ale and moved on to the next unsuspecting victim. Be sure to wipe down your monitors after visiting my site, last thing I need is anyone getting this bug from me.

I'm so thankful for all the prayers and well wishes, like I said yesterday, I don't know how I made it through these past 3 days.
Unfortunately hubby got it too, he was sent home from work yesterday, by the time he got home he was deathly pale and feeling awful. He spent the whole day in bed and he seems to be a bit better this morning, Thank God, he didn't get to vomit. I'm thankful for that.

So, yeah, I'm back to my normal self, now I can drink my pitcher mug of coffee, eat my toast, post on my blog and go back and read all my favorite ones and ACTUALLY leave comments. If I haven't been on your blog the past few days, it's just because my stomach got the better of me.

Today is the last day of school and it's a bitter sweet feeling. I love Jasmine's First Grade Teacher, she's just the sweetest and so wonderful with the kids. You just know when you've come across at teach that will always stay on your kids minds and hearts. We've been extremely lucky and blessed to have that happen not only this year but with her Kindergarten teacher too.

While reading my mail this morning, I had one from my wonderful SIL Hayley. It's called "The Five Finger Prayer" and it's SO neat, that I just had to share with you all.

1. Your thumb is nearest you. So begin your prayers by praying for
those closest to you. They are the easiest to remember. To pray for
our loved ones is, as C. S. Lewis once said, a "sweet duty."

2. The next finger is the pointing finger. Pray for those who teach,
instruct and heal. This includes teachers, doctors, and ministers.
They need support and wisdom in pointing others in the right
direction. Keep them in your prayers.

3. The next finger is the tallest finger. It reminds us of our
leaders. Pray for the president, leaders in business and industry,
and administrators. These people shape our nation and guide public
opinion. They need God's guidance.

4. The fourth fingeris our ring finger. Surprising to many is the
fact that this is our weakest finger; as any piano teacher will
testify. It should remind us to pray for those who are weak, in
trouble or in pain. They need your prayers day and night. You cannot
pray too much for them.

5. And lastly comes our little finger; the smallest finger of all
which is where we should place ourselves in relation to God and
others. As the Bible says, "The least shall be the greatest among
you." Your pinkie should remind you to pray for yourself. By the
time you have prayed for the other four groups, your own needs will
be put into proper perspective and you will be able to pray for
yourself more effectively.

Isn't that a great way to remember to pray? I don't know about you all, but there have been times that I am so desperate to pray and then draw a complete blank and end up babbling like a fool, making no sense at all, then I wonder why God didn't answer my prayer????
Well Sandra, maybe if you spoke in words and sentences he could understand!!!!!

There must be times that he sits up there just shaking his head and thinking "Oh boy, this one is definitely a sandwich short of a picnic." Of course he doesn't really think that, because he loves us unconditionally, even during our dumb no so brilliant moments.

I'm a little annoyed, we were supposed to go see some Volcanoes that are just 15 minutes away, the kids were so excited to go look and well, so were we, the big kids you know. BUT we are expecting thunderstorms starting today and all through next week Tuesday. Why?!?!?! Who ordered these?!?!?! So now we're going to spend this long weekend just sitting home, can't even go outside to play get some fresh air. Guess we'll make this a movie watching weekend, not that I mind, but I would rather be climbing a Volcano, looking in the hole thingy (whatever it's called, Volcano mouth??? whatever), collecting lava rocks and getting some exercise. Actually that's starting to sound like too much work LOL

Well my friends, I better get moving. I have stuff to do, no places to go, you know, FUN FUN!!!
Hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, if you live in a sunny place, go camping for me and take some pics then come back and share ok???
I'll be back later with my "Remember When???" for this friday. :)

BLEH!!! Mothering and Sickness should NOT

Don't forget to remember me - Carrie Underwood

be allowed to co-exist. Really....I think mother's shouldn't ever get sick.
I am feeling a little better this morning, I'm not vomiting anymore but that constant feeling of nausea is still here surrounding me.

I want to start by thanking you all for the kind words and for the prayers, I don't know how I made it through yesterday, it's all a blur actually. I couldn't walk, every step I took felt like my head was going to explode and the only time I felt a little better would be laying down, BUT with my body being so weak and hurting so bad, that was just not working either.

Here's what I have learnt......when a mother is sick, the world doesn't stop. Wouldn't it be great if it did??? If somehow everything would pause until you were back to 100% health???
It doesn't work that way though, and I spent yesterday doing nothing more than being sick and praying every chance I got, and let me tell you, if it hadn't been for all your prayers and God co-mothering with me, I don't know how I would have taken care of the kids.
Just fixing them lunch was an adventure all it's own......nothing worse than being sick to your stomach and trying to fix mac n cheese or hotdogs or anything for that matter.

