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.

Discharged

We received some great information today. My Brothers White Blood cell numbers are now normal and he was discharged this morning after 12 lONG days in the hospital. He will have to take it easy, as there is a high incidence of relapse and have to go back and have blood drawn to continue monitoring the blood counts. He will also require physical therapy as he has lost some of the use of his hand/arm, but he is well and that is what we are focusing on. It has been such an emotional couple of weeks. You go from everything is well and good to the desperate situations like losing someone that you love. That happened twice to my family in less than a week.
I have really learned a lot the last couple of weeks. Life is so uncertain that you just never know when you are going to receive THAT phone call.
I am so blessed. I have an amazing husband that I am so in love with and the most wonderful kids that never were upset or frustrated when Mom was at the hospital so much lately. They really tried to pick up the slack around here and did a wonderful job at it.
My brother is on his way to recovering and that in of itself is such a blessing. Being only 1 year and 2 weeks apart we have always been incredibly close.
Most of all I have learned that family is the most important thing in my life and I will not let anything get in the way of that. No matter who or what tries to come in between,your family will always be there for you, I have to believe that.
There is an old saying keep your friends and family close and your enemies even closer, I really understand that now. There is a person in our midst that really needs a lot of prayers right now. That has tried really hard to drive a wedge between our family. I pray that she never has to go through what she has put the family through in the last couple of weeks and that she understands that being a miserable person is not healthy. Pray for her to come to peace with whatever demons she is battling and find a way to overcome them. Pray for her to begin being truthful to herself and others around her that do care. The last two weeks have shown me that you can not always depend of tomorrow being there to make things right, you must start today.

Still hanging in there...

Well we are all still alive and thankfully well. It has been a really long couple of weeks for our family.A really close friend of ours was injured real badly at his elderly neighbors cleaning gutters and now is healing from a broken neck, back, and shattered heel. A couple of days later, I received a phone call telling me to get to the hospital that my husband was injured badly. He was hurt at work and had a part of a crane truck come crashing down on him and shot a bolt through his right arm. He is still healing up from that and although there was a lot of muscle damage he is expected to be okay. My Brother went into the hospital the following Wednesday (john was hurt Friday) and is still in there now. He had the smallest little scratch on his hand that allowed a terrible bacteria to overtake his body. We are hoping now that the doctors have identified the correct course of action with his antibiotics and the bacteria will not again become resistant to them. He is in an unbearable amount of pain with the swelling beginning to subside some. Initially we were under the impression that his antibiotics were working only to be told on Sunday they were already being resisted. There is a high incidence of relapse so we are praying hard and spending as much time with him as possible. Please bear with us as I have not been on the computer at all as most of my last two weeks have involved hospitals. We have witnessed many miracles the last couple of weeks and I am sure that my brother will be okay.

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!