The countdown is on!!

Well Thursday starts another exciting year of DEER HUNTING!! Deer hunting is something that is huge in our family. My husband and I both hunt as do our kids. Boo hunts strictly with a bow, which is just perfect. His Uncle will be sitting with him next weekend for the youth hunt and My husband will be with Ian, who gun hunts. I really hope that they are successful hunters this year. As for John and I ....it's game on!! Thursday is opener of early season and John has to work....tee hee.. I don't!! So today means washing my clothes in baking soda and scent remover, only to spray them down with a moldy leave spray and getting all the finishing touches ready for yet another very competitive season! I am armed with a brand new 20 gauge this year with a new scope for fire arm season and also a brand new bow for Bow season.......WOOHOO!!
So my dear husband, When I bring home Bullwinkle, don't cry, your still the man!!
Anyone who may read this, if you are a deer hunter, grab your doe pee and your gear, and we will see you in the woods! The early opener is only for Does but it is never to early to spot where Bullwinkle is hanging out!! Be ready for him on the 1st of October with your bow! As for me, I can't wait until next year when Sissy is old enough to give it a go!!!She has passed hunters safety and is just waiting for the Birthday. I am getting out numbered in deer camp! There is a saying,"Go hunting with your kids and you won't have to go hunting FOR your kids!"

Another Bike???

As you may recall from a previous post around Easter, My little bitty one a brand new bike. Bean was really bummin, she desperately wanted a new bike even though hers was only a year old. Well she went to the Kent county youth fair last week with her best friend and registered to win a new bike following a completed scavenger hunt. Well,

Saturday we got the call that we needed to be in Lowell to pick up her brand new ladybug bike!!!As you can see she was pretty excited!!!
So now we are re thinking our policy on gambling and considering a family vacation to a casino.

A few fun pictures

This is what my little bitty bought with her birthday money....

She is so grown up!! It is so hard to believe she is growing up so fast.

She really wanted to swim in the pool and none of her brothers and sisters would swim with her....daddy would. She was so excited!!

He can't say no to those blue eyes and sweet little grin.

Meanwhile, knowing that Daddy was with little sister and Mom was taking pictures, the rest of the clan found a little trouble to get into.....

Apparently they want to be tattoo artist...nice real nice....

All the hopes and dreams and wishes you think of for your children this in not a profession I saw coming.

Now it is bath time. Until next time.......

It's your birthday baby!

To my littlest princess,

It is so hard to believe that your birthday is here again!

6 years ago I was given the most amazing little miracle. You are such a beautiful, funny,sometimes naughty, but always perfect little girl and I am so proud to be your mom! You grow more and more everyday but you will always be my baby.You bring an unmeasurable amount of joy every day to our home. Happy birthday sweetheart, I LOVE YOU!!!

(p.s. You must get that look from your dad!!!)

Our vacation

Well we are back from another vacation to our most favorite place for some rest, relaxation, and some fishing. It seems it took forever to get here and in the blink of an eye it was over. We had a really great time and the kids were really sad we had to leave.

Brutus had a great time as well, but really missed not being able to take a bath!

Due to all the storms that we have recently had the water level was pretty high and slowed the fishing down but we still caught a few...some were big....

and some were small.....
and some were just perfect
All in all a wonderful time
with lot's of smiles
And a few giggles
And a little bit of poison ivy...
couldn't get us down!!!

A few pictures of life in general

Last weekend we took our kids to a local pond to do some fishin! It was a lot of fun, a beautiful day, Lot's of sunshine. The scenery was awesome including this beautiful swan..

I was simply in awe of the beauty of such an amazing animal.....until he decided to assault me. I was fishing away....proud of the fact I had time to do some fishing now that the kids are getting big enough they can handle their own poles by themselves, when the swan decided to ask us to leave. He came barreling at me as fast as he could honking and fluffing his feathers. I yelled to my husband for help who was laughing so hard he almost fell in the drink. So I dropped my brand new pole and ran like a little girl. Nice, the kids were proud. I don't like swans. They are scary and I now need therapy! He must have been protecting a nest or something. So I went home and snuggled Brutus. He might sink in his puppy teeth once in a while but he is not scary at all a little hairy, but no need for therapy bills!