I'm so extremely grateful that my kids cooperated though, they were really good for me, and when I took them both upstairs to my bed so I could try and get some rest, they stayed there watching tv and not making a sound. I even got some pictures they drew to make me feel better.......Nicholas' one was a bunch of squiggles which he then proudly explained in detail that it was me "puking". In his own words "look it's mommy puking". Ummmm thanks honey, that's beautiful (not really what I wanted to see or hear when I'm sick to my stomach, but hey).

Tomorrow is the last day of school, Thank God!!! I think by this time of the year, the kids are tired of school and so are the parents. See when I was growing up I was one of those kids that really didn't care much for school. I kept thinking "I can NOT wait until I'm done and then I won't ever have to worry about getting up early and all that". WRONG!!!
I'm not in school and I'm still getting up early to get MY kids off to school. In many ways, I think that parents go through the whole school years with their children, we live it through them, not only because we get up with them but we go through the happy times and the bullies, the detentions, the thinking spots, the achievements etc. It's been a true learning experience for me.

I have so much to do today, it's crazy how the house just falls apart when mommy is out of commission. BUT, I don't want to push it because I'm not 100% yet, so I'm going to take it easy.

Curt just emailed me and said that he is not feeling well at all, seems he might be getting what I had. AGH, I hope not!!! He will probably be home early from work. That's the thing with this stomach flu, once you start feeling sick it only takes about an hour for things to get worse. Hopefully he doesn't get exactly what I had, I would hate for him to go through it, it's one of those things that you don't wish on your worst enemy.

Well that's it for me. I am going to finish my tea and my toast and then I have to head to the commissary to get WIC and to the Self Help for a Carpet Cleaner. THEN I'm coming home to relax, if I push it anymore I'm probably just going to relapse.

I hope you all have a fantastic day and an ever better long weekend. Have fun with the family and stay safe. I'm sending you all cyber hugs and thank you again for the prayers :)

Works for Me Wednesday!!!

Ok Ladies I'm going to make this one really sort. Since yesterday at about 2pm I've been really sick, vomiting every 15 minutes. I haven't been able to keep anythin down since about 11am yesterday and I'm not feeling good at all. My body is really sore and I spent the night in the bathroom. Nothing like a really bad stomach bug to make you loose weight, I went from 137lbs yesterday to 133lbs this morning, pretty scary.

So if you can, send a little prayer my way, I know it's nothing serious but having the two kids to take care of while not being able to walk and getting sick every 15 minutes, is not easy, I'm going to need all the help I can get.

Anyway, here's my WFMW, remember to go on over to Shannon's blog for a list of other participants.

During the winter times every morning it was chaos trying to find gloves, hats and scarves. There was always one missing.

I realized that I had to come up with a way to keep them all in one spot to make our mornings easier. Since I didn't want to go out and buy a shelf or boxes, I decided to use what I already had.

I had a small shelf by the entryway, I cleared up the top shelf and then found these two empty lego boxes that belonged to the kids and were going to the trash. I put a label on each with their names, and everytime they got home, that is where they dumped all their stuff. Never again did we have missing items.

Now that it's summer time, we use the boxes for their library books, water bottles, baseball caps or anything else we need for our outings. It works for me.

Well I better get off here, I'm not feeling well at all, but wanted to share my WFMW. Hope you all have a great day and hopefully I'll be back tomorrow and back to my usual self.

Treasure Tuesday!!!

Today my treasure is very near and dear to our hearts. It's all about my father in law, Doug.

When I first met him I have to tell you that he intimidated me, he was the kind of person that you instantly gave respect to and didn't dare go against his wishes. He was a retired Marine, Drill Sergeant and I guess that was part of the authority that he had. He was the most amazing man you could ever meet, and unfortunately for me, I didn't get to enjoy his presence for as long as I wished to.

I don't even know where to begin to tell you how sweet and kind he was. A true family man.
He loved the military, he served in Vietnam and by the time he retired in 1987 he had a huge number of medals, including National Defense Service Medal; Vietnam Service Medal; and the Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation with Palm and Frame. Just to name a few.

These are just some of the mementos that Curt kept from his dad, and he treasures them dearly.

