The Clan Piccini's Randomness

Kiera Through the Years

2012-01-10T20:42:00.007-07:00

My baby will be thirteen tomorrow, January 11th. I cannot believe it! Who the heck gave her permission to turn thirteen? I think I'm gonna have to have some words with someone! :o)

In the meantime, in honor of her turning into an actual TEENager...
some pictures of Kiera from the beginning :o)

My momma took me to the hospital around 1130P on January 10th, 1999, and after about 19 hours of labor, my baby girl was born. I know she is destined for great things because when she was born she wasn't breathing and her heart had stopped, but not even 12 hours later they were having to put a hep-lock in her HEAD because she kept kicking it off her foot! :o) I have never seen what she looked like at that moment... only my doctor, the nurses and my momma saw her. Before taking Kiera to the NICU, the nurse brought Kiera to me and had me kiss her... twice. Once for hello, and once for good-bye. I only found that out later. My momma threw out the disposable camera that she took pictures with, she didn't want us to have those memories.

I love to show Kiera this picture to let her see how wiped out I was after giving birth to her LOL I was 19 years old and so completely lost... thank God for my momma and Greg!!

Kiera is 3 days old here. I LOVE this picture of her!

Me and Kiera at about 3 or 4 months old.... I just want to squish those cheeks!

There is NOTHING like the sight of a sleeping baby, especially your own :o)

Kiera used to make this awesome face when she was happy...
she'd snuffle through her squooshed up nose :o)

Kiera's ears were my favorite when she was a baby :o) I couldn't tell you why, but I loved them!

Kiera, about 18 months, hanging out with her Uncle Jon at her grandma's Post Office.

Rick, me and Kiera... she's about 18 months.

At SLO creek, not quite 2

2 years, 11 months :o)

Kiera's 3rd birthday (hi, mom!!!)

2004, Kindergarten school picture

Christmas 2006... such a proud big sister (with her sassy Emmie & floppy Abi LOL)

7 years old... already looking so much bigger!

Christmas 2007 ... she's almost 9 years old!

9 years old... I love this girl!

Skipping a few years (can't find the pictures!!)

February 2011... 12 years old

My rocker... she LOVED going to the EMP/SFM... it was so her thing!

So, now she'll be thirteen. I absolutely LOVE who she is becoming! She has her own individual style, the funkier the better seems to be her theory. She has developed her own taste in music, taking a little of mine, a little of Rick's and quite a bit of her own. She likes R&B and pop, but you'll find her singing along with Queen, Brian Setzer, Zac Brown Band or Bob Seger. (oh yeah, I'm a proud momma!) She's an avid reader of fantasy. Harry Potter? Percy Jackson? She's read all those series... three times! And now, she's reading Michael Crichton. (yup, prouder still!) And she LOVES to help out with cooking and cleaning (seriously!!!).

Yup, she's destined for amazing things...
and God has given me the blessing to be a witness to them all!

Happy birthday, Kiera!!!

PAM Cooking Spray

2011-11-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

PAM Cooking Spray: Thanks PAM for my free can of cooking spray! Be sure to check out #PAM on Facebook. http://on.fb.me/od4C5b *Please remember the FTC requires you to mention that you received a free sample courtesy of Smiley360 when sharing.

Music

2011-08-25T00:13:00.003-06:00

Many moons ago, I can remember my life having a soundtrack. There was rarely a time when there wasn't music playing, even in school.

When I went to bed, I'd usually have on something quiet, maybe Tchaikovsky or maybe even a tape of some slow jams. When I'd wake up, I'd throw on something upbeat, always something 80s. Usually my 80s CD of choice would be one of the Living in Oblivion compilations. :o) On my way to school, my headphones could be found blasting some Skadaddyz because they were fast and loud. During school, I was at the whims of my teachers, but many of them would have something playing...

After school, it would depend on my mood, I guess. Or just some random music I hadn't heard in a while. CDs that got a lot of play were Chris Isaak, Harry Connick, Jr., my Living in Oblivion collection (yes, I'm a big 80s fan, deal with it). Or I'd just turn on the local classic rock station and turn it up as high as I was allowed to go.

Music is my release. I can't play an instrument to save my life, apart from being able to pick out the beginnings of some tunes on the piano. I tried to learn to play the clarinet once, it sounded like I was killing a goose... and after a month of it, I felt like killing the clarinet. I don't know what I'd been thinking. I like to THINK I can sing, but I know I can't. I do sing along to the radio though, and it used to seem like I knew every song that came on! :o)

Now, my radio is tuned into Kiera's hip-hop/pop station. Some days I can be caught singing along with Lady Gaga or Usher, but I'd rather be listening to some Def Leppard or Aerosmith or Van Halen cranked way loud. If we don't have on her station, it's the country station. Rick & Emmie love country music, and I can tolerate it just fine, but it just doesn't get rockin' enough for me very often. Every once in a while I get to turn on the classic rock station, but it doesn't take long for one of the girls to ask to turn on the TV. And my iPod? Forget about it. It's filled with stuff that will please everyone. Music I like, but not music I love.

Sometimes I crave just being alone, with my radio cranked up real loud and MY music pouring from the speakers. Only when it is so loud, can I drown out the voices in my head telling me that I should be making dinner or someone has homework due or the bills haven't been paid. Only when it is so loud that you can feel the bass traveling through the air, can I finally relax and just exist. No dinner, no homework, no bills, no cuppies.

Just me and my music. That is where I worship, that is when I worship, that is how I worship.

It's been so long.

Soon, but until then...

2011-05-03T11:14:00.003-06:00

Soon...

Soon I will have more time to blog. Soon I will stop being sucked into FarmVille, FrontierVille or CafeWorld on Facebook. Soon Abigael will stop getting into markers, chapstick and the refrigerator. Soon Rick will have a job instead of having to report to WorkForce in Bellingham. Soon we won't have to rely on TANF to get by. Soon our car will probably die completely. Soon I will pull myself away from my computer long enough to get lost in a good book again (any suggestions?!), or to start crocheting again!

For now...

We finally made the move we've been dreaming of. We finally live in Washington, on the Canadian border, to be exact. We finally have rain and moisture instead of sun and dry skin. We finally sigh of contentment instead of frustration. Our girls finally have friends. I finally get to cook at sea level instead of trying to adjust my baking to high altitude. Finally my cookies don't burn on the bottom! :o) Finally we are settled, even without employment. Finally Abigael gets to have her momma to herself, just like her older sisters had. For now our car runs, and for that we are blessed!

We have been so amazingly blessed in our new home. Blaine and its inhabitants have welcomed us so warmly! I don't think I've ever been told, "We are SO glad to have you here!" by so many people, let alone people we have never met! We have lived here just over a month and we've already met 6 of our 11 neighbors, an amazing feat in itself! :o) We have WILLINGLY walked more in the last month then (I think) in our adult lives. We have discovered a love for libraries; not only for books, but for work searches and movies. :o) It has only been a month, and I can't wait to see what life has in store for us!

Clan Piccini's Day Out

2010-08-28T22:51:00.005-06:00

We used to have days out quite often, but now that Rick's new job has him working 4 10-hour days (W-Th-F-Sun) and the girls are back in school... we don't get to take off as much as we like. Today was the PERFECT day for an outing, a random head-where-the-wind-leads-us outing :o) And the wind led us lots of places!!

First we went to breakfast at one of our favorite places, Great Scott's Eatery, here in Broomfield. The girls love the 50's diner atmosphere, and the food is awesome! Rick & I had corned beef hash, Emmie had French toast (she eats like a bird, but she'll eat all of her breakfast at Great Scott's!!), Abi had eggs and Kiera had Bavarian stuffed French toast (with caramel syrup and bananas!). So yummy... if you are ever in town, you should try it out! :o)

After breakfast, we headed off to the little mall, Flatirons Crossing, to see if we could find Emmie a minion from Despicable Me. No luck, but we did find me the coolest hoodie at the Disney Store, on sale! To be saved for cooler weather, of course (seeing as it was 90 degrees today)!

That's right, a sweet Jack Skellington hoodie... I'm in love! I tried it on when I got home, and almost died of heat stroke, but it fit! :o) Very soft and cozy, and on sale (did I mention that? LOL).

We hightailed it out of the mall, because, let's face it, malls are no fun unless you have a LOT of money to spend. :o) From the mall, we took a backroad (I love backroads! So much to see!) into Golden, our favorite city... and one we haven't been to in MONTHS! We thought it would be cooler in Golden, but it wasn't. There was a breeze though, and that helped. A LOT. We figured we'd stay away from actually walking around the shops, so we headed for the Clear Creek and the Clear Creek History Park. We were lucky enough that we came on a weekend where they had one of the buildings open. They do this randomly in the summer, last year we lucked out and the house was open and they were baking cookies! This year, it was the old schoolhouse! We ventured inside and found old desks, slate & chalk and old readers. The girls loved it!

Here, Abi is checking out one of the old desks and playing with the slate. I thought it was so cool how the desks were laid out... there were smaller desks at the front (for the 1st grade) and they continually got bigger (up to 8th grade, which sat in back). The lady in the schoolhouse told us that the teacher would tend to give attention to one grade a day, and the other grades would do work they were assigned and could do on their own.

There was also this cool list of rules for the teachers, dated 1872. They are as follows:

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.

2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the days session.

3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.

9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay providing the Board of Education approves.

oh... kay.... :o)

Right next to the History Park is Clear Creek. We just wanted to walk next to the cooler water, we had no clue that people LOVED to tube down the creek! But there were TONS of people on the water today... and the girls wanted to join in. Having no inner tube or raft, we settled for getting our feet wet...

Emmie kept telling us it was really cold (well, yeah, it comes off the Rockies!)

Kiera said her feet were numb LOL

And Abigael just kept trying to wade further out toward the center. The creek is pretty shallow, but deep for Abi, so we kept having her come back.

Here is a little clip of the girls playing in the creek... by this time, Abigael had fallen on her butt and her skirt and bottom of her shirt were soaked. She thought this was funny, and kept being silly...

Now. After this video was taken, a couple had shown up with their BIG dog (to catch their girls after tubing down the creek)... Abi loves dogs. She was walking toward Kiera and the dog, toppled forward, and fell face first into the creek! The creek was moving pretty fast, way too fast for my baby, and she was being swept away! Kiera was lunging for her and, at the same time, the man caught her by the arm as I was going for her, too. Here is Abi's after picture...

Funny thing. We had her sitting with us, out of the water, and she kept begging to go back in :o) (now, rest assured, this all took place on the side of the creek, where it was only up to Abi's calves... but once she fell down, it was moving too quick for her. We were about a foot away, her sisters even closer... not expecting it to happen. I'm explaining for all the people who will say that we were being negligent. We weren't, it just happened. We decided on the spot that next time we go to Golden we are 1- packing swimsuits & towels for the girls and 2- packing trunks for Rick) :o)

After our trip to (and in) the creek, we had to find dry clothes for Abi (since this was unplanned). Off the the BIG mall, the Colorado Mills Mall... it has a Target attached :o) We wandered the mall for a little bit, to appease Kiera's pre-teen need for a mall fix.... this must be either genetic or maybe ALL pre-teens & teens have this gene... Kiera is constantly asking to go to the mall. She can't even tell me WHY, she just wants to go! :o)

That was our big exciting day LOL Nothing too exciting, but fun for us... thought I'd share :o) I hope the wind leads you in some fun direction soon!

You'd think...

2010-08-03T17:59:00.006-06:00

with my girls being out of school, that I'd have tons of time to blog... well, yeah, I do, but I'm just feeling quite lazy this summer! :o)

Its been a very warm,very humid summer. We've kept cool by staying inside, and sometimes going to the mall (but not often, since we don't buy anythingLOL). USUALLY during the summer we take road trips, but Rick's work schedule hasn't allowed it much... but we have taken a few trips since the beginning of the year that I haven't shared. Here's one...

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One morning, Rick & I woke up with the same idea, but we didn't share it with each other. Instead, he had the kids get ready and as we're loading up in the car andthe kids are saying, "Where are we going??", he says to them, "It's a surprise!" We get in the car, and I tell him, "I hope we're going to Cheyenne!" I ruined his surprise. :o) We set off on what turned out to be a 10-hour, 376 mile adventure. Here are some highlights...

It was a beautiful snowy afternoon when we set out

Thankfully it wasn't snowing everywhere (in fact, pretty much no where else LOL)

These buffalo (bison) are definitely roaming... at the Wyoming state line :o)

Cheyenne state capitol building (89 miles into our adventure)

Then we saw a sign for Nebraska, only an hour away... so off we headed east... it pretty much looked JUST like this the whole way

...except for when you hit this random outcropping of rock covered in pine trees... not too much longer after this, you're in Nebraska

Once you get into Nebraska, its looks a lot like this... and keeps looking like this :o)

103 miles later, we're in Sidney, Nebraska... home of Cabelas. Supposedly home to 'big opportunities'

Sidney, NE looks like this... lots of opportunities? :o)

Then we headed south, back into CO (taking the 14... big mistake) for our 180 mile drive home... on a 2-lane, unlit, back-country road... with the sun going down... but before it went down, I got to see this beautiful sight...