So here is a couple of pictures....happy thoughts...happy thoughts...

This is one of my tulips that I really adored. Not sure what kind it is but the edges were really cool.

This is a picture of my dad( http://bertrjones.com/) and my oldest daughter. He wrote a song for a little girl in our local area that is in need of a liver transplant when he performed a benefit for her. Our elementary school has started penny drive and arranged a bake sale that has taken in quite a sum of money for the girl and her family so, my daughter thought it would be cool to sing her song at the end of the year talent show. She had no idea that her grandpa was going to surprise her and show up to sing it with her. AWESOME!!! She was so surprised!!

The coolest grandpa on the planet, for sure.

So as were are counting down the last 2 days of school, keep your eyes peeled for swans on attack and enjoy the outdoors! Wishing you all a great day!

Five favorite things about Meme

I was recently tagged by Julie Lorenzen at http://www.autism-blog.net/ and asked to post my favorites...so with all the recent stressful school related events it sounds nice to list some of my favorites. Thanks Julie!




Five things found in my bag:



1. Chap stick.....always a couple of different brands..never leave home with out it!

2. Pictures of my kids.

3. Band aids....my kids are accident prone to say the least.

4. Motrin...you just never know

5.nail trimmers




Five Favorite things in my bedroom

1. The collage frame of all of my babies as sweet little babies

2. The hand prints my kids all made for mothers day......priceless

3. A picture of my parents on their wedding day

4. my bed, it is the only place in my house where I can relax and have some quiet time

5. my dresser, It is really big and has a great big beautiful mirror behind it. Very pretty


Five things I am currently into


1. Being an advocate for my son

2. Trying to share our story and journey with autism in hopes of helping someone else

3. Trying to enjoy the Michigan weather and get my yard in shape.....the Michigan weather part is tricky though.

4. Planting my garden. I can't wait for all the fresh veggies!

5. I love to watch Lost and my name is Earl. Definitely my fav's right now


Five things I have always wanted to do:

1. Go on a second honeymoon.

2. Spend a weekend with my sister. She is my best friend and I miss her a lot sometimes.

3. See real mountains in person. I have seen them on t.v. of course but would love to see them up close and personal.

4. learn how to water ski.....kind of dangerous for my clumsy self....but would like to try!

5. take a nap, I have needed one of these since my kids were born!! tee-hee running out of ideas!


People I would like to tag:


Well I am very new to the blogging thing and have a very small readership okay well maybe two people so...............

my dear sister destini....tag....your it!


http://www.glimpseofdestini.blogspot.com/

Happy Birthday

This post is dedicated to my husband. Today is his birthday and Sunday is our anniversary (and mother's day).

John, wishing you all the best in the next year. Another year of marriage, raising our kids and another year for you to get practiced up because............MY BUCK WAS BIGGER THAN YOURS!! Better luck next year!!!!!!

Thank you for the competition!!I hope that you know how much we appreciate you and your hard work every day to keep our family going. You work so hard to provide us a beautiful home.....and LOOK what we created!!!!!

We LOVE you and here's to countless more years with you........and yes Beuford too, I know...I know package deal.

Could you just explain to him that WE would prefer he slept on the floor??

Happy Birthday to you!!!!!!!

Kids and Critters

We have way too many stray animals around our house....mostly cats. That is where our incredibly selfish kitty mittens came from

my kids relentlessly chased him as a poor scared WILD kitten until they caught him and kept him captive in Sissy's bedroom for who knows how long until we had discovered him living quite comfortably there. Well, my husband is a softy and told the kids they could have him, but no more hiding stray cats in our house. Well now that spring is in full swing around here, all of the stray cats that hang out in our shed, sneak in our garage and consume our dog food and walk all over my car and leave little paw prints in the night, are in mating season and my back yard seems to be the 'special' place.Yesterday, I looked in the back yard and there were 4 cats that didn't belong to us that were just hanging out. Two of them are seen on top of the little hill there ( on my husbands target range) and there is 2 more that ran behind the hill when I tried taking a picture.