Dad got diagnosed with cancer in 2000 and it was such a blow to the family. He passed away in February 2003, just two months before Nicholas was born. He was so excited to be having a grandson and it broke our hearts that he didn't get a chance to see him and play with him.
But like Curt and I said many times, he got to hold Nicholas before he was born, he was the first to see him and it makes us happy to know that he was there and will always be there.
We gave Nicholas the name of Nicholas Wayne, Wayne being Dad's middle name too.

During the period that dad was extremely sick, he still took time to take us out and spend time with the family. The last time we were there visiting, 7 months before he passed, the morning before we left to come back home, he got us up at 7am to go fishing with him.

We didn't know it at the time, but these would become some of our FAVORITE memories from the time spent with dad.

RIP Dad. We love you and miss you more than words could ever say!!!!
Thank you for being the best husband, father, father in law, grandfather and friend that anyone could ever wish for. You made our lives so much better just by being in them. We love you!!!

And that's my Treasure for this Tuesday, to see a list of other participants, just head on over to Faith's blog "Faithful Mommy".

Finally, Finally claimed back my bed.....

Good morning fellow bloggers, come on in, I have hot coffee and bagels with cream cheese, but if that doesn't appeal to you I'm sure I can whip something else up.

As the title of this post says.....I've claimed back our bed, Yes, because for the past few years I've had kids who don't want to sleep alone and always end up in bed with us during the night. It's frustrating and really annoying, nothing like getting punched in the eye to wake you out of a deep sleep. Not to mention the excruciating blinding pain that comes with it.

So last night, they both decided they wanted to sleep together on Jasmine's bunk bed. Me being the mother hen that I am, do not allow them to sleep on the top bunk, yes, I know, it's ridiculous but I'm just paranoid like that. I keep thinking that Jasmine being so ditzy at times, will wake up in the middle of the night to run to the bathroom, and will jump right off the bunk bed. Will it really happen???? Not likely, BUT I won't test luck!!!!

They slept on the bottom. Nicholas still managed to climb into bed with us at 4am but Jasmine stayed in hers all night. Thank GOD!!!!

So yesterday we had spent the day cleaning the front yard and playing with the kids. While we were outside we started hearing a lot of chirping, we looked over to the neighbors driveway and saw mommy bird with about 20 little ones following her around.
Of course me being the PAPPARAZZI that I am, I run and grab my camera. I swear I am like those blood thirsty photographers with a camera in hand, always ready to grab that prize winning shot. I don't send them in anywhere, but they're winners in my heart. How lame!!! LOL

Here are the pics I took, some are blurry cause the little buggers were running fast.

This little one couldn't get to the mom. She had climbed up the little cement step and he just couldn't seem to get up there. We finally helped him up by using something for him to climb on, we didn't want to touch him with our bare hands or his mom would reject him.
Here are the little ones trying to find a spot to climb up to mom.

After we had seen all these little ones, we came out to the back yard to start the grill. We start hearing chirping coming out of our shed. Low and behold there's a nest in there and this is what we find.

I guess our weekend really was for the birds. LOL It's amazing though, we got to see two different bird species, both with little babies, how sweet.

Yesterday while the kids and Curt were jumping on the trampoline, Jasmine lost another tooth. It was already wobbly so when Nicholas bumped her with his arm, the tooth went flying off. Great for her, but AGAIN annoying for me. It just meant I would have to deal with the whole Tooth Fairy issue again. What's up with this thing of loosing teeth in between paychecks???
I don't know about all of you, but I'm not rich and I usually don't have tons of money laying around just waiting for a tooth to come out. It would be so much easier if the teeth would decide to leave little mouths, RIGHT after payday, now THAT I could work with.

Switching gears now to wish a very special Happy Birthday to my hubby!!!

I know he is not too thrilled at turning 33 years old, but I think he looks good no matter how old he may be turning. LOL

33 years ago the love of my life was born, I obviously didn't know it at the time and all the ups and downs that we both had through our lives, ultimately led us to each other. I always knew that God was working towards this and when we first met we were showed way too many signs to ever deny it.

I thank Curt for being the best husband and father anyone could ever wish for. I also thank him for his daily sacrifices in the military, I don't think soldiers ever get thanked enough. I thank him for the laughs, for the cries and for always being there no matter what happens or what I look like. Yes, if he can wake up next to me with no make up and still call me beautiful, the man is a keeper!!!

So babe, I hope you have a wonderful day and just know that our lives are so much better for having you in them. We love you more than words could ever say.

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!!

And with that said, I'm OUT!!! Time to get kids to school and start cleaning etc. Hope you all have a wonderful Manic Monday!!! Well maybe just Monday, forget the Manic. :)
Time to go refill my coffee mug!!!!