Monday List

(I always feel more accountable if I post these on my blog)

Today I'll be busy with the following:

*Cleaning out the fridge (yuck, I hate this chore)

*Cleaning out the laundry room

*Catching up on everyone's laundry

*Cleaning the piano

*Packing up Morgan's clothes he's outgrown

*Packing up my clothes that I will not be able to wear for a long time (sniff, sniff, tear)

*Making Riley a "honey do" list ( he, he, he - love to make those)

*Sort through Kendle's giganctic mountain of school work she brought home the last week of school that has been taking over my dining room table.

*Plan something good for dinner

*Have a FHE on Patriotism and make plans for the 4th


Time to get started! I better crank up some music and get going.

Happy Monday - it's fresh new week!

Quick Snapshot

I took a quick picture before everyone headed off this morning - Riley was leaving for the weekend to coach a tournament in Seattle. Our kids just adore their dad and love spending time with him. Last night they helped him clean out his car and get ready to go and thought that was a fun time. They follow him all around the house and while he's working in the yard. I realized I haven't been taking nearly enough pictures of our family lately and need to do better. Our kids are growing up so fast. Kendle was barely 3 when we first moved into our house here and now she is almost 7! Time is definitely not slowing down for us.

***Also for anyone who's interested, I have 4 Dust Devils tickets for tonight's game. If anyone wants to use them, shoot me an email and let me know.

I'm not crazy

I knew there was something different about this pregnancy. Being so overly sick, feeling extra tired, feeling like I'm showing really early, bad pelvic pains already and on and on - not to mention that now my appetite has kicked into overdrive where I feel hungry all of the time.

I got quite the surprise at my "routine" OB checkup this afternoon. While joking with the doctor about how I've been having this gnawing feeling that something was "off" and asking if he was really only hearing one heart beat, he decided to humor me and pull in the ultra-sound equipment to do a quick little looksie. His words were, "let's take a look and put your mind at ease". After making some jokes, he started to get kind of serious and quiet and then after a long pause he stated "well, there's baby one and there's baby two." I totally thought he was joking and started laughing, until he proceeded to look very business like and point out the different little bodies.

TWINS! I -could -not -believe -it. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the number of children in our household is going to be doubled very soon.

Needless to say I made my way out of the office in a daze and I was shaking like a leaf. I have so many mixed emotions running through me that I don't know where to start. I'm also still feeling nervous to see if everything is ok since I still have a few more weeks until our real in depth ultra-sound. This just changes the whole ball game and me, the girl who likes to have her game plan down has totally been thrown for a loop. I have so many worries, am I up to the challenge of caring for twins when I already have two busy children? On the other hand, I also feel blessed that one of our prayers about having more children was answered since this pregnancy has been such a struggle. Like I said, my thoughts have been all over the place since I got home this afternoon and we have a lot to plan and figure out.

Are we excited? YES!

Are we scared? YES!

Is our world about to get that much crazier? YES!

*New goals for the coming month: Start stocking up on baby supplies x's 2 and get the Morgster potty trained pronto.

Veggies

I have been on a veggie high the last few weeks. I am craving fresh vegetables and I think it is because my body was so nutritionally deprived the last few months that now I'm over compensating a little. Oh well, it's good for me at least (and the future addition to our family). Some of my favorites are corn on the cob, grilled zucchini, little cherry tomatoes, broccoli, asparagus, ..............really I love almost everything I can get my hands on. My favorite summer snack that I can't get enough of though is tomato/cucumber salad, which is really just chopped tomato and cucumber mixed together with a little salt and pepper or a dash of Italian dressing. It is so simple and good, I never get tired of it.
















Riley also picked me up another bottle of Olive Garden dressing which is super yummy to dip veggies in. Yesterday we went to my parents house for Sunday dinner and my dad sent me home with some freshly harvested little red potatoes. They make the best garlic smashed potatoes, or I like them cooked and tossed with butter and herbs. Could summer food get any better? I wish I could eat this healthy all year round.

Cheap Entertainment

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An easy way to pass the time in the hot sun.

Too bad they won't always be this easy to entertain!