So my kids being my kids decided to try and lure the cats to them so they can 'make friends'

In the photo above is Bean hiding behind a cardboard box. In front of the box was a bowl of food and water. Unfortunately for her, she did not catch herself a kitty but it sure kept her busy for quite some time.I took these from the bedroom window in our house as to not disturb the catch in progress. No animals were harmed in the making of this story, and thankfully we do not have any more cats yet!

Growing Up

My little bitty is the baby of our family. Her little blue eyes and sweet little voice pretty much gets her what ever she wants. With 2 older sisters and 2 older brothers it is a pretty good thing for her. They are always there for her every little wish and want. I guess I still look at her as the baby too, which is hard when you realize that she is growing up way too fast. She is closing in quickly on being a big six year old.

She was so excited to FINALLY lose her first tooth. She knows that losing the first tooth now puts her in the big kid club! It is so hard to believe that she is old enough to lose her first tooth. She immediately had to call her big sister who was not home at the time to share the exciting news and declare her big kid status.

Last night was a music program for the Sissy and Bean. It was the annual school program and this one was themed around saving the earth and was called Easy Being Green. It was so much fun to watch them stand up and proudly sing their song(sissy my 5Th Grader) and Bean laugh and giggle because everyone was watching her(she is a first grader). I could not get a real good picture. They looked horrible, flash on they were too dark and flash off they were too bright and fuzzy. I need to learn more about the camera I guess. But regardless, It was absolutely a pleasure to be there. They are definitely growing up so fast. This is Sissy's last month of school before Middle school...WOW! Now I feel old! I look at the baby pictures on the wall and just wonder how it went so fast. No Destini, I do not want another one!!! Actually at the program last night there was a woman with a real young baby who pretty much screamed for the whole program. I felt so sorry for her, She wanted to watch her daughter's program but her little one was just not cooperating and I just sighed a big sigh of relief, I am so done with that. I am sad my babies are not babies anymore, But I sure don't want to go back there either. I love being able to take the kids places and do the big kid things with them. I am so proud of the kids they have turned out to be and just sometimes wish I could freeze time for a while.

Spring has sprung!!

I absolutely LOVE this time of year.

For the first time I finally have spring flowers that came up, No dogs tearing them up, no ground moles munching them, no kids riding bikes through them!! YEAH!!

It has been perfect weather to take your dogs for a walk...or let your puppy do it for you...

Who's idea was it to keep the dirty white dog anyway? Must have been the kids.....
As you can see Brutus likes to play outside too!I guess I should have kept the black puppy!

My favorites.....

Here are some of my favorite things, things that I love.

I love blue, it is my favorite color

Even American dolls need their hair done!

I love fishing.. That is always something we can do as a family...

One of my very most favorite things in life is music, it soothes me and keeps me sane,With out my radio cranked and singing, my house would never be cleaned!

I love, really love, sleeping babies

Although, Ellie is not real impressed, she does not know where to sleep!


I love Darth Vader....our version.....


I also love clean babies....They are so sweet and smell good!
okay well she is still my baby!And...probably my most favorite is a big strapping manly man that is so sweet he can take time out to play a little Disney princes dress up with his princess
I love to laugh... and laugh with my kids!
I love sunsets.....
Last but not least....I love smiles that light up my world.


Show me your"This is what I love posts!!"

Kids, Kids,Kids

Well,

We survived another week of spring break. The kids were home all of last week and returned to their classrooms yesterday. Unfortunately the weather was not as we had hoped. And today is going to be a beautiful day....go figure.

We did have an opportunity to make it to the movies once and the park

It was really nice to not have to get the kids up in the morning to catch the bus and not have to do homework every night!

