Hello 2013!   I have been on another Loooooong vacation from blog posting.  It hit me once again, that I really enjoyed keeping my blog up before I got so overbooked with everything else that I no longer had the time for it.  My mom and I talked today and during that conversation, it was mentioned that we make time for the things that we WANT to do, and everything else goes by the wayside.  That includes everything from hobbies to extracurricular "stuff" to relationships to our faith.  It's sad when you think about it.  We fill our days with so much of everything that we feel we HAVE to be doing, that we push out everything that molds us and shapes us and matters most in the end.  I would REALLY like to learn to say "No" more this year, and say "YES!" to the things that matter most.  I need to start putting my Faith first in my life.  I know that in the past, when I have devoted daily time to studying His Word, my days go better all the way around.  I know that writing this blog post won't necessarily hold me accountable (like last year....I started the year out with alllll sorts of good intentions, then a kidney stone knocked me on my booty and then everything else went downhill as the year progressed), but it makes me feel better to type it, so here it is!  Here is to a GREAT New Year!  Happy 2013 everyone!!!

Well................so much for my last post! Shew!

As I typed the last post LAST Wednesday, I felt GOOD about chores and exercise and making "to do" lists! I was up-beat and ready to tackle the world (and the entire house's clutter!). THEN.....at 4:30 exactly........kaboom! I was suddenly in the tight grip of my second Kidney Stone attack. My first attack was 11 years ago just before Mark and I were married. That time, the pain started and wouldn't let up for anything.....this time (thank goodness) the pain came and went much like contractions.....contractions that lasted a LOT longer than actual contractions!

Mark was working (as is the usual route for our family emergencies), but I called him and demanded that he come home. THEN.....as the pain got worse, I decided that I needed to go to the ER. I was gonna drive myself (why not?), but Mark got his father to come up and get me to bring me in to town. My mother in law came up and got the boys and took them to her house. I think I scared the boys to death as I hobbled around moaning saying "Get your clothes on! Get you shoes on! Get your coats on! Mommy has to go to the Hospital! Hurry!!!" Bless their little hearts. I hate that I scared them, but boy howdy! Mommy was hurting!

Soooooooooooo..........needless to say, Martha hasn't done my Push-ups, and the cleaning schedule has gone by the wayside for the last week. I'm hoping to pick it all back up again full-force tomorrow. (hopefully!)

We're all fighting a cold at the moment......Creston stayed home from school today with a bad cough, but it seems to have gotten better throughout the day.

Oh! Forgot to mention that the 3mm stone passed by itself last Thursday after a really bad period of horrible pain ~ just before we had to leave to go to the doctor. THANK THE LORD! I prayed and prayed that it would come on out and it did. I know that doesn't always happen, but I'm just ever so glad that it did.

We're going to have some tests done to figure out what is making them in me, and also in Mark. With both of us having them, the boys are very likely to have them as well. I can't stand the thoughts of them having an attack this young....or at any age for that matter.

Sooooooo.........keep us in your prayers and pray that I will get all of my energy back soon! I soooo want to get the house in order and feel better in general.

Hope that everyone has a great rest of your week!

Making Changes!

It seems that from Halloween on, life just spins out of control until Creston's Birthday at the first of January. Every year I say that I won't let everything get piled on us, and that we'll actually be able to breathe a little during all of the holiday rush, but that never seems to happen. Sigh!!! This picture below is of me...............(just pretend there's a little brown hair in there too!). CRAZY WOMAN MARTHA!!!!!

I've decided that I'm tired of being crazy! I'm tired of being tired! I'm tired of all the clutter and chaos in our home and lives! I'm tired of always being aggitated and aggravated! I'm just plain old TIRED!!! :)

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo........................I'm going to make a cleaning schedule and STICK TO IT! I'm going to start exercising and STICK TO IT! I'm going to make an active effort to eat better and STICK TO IT! Just gonna do it! That's the only way to go.