Feeling Thankful

Today I am thankful for:

*A mother who will come get my children and keep them overnight, take them and do fun things and then drive them all the way back home the next night. She deserves an award. (Thanks Mom)

*A husband who will go to the store for me at 9:00 at night while I am watching SYTYCD because I need a good snack. Something like spinach artichoke dip and pita chips. And he calls while he's there to make sure he's getting me exactly what I want. (Thanks Riley)

*A friend who always offers to help watch my kids and helps me out more times than I count. (Thanks Kristen)

*My brother who commented at our family picnic on Saturday while Tam and I were throwing a softball around that "we don't throw like girls", even though I hadn't thrown a softball in a looonnnggg time. (Thanks Jer)

*A daughter who will come over and rub my feet because she can tell I've had a hard day and wants to do something nice for me. (Thanks Kendle)

*A friend who is totally unselfish and brings me extra milk. (Thanks Nan)

*All of my friends with their cute little babies reminding me that all of this torture is worth it in the end. Have you seen this picture from Nan's blog? I could just die it's so cute. (Thanks ladies)

*Thankful for my little teeny cherry tomato plant that already has some baby tomatoes showing on it giving me a nice surprise yesterday.

*My children who let me sleep in this morning, because I was soooooo tired. Kendle even got her own breakfast and played on the computer really quietly. What a treat.

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy. I used to have this quote hanging up by our kitchen:

"Crumbs of happiness, make a loaf of contentment."

Kick Off To Summer

*Last Friday we attended an assembly at Kendle's school to see her receive an award for the AR program. You could tell all of the kids were antsy to be out of school, I remember having those same feelings on the last day before summer break when I was their age. Kendle really enjoyed her teacher from this year and her friends in her class and she was sad to say goodbye to everyone for the summer, but she was excited they only had a half-day and that we would be going to the sprinkler park afterwards.

We went and got some lunch and then headed to the sprinkler park to meet some friends and play. It was a great day for that - not too hot, and a little breeze. It was a fun time and all of the kids loved playing in the water and making it shoot out of the different spouts. We were all tired by the time we left. We rested for a little while, and then our family decided to go out to dinner at our favorite neighborhood restaurant. We had a fun time and even Morgan was pretty well behaved. After that we needed to do some shopping for Morgan's birthday and the picnic we were going to the next day. By the time we got home, I was exhausted - but I still had to make a salad for the next day, a birthday cake for the Morgster and some cookies. I was one tired lady. We told Kendle she could stay up as late as she wanted, but I think she was still in bed by 10:30. What a fun day!

*Saturday we attended a big family picnic in Irrigon to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. All of my dad's siblings were there except one, and there were lots of cousins for the kids to play with. We had tables and tables of yummy food (my family knows how to do food) and the park was nice and shady in our spot by the river. We were close to the toys so we had no problem keeping an eye on the little ones and it was really relaxing and fun to visit with everyone. I love those types of family get togethers, I think everyone had a great time. Not only were the kids excited to eat homemade ice cream, but then to top the day off some girls were walking this cute little pony around the park and of course all of the little kids swarmed them and the girls were nice enough to let everyone pet the pony. The little girls were so happy about that.

Here are some pictures from the picnic:

(Cousins - about half of us)














(The Terrel and Katie Tovey Clan)













(Morgan downing some pop)













(Kendle and her cousin Alia enjoying some home made ice cream)














After the picnic we went back to my parents house and relaxed for a bit. Then we had birthday cake and sang to Morgan since he turned the big #2 that day! He was so happy when everyone was singing to him and he got to blow out the candle on his cake.





























He is such a cute and fun little boy, he really enjoys life. He opened presents and ate cake, and then we packed our stuff up to go to the aquatic center in Hermiston. My brother and his family came with us along with my mom and my sister met us there after she was done with work. We got there at a good time since it wasn't super hot anymore and the kids had an absolute blast. I think Kendle went down the big slide about 15 times. She loves the water. Morgan thinks he can swim so he tries to just take off and do his own thing too. We were all tired and starving by the end, and decided to pack up and go get some pizza. It was a fun ending to a great day. On our drive home both Kendle and Morgan zonked out in the back seat and slept all the way home. I was so exhausted I could hardly open my eyes on Sunday morning, but it was a great start to our summer vacation!

Busy Bee's

Life doesn't slow down much around our place, this last week of school has been keeping us busy.

Kendle has been enjoying all of the fun things they have had going on. Earlier in the week they had "Field Day", which is where they get to go around and pick different fun events to do. She told me her favorite was the rope climb. Yesterday was "Fly Up" day where they were able to meet their new teacher and visit their classroom for next year. Today they are taking a field trip to the Pasco library (she was excited to take her library card with her, just in case) and tomorrow they are having an assembly in the morning that I will try and attend. They only have a half-day tomorrow, so we will pick up some lunch and head to the sprinkler park to play with some friends.

Riley is coaching the 14 year old girls premier soccer team this summer and he started their practices this week. I've been trying to prepare him for how different it is to coach girls than boys, there is always a little more drama involved and Riley doesn't do drama so it will be interesting to see what he thinks at the end of the season. Hopefully all goes well. I think it will be fun for Kendle to watch these girls and see how good they are.