Boo was working on a project for school. He had to do a report on a famous artist. It was supposed to be his work with me just helping him to read to him and help him to understand the directions. The artist he was given was Amadeo Modigliano. There was a series of questions that he had to answer on his report, and one was to give his personal feelings on the artwork. His answer was "My personal feelings about is art are that I like the colors but definitely not his art." " I would have liked his art more if he would draw deer or monster trucks" Can't wait to see what his grade is on that one! I try really hard not to correct his answers because it is so fun anymore just seeing his own answers and I hope that the teachers will appreciate them as he didn't participate in class previously. It won't be long and we will be back on Summer vacation and we can really work on his reading.And maybe work on artist appreciation!!

We still have our white puppy! We have named him Brutus. He is such a sweet little guy with a serious chewing problem. He also keeps us very busy. I just don't understand why no body took him....tee hee! I sure tried real hard to find him a great home, okay so I didn't put ALL my effort into it, but I was going to....for a short minute!

What a wonderful day

Ya know it is sometimes difficult to judge how your day is going to go. Well pretty much all of the time, there are always uncertainties and life just likes to throw you curve balls and you have to see if you can make lemons into lemonade. Well today I made lemonade.

We have 3 puppies left that I woke up to whining in their crate. We have sold all but 3 of them. They are like the 3 stooges and always in some kind of trouble. So darn adorable though that you can not get upset you just have to giggle at them and when you can no longer take the sight of your shoes running past you with puppies attached to them that are smaller than the shoe, time to put them away for a while and let them rest. This is my broom thief!!My broom is always on the go! Then to wake up to my little bitty who is plainly upset that all the other kids are at school and she has no one to play with, top that off with some snow which has just decided to not stop falling this year, I was prepared for a sour day. Then cool things just started happening. My little one and I decided to brave the elements and ventured out for awhile. That just improves ones mood just getting out of the house for a bit. Just the 2 of us. Then the kids started rolling in from school. Boo had a field trip with his class today to a movie on planets, a restaurant and then a book store. He was so excited about his trip and could not wait to fill me in on all the cool details. He bought some star wars books with his extra money I sent him and he is so incredibly proud of his books. Of course nothing is cooler in his eyes than star wars right now,except his dad, naturally. He is so funny. When he walked in the door and was telling me about his trip I asked him what he had for lunch. They went to a Chinese buffet and I was concerned he may not like that real well. He obviously had something chocolate on his face. He says "Well mom, I had pudding for lunch and I am saving the pudding on my face in case I might get hungry later." I laughed so hard! He was such a funny little guy before his autism starting rearing its head. I am so thankful for the little bits and pieces of him that I get back. He had the funniest little sense of humor and it is amazing that somewhere in his body it has been hiding all this time. I know this may sound weird but his autism diagnosis has really changed our family for the better. Not that it hasn't been really hard and the biggest challenge my family has ever faced but the opportunity to be able to take those little moments and cherish them. To know that somewhere in him, the old boo still exists. The whole experience I believe has made us a stronger family and I know has made my other children so much more compassionate. So anyway, John took us out to dinner tonight just because it was such a feel good kind of day, to a real restaurant with real waiters and no drive through speakers with real food and it all started with this....my lemonade. After all the begging and pleading with mother nature to hurry up already with spring and give me a break from the 5 kids with snow pants and boots and mittens. If I would have gotten my way, sure it would be so much warmer and the kids would be able to go outside and scream their little hearts out and ride bikes, but I would not have gotten this picture of boo getting off the bus in such a great mood that he wanted to catch snowflakes on his tongue.


Now I just need to convince him to button up his coat!!I certainly hope that you can enjoy your lemonade today. Sometimes the things that you worry about are so small when you can sit down with your own glass of lemonade, and know that it is all you really ever needed all along.To just enjoy your family and the curve balls and know that there are always small blessings along the way. I guess I can stop begging mother nature to hurry up with spring and let her take her ol' sweet time because apparently there are still moments to be enjoyed. 110 inches of snow isn't really that much right?