Mark has been doing this Pushup thingy for the last 3 weeks that will supposedly have him doing 100 consecutive pushups in 7 weeks. I can already see the change in his arms. He's got muscles there that I have never seen before! I don't in any way mean that badly towards my really great looking hubby, but I kinda like the arms being all buff!! :) My arms???? Flabby and floppy are two words that I would def. use to describe them. Never thought that I'd have floppy arms at 35, but there they are. I hate tank tops due to the lack of tone there. So.................after seeing his progress I'm going to start doing the pushup thingy too! I started this morning and did 16! Mind you........I CAN'T DO PUSHUPS! Never have been able to. NO UPPER BODY STRENGTH EVER! Ever!!!!! "Girl" pushups have even been a stretch for me my whole life. P.I.T.I.F.U.L.!!!

If you follow the plan, and only do it every other day, then you can really work yourself up to something wonderful in just a few short weeks. (I also need to find a good crunch plan to tone my post baby belly jiggle!)

Here is the link to the Pushup challenge........really.......you all should try it! From what I've seen in Mark, it is AMAZING!!!!!

http://onehundrespushups.com

THEN.......................I WILL control the clutter in my home this coming year! I WILLLLLLL!!!! So.................along with making a cleaning schedule, I am going to follow the Fly Lady!

http://theflylady.com

I have started her program before, and thought that it was not "fast" enough to get the house in order RIGHT NOW- NOW-NOW-NOW!!!! It is actually slow going.......the first day....the only thing you are supposed to clean is your Kitchen Sink and make it SHINE! As the days go on, you add more daily tasks and at the end of 28 days, you supposedly have made all of these little things a habit for your daily routine. Supposedly it takes that long to create a "habit". I think I can do that.......if I won't get in that "CLEAN IT ALL NOWWWWW!" mode again.

Ok..............gonna go clean my sink!

Oh........and by the way.....it is COLD here this morning! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.................flurries every now and then, but no snow accumulation like we thought that we'd get last night. :( Want at least one REALLY good snow this season........not looking too good so far!

Today was Creston's 7th Birthday Party with his friends!  We had 17 little people and their parents come to celebrate with us and we had a GREAT time!  He wanted an "Army" themed party, so we had the kids wear their Army clothing, and then we did a few Army themed games to go along with everything! 

 The boys all had a GREAT time chasing each other out in the field.  The weather was really nice for the 7th of January!  They got to play outside quite a bit and that was good considering how many people we had in the fellowship hall!

 Getting ready to blow out his candle!

 Me & my beautiful mom!

Our first game was to guess how many Army men were in the jar!

 

Our second game was an Airplane Flying contest!  The boys had to make their airplane and then we took them outside to see who could get theirs to fly the farthest.  The wind kept blowing off and on, so we'd have to wait until it stopped for a few seconds.  They really seemed to like this one.

 Our third game was "Hot Grenade" (played with a Potato) and the kids loved this too!

 We finished off with a Pinata!!!  It wound up not working quite the way that we wanted, but they got the candy anyway, so that was all that mattered!   :)

I think that everything went pretty well.  We hadn't ever had a BIG birthday party for either of the boys before, so it was nice to see everyone come out and have a good day with him.  We love our little guy!!!  It was a good day!

Happy 7th Birthday, Creston!!!

Today was Creston's Birthday. Daddy had to work, and it snowed, so instead of going to school and having a party at home, Creston got to stay home, and then we all loaded up and went to Boone to eat dinner with Daddy at Hunan!!!! Creston LOVES Hunan!!!

This is Creston crawling under the table so he can open his present!!
Mackie stayed a good couple of inches away from the present.....but then hollered "Where's MINE????"
Yay for finding "CHEAP" Legos!! He's been wanting some, but Lordy! They are expensive! We found 2 of these sets so he can combine them and make a bigger set. They work with regular Legos, so that was good! We actually found some that look a little nicer for his "Fake Birthday Party coming up on Saturday! With all of those and the "real" legos that he's already got, he'll have a nice little pile going on! Yay!!

He's a happy little nut!!! :)

Me and my sweet older baby! Can't believe how fast 7 years have gone by!

This was too funny and cute to not take a picture of! Read the fortune. Toooooo cute! Esp. with all the "girlfriend" talk that he does!

We're so proud of our little guy!

We love our little Chinese Waiter that took our picture! I should have taken his picture too!

Nana & Paw-Paw had the waiter bring Creston a "Birthday Plate of Chinese Donuts!" He really liked that!!!

Even though Mark had to work, it was a good, cold, snowy day! He's out of school again tomorrow, so the party will just keep on a goin'! His "Fake" birthday party with his little friends will be on Saturday. He decided that he wanted an "Army" themed party, so we'll see what we can come up with! I'll post pics of that after the party is over! Shew! Between Halloween, helping to plan a Fall Festival for Creston's School, Thanksgiving, planning the Church's Christmas Play, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years, and now Creston's Birthday, we've been preeeeety busy for a long time! Maybe after this Saturday we can rest for a bit!!! :)

New Year 2012!!!

As this past year has come to a close, I feel kinda sad that I didn’t keep the blog up better than I did. All of my sewing took up most of my “free blogging time”, and as the days/weeks/months went by, I kept thinking that I should go back and “back-blog” and do one of my famous “blog-bursts”, but as more and more time went by, it became more stressful to think about posting all of those many moments that I take pictures of.

I also overdid it on Facebook this past year, so rest assured that any of our most treasured
moments are posted there for any of you to view. Facebook keeps changing around and the
security features there are so iffy, that Mark and I have talked about posting fewer pics. and reducing our comments on there. Not that Blogger is any safer since I still allow this blog to be
public. However, somehow it seems safer and it is more personal……so one of my resolutions that I’m going to make for this new year is to Blog more……Facebook less…. and promote my sewing business more than ever!

A few of my other resolutions for this year are to clean and de-clutter my house from top to bottom! I want us to move Creston into his own room this year, and unfortunately, the other bedroom is our "computer" room where all the clutter goes to die. I am a pack-rat, and I have kept things from when I was little, and from when my dad was younger, and from when my sister was small. We have a full basement, and can't use it for the "stuff" down there. I want to be able to use my basement!!! :)

I want to do less this year, but have the few things that I do participate in mean more than ever. I want to find more time for "ME" to just be able to relax. That is something that we don't do in our household. And speaking of needing to relax, I had to go on Blood Pressure Meds. the first day of December. It was running 160+/100+ for a while, and it was time. I'm hoping to change some of my eating and exercise habits and get healthier and hopefully control this mess and feel better, but you never know!

Soooooooooooo................I want to blog more, Facebook less, eat better, and exercise! That's a good start to my year! Creston's birthday is January 3rd, and so I will be posting pics of his big day and his party that will be on the 7th in a few days!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!

Our NEW Addition! THOR!

After a LOT of heartache over our doggie Bear aiding in and personally killing 8 of our so far 15 chickens that we've had sine March 26th of this year, we decided to either give Bear to someone, or take him to the pound. Well.....Bear caught wind of this and has been trying ever so hard to become the dog that he should be and has been going above and beyond the call of a "guard dog" and a constant companion since this past monday (the date of the last kill). Soooooooooo.......we're keeping him! AND.......through the process of thinking that we were going to get rid of him, and knowing that we NEED a dog to be here with me and the boys on those days/nights that Mark is at work, Mark found the little cutie that is in all the following pictures. He had already been wanting a BIGGER dog to have around the house, but this "series of events" caused him to actually FIND something. And find something he did!

This is THOR! Thor is a Great Pyrenees that will hopefully get BIG! And I do mean BIG! HE is currently 7 weeks old...was born on 6/21/11. He is one BIG ball of adorable FLUFF!!! Mark compared him to a pot-bellied pig! He is truly the cutest little thing I've seen since the boys were born!! We are currently trying to go to bed in a few, and this breed is nocturnal, so tonight might be a little interesting and remind us of life a few months back when the boys were still getting up all hours of the night. Enjoy the pics!!!