Next time, I'll tell/show you about one of our trips to Garden of the Gods :o)

Lemon Cheesecake deliciousness

2010-04-04T23:48:00.003-06:00

In 10 minutes, it will have been 4 months since I last posted... and usually I have so much to say! :o) Life just keeps happening, and I just keep going along with it. Eventually I'll post something personal... right now I'm sharing my lemon cheesecake yumminess that I made last night and we devoured today!

When I bake/cook anything, 9 times out of 10 I'll create it myself... its part of the fun! A little secret to my creating... I Google loads of recipes similar to what I want, compile them together and then make my own from all the gathered information. Usually, things come out pretty good... my cheesecake was no exception (I know, I'm tooting my own horn... to borrow from Alvin, "beep-ba-beep-beep-beep" LOL). Even my in-laws loved it :o)

Spring is a great time for lemon anything, and Rick absolutely loves lemon ANYthing :o)

Luscious Lemon Cheesecake

4 pkgs cream cheese

1 1/3 c. sugar (I love Baker's Sugar... mixes in real well... but regular white works, too)

1/2 tsp. salt

4 tbsp. lemon juice (I used fresh lemons, but lemon juice works just as well)

1 tbsp. lemon zest

2/3 c. sour cream (I used fat free -all I had on hand-, it turned out fine)

6 - 8oz lemon curd

yellow food coloring

Prepare your crust. I used Nilla wafers (2 c. crushed cookies, 2 tbsp. sugar, 1/4 c. butter, melted.) Press into bottom of spring form pan. Put the spring form pan on a baking sheet, it helps with moving the cake. Bake crust at 350* for 10 minutes, set aside. I used an 8" pan, and this filled it to the VERY TOP. You can use a 9" pan.... I just like mine taller :o)

Mix cream cheese, sugar & salt together in a mixer until well blended. (I tend to just leave my mixer running while I'm getting things together for the next step) Add in the lemon juice and lemon zest, mix well. Add the sour cream, mix well.

Pour half the mixture into pan.

Add the lemon curd to the remaining mixture and blend REALLY well. Add 3 - 5 drops of yellow food coloring, mix well. The coloring isn't necessary, but its real pretty :o) Pour into the pan. I used a knife to swirl it up a bit, but not too much... and also not necessary, just another pretty thing :o)

Put a oven-safe bowl filled with water (I used a souffle dish) on the bottom rack, moisture is supposed to keep the cake from cracking... it works for me!

Bake at 325* for 1 1/2 hours. Turn off oven, leave to cool. I've read that you can use a wooden spoon to prop the door open... I didn't do that. I just kept the door shut and left it sit for about 2 hours. Then I put it in the fridge overnight, leaving the side on the pan until I was ready to serve.

Enjoy... its so yummy! I topped mine with fresh raspberries :o)

Cookie Decorating Party!

2009-12-05T21:53:00.009-07:00

I, voluntarily, had 11 children (8, plus my 3) in my house decorating sugar cookies & gingerbread men! :o) That's right, I asked some of my friends to bring their kids to get hyped up on sugar to ring in the Christmas season! :o) Those of you who know me may be wondering if I've lost my mind... maybe :o) But it was so much fun!!!!

I was up late last night baking sugar cookies, and then early this morning baking the gingerbread men...

Then, at 5:30 this evening the first of our guests arrived! :o) A fellow COVA mom, Laurie, and her 3 girls. She and I have chatted on Facebook for the last year or so, but we've only met maybe twice! :o) I had so much fun getting to know her, and her girls! They are all pretty close in age to my three, so that was very cool!

Oh my gosh, Laurie, this picture just makes me smile!!!

They were followed by a new friend, Ivy, and her daughter. We go to church together and met through our 'anchor group'. It took Laura a little bit to feel free enough to run like a maniac (like my children were/are), but she LOVED making the cookies! :o)

And, last, but in no way least, my friend, Cheryl and her 4 kids arrived! By this time, all the kids were running amok and watching Veggietales Christmas movies in between. :o) Some of them had eaten all their cookies (my kids!), others were working on it LOL

The kids played dress up, they ran around, the jumped off the walls (well, maybe that was just my girls LOL)... in all, I think they had a great time! :o)

And you may be wondering where MY youngest midget was during all this manic running and dressing up was going on...

She was eating frosting... from the containers! And later, she was eating sprinkles! Every time I'd turn my back, I'd hear the sprinkle containers LOL She was SNEAKING around the table trying to get to the shakers as I was picking them up... I was in stitches watching her! Believe it or not, she went straight to bed... I know! I was surprised, too! :o)

Such a fun way to kick off Christmas; hanging out with friends and letting our kids go crazy :o) Thank you Laurie, Ivy & Cheryl for joining us... we had a blast!!

Been a while...

2009-11-13T18:54:00.015-07:00

I've had it pointed out to me that its been a while :o) Lots has happened in the last two months, most of it not wonderful, but all of it strengthening our faith!

Rick got laid off from his job on October 23rd... and while we knew it was coming, it hasn't been easy. It took his employer three WEEKS to finally send his severance package, which was taxed like it was a bonus... so almost 25% taken! Ugh. But it came, and we're thankful... it will help us pay one more month of rent. :o)

Since Rick has been home, its been pretty nice... personally, I LOVE being around my husband 24/7 (and no, I'm not being facetious!) He's been helping me with the girls' schooling and we've been getting little projects done around the house! Last weekend, we took the spray paint we used on the ceiling fan and we painted our kitchen chandelier... it just looks very cohesive now! And pretty! :o) He's also been helping with laundry and dishes... THAT is so awesome! There is no downside to him being home, but there is a downside to the layoff... NO ONE is hiring! We're waiting on unemployment to kick in, 4 - 6 week they say... hopefully 4, we need it to pay our space rent/mortgage! :o)

A good thing that has happened is we have joined a small group at our church, not quite a Bible study, just a group. :o) We've met some really wonderful couples, and they all have kids! That kid part is wonderful, so often we meet people and they just can't handle kids or kids aren't invited or whatever... now the girls come with us and all the kids hang out together! LOVE IT! :o) Its been wonderful having people pray for us, and being able to pray for them... we've had a lot to pray about! :o) We're working on an idea for serving our community as a group, with our kids, too... I can't wait!

We've also had quite a bit of snow over the last month... very fun! We got something like 18 inches a few days before Halloween! It was mostly gone BY Halloween, but some was hanging around... it was funny to see the jack-'o-lanterns amidst the snow piles :o)

Almost done (check out the snow! LOL)

Our house & our pumpkins!

For Halloween, Kiera was a pumpkin spice princess (basically a go-go dancer with an orange wig!), Emmie was Mickey Mouse (made for her by her Aunt Kathy) and Abigael was Little Red Riding Hood... all very cute costumes! We went trick-or-treating by ourselves this year, it was different, but still fun. A good time was had by all, and the kids got LOTS of candy! :o)

Emmie as Mickey Mouse

Kiera as a pumpkin spice princess :o)

Abi as Little Red Riding Hood

Just before Halloween, Abigael celebrated her THIRD birthday! I can't believe my baby is 3!! We had Rick's parents over for a dinner of lasagna and then her Auntie Manda, Uncle Richard and baby cousin, Gianna joined us for cake and presents. Her Aunt Kathy & family couldn't make it because the kiddos had H1N1 (but all are well now, praise God!). :o( I made Abi's cake this year, mostly :o) I took an angel food cake and then filled it with a cannoli filling and topped it with a whipped cream 'frosting'... YUM! :o) Abi got some cool presents, too! It was a very happy day! :o)

Our church band decided it was time to make a Christmas CD, so we got to go to an early Christmas concert... very fun! We go to Crossroads Church (north campus), its about 5 minutes away... and we love it! We found our church the weekend we got here and we have never left! We are blessed to have Billy Sprague as our worship leader, and he is just amazing. The whole worship team is amazing! I enjoy watching them play/sing... you can just tell how happy they are to be up there, it just makes my day to watch them! Every Sunday is like a mini rock concert with some amazing worship songs! Love it! We are so spoiled :o) They sing this song, Beauty & Awesome. Rick and I love it and I want to share it with you... enjoy! :o)

And my dad came to visit!!! That was SUPER COOL! We hadn't seen my dad for so long... it was so neat that he came for a weekend :o) We took him into Denver & Boulder, but mostly we hung out and enjoyed his company! The girls absolutely ADORED him! Abigael was happy to cuddle with him, as were the big girls... I was just happy to have my dada around! :o) I didn't realize just how much I missed him. And on a selfish note, he brought me a TON of pictures from him & his siblings growing up... THAT was super cool, too! My dada was one good-looking kiddo :o)

Me & my dada

My dada , Emmie & Kiera in Boulder

Abigael & Grandpa

Grandpa with Emmie & Kiera

So that is pretty much how we've been... we've had good and bad days, with mostly good winning :o) And for that I'm most thankful!

She's just goofy that way...

2009-09-15T14:51:00.004-06:00

Abigael will be 3 on October 17th. Honestly, I'm surprised she's still alive... not because I'd have killed her, but because she seems set on doing it herself! :o)

We're talking about a girl who has tried to drink dry erase board cleaner and Pledge Multi-Purpose cleaner. A girl who has eaten A&D ointment, Desitin and gummy vitamins (but I caught her after only 2!). A girl who drinks anything within reach including soda, coffee and plain ol' water (thank God we're not drinkers!). A girl who climbs up and down her sisters' bunk bed ladder, and has fallen off said bunk bed. A girl who used to run into the street, but thankfully now runs AWAY from the street when she hears cars coming! She's just goofy that way...

So, she's also starting to talk... a lot. Seems to be a genetic thing. I'm a talker, my girls are SUPER talkers... watch out future boyfriends/husbands. LOL

Today Abi comes into my room telling me she had a 'bloo bloo'... she'd cut herself on a pencil. How does one do that? She's just goofy that way...

So I take her in the bathroom, set her on the counter and turn around to get the bandaid & ointment. This is her normal 'booger sucking' position (she's just gotten over a head cold... lots of boogers LOL)... she kind of wigs out and tells me, "No 'niff mama... I no 'niff!" I had to promise her that her nose was safe... she's just goofy that way... :o)

Thought I would share :o)

Sharing the beauty...

2009-08-27T11:49:00.005-06:00

that is my Rocky Mountain sunsets. I think they rival, or maybe even surpass, the beauty of a ocean sunset. Seems like no two are ever the same, and they don't even need Photoshop to make the colors *POP*, they do it on their own.

I love the way the bottom of these clouds are lit up by the setting sun...

The definition in the lower clouds is what caught my eye this night...

You just can't make this stuff up!!! I wonder what the sunset on the ocean looked like on this night...

These last two aren't QUITE sunset, but it was working on it :o) These are my favorites because you get the sunburst. Its pretty in color, but I set my camera to shoot in B&W because it just makes everything stand out...

Beyond sharing the beauty that I get to see on a daily basis, I don't have much to share. The big girls are busy reading, while Abigael is busy making a mess of the house. :o)

In the coming months, the leaves on the aspens will start changing, and we'll make our trek up into the mountains to take more pictures. There is a waterfall up past Boulder, in, of all places, Boulder Creek :o) It's an easy hike up... perfect for taking the girls.

Always in the right place...

2009-08-23T13:05:00.003-06:00

at the right time :o)

Rick's time tow trucking has been put to good use, again :o)

Last night we were on our way to Subway for dinner. As we were pulling into the lot we passed a car with a flat, and we parked near it... it was right in front of the Subway shop. As we're getting out of the car, the lady with the car is saying, "I think I have a jack, but I'm not sure". Well, of course we have a kick-butt jack :o) So, we're unloading the girls and I ask her if she wants to use our jack... she was totally grateful. Rick brought the jack over and proceeded to help jack up the car and then got the cross lug wrench out... because the guy she was with was using the crappy one that came with the car :o)

Rick was so good about this part :o) He loosened the lugs for the guy, and then stood back and let him change the tire. Not because he didn't want to, but because they guy wanted to... and I thought that was so cool. Rick is so used to guys standing back and watching him change the tire... too many stories about heading out in the middle of the night to change the tire for a carload of 20-some age guys. That would irk me, too LOL

So we load up the jack and wrench, say good night and head into Subway... feeling very happy to have helped the people. About 5 minutes later, the lady walks in with a bottle of wine and gives it to Rick. We're not wine drinkers, but it will be used in a couple spritzers tonight :o)

And she had a baby with her... knowing that he was able to help her out and get her on her way just made my night. AND it showed the girls that lending a hand is a wonderful and welcome thing.

This is the 2nd or 3rd time an opportunity like this has come across since we got to Colorado. Not sure if its the Lord's way of saying that he should go back into tow trucking (which he loved, just not the hours) or if He is just showing us that it wasn't time wasted :o) Either way, its an awesome feeling.