Friday night we might try and take the kids and do something fun to celebrate school being out. Saturday we are heading to Oregon to have a big family picnic to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. They are the cutest couple and it should be fun. It's also Morgan's birthday on Saturday, so we might do something to celebrate later on that day/evening. I can't believe he will be 2! He's not my baby anymore.

I'm off to go shopping and run errands. New books are in at the library for me, I'm so glad!

*On an unrelated note, I haven't thrown up in a few weeks and then yesterday morning out of nowhere - I upchucked right after breakfast. Go figure. Hope it's a fluke.

11 Things I Love About Summer

*Image via

1.) Flip Flops and Sandals

I'm embarrassed to admit how many pairs of "summer footwear" that I own. I love the ease of just being able to slip them on really fast and go somewhere.

2.) Picnics and BBQ's

I was just telling Kendle the other night about how some of my best memories as a child are of our big family picnics we used to have. There would be tables and tables weighed down with yummy food, lots of cousins to run around and play with, and a shady spot to go lay on a blanket when you needed some rest.

3.) Family Vacations
I love that I can look forward to our family getting away for some bonding time together and making fun memories. I hope our children can look forward to those trips too. It's always an adventure waiting to happen.

4.) Popsicles

There is just something about sitting out in the hot sun eating a popsicle and soaking up some rays. It should be a mandatory snack.

5.) Evening Walks
I love taking the family for a walk while the sun is setting and everything is starting to cool down a bit. It is such a peaceful time and the world seems so relaxed.

6.) Green Grass and the Sound of Lawn Mower's

I love the smell of cut grass and a freshly mowed yard. I wish I could bottle that smell up and save it for a cold winters day.

7.) Relaxed Schedules
There isn't much that can top lazy summer days when we just hang out in the backyard, let the kids run through the sprinklers and listen to them laugh, make late-night treat runs, stay up late, sleep in, and enjoy just taking it easy.

8.) Fireworks

I love the Fourth of July and since we live close to the baseball stadium we get fireworks shows all through out the summer as well. We can sit out on our lawn and see most of them, the kids love it and so do I.

9.) The smell of sunscreen and chlorine

10.) Growing a little garden

Even if it's only a few tomato plants, there is something so satisfying about watching plants grow and produce and then getting to pick a nice juicy tomato off the vine. Yum!

11.) Going to the Fair

There has hardly been a summer since I was little that I have not gone to the Fair. The smells of Elephant Ears, the laughter and screams of people on rides, seeing the animals and the exhibits - it just brings back lots of memories for me and makes me feel like a kid again.

Looking forward to school being out this week, hurray!

Finally some sort of Organization

For the last few months I've been wanting to help Kendle's disaster of a room become more organized, specifically her closet and her mass of clothes that seemed to be spilling from every available space. I am not exagerating in the least when I say it was like a war zone in there. I should have taken some before and after shots. Her dresser was one of Riley's old ones that we had painted and fixed up but the drawers were really hard to open and falling apart. I figured, how can I expect Kendle to keep her room clean when she doesn't even have a good place to put her clothes away? So yesterday I moved out her old dresser from her closet and replaced it with one of these:





















The baskets are way larger than her original drawer space and I think this will be one of the best purchases I've made in a while. I labeled each basket so she can easily see what goes where and made one basket specifically just for play clothes, which in itself will be huge laundry/time saver because if ever there was a little girl who is rough and tough on her clothes it is her. She is old enough now that I've been trying to promote a lot of self responsibility in taking care of her own things and since I just made her up a new chore chart, I wanted her to be able to start off with a clean slate. I found a really cute "responsibility" chart that has a place for weekly chores and daily chores from this article on I'm an organizing Junkie.

Here are the links she provided if you want to print your own off:

Girls Chart
Boys Chart

Kendle's daily chores are:
Make her bed
Tidy up bathroom
Let Bogie (our dog) out to play and make sure he has food
Play with Morgan or read him a story
Put dirty clothes/shoes away
Tidy bedroom before bed

Kendle's weekly chores:
Empty bedroom garbage
Sort laundry
Wash sliding door
Weed/Help pick up yard
Help clean out car
Clean room well (which I told her if she is doing her daily chores like she should this won't be a big job because it will already be clean)

I'm hoping some of these things will just become routine. I may be aiming a little high giving her so many things, but I think she is capable of doing it since she already does a lot of them anyways. Now I just need to get the rest of my house in shape. It seems like every time I get one room under control, the rest of the house decides to look like a tornado came through. :)

Annoyed

Can't sleep.

I've been up since 5:00.

I'm itchy-

Sneezy-

Have sore throat-

Watery eyes-

Stuffed up-

And have an annoying feeling in my ears-

Aren't allergies great?