I hope the Lord places someone in 'the right place' for you today :o) Or maybe YOU in the 'right place' for someone else :o)

Hot Water Heater: A Saga of EPIC proportions

2009-08-14T10:20:00.004-06:00

Of course, you probably know, we have no hot water heater. Its been over a month now... heck, I think its been almost 2!

It all started when I turned on the hot water and only cold came out. Now, if it were winter, that would make sense... it seriously takes about 3 - 5 minutes for our hot water to work its way to actually staying hot in our pipes (we live in a mobile home, our pipes run under our house... when its 20 degrees out... it happens LOL). We went out to check the hot water heater, to find it pouring water out the bottom! They aren't supposed to to that! :o) We're not sure how long it had been leaking, but I know NOW that there is a lifted part of our linoleum near the water heater closet... YEA.

Rick headed off to work, I boiled a pot of water to do dishes :o) He calls me later to tell me that the cheapest he could find was $400 (for a gas mobile home water heater)... cool, we can handle that... oh wait, we had like $20 in our account LOL

First I called my church, only to be told they couldn't help us, not even enough to tell us if one of the members was a plumber. They had me leave a voicemail for the maintenance guy, who had gone home for the day and STILL has never returned my frantic call LOL Racking my brain, two days later I called a local group that helps in financial situations. They couldn't help us, BUT they directed me to somewhere that maybe could.

I called Emergency Family Services in Boulder and left a message. They called back a couple days later and told me, without even a pause that they would buy our hot water heater... but we needed to have it installed. We were incredibly greatful and said we'd get it done! When I went to pick up the check, I found out that they are NOT government funded. There are two wonderful annonymous benefactors that created this fund, and the group is to spend the money in the fund to help people, like us, out. They'd already bought THREE hot water heaters in that week alone!! I wish I could thank the guys! :o)

Rick and our BIL go pick up the tank and set about installing it. Yeah, trouble on the horizon. First, it won't light. Then, some sort of condensation leakage. THEN, gas leakage. We kept tinkering... but to no avail. The last time we tinkered was over 2 weeks ago.

Yesterday, my MIL's cousin was visiting and he said HE had installed a few water heaters in his time and he wanted to check ours out. So he spent the day here with my FIL tinkering. They made quite a few trips to Lowes :o) But again, to no avail.

This time the story takes an interesting turn. The water heater we bought originally is made by American Water Heater Company. They have a class action lawsuit against them right now. Great. Basically our problem is that something on the thermostat threads left, but the company ONLY makes that part threading right. How strange, but how like us to wind up with something so fun. Right. :o)

My FIL & cousin Jim found a place that has what we need though. So eventually (hopefully next weekend!), we'll be packing this BAD boy back into its box and returning it to Lowes for our money back, and heading over to Ferguson's to buy a hot water heater that will work and will be easier to install! :o)

In the meantime, we will continue to boil stock pots full of water to wash dishes and to add to our 4 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket to bathe with LOL Like I told someone earlier.. its our own version of Little House on the Prairie, except we're Little House in the Trailer Park :o)

Hopefully the next installment of our water heater saga will be the final installment! Wish us luck.

Health

2009-08-03T11:27:00.003-06:00

... I've always taken mine for granted. Rick's too, until he was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes a few years ago. We're STILL trying to figure out how to eat right in regards to diabetes!

I was reading an article from the Sunday Denver Post about a little girl that was abducted and presumed dead, sucky subject in itself. But what caught my attention was that the girlfriend of the accused died not that long ago, she was 33, and she died of heart disease. I'm 30, and my mortality scares the crap out of me. Those of you that really know me already know this :o) It is my one greatest fear, the fear that makes me afraid of so many other things. I can trace it back to when my grandma passed away, oh so many year ago... not long after the nightmares started, and only recently have they started to be fewer and further between. Thank God for THAT!!! :o)

So this brings me to my taken-for-granted health :o) Though I've always been overweight, I've always been really healthy... perplexed the crap out of most doctors LOL Even while pregnant with each of my girls, they just KNEW I'd have gestational diabetes (never had it, though they treated me like I did with Abigael) and that I'd have the hardest recovery after my C-sections (with Emmaline, I was up and walking in less than 6 hours... that's fast!).

For more than the last year, I've had ice-pick-through-my-brain headaches and CRAZY whoop-de-doo dizziness... and my doctor in California said it was sinuses. Here in Colorado they ran blood tests and pretty much came up with the same thing... but my blood tests came back with high cholesterol and bad HDL & LDL levels, and I keep having high blood pressure in the office (but I think that it just because I get anxious going to the Dr... and can you blame me with my test results? LOL)

So now I have to figure out how to eat well. And, another one of those things that perplexes my doctors, I don't eat all that badly!! :o) I do need to start getting out of the house, since I don't have access to a car anymore, I guess walking will be my preferred mode of transport... that's a good thing, right? :o)

Those of you who know me know that when faced with a question or a problem, I read... so I'm off to find a website or a book that will help me figure out what to fix for diabetic/heart-healthy diet. Preferably something that doesn't taste like cardboard :o) Recipes are welcome; you can post them here, on Facebook or you can email me.

Father's Day at the Piccini house...

2009-06-22T13:02:00.007-06:00

Had a lovely Father's Day here at the Piccini house...

Invited the fam to our humble mobile home for a barbeque (would you believe that we fit 15 people in this little place? We do... but then 7 of those are little people! LOL). We all came together to celebrate the 4 fathers (not forefathers!) in the family...

- Rick (my honey)

- Ray (Rick's dad)

- Jim (Rick's sister's husband)

- Richard (Rick's OTHER sister's husband, and the newest daddy in the fam!)

This is Richard & Rick manning the barbeque, hamburgers & hot dogs, not to mention all the other yummy food we got to eat!

After lunch/dinner (what do you call it when you eat at 4??), some of us headed over to the park. Rick, Amanda (his little sister) and CJ (our nephew) played a rousing round of 'horsie riders until tomorrow' LOL (Started out as 'horse', went too fast!) During this time we had a nice downpour, LOUD thunder overhead and when it was over, the humidity was heinous :o) Thank goodness we lived near the ocean previously, it didn't bug Rick & I at all!!

Here's my honey shooting a basket under the cover of some gnarly grey clouds... see the rainbow though??

Amanda just made a great shot... and celebrating :o) Notice, the ground is wet, but the sun is now shining!

Amanda, CJ & Rick

While the big kids were playing basketball, the little kids played at the playground (l to r... Kiera on jungle gym, Abi, Emmie, Zach in yellow & Andrew). The girls are mine, the boys are my nephews (and CJ's brothers!)

Once the rain was gone (we also had rain while the sun was shining... very odd!), Rick's dad, BIL & nephew came to join in the basketball game... just plain ol' "horse" this time. :o)

After about 2 hours of taking pictures (over 300 pictures of basketball!!!!), I headed home to hang with my MIL & SIL and my newest niece, Gianna. Here she is laughing at her mama!

The evening wound to a close, most of the family headed back to their own abodes but Amanda stuck around to give Abigael a haircut...

Here is Abigael BEFORE her hair cut :o)

And here she is AFTER :o) You can't tell from the before picture, but her bangs were to her nose LOL The shorter 'do brings out the crazy curls on this kid's head! :o)

I hope you and yours had a wonderful Father's Day!!!

Can you bake a cherry pie? I can! :o)

2009-06-16T12:14:00.003-06:00

When I was little, I LOVED the Puff the Magic Dragon movie...

Here is a link to the WHOLE movie!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3476801002597020377

But one of my favorite parts is when Jackie Draper meets Very Long John Black and Blueberry Kid...

Jackie: Can you bake a cherry pie, Very Long, Very Long, can you bake a cherry pie, Very Long John?

Very Long John: I can bake a cherry pie quick as a cat can wink its eye, pumpkin, peach and half a dozen others.

Jackie: I don't believe you!

Very Long John: You don't believe me?!

Jackie: You're a pretty good pirate, but a baker? Never.

I've never made a cherry pie. Heck, the only fruit pie I've ever made is apple! But I baked some peanut butter oatmeal cookies and sent them to work with Rick, and his co-workers requested a cherry pie. I'm totally game because I LOVE to bake... my biggest wish/dream is to be able to bake and sell my baked goods for a living (but having no formal training, I'm thinking thats not going to happen!) :o)

I accepted the cherry pie challenge, and I even made the crust... which turned out to be a great idea because I got to buy a food processor! :o) I used to cut butter in by hand, which is all fine and good, but with 3 kids clamoring for my attention, time is of the essence and all that! LOL I did cheat though, I used pie filling. I just didn't feel like pitting a ton of cherries, I could see that being even more time consuming that squeezing all those Key Limes! :o) Doesn't this look yummy?

Then Rick thought it would be a great idea to do a lattice top... uh, I've never done one of those either! :o) But I'm game for anything... here is the result, not beautiful, but it looks homemade! :o)

Here is the finished result... it smelled DIVINE!

Rick took it to work the next day and its my understanding that it was a hit. Enough that one of his co-workers asked if I'd make a blueberry pie! He'll even buy the blueberries for me! :o) That should be fun! Rick made sure to save me a piece so I could try it... but he completely forgot that I don't eat cherries LOL So I took the last 2 pieces over to his mom & sister (since his dad had already had a piece on their drive home from work!). :o)

Its summer and I'm baking... I must be nuts! :o) Chocolate chip cookies for him to bring into work next week (with Guittard chocolate, yum!)... and maybe apple pie the next week :o) And sometime next month, an Oreo cheesecake for Emmie. Its a good thing Rick takes these things to work with him, otherwise we'd have to roll everywhere! LOL

Christopher Moore

2009-06-02T18:02:00.003-06:00

He. Is. Amazing. Really.

Have you read any of his books? I have, and I need to catch up... its been a little while.

Practical Demonkeeping - where I fell in love! About Catch, the people-eating demon and his 'master'. Some funny stuff here! (Are you aware that Pine Cove, California is loosely based on the Cambria area? It was! The Head of the Slug bar? Camozzi's.)

Coyote Blue - About Trickster, a Native American god, and him getting joy out of screwing with a 'former' reservation dweller :o) (You know the term 'coyote ugly'? Moore used it BEFORE the movie!)

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story - Female vampire finds a guy to do her day-to-day errands, and he falls in love :o)

Island of the Sequined Love Nun - Guy impales his... nether-region on the gearshift of the airplane he is flying/crashing. OUCH! Finds traveling buddies in a transvestite and a fruit bat (named Roberto!).

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove - Back in Cambria :o) Prehistoric lizard lives in the ocean, doc replaces everyone's antidepressants with placebos, lots of horny people. Fun for everyone! :o)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - I think the title says it all. Biff is brought back to life to write a gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John & BIFF? LOL) about Jesus' life... those missing years. It is incredibly inappropriate, hilariously funny and a very easy read. I shouldn't love it, but I do!

Fluke (Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings) - A guy wants to know why humpback whales sing. At one point, while researching, he sees a whale who's tail has BITE ME written on it. LOL

The Stupidest Angel - Back in Cambria!! Christmas terror, brought about by a screw up by the Archangel Raziel. :o) (There is a 'version 2.0... I don't have it, I probably should... I don't know if there is a difference)

A Dirty Job - Charlie becomes death's 'helper' :o) (haven't read it yet... here is the point that I need to start catching up!)

You Suck - Bloodsucking Fiends revisited... Tommy is now a vampire, too. Now he has to find another 'errand runner'. I did read this one... yet another hilarious Moore tale!

Fool - Moore's newest release... still have to read it. King Lear told in Christopher Moore's style :o) Bound to be full of laughs! I NEED to get this book! LOL

My mom, when she worked at the Cambria Post Office, used to put mail in P.O. boxes... his was one of them. She got to know him a little, he signed a couple of my books. Then he did a book signing for Lamb, and I got to meet him in person! I would love to hold a conversation with him, I can only imagine he would be hilarious :o) He signed my copy of Lamb "with mint jelly"... having never eaten lamb, I didn't get it. I do now... and its funny! :o)

He has since moved away from Cambria, well, Ragged Point, in case you were wondering :o)

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I wanted to add... Chris Moore has Twitter... TheAuthorGuy... and he Twittered about Twilight (of which, you already know, I also love). Here are some things he said... VERY funny!

- Twilight: My next vamp book EVERYONE is going to have lip gloss on at all times.

- Twilight: Ah, I get it. Indians and vampires are natural enemies. Like pirates and ninjas.

- Twilight: Bella: I'm sure of three things. Edward was a vampire. I love him. I have no personality.

- Twilight: OMG, it's werewolf/vampire air circus. Crouching Emo, Leaping Indy

- Twilight: On noez, Edward has to suck the venom out. That line NEVER works for me. "No, you have to or I'll change to werewolf!" Nope.

Afternoon Randomness: Pictures

2009-05-22T14:16:00.005-06:00

I'm going to try to be a woman of very few words (which is hard for me!). Mostly just pictures, maybe a quick explanation. Enjoy!

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I *heart* Rocky Mountain sunsets...

My Emmie :o)

As usual, Kiera needs to brush her hair :o) But don't you just LOVE the color?!

Abigael undressing a Barbie... her mission is to leave no Barbie DRESSED! LOL

Pink Gerbera daisies, my second favorite flower. First are RED Gerbera daisies! :o)

Morning randomness

2009-05-22T11:23:00.002-06:00

It will only be morning for another 37 (or so) minutes, but still enough time for morning randomness before afternoon randomness, right? :o)

First. I had a bad dream the other night. Really creepy. Will NOT even talk about it, so don't ask. I will tell you two things about it though.

1.) Paris was in it. Right, Paris, from Gilmore Girls. LOL That information would totally be funny if she wasn't part of the creepy stuff. :o) (rabbit trail: Was watching GG season 1 the other day and Rory said something was "Hearst Castle-y"... I lived 10 minutes from Hearst Castle!)

B.) I was watching a video for Depeche Mode's song 'Wrong' and it gave me the sick to my stomach feeling I got after waking up from this creepy dream. Not EXACTLY like my dream, but it was close enough to part of it. I'm glad I only watched it once, the vomity feeling hasn't diminished my liking of the song! Phew!

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Yesterday, the girls and I were coming back from Wal-Mart (needed diapers. Totally need to get Abigael potty trained!!). In fact, we were home, and I was just putting the car in park in our driveway.

Abigael: Mama?

Me: Yes.

Abigael: I have to go home, mama.

Me: O-kay.? Well, we are home sweetie.

Abigael: Okay.

Seriously, Abi is a strange bird. Maybe that conversation doesn't sound strange, but it is, believe me. It is strange because, randomly, Abigael will come up to Rick or I and say "I want to go home."... when we are sitting IN our home. Sometimes when she has a bad, meltdowny day, she'll start crying and saying she wants to go home. Rick says maybe its because I'M weird. :o) Weird in a way that I can remember things from when I was 2 (a little while back, of course)... like maybe Abi remembers California and she wants to go back to her home in Morro Bay. Who knows. Either way, she's a strange bird. :o)

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26 minutes left to the morning!

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Heading out to Golden, Colorado tomorrow. For those of you who don't know, Golden is home to the Coors Brewery! And they really do use "Rocky Mountain water"... from Clear Creek, it runs right past/through the brewery! Personally, I always wondered if they were making that up, but they aren't! :o) Golden is quite beautiful, and tomorrow I am finally going to get the chance to GET OUT OF THE CAR to take pictures!! (normally, I get to sit in the passenger seat and take pictures as we drive by places. Sometimes I get good pictures, other times, not so much!)

Golden is a 'western' town. Founded in 1859, during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush... interesting, right? Golden is also home to the '2 hour vacation'. And while THAT sounds like a quickie, it is really just all the fun stuff you can do in and around Golden. Seeing how the city is only about 20 minutes from our home, but closer to the foothills, I'm hoping we'll be able to do quite a few of these '2 hour vacations'! :o)

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Morning randomness has been over for 10 minutes... finding those Golden links turned into a whole lot of rabbit trails! :o) Distracting, but informative! :o)

Afternoon randomness will ensue after lunch and some vegging out with the girls :o)

Sick and tired...

2009-05-02T17:25:00.003-06:00

Not me, but everyone else! I'm hoping it will stay away from me!!!

Rick fell asleep with X2 blaring, glad its over LOL I had to go pick him up from work this morning, he was just feeling that bad. I'm such a 'mom', I didn't even want him to GO to work... but they don't do 'sick days'. He went in and they said go home, they thought he had pinkeye because one of his eyes was bloodshot... kind of funny to me. :o) No pinkeye. No swine flu. No flu at all. Just sick. Sleeping it off, contaminating the room... maybe I'll sleep on the couch tonight :o)

The girls are all a little sick, mostly runny noses and sneezing. Incessant sneezing. Because we've classified them as sick, they're playing it up a bit. Hot tea. Chocolate doughnuts (bought by dad when we stopped to pick up Nyquil). A Gooby-Goo marathon. Aren't they lucky that I bought all three original seasons? AND the Gooby-Goo Movies. Abigael loves Gooby-Goo. :o)

Guess I'm going to church alone tomorrow. Wouldn't want to get anyone else sick. Should be interesting... we're on week 3 of BaseCamp. Basically a 'get to know you' at our church. I'm hoping to make a friend or two out of it, seeing as we've lived here for 10 months... and attended our church for just as long. **Crossing fingers**

Off to watch Gooby-Goo & Shaggy catch the bad guys. Maybe I'll talk them into watching the live-action one...

Channeling Derek Zoolander

2009-04-27T12:32:00.002-06:00

How could a person NOT LOVE Derek Zoolander?! :o) Magnum... its just.... beautiful. :o) Except when my children do it...

Really, that is what they're trying to do! :o)

See? :o) Scary isn't it? I thought so.

I'll leave you with my very favorite line from the movie....

What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read... if they can't even fit inside the building? ... I don't wanna hear your excuses! The building has to be at least... three times bigger than this!

Every time I hear that line, I nearly die laughing... its just classic! :o)

Todays random moments...

2009-04-18T22:41:00.006-06:00

Went to my SIL's today... Rick NEEDED a haircut :o) None of us have had one for months... happens when your stylist has a baby :o) An ADORABLE baby... Miss Gianna Marie :o)

So while I snuggled with Miss Gianna, her mommy shaved Rick's head :o) He'll kill me for this picture (we were playing with his hair), but I LOVE the look on his face :o) Rowr!!

Then she trimmed the girls bangs and trimmed my hair... fun times :o)

We all got to snuggle with Miss Gianna, but this picture is my favorite. Not sure if it comes across to anyone else, but my man LOVES babies :o) And I can't have anymore... but holding this wee little one... I sure wish I could, and I know he does, too. :o)

So we're getting ready to leave, and MY wee little one grabs her daddy's Lakers hat (yes, its green... gotta show our Irish pride!) and starts posing for me... LOVE THIS!!!

'Sup? :o) She's so stinkin' cute :o) (And see my man in the back? Finishing up that haircut)

Where's a break when you need one?

2009-04-10T19:01:00.002-06:00

My body seems to be under the impression that it needs a break, or at least my mind is. Its a scary place to be... at least for me.

All is fine and well in my world, but when the heck do I get a break?! Children 24/7, school (my choice totally), no date nights, hardly any alone time with Rick, hardly any alone time with ME! It kind of snuck up on me today... with a force. Like I said, scary place to be. The big girls are outside playing, Abi is in the hall making a mess... so I guess this is my alone time?

Frustrated.

If I turn around, I'll be reminded that they thrashed my living room while I was in the bedroom this afternoon. I'll be reminded that I'm the only one who ever does the dishes, and I haven't done them since yesterday morning. I'll be reminded that the recycle never got recycled and is now threatening to attack my kitchen floor. Reminded that, even though FISH is wonderful and blessed us with food, I still have to find somewhere to put it. Reminded that its 7 o'clock and I need to make my girls dinner.

Where is my break? :o(

Rick would tell me that the dishes are fine, the living room will live, the kids can microwave chicken nuggets, that he loves me whether the house is spotless or not. He would tell me to go out, get that break I so desperately want. Which then leaves me in a vicious circle... 10 months here and I haven't met a soul to 'go out' with. Guess this is the downside to homeschooling in a new town.

I will suck it up, and I will survive. :o) It is what I do. But, like I said, it just kind of snuck up on me. Times like these, I wish I were a drinker! LOL

Time to turn around and face the house. Time to fix whatever mess Abi has made. Time to make dinner. Only 2 more hours until the kids are in bed. Maybe I'll get them in bed early today... maybe. :o)

Only Kiera...

2009-04-07T16:47:00.005-06:00

My girl has the oddest luck. To the point where the phrase, "Only Kiera" comes out of our mouths at LEAST once a week! Seriously. She hates it. "Why do these things always happen to ME?" she wants to know. I just don't know!

Yesterday, she was standing next to the breakfast bar, not doing anything. In a flash, there is a loud bang/bump sound and she is crying... what the heck just happened?! I think she must have gone to lean over something, but she smacked her forehead into the corner of the cabinets that hang over the breakfast bar!

So.

Rick and I have been going through boxes and putting them in our newly constructed storage shed (WOOHOO!). In one of the boxes, Rick found a folded up piece of paper that he set aside to look at later. I found it first. :o) It was a story Kiera had written from 2nd grade. Now keep in mind that this is a TRUE story, and this is EXACTLY, down to the spelling, what she wrote...

Seagull Attak

It was lunch. I was putting down the lunch buket. I left the bucket down then I walked away then turned around and a seagull had my sandwich. I ran then it flied away. Ms. Brown saw me running after the seagull. Then she walked over to me and said, "Was that your sand which." I said, "yes, and that was all I had for lunch. She giggled then took me to the cafaterea. Then she said, "A seagull took her sandwhich." "ok." Said the cafaterea lady. SO I had hot lunch for lunch. It was bean chulupa. I will never forget that day.

The End

Seriously. It happened! LOL I remember that day so well. I went to pick her up and she was getting in the car and she said, "A seagull took my sandwich today." **insert double-take here**
Me: "A WHAT did WHAT today?" LOL
Kiera: "A seagull took my sandwich. And I ran after it, yelling for it to drop my sandwich and give it back to me."
Me: "Did it drop it?"
Kiera: "No, it flew away."
Me: "What did you do about lunch?"
Kiera: "Ms. Brown saw me running after the seagull and she took me to get hot lunch in the cafeteria."
Me: "Was it a good lunch at least?"
Kiera: "YES! It was a bean chalupa!"
Me: "Well, at least you got to eat lunch. Maybe you should keep your sandwich in your lunch bag when you put away the bucket."
Kiera: "Yeah. Stupid seagull"

LOL She is such a funny girl. I've got more 'only Kiera' stories... I'll share another soon. :o)

Key Lime Cheesecake

2009-04-02T10:33:00.005-06:00

Yup... Key Lime Cheesecake... made with REAL Key Limes! :o) Not the juice you can find in the store, but cute, little limes. See....

That is a handful of cute, little Key Limes! :o) They smell so wonderful! Especially when you throw some of the rinds in the sink when you are finished with them!

Here is a cute, little Key Lime cut in half.... forgive me, I was playing with my camera :o) And, no, I don't fancy myself another Pioneer Woman or Bakerella... I don't intend to make my blog a cooking/photo blog... this is just what I was doing yesterday.

See those limes up there? See how they're all sqwozen? Yup, I sqwoze thoze... I mean those. By hand. Seriously, have you ever sqwoze a key lime? Its smaller than a KIWI! And do you know how many of those little limes it takes to make 1/2 cup of lime juice?!? I do... more than 20! My hands were KILLING me! LOL :o)

Okay, so I was being 'artsy' again :o) I totally wanted to lick the beater after this! And because there were no eggs in it... I COULD! (and I did!) :o)

Oooh, ooh... artsy again! :o) Check out my timed photo!! :o) See how the beater looks all ethereal and hazy? And the mixer is in focus? Oh yeah, that was cool :o) Hehe

Do I have a finished picture of this lovely creation? Nope. But I can eventually :o) It won't be whole though, because last night, I couldn't be patient :o) I ate a piece of my cheesecake, and so did Rick. It was YUMMY! Tart, sweet, CREAMY! It does need some whipped cream to balance the tart, so I'll be heading to the store today to buy some heavy whipping cream to make my own... it just calls for it! :o)

Want to know how easy this was??

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Deirdre's Key Lime Cheesecake

Preheat oven 375 degrees...

CRUST

1/2 box Nilla wafers (demolished in food processor, or beaten within an inch of their lives with a rolling pin)

1 cup sweetened flake coconut (about a cup anyway)

1 stick butter (melted)

~Mix it all together in a bowl, press into the bottom of a springform pan and up the sides. Bake in oven for about 8 - 10 minutes. Take out, let it wait for the yummy filling...

FILLING

4 bricks cream cheese (room temp)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup Key Lime juice (you totally don't have to squeeze them, they do sell it bottled, I'm just a glutton for punishment!)

Lime zest (the amount is pretty much up to you, I only did a little, but I'd say between a teaspoon and a tablespoon... the more you use, the more limey...)

NOTE: I don't have a zester, so I just used the tiny, hard cheese part of my grater... it worked for me :o)

~Beat the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk together... well :o) Start out slow, turn it up high, beat the heck out of it :o) With the beater on LOW, mix in the Key Lime juice. Add in the lime zest, beat it some more.

~Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, lower the oven to 250 and bake for 50 more minutes. Turn off oven, leave the oven door open a crack and let cool for another hour or so. Remove from oven, remove the outside of the pan, let cool to room temp. Cover and chill in fridge for at least 4 hours (I didn't do this... I ate a slice right before I covered it to put in the fridge... YUMMY, but even yummier when you chill it!)

Foodie Survey

2009-03-27T16:26:00.002-06:00

1. How do you like your eggs?
Depends on how I'm feeling... sometimes scrambled (esp. covered AND smothered @ Dennys!) and sometimes over-easy, but not runny. Runny eggs make me gag.

2. How do you take your coffee/tea?
MMMM coffee!!! 2 tsp of sugar and 2 or 3 tablespoons of heavy cream (or half & half if there is no cream)

3. Favorite breakfast food:
Homemade sausage McMuffin! Egg whites (scrambled), Morningstar Farms maple sausage, one slice American cheese, Thomas' light English muffin... divine.

4. Peanut butter: Smooth or crunchy?
SMOOOOOTH...

5. What kind of dressing on your salad?
Blue Cheese Vinaigrette or French

6. Coke or Pepsi?
neither... Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper!

7. You’re feeling lazy, what do you make?
Quick burrito; tortilla, refried beans, cheese, sour cream, salsa

8. You’re feeling really lazy. What kind of pizza do you order?
Domino's Memphis BBQ Chicken! Never thought I'd love a Domino's pizza, but this one ROCKS! Chicken, BBQ sauce, onions, provolone, mozzarella, cheddar... divine!

9. You feel like cooking. What do you make?
I normally throw together whatever I've got laying around. Last night I made a Mexican casserole; ground beef, kidney beans, black beans, diced tomatoes w/jalapenos, corn w/peppers, cumin, chili powder... topped with cornbread... divine :o)

10. Do any foods bring back good memories?
Mac n cheese w/corn... not foodie, but yummy!

11. Do any foods bring back bad memories?
Oatmeal w/blueberries... I HATED blueberries AND oatmeal when I was kid.

12. Do any foods remind you of someone?
Mac n cheese w/corn: my mom (except when I was a kid she added tuna)
Lemon Pepper chicken: Rick... first thing he ever made for me!

13. Is there a food you refuse to eat?
Fish, unless its fish STICKS :o)

14. What was your favorite food as a child?
Mac n Cheese w/tuna & corn (now... tuna, EWWW!)

15. Is there a food that you hated as a child but now like?
not that I can think of... I pretty much ate everything (well, except the chocolate/peanut butter chicken my stepdad made once!)

16. Is there a food that you liked as a child but now hate?
Liver and onions... seriously, LOVED it as a kid!

17. Favorite fruit and vegetable:
strawberries and asperagus

18. Favorite junk food:
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

19. Favorite between meal snack:
whatever is handy, usually a slice of bread or some cheese

20. Do you have any weird food habits?
Well... I can be eating something and loving it, but in a split second I can decide I don't want it anymore... like I got a weird taste or something. Drives Rick NUTS! LOL

21. You’re on a diet. What food(s) do you fill up on?
Don't know if diet is a good word for what we do... but when we are watching what we eat, I LOVE Weight Watchers Zero-point soup... the ORIGINAL version!

22. You’re off your diet. Now what would you like?
Cheesecake, but then I can eat that when I'm watching what I eat, too.

23. How spicy do you order Indian/Thai?
I don't eat Indian or Thai very often... and I don't do hot very often either.

24. Can I get you a drink?
already told you... Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper :o)

25. Red or White Wine?
White, though I don't drink wine often

26. Favorite dessert?
Tiramisu

27. The perfect nightcap?
Kaluah & cream...

VOTA... oh, and the newsboys...

2009-03-18T20:48:00.010-06:00

Yesterday Rick and I got to go to Highlands Ranch, specifically Cherry Hills Community Church, to see the newsboys in concert.

Now I was REALLY excited to be seeing the newsboys... I've been wanting to see them for years! BUT a couple weeks before the concert, newsboys announced that Peter Furler would be stepping down as lead singer of the band. HE is the biggest reason I love newsboys! And he was being replaced by Michael Tait (of dcTalk fame). So, needless to say, I was a bit disappointed going into the concert.

First I'll start off with Cherry Hills Community Church... its HUGE! :o) Our tickets were balcony (best seating, I swear! No one blocking me... I'm short!); Section R, Row H. To get to Section R, you go up a flight of stairs, 180 degree turn, up TWO flights of stairs, turn and one more short flight of stairs! LOL But truthfully, the flights were only like 20 steps each :o)

There were THREE opening bands... and I loved them all! I'd never even HEARD of the first two, but I'm now a HUGE fan! :o)

First was Bread of Stone, and they were great! I think they did 4 songs... bought their CD after the concert, had them all sign it. LOVE them! I wish I could remember the name of this song, but I DO know that the whole CD was wonderful!

Then we were treated to VOTA, who I found out (after some internet searching) were once known as Casting Pearls and they have this awesome song called Alright...

And after playing THAT song, they played a song that I am now SO in love with, called Hard to Believe...

Bought THEIR CD after the concert, had them sign it, too :o) Love the lead singer, he wore a pink/black striped tie :o) Gotta love it! Put the CD in the car for the 40 minute drive home, then listened to it 5 or 6 times today. I just can't get enough. Check them out... I think you will LOVE them!

After VOTA came DecembeRadio. I've heard OF them, but I'm not sure that I'd actually HEARD them... but I really liked them. I was getting into them, and then they played a quick cover of Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son" and I was hooked! :o)

And then. And THEN... newsboys came on! And they informed us that this concert was going to be Michael Tait's first night as lead singer for the WHOLE concert. That's right, Peter wasn't even going to make an appearance. :o( That did not make me happy... BUT I decided to enjoy myself. And I did. But I still missed Peter.

Michael Tait did... okay. He did what he could with what he has... but honestly, he isn't Australian so the voice is just off. But it wasn't torture :o) I will say, sadly, that he KILLED (and I do NOT mean this in a good sense) Hands of God! I won't post the video, because its just plain mean if I do, but he crouched down and read the words off a piece of paper on the stage through the whole song! :o( The rest of the band was AWESOME! In the end, they all rocked, and they did well as a band together. Michael Tait will get better. Of that I am sure, he is an amazing artist! (I would really like to see him stop with the 'poor brown boy' stuff though... he made SO many references to his color, it drove me nuts! What he should have been joking about was how he was one of the only NON-Australians on the stage as opposed to the only brown person on the stage!) :o)

Some pictures...

Singing 'He Reigns'...

I love seeing all the people... it was awesome!

Okay... take a look at this picture... do you see that?! That is Duncan on his rotating drum set. I heard this and thought, "Oh, its going to revolve..." Well, it revolves alright... but only after it raises up and then tilts completely forward! It spins FAST, too! It was like watching a ferris wheel! LOL So incredibly awesome! I wish I had gotten video, but I was still holding out that Peter would show up!! LOL

Hope you enjoyed the videos/pictures... I also hope you check out the band sites... they really are awesome!

I'm off to finish American Idol... Danny Gokey is AWESOME!!

Wild Olive Tees... I think I'm in love...

2009-03-13T16:43:00.003-06:00

Since I am a big fan of Pioneer Woman (oh how I would have loved to been a winner to her 'come to the lodge' contest!!!), and because of that contest, I am a big fan of Bakerella.

While perusing both PW's and Bakerella's sites, they both mentioned that one of the winners (and her guest) own a business called Wild Olive Tees. You may not know this, but I am a link clicker LOL If I see a link, especially an interesting SOUNDING link, I click. This can lead to trouble, but in this case, it lead to a really cool website and business! :o)

These ladies have a wonderful business going of making women's T-shirts with scripture on them. And not just ANY scripture, but very PROFOUND scripture :o) The ones that you read and you immediately say "Thank you, Lord!!!" :o) At least, I did :o)

My favorite one they make has to be their No. Thing. shirt. You see the front and think, "No. Thing. What the heck does that mean??" So then you read the back...

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 38-39

Thank you, Lord! :o)

But the sad thing? I could never fit in these shirts! :o( I am not a S, or a M, I'm not even an XL :o( (oh how I wish I WAS an XL again! LOL) I am more of a XXL... :o)

But the happy thing? I KNOW people who CAN fit in these shirts... so I think I know what I'll be getting them for their birthdays and/or Christmas! :o)

Love these shirts, had to share!!!

I've been PICKED...

2009-03-13T10:15:00.003-06:00

And while it isn't the biggest accomplishment, one of the pictures I've taken has been chosen for this years version of Schmap, downtown L.A. edition. There is a 'widget' to the right that should take you to Schmap... its actually quite neat, an online map with pictures!
The email:

Hi Deirdre,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released sixth
edition of our Schmap Los Angeles Guide:

Downtown
http://www.schmap.com/losangeles/introduction_history/p=2004D06/i=2004D06_18.jpg

If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personal
page, then please also check out the customizable
widgetized versions of our Schmap Los Angeles Guide,
complete with your published photo:

http://www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=29916298N06/c=SJ20041699

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please
enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/emma.williams

I'm very excited because it has to be one of my most favorite pictures, and I've always wanted to share it with the world :o) Maybe now the world will actually see it?! :o)

I love to take pictures, and I'm always excited when they come out the way I want them to. That is the blessing of a digital camera, I can take a thousand pictures and if one of them comes out, I'm over the moon.

If you click on the first link in the email above, you get to see the map and my picture, Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles. See my name as the copyright?! Woohoo! LOL If you click on the picture, it will take you to my Flickr stream.

I'm adding the Union Station picture and another picture from Union Station that I love... some old ticket booths that aren't used, but I believe have been in some movies.

Who's the bitch now...

2009-03-12T07:08:00.002-06:00

That would be me.

Here I was feeling all smug and satisfied that I'd peed in someone's Cheerios, that someone being Kiera's biological, by sending such a bitchy email to make him feel bad for choosing the Lakers over Kiera.

I am no longer feeling smug and satisfied, more like sorry and scared. Not scared because he said/did anything bad about it, sorry and scared because the jackass lost his job. Since he was on pay reduction, he decided to look into the companies finances, and then while he was at it, he took that information to the head people and asked questions. Seriously, who can be so dumb you ask... come on... if you've read previous posts, you'd know it'd be him!

A week goes by and now he's fired. Sweet. Not. So now he does NOT make 3 times more than we do, he makes nothing. And what happens when the person who sends you $400 in child support every month makes nothing? Anybody? That's right, I get nothing. Which didn't USED to suck, until Rick's wages got cut.... that $$ was our mortgage payment. Crap.

Lets see how good Rick & I are at juggling, shall we? :o) Thankfully, I know that the Lord is looking out for us and He has a plan. Now if only we could be privy to that plan so I wouldn't feel quite so panicked right now. Pray for us, please. I feel like I'm back to when we moved in here!!!! (Except that thankfully, Rick is employed now and getting paid! woohoo!!! Praise God!!!)

(if you haven't seen The New Guy - which my blog title is from... you must! Its hilarious!)

Sometimes he just gets my ire up...

2009-03-11T21:28:00.003-06:00

he being Kiera's biological.

He left her 2 months ago, and we haven't heard from him since.... so being the nice person that I am, I send an email to make sure he is okay...

---
My email: "just checking in... in her whole 10 years, the only time you've not called regularly was when you were in jail. Not there again are ya? :o) Let us know that you're alive & well and not incarcerated :o) (Please hear that I AM joking... Rick gave me a 'look' like I was being bad!)"
---

Short and sweet, right? :o) And bitchy, but still... I guess I should be nice though, his wages are being garnished like clockwork! :o)

---
His response: "No, not incarcerated, just a bit down. I have been thinking about calling for weeks now, but I don't for some reason. I don't want to sadden her by my bad attitude. Work has us on 20% pay reduction pretty much permanently and my finances are now a mess so I am distracted. (... insert boring crap here...) So, I'll call now that I'm busted, so to speak. Or, if you want to make my year, have her call me. I know hearing her voice will cheer me up, even with the world going somewhere in a handbasket fast."
---

Really, he wrote that. Now maybe I should feel bad, a 20% reduction is pretty big... but he makes $60K (or more!) a year! So they took $1000 a month from him and he is still bringing home $4000 a month (just him and his girlfriend). Rick got a pay cut, too... we bring home $1600... for the 5 of us! (sob sob sob LOL talk about full disclosure!) :o) I'm okay with it honestly, we're doing fine... though sort of regretting our iPhones (which we're now in contract with! Grrr).

So Kiera called tonight, after her telling me that she didn't want to and why should she have to. (I'm such a proud mommy! LOL) No clue what went on in the conversation, but here is what she said when she got off the phone

---
Kiera: "Wow! We were on the phone for 8 minutes and 5 seconds!"
Me: "He didn't want to talk to me?"
Kiera: "No, he said he had to go, the Lakers were on and they might win."
---

Yup, he got off the phone with his daughter (who he says he misses and please have her call me to cheer me up) so he could watch the Lakers game. And before I could stop myself, I shot off a quick email...

---
My email: "Should have seen the eye roll when I suggested she call LOL She's got quite an attitude on her.

I tried to feel sorry for your work issues, but you still make more than we do... nearly 3 times as much since they cut Rick's pay. :o) See I can sob story, too :o)

Hope the Lakers won."
---

Oh yeah, I'm a bitch. Rick said I shouldn't have sent it, but I don't think it will do me much harm. He said in his email he wanted to talk to her, and then he chose not to.

I'm over it... but I totally had to vent. Sometimes he just upsets me so much. And in the end, I don't even know why... Kiera has many times asked why she has to have 2 dads when she is happy with the one she has. Why can't I just let it go....

Pause and rewind live TV...

2009-03-10T20:18:00.000-06:00

oh yes, TiVo, I love you. Or I will, once Rick sets you up! :o) Since Direct TV screwed up our order, we've been DVR-less for 9 LONG months! I bit it and bought a TiVo box today... can't wait to get it set up so I no longer have to worry about missing Dancing With the Stars or American Idol... or Castle, which, I have a feeling, will become one of my new favorite shows! :o)

TiVo... you are calling my name from your pretty orange box...

Rick, get home quick! LOL

A Dave Ramsey moment...

2009-03-06T20:26:00.004-07:00

sort of...

Rick and I are on week 7 (or is it week 8?) of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, and feeling pretty in charge of our financial future... sorta :o) Hard to be COMPLETELY in charge when we're still in debt LOL

We got a nice federal return, and instead of paying off bills, we decided it would be better spent updating some of our appliances and buying a shed. The shed will be a stress reliever (got a cold sore yesterday to prove just how STRESSED I've been! LOL), it will get all the boxes and totes out of our closets and dining room and broken bathroom shower LOL (yeah, we need to fix that eventually!) The appliances will hopefully help bring down our electric and water bills. The park we live in changes the water rates every month... once it was $20, the next month it was almost $80... and we used the SAME EXACT amount of water! Grrrr....

Rick and I got the girls up nice and early and took them over to Appliance Factory Outlet, and after quite a bit a talking to each other... we purchased a brand new washer and dryer! We even got it for a little less then it would have been. Not a whole 'Dave Ramsey' amount less... but maybe about $100 less. It's a baby step for us :o) The coolest part though? The cost for the set, the tax and delivery was less than $1300. If we had bought them at Lowe's, it would have been that much BEFORE tax and delivery :o) So THAT felt good :o)

Not sure if we'll ever become pros at haggling, but every little bit will help :o)

Interviewing Kiera...

2009-03-05T16:30:00.003-07:00

Kiera's turn... I'm hoping she'll have nicer answers LOL

1. What is something mom always says to you?
"can you please help me"

2. What makes mom happy?
"flowers"

3. What makes mom sad?
"cutting your hand" (I guess, it happened the other night... I didn't really like it)

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
"by doing a silly dance *does goofy 70's dance*"

5. What was your mom like as a child?
"you were happy"

6. How old is your mom?
"30" (to which Emmie says "holy mackerel... that would be an old person!" LOL)

7. How tall is your mom?
"well, you are 6ft because I'm 5ft and I'm almost as tall as you, so 6ft and a half" (holy cow, I'm tall!) :o)

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
"your favorite thing to do... is to... watch the movie Cars"

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
"you read a book" (oh yeah!!!)

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
"for singing" (how sweet!)

11. What is your mom really good at?
"you're very good at cooking" (right on!!! Love it!)

12. What is your mom not very good at?
"uh, you're not very good at doing the splits" LOL (she says shes trying not to hurt me LOL)

13. What does your mom do for a job?
"your job is to home school us, and feed us. and take care of us. those are the best things you are good at." (have I ever mentioned that my oldest is a suck up? LOL)

14.What is your mom's favorite food?
"your favorite food? pork! Do you like pork?" LOL

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
"uh... helping me understand my homework"

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
"you would be.... the magical baby Smurf" (okay.) Now she's saying Smurfette LOL

17. What do you and your mom do together?
"we, uh, we have fun together"

18. How are you and your mom the same?
"uh, well, we both like the Jonas Brothers"

19. How are you and your mom different?
"we're different by you like dancing 'back then' and I like dancing 'right now' Because 'back then' you did old dances and 'right now' we do NEW dances." (okay. I'm only 30... what is she talking about BACK THEN?! LOL)

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
"you get me stuff that you really shouldn't get me?"

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
"oh easy peesy lemon squeezy... you like to go to the zoo and see new animals."

Interviewing Emmie....

2009-03-05T16:09:00.003-07:00

Was reading another one of these on Facebook and thought it would be interesting to get my girls' answers. Here is Emmaline's... she's only slightly distracted and goofy :o)

1. What is something mom always says to you?
"no"

2. What makes mom happy?
"cleaning"

3. What makes mom sad?
"not doing what you told me to"

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
"when you tickle me"

5. What was your mom like as a child?
"you liked to watch... I don't know"

6. How old is your mom?
"18"

7. How tall is your mom?
"as big as me right now" (I'm sitting in a computer chair!)

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
"type" (how sad that she thinks that!) but then she changed her mind to "watch Cars" :o)

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
"you watch movies"

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
"because you wanted to be rich"

11. What is your mom really good at?
"annoying us" (oh man... she's gonna get it!)

12. What is your mom not very good at?
"playing soccer" (no kidding!)

13. What does your mom do for a job?
"taking care of us"

14.What is your mom's favorite food?
"for Pete's sakes... Chinese food with your family"

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
"that's gonna be hard.... you make me laugh?"

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
"a puppy... named Anna"

17. What do you and your mom do together?
"shop"

18. How are you and your mom the same?
"we both like the same color. we both like animals" (Kiera says we're both confusing! LOL)

19. How are you and your mom different?
"I make jokes, you don't"

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
"because you kiss me every night"

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
"somewhere with us. uh, at a restaurant?"

I just don't understand...

2009-02-25T19:44:00.002-07:00

I've got three girls. (no Chris, that isn't what I don't understand) :o) They're all about 3 1/2 years apart; my oldest is 10, then my middle is 6 (7 in 4 months!) and my youngest is 2.

Somehow my middle and my youngest daughters ALWAYS seem to fight. Now, I'd totally chalk this up to middle child syndrome, since its my middle daughter that picks on the little one... but she was like this BEFORE we had our youngest! LOL

Today, Emmaline (middle) was playing with Abigael's (youngest) Elmo K'nex-type toy, Abigael's hat, Abigael's silo from her Little People barn and her own piggie. All was well, until Abi decided she wanted to play WITH Emmaline. She didn't try to take the toys, instead Abi brought her cow and tried to put it in the silo with Emmie's piggie. Which caused Emmie to have a coniption and push Abi away. Which then caused Abi to scream, loudly, ear piercingly. Emmie then got a time out, Abi chilled out.

THEN while Emmie was in her time out, Abigael picks up the piggie. Emmaline WIGGED OUT!! She actually started CRYING! Goodbye piggie, goodbye silo (another cause of contention).

What I just don't understand is that Emmie does NOT want Abigael anywhere near her toys, to the point where her Dora the Explorer kitchen is squeezed into her bedroom, along with all her other toys that she doesn't want Abi to touch. On the other hand, Abigael's toys are behind the couch in the living room and in the hallway. Emmaline won't share her own toys, and she won't let ABI play with ABI'S toys! She puts them up out of Abigael's reach, freaks out if Abi gets near them... I just don't get it!! She won't share hers, but expects Abi to not be bothered by having to share.

Oooh it just pisses me off. To the point that after THEY start screaming, I tend to start screaming. It sucks.

Anyone got any ideas? Today, Emmaline has been banned from touching Abigael's toys... and I think it sucks having to do that.

And what is even sillier? They absolutely LOVE each other, hugging and kissing... when they aren't trying to kill each other! LOL

Our love story... part trois...

2009-02-18T20:26:00.003-07:00

Okay... so where was I? Oh, right, we were living in sin... :o)

We moved in with Rick's bestest buddy's ex-wife and daughter. Oh yeah, it was about as odd as it sounds! LOL It seemed like forever, but we only lived in her house for 2 months! :o)

Rick, Kiera & I stayed in 1 room in the 2-bedroom/1-bathroom house. We had 2 twin mattresses directly on the floor, Kiera's crib against the wall (and about 6 inches from the mattresses), and my oak armoir that I'd had since I was about 7. We also had one of those bouncing pony-things in the room for a bit, until we finally put it in the front yard. :o)

I have 3 very distinct memories of that house.

-The first was before I moved in, Rick made me dinner... lemon chicken and fettuccini alfredo. It was amazing! And whenever we have it, I am reminded of that day. It was a GOOD day! :o)
-The second was Halloween 1999. Kiera's first Halloween. Rick's bestest buddy's father was there, along with his ex-wife, her boyfriend and her daughter. Rick was working. I dressed Kiera up as a Harley Davidson fan :o), because I didn't have a costume for her, but I had a Harley outfit! LOL
-The third memory was buying ourselves a Christmas tree. It was a total Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but it was our first tree together. I loved it! We went to a tree lot, bought the tip-top of a tree (I think it was about 2ft!) and they put it on the shaker... we almost died laughing and were thankful that there were needles left on it when it was over. :o) We brought it home and put it on the table and decorated it. Now the lady we lived with, she kept her heater on 24/7 and cranked REALLY HOT! This memory leads into the next part of our story...

December 24, 1999~ We're at Rick's parent's house for Christmas. As are his brother, younger sister and older sister (with her husband and son). Before we headed for their house, we had gone to Wal-Mart and bought rings... we weren't sure when we would get married, but we had our rings and we were going to show them off. :o) I don't remember where we slept, but I know it wasn't together. Even though they knew we were living together, in the same room, we weren't sleeping in the same room there! :o)

Christmas Day~ It was a lovely day in Victorville. We woke up, sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, opened presents and enjoyed the rest of the day. That night, at about 10P, we were all standing in the kitchen. Rick told his parents that we needed to get to bed, since we were getting up at 4A to drive to Las Vegas to get married. :o) Merry Christmas! :o) Needless to say, they were shocked. But their response? Well then, we all better get to bed if we're all driving to Vegas in the morning! :o) Rick's older sister was a bit concerned about Rick marrying me, to put it lightly :o) She thought maybe I was marrying Rick so Kiera would have a father. To tell the honest truth? I was marrying him to be Kiera's father, and because I loved him from almost the moment I met him. As a single parent, your first thought is for your child... so if I wasn't marrying him to be Kiera's father, THAT should have been cause for concern. :o) She was also concerned because I was not a Christian, and Rick & his family are. I think God spoke through Rick that night though... he told his sister that he understood her concern, but that he loved us and he felt such a peace in his heart about marrying me. He said that he KNEW I was his Eve.

I have to tell you, I found out about his sister's objections 3 years ago after my BIL's wedding. And she apologized profusely. I love her so much more for it, too. She was just looking out for her brother. I also found out Rick's answer just a couple WEEKS ago, when we started writing our love story for KLOVE. :o) Let me tell you, it brought tears to my eyes.

December 26, 1999~ We left the house just after 4A. Rick, Kiera & I in our car. Rick's parent's, his grandfather and his younger sister in their car. We headed for the Little White Wedding Chapel, where Britney Spears 2-minute marriage started... but also where my mom & stepdad were married. We bought our wedding 'package'; limo to & from the courthouse to get our license, ceremony, a 24-exposure roll of film that they took pictures with AND we had our wedding aired on the Discovery Channel!! :o) We drove to a Denny's on the strip and had breakfast while we waited for our limo to come pick us up. :o) Rick's family took Kiera while we went to the courthouse, and met us at the Chapel. And then we had our ceremony. I cried. Rick cried, too... but don't tell him I told you! :o) And what is funny is that I cried because I was so overwhelmingly happy. I barely knew him. We had met just 4 months and 12 days before. And yet, I KNEW that this was right, that this was the forever kind of marriage. Not to knock anyone who felt the same and it didn't work... it is just how I felt, and I still feel to this day. :o)

We left Mr. & Mrs. Piccini, because I am TOTALLY old-fashioned :o) We got stuck in massive Vegas traffic, and then made our way back towards Morro Bay. We TRIED to make it home, but the fog got SOOO thick in Carpinteria that we stopped at the only hotel sign we could see... the Motel 6 :o) So we spent our first married night in a Motel 6. That was our one and only honeymoon.... to this day. The next day we had to call into work married LOL Our boss let us come in late :o) And I had to tell my mom that I got married without her. And we got to come home to a FRIED CHRISTMAS TREE!! LOL We were so thankful it didn't ignite!

I think 2 more installments... I don't think I can fit 9 years into one more :o)

Thank you for reading... I'm enjoying sharing!

I have the coolest husband...

2009-02-16T12:21:00.003-07:00

he bought us tickets to go see the Newsboys next month. I've wanted to see them since forever :o)

We used to live in San Luis Obispo, CA, and one day, while driving somewhere (we drive a lot) we saw this big white blow-up tent-like thing and there were lights... LOTS of spotlights dancing all over the sky. We had no clue what it was, but wanted to be there. We couldn't be there, but we found out the next day that the Newsboys had put on a concert.

At that point, I wasn't even a Christian. I had HEARD of them, but never HEARD them. Rick, was a fan... he was more bummed than I. NOW I look back and I am so bummed LOL

I was looking for concerts here in town at the Broomfield Event Center, but wasn't finding anything. The very next thought in my head was, "I wonder if the Newsboys are coming to Colorado this year?" I looked, and l0 and behold, they'll be at Cherry Hills Community Church, in Highlands Ranch, CO on March 17th. St. Patrick's Day :o) I mentioned to Rick that I was bummed that we couldn't go... to which he replied, "Why not?" Then he told me that I always ruin his surprises! LOL

He had told me last week that we needed to save about $50 for my birthday/Valentine present. The tickets were my present. He could have just agreed with me :o) But I'm glad he didn't... now I'm super excited! :o)

If you have never heard the Newsboys and are wondering why I love them, check out their MySpace page with your volume on... give it a moment to load the page and their streaming music will come on. I love their new song In the Hands of God... its got a great beat and a great message, too! :o)

Well, I'm off to watch Phineas & Ferb get busted... :o)

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T09:58:00.003-07:00

I'm not sure how I feel about this holiday. I definitely am all for love, though I think its best celebrated EVERY day, not just on one day. :o)

Usually when Valentine's Day rolls around, we don't have any money. Or a kid-sitter, so even if we have money, we have kids... so no romantical dinner out. We have NEVER had a romantical dinner on this day, in fact, I think in our whole 9 years of marriage, we've never had a romantical dinner. We've always had kids and no sitter. :o( Poor me! (Okay, I'm done)

Today, after Rick gets home from work, we are heading south to Colorado Springs to have lunch/early dinner with my Aunt Lori and her mom. I am REALLY looking forward to it... we haven't seen her in about 6 or 7 months. What is funny about that is that before seeing her 6 or 7 months ago, I hadn't seen her for 8 YEARS! And before that, FIFTEEN YEARS! :o) That had been the first time I met her and my Uncle Tommy (and my cousins, Kim & Patrick... Patrick was a baby!!). They are the Texas part of my dad's family. I'm very happy that Aunt Lori's mom lives in the Springs, she comes up to see her 3 or 4 times a year... so cool!

Not sure what is on tap for AFTER we eat, but when we get home we're having pot roast (I'm crockpotting it). Woohoo. :o)

Happy Valentine's Day... and if you get a nice romantical, kid-less dinner... enjoy! :o)

Must be feeling 'spacy'...

2009-02-10T16:27:00.002-07:00

The girls decided to watch E.T. today. They like this movie, and I LOVE that they are interested in things that are part of my youth :o)

I decided to clean our room up a bit, get rid of some of the boxes that I can (would you believe that after 9 months of living here we STILL have boxes in our house?! We need a storage shed!). One box had some of my new cookbooks (not ones I wrote, but ones I collect!)... mmmm Sweet Maria's Baking compilation! Another box held quite a few Star Wars books and blueprints, they are Rick's... yes, he is a Star Wars fiend (nerd, geek, etc).

In the girls' bathroom is a book/magazine I bought Rick for Christmas, SFX Director's Edition: George Lucas. I started looking at some of the pictures, and one of them was 'the best movie poster EVER'... the original Star Wars movie poster.

Now I intend to watch the OG Star Wars :o) without Rick... that is odd for me :o) I plan on introducing Abigael to this awesome movie, the older two LOVE it :o)

Off to watch Star Wars with Abi, the Force is strong in that one. May the Force be with you.

Our love story... part deux...

2009-02-07T09:50:00.003-07:00

So, I knew I was going to marry him :o)

About this time, his friend (who'll remain nameless, until he or his wife tell you!) was kind of freaking out. :o) See, Rick and I were going out EVERY DAY together. And my little girl was going to all these places with us, because, sadly, there was no one to watch her.

Our first 'date' was a drive down Santa Rosa Creek Road in Cambria... completely terrifying, seeing as I was afraid of driving (or being driven) in the dark, on windy roads in the wind. At times I was, literally, curled up in a ball on the passenger seat clinging to the 'oh shit' handle... near tears! And he came back O_O Kiera was in the backseat asleep. LOL

Another date, we went out on Highway 46 to this pull out that overlooked Morro Rock and took pictures. Kiera was there in her car seat :o) And after we took pictures, Kiera came out to look with us (really, do you think I was stupid enough to let her wander on a pullout that had a busy highway on one side and a cliff on the other?!).

Would you believe that Rick & I didn't have our first kiss for almost two weeks?! If you know ME, you know that this is odd. He brought me Reese's peanut butter cups and daisies... I HAD to kiss him! LOL Little did he know that those were both my VERY favorites, and still are to this day! :o)

At some point, after spending all this time together, Rick asked me to go to Monterey for the weekend with him. Kiera included. (This was about a month and a half into us 'dating') So we headed off for a weekend in Monterey... we hardly left the hotel room, except to venture out to Cannery Row for a few hours. :o) It's odd having your kid underfoot, but I'm thankful that she was only 8 months old by this time! LOL

After this wonderful trip, we had plans to go out the next day... so he kept the car seat and stroller in his car. From what I've been told, his friend completely freaked. I couldn't tell you the exact words, but suffice it to say I was not this guys favorite person LOL (I am now though!)

October 4, 1999 (1 month, 19 days after we met) ~ I was sick as a dog, with a bitch personality to match. Rick drove me out to Cayucos one rainy afternoon... one of our few moments without Kiera. I was just too sick to enjoy it, so he drove me home. We got to my house (I was living with my mom still), and he got out to open my door. Not an odd occurrence for Rick, he was just raised that way. :o) As he opened my car door, he got down on one knee. I pretty much told him to get up and get out of my way, I wanted to go inside. (Oh yeah, I REALLY had that bitch part down that day! I am very ashamed of this now...) He wouldn't get up :o) and to this day, I'm grateful that he didn't :o) I wish I could remember his words, all I know is that he ended with "Will you marry me?" My answer? "Yes, now will you please get up so I can go inside?" Seriously, that is what I told him :o( Not very romantic of me... I'm actually surprised he didn't say 'never mind'.

Later that day, I was standing in the kitchen and my mom was making dinner.

"Rick asked me to marry him."

(not looking at me) "Did you say yes?"

"Of course"

"Good. You're very lucky he asked you."

Huh?

Seriously, this is the general consensus in my family... I am lucky that this wonderful man asked me to marry him. Was I really that much of a heinous bitch that no one thought I deserved him?? Both my aunts like to remind me how lucky I am that I have him.... like I don't know this! Everyone in my family LOVES my husband. I get the feeling they like me, too. LOL

End of October ~ This is one of my most favorite parts of our story!

I was going to meet Rick's parents. That's right, I hadn't met them yet... and better yet, they had NO CLUE that we were engaged! O_O Rick drove Kiera & I to Victorville to meet his parents and siblings (minus one, she didn't live there). When we got there, his dad was still at work and his siblings weren't there either. His mom welcomed Kiera and I easily. When his dad pulled up, his mom grabbed Kiera and said, "Let's go say hi to grandpa!" Really, she did that, and she still had no clue! :o) His dad came in carrying Kiera (9 months old now). He went to change out of his work clothes... he comes downstairs wearing a sweatshirt that says "#1 Grandpa" I swear! :o) That night, after dinner, we dropped the bomb LOL They took it well.

There was a worry about my not being a Christian, Rick is... he was raised that way. His parents were incredibly worried about him 'yolking' himself with a non-believer. He set them at ease, letting them know that he KNEW in his heart WITHOUT a doubt that I was 'his Eve'. Awwww! :o)

Kiera & I moved in with Rick in November 1999. Shock & chagrin... we weren't married O_O :o)

There will be more... I think 2 more... right now I have to go enjoy time with my girls :o)

Happy Birthday to my honey!

2009-02-04T12:08:00.004-07:00

Today is Rick's 39th birthday. He says he wouldn't have remembered if we hadn't told him. I think he's lying. I also think he's a little worried about 40. He should be. He's so in for a BIG party LOL

I don't think he has changed much since I met him.

He's gonna hate that I used that picture :o) Gotta find another one :o) The first was September 1999, Monterey, California. The second was January 2009... so 9 1/2 years apart. Same hair cut :o)

Our love story...

2009-02-03T16:17:00.003-07:00

Tomorrow is Rick's birthday, he'll be 39. Personally, I don't think he's changed a bit since the day I met him! :o)

KLOVE, my very favorite radio station, is having this awesome contest right now. You send in your love story in 250 words or less and if they choose it as the winner, Matthew West will turn your story into a song and sing it to you! I love Matthew West! :o) So I entered. I think we have a great story, but honestly don't think they'll even pick it to read on air... just my luck :o) But that is okay with me because its still our story, and our kids and grandkids will love it :o)

In WAAAAY more than 250 words, I'm going to share our story... this way it will be written down for all eternity :o)

-------

It goes all the way back to my stepdad being HORRIBLE with computers! :o) I was a 20-year-old, single mom (my daughter was 7 months old) and I had moved home with my mom, stepdad and little brother. My stepdad somehow DELETED his modem... and expected me to fix it. So I called our internet companies tech support at like midnight one night to see if they could help. I got a tech named Chris who was TOTALLY helpful, and sorta hitting on me LOL He said I had a great phone voice (how sad is it that even when I was 13 I was being told that I could be a phone sex operator? WAIT! Now I know how to bring in extra cash! LOL *kidding*) and he'd like to keep chatting... so we started IMing through AIM. We'd chat, but mostly I'd send him jokes; funny ones, not funny ones, mostly dirty ones because they are the ones that make you laugh the hardest! Unbeknownst to me, he had told his friend about me and my jokes.

(according to Rick's memory) "You have to talk to this girl, she has the best jokes."

August 14, 1999 - Chris and I are chatting and he says he has to go to the bathroom, "Chat with my friend, Rick. He's visiting from Victorville." So he and I start chatting and after a while he logs off Chris's AIM account and into his own. He logs on as SilverSurfer. Now, I'm digging talking to this guy, so I try to impress him with my 'vast' (read: absolutely NO) knowledge of comics. "Silver Surfer? Like the comic book guy with a surfboard?" I know this only because YEARS earlier I had found a Silver Surfer trading card on the ground. I liked it, so I kept it. Eerie, right? I sent him my website link, so he could see my picture of me & Kiera at her christening. We chatted online for a bit and he busts out with, "Can I call you on the phone?" Like I said, I'm digging him... so of course I gave him my number. :o)

We talked on the phone for HOURS. It is now August 15th VERY early morning. I have to get up to be at work by 9A. I told him as much and he asked if he could call me at work the next day. Seeing as it was a Sunday and always a very slow day at the pharmacy (I worked for Cambria Village Pharmacy in Cambria), I said yes.

Sometime during the day, Rick called me at work and told me that he needed to run some errands and would call me to actually talk later. "...but call before 4P because that is when I close up." Fast forward a few hours. A customer called and was upset because there was no pharmacist. There was NEVER one on Sundays :o) She was threatening legal action, I was frantically running around the store looking for whatever it was she needed. A man came in and stood at the counter.

(out of breath) "I'll be right with you sir!" as I run to the backroom

*nods his head, says nothing*

"Okay. Now how can I help you sir?"

"Well, I figured that since I had seen your picture online that I should come in and show you me."

(according to Rick) My jaw just about hit the floor. LOL Bestill my heart, he had me at hello! :o)

He stuck around while I closed, and when I walked down to JJ's Pizza to meet my mom, he came with me. That night Rick met my daughter, mom, stepdad, little brother, older sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew! And, believe it or not, he came back the next day! :o) Shocking, I know!!

Turns out he had moved up to Morro Bay from Victorville. He came to see me every day!

About 2 weeks after we met, Rick & Chris picked me up for lunch. We grabbed sandwiches from Soto's Market and headed down to the beach. Sitting on the beach, after eating lunch, I was doodling on my paper bag with some charcoal. He asked what I was drawing.... it was cheesy LOL I had been doodling a house with a tree and standing next to it were me & Kiera. "Where am I in that picture?" Oh, right then and there I KNEW I was going to marry this man! :o)

I'll write more another time... that is enough for now :o) Plenty more though :o)

In search of my childhood

2009-01-30T18:33:00.002-07:00

Sort of.

I home school. Ooooh. :o) Its not as off-the-wall as you may be thinking, I haven't taken the BIG LEAP of actually doing it myself. LOL We home school through our local school district, it is considered public school, but I teach and we are at home. We do meet with a teacher once a quarter, and I can call her if I need a hand. Its nice, but it lacks the excitement of 'really' homeschooling.

So I've decided that next year I still will not take that BIG LEAP, but I will supplement with my own things. Kind of like earlier in the school year, my 1st grader was studying Biblical history (through the school no less!). She was learning about David & Goliath, before that she was learning about Moses and the Exodus. We're big Veggietales fans, so every time we'd get one of those lessons we would pull up the Veggietales movie, either from our collection or on YouTube, and compare to actual history. It was fun. And almost always lead into other realms of discussion.

Next year I'm going to add ACTUAL Biblical studies, because it fits with our family beliefs. Not an every day catechism, but a once a week family study. Should be fun. I'm looking at Sonlight Bible curriculum, but I've not completely decided yet. Have a suggestion for one, let me know.

I'm also going to buy the girls DK's History: The Definitive Visual Guide. Thanks to Pioneer Woman, I NEED to have that book to supplement our history lessons! :o) She waxed poetic about it, gave some away and I didn't win. I must get this book!!

So I was thinking I also wanted to get the girls a chemistry set like MY mom got me when I was about 10. They don't make them anymore. Not like the cool one I had anyway. The one I had was awesome! It had about 20 different bottles of chemicals including borax, phosphorus, some kind of acids (probably citric) and sulphur. I remember mixing some chemicals together and them turning blue. Mix another set together and get red. Invisible ink. Smoke. Neat stuff! Now its dangerous to let kids experiment with chemistry sets, they might discover something O_O, or their big brother/sister might discover the set and make methamphetamine. :o( Thanks for killing the joy of learning!

I also got, that same year, a circuit set. It had TONS of little color-coded wires (I remember red ones, blue ones and black ones... each different lengths). You followed the directions and connected wires to connectors and you could turn a little light bulb on and off, or run a little motor. Many little electronic tricks. So cool! I wish I would have had the foreknowledge to save it, because I have no clue where to find something like it either! Anyone?

I want the girls to have fun with science, and I'm not talking the whole soda bottle tornado thing or Mentos in Diet Coke. I think I also need to find them some cool microscope slides, no need for a microscope... Rick found one back when he was driving tow trucks. One of the cars they were selling had a kick-ass microscope in a metal box... quite old even :o)

Off to do some non-scientific, and not even educational, TV watching :o) Happy trails.

Saturday

2009-01-27T11:31:00.003-07:00

...was a good day, a 'family' day. We have so few of those particular days, mostly because we let life get in the way. A normal Saturday consists of sleeping in (as late as Abi sleeps in), some sort of slapped together breakfast, lots of TV or computer for the girls and cleaning for us. Really its boring and so disconnected.

This past Saturday is hopefully the beginning of a new trend. It started out with waking up at 7A because Rick had to work a half day (9A - noon). The girls and I vegetated and watched REAL Saturday morning cartoons, which means we watched Boomerang. We watched Popeye, Top Cat, the Jetsons and Scooby-Doo. If they'd have been on we'd also have watched the Smurfs, the Snorks, Voltron & He-Man :o)

After cartoons, the girls got a little computer time... the bane of my existence! By the time Rick got home, I'd shoo'd the girls out to play in the fresh air (and I was reading!). They begged for him to come out and play with them... football! The girls got Rick a football for Christmas, he'd told them he'd always wanted one... now he has one! :o)

After football, they were exhausted. So everyone came in for a rest, and a round of The Game of Life. Not one of Rick's favorite games, heck, he doesn't really like board games at ALL. But even he admitted that since Emmie is older, they are a bit more fun to play (Emmie used to want to play, and then throw a fit when she couldn't get it... so normal!).

After Life, we watched Bee Movie and Over the Hedge. Talk about some funny movies! And even better, funny movies that we could all enjoy together! :o)

Then a nice thrown together chicken dinner.

What a lovely Saturday. I hope to have more like that in the future!

I've been reading...

2009-01-22T19:05:00.002-07:00

anything and everything I can get my hands on these days. Really I've been reading like that for as long as I can remember. I learned to read when I was 4. I can actually remember reading The Fox & the Hound (the Disney book club version) to my mom waaaay back then! :o)

Today, my tastes run a little more... adult, but not in the dirty sense! LOL Though I have been known to read my fair share of romance novels... I LOVE the Christian 'Love Inspired' books! :o)

Yesterday I finished reading Goofy Foot by David Daniel. Not a book I'd normally pick up, I just don't know the author... but I was looking for a book and my oldest spotted the title and giggled. "Goofy Foot? That's silly!" I picked it up, liked the cover art and the inside flap writing. Its a mystery, and I THOUGHT it'd have surfing in it... not really. But still good, and had me guessing even! :o)

The book I had been looking at was Tough Cookie by Diane Mott Davidson. This book is what you would call a 'culinary' mystery... its got recipes in it! :o) I found this author by way of looking at books by one of my favorite authors these days, Joanne Fluke. She also writes 'culinary' mysteries :o) Love them... good writing AND good food!

I'm also a big fan of Christopher Moore... I can't wait until Fool goes on sale! I started reading him when I was in high school back in Cambria, CA. I couldn't get enough! He used to live in the area, knew my momma from the Post Office (she used to work at the Cambria PO, now Postmistress in San Simeon... sweet!). Met him at a book signing for his book, Lamb. He signed a couple of my other books of his... I'm forever in love with him now! LOL If you like... odd?... check him out!

Off to soothe my screaming children who wish I'd have made something better for dinner... happy reading... who's YOUR favorite??

Today is my birthday.

2009-01-19T20:59:00.004-07:00

My 30th birthday.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from the day. For sure, I wasn't expecting what I got. :o)

Where we live, we have to take our Christmas trees to be recycled ourselves... since today was the last day to drop them off, Rick took our tree to the recycle yard. On his way home, I asked him to pick me up a Bruegger's bagel. A Sunday Brunch sandwich to be exact. It was so yummy... a french toast bagel, Vermont maple syrup cream cheese (oh yea baby!), eggs and sausage. I want another one! :o) He brought me home my bagel... and a balloon and carnations. I'm not a carnation 'person', I love Gerbera daisies, but carnations are my 'birth' flower... just as special to me! :o)

Not too long later, my sister-in-law came walking in the front door. Can I just say I LOVE that we live close enough to them (2 blocks to be exact!), and I'm close enough to her, for this to be awesome? It is. She brought with her balloons, one of which declares that I'm 30 :o) She also brought me presents!! A bundt pan (which I totally need!), casserole cozies (which I totally love) and a Coach purse (which I'm totally digging!). Tonight, she made me (and her family, of course!) some of the yummiest enchiladas. I baked my cake, German chocolate cake, thank you very much! :o)

Its been a wonderful day! Blows so many of my past birthdays out of the water... except my 18th :o)

Dave Ramsey...

2009-01-18T14:21:00.002-07:00

will tonight (and the next 12 weeks) be worth $95? I've heard wonderful things, so I can only hope! :o)

We've been in debt, and we've climbed out of it as responsibly as we could. We went through Consumer Credit Counseling Services also known as CCCS (that links to the local branch we went through... you can find a closer one to you!). We paid off over $20K in 3 years, they said it would probably take us 4! And then what did we do? We decided to move to Colorado, where our brakes completely failed and had to be COMPLETELY replaced and we promptly got screwed by park management, and got back into debt... thankfully only to the tune of $6K. Its all good though!

So we're at church a couple weeks ago and I see that we'll be hosting Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University (not Dave Ramsey, just the seminar). I'd heard about him! I actually had bought his book the week or so before! Talked to Rick, he agrees, we could do it. Talked to in-laws, they agree to watch the kiddos for us. Talk to the CPA putting on the seminar, flinch when she says it will be $95 for the seminar. Feel better when she says we can make 2 or 3 payments! :o)

Tonight is week 1. We get our 'kits', we get to watch an hour long video, then we get to talk for an hour. Can I call this a date night? I'm thinking maybe not. But I think I can call it a step in the right direction!

In need of another joke...

2009-01-17T00:54:00.002-07:00

but I won't take any responsibility for it! This is Rick's joke!

Why did Spock pee on the ceiling?

To go where no man has gone before... (oh man, that was BAD!) :o)

Now I know we're up too late, he's telling awful jokes! Takin' that boy to bed... night! ;o)

You look like you need a good laugh...

2009-01-16T18:31:00.002-07:00

... so I've got a joke for you...

As a trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door. The trucker lowers the window, and she says, "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!" The
trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street. When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again. She jumps out of her car runs up and knocks on the door. Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they've never spoken, the blonde says brightly, "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"
Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street. At the third red light, the same thing happens again. All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, knocks on the truck door. The trucker lowers the window. Again she says, "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!" When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde. He knocks on her window, and as she lowers it, he says,............

"Hi, my name is Kevin, it's winter in MINNESOTA, and I'm driving the FECKING SALT TRUCK!!!"

Unless you've heard it before, you totally didn't see that coming did you? :o)

Today is my momma's birthday. Happy Birthday, Momma! :o)

I know some people....

2009-01-13T09:42:00.002-07:00

who know some people... who know some people at Disneyland!

The Denver Zoo

2009-01-12T07:25:00.008-07:00

Colorado's Scientific & Cultural Facilities Distri ct (SCFD) is so awesome that it sponsors FREE days at the Denver Zoo, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Denver Botanic Gardens (downtown & Chatfield), the Denver Center for Performing Arts AND the Denver Art Museum!!! I'm looking forward to taking the family to all of these places... and our first stop was the Denver Zoo!

For me, the Denver Zoo puts the Los Angeles Zoo to shame... really. It is GINORMOUS!!! What I find funny though is that every time I say we went to the zoo, someone runs through a list of animals asking if we saw them... and they always ask if we saw bears. Oddly, I don't recall seeing any bears... save for the 2 polar bears.

We also saw lions and a tiger... you really get that close to the lion (with glass between you, of course!). For the tiger, I used my telephoto lens, but it was only about 5 feet away behind glass. You can view them from outside, too... but it was so stinkin' cold out, we liked the buildings :o)

We also saw giraffes; an adult, a 'teenager' and a baby that was born last August. Would you believe that the baby was SIX FEET TALL when it was BORN!? :o)

There is this little window when you exit the 'feline' building, the girls went to see what was on the other side and this beautiful cheetah walked up to them! There may be glass there, but I think we all jumped! LOL They really are gorgeous though, aren't they??

After all those felines, (polar) bears and giraffes (oh my!)... we skeedaddled into the 'Rainforest'. There we saw PIRANHAS and 2 Komodo Dragons! Doesn't the dragon look likes its smiling? :o) Did you know that a Komodo dragon bites its 'victim' and then the bacteria in its venom sets about killing? The bacteria can take up to a week to kill, if the venom doesn't do the job. My oldest knew this before we got there... where did SHE learn it??

We also saw this pretty starfish...

I'll post more pictures later! The birds were beautiful, too! :o)

My little girl is growing up!

2009-01-11T14:45:00.012-07:00

In about 3 hours, my oldest 'little' girl will be exactly 10 years old! I look at her and I am amazed... God gave me this beautiful little girl to take care of and love... how did I get so lucky!?

Not to say she is perfect, or an angel... really, we're all pretty far from that, right? :o) But, to me anyway, she is a great kid! Somedays, I want to pick her up by the back of her panties and throw her through a window... but that's only because she is growing up into a 'tween'. I hate that word 'tween', talk about making our kids grow up faster! We used to have infants, toddlers, kids and teenagers... now we have 'tweens'. Ugh!

She loves Hannah Montana (and by extension, Miley Cyrus), the Jonas Brothers (her favorite JoBro is Joe... mine too, he's adorable!), nail polish (in crazy shades!!), make-up (which I only let her wear on our 'sleepover' nights) and Barbies. She also still sleeps with her teddy bear 'Ager', who USED to be Edgar when I got him for her 1st birthday... but when she was learning to spell she thought it was Ager, and so Ager he is. :o) He goes with her everywhere and she CANNOT sleep without him. God forbid he ever get lost... we'd be in TROUBLE! They don't make bears like Ager anymore.

She likes school, but HATES to write... so essays are sheer drudgery for her, and for me! :o) But she loves to learn! She also loves to read! She reads Judy Moody books, Landon Snow books, she has even read Anne of Green Gables! (and she loved it so much we got Anne of Avonlea!) If you haven't read the Landon Snow books, you should! They're a bit like Harry Potter AND the Narnia books rolled together!

I'd like to take you on a pictorial voyage... so just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a little girl, that started back in Cali-forn in the town of Cambria. :o) Enjoy!

2 months old... rockin' the Pooh wear...

1 year old... prerequisite Wal-mart photo

2 almost 3... with her cousin, Indiana and Uncle Jon (yes, uncle...he's 14 years younger than me). Silly picture, I think she was trying to escape :o)

4 years old... me and my wacky little girl! Where oh where did those beautiful curls go?! :o(

5 years old... beautiful eyes and lopped off hair :o)

6 years old... playing on the beach in Morro Bay, CA. I love pigtails, all my girls get stuck with 'em! :o)

7 years old... oh man, we're in trouble and she KNOWS it! :o)

8 year old... getting too cool to pose cute for mom...

9 years old... in her Easter finest...

Day before 10 years old... at the Denver Zoo with her sister :o)

Happy birthday!

What was I thinking?!?!

2009-01-07T20:41:00.002-07:00

We are about to embark on a terrifying adventure... Kiera's biological father is coming to stay IN OUR HOUSE for a WEEK starting TOMORROW!!!

Who's insane idea was this you may be asking? Mine... sort of. You see, back when we lived in California, we made a deal that he could stay with us when he came to Denver... that way he wouldn't put up a stink with us moving 3 states away. It worked, we're here.

BUT

He calls before Christmas and says that he is going to come out for Kiera's birthday. We were like, "Okay, sounds good." And then he drops the bomb that he is flying in on January 8th and leaving on January 13th!! So he will be here 5 nights, 4 WHOLE days and 2 half days.... not that I'm counting. We were thinking he'd come out for a weekend... fly out Friday, leave Sunday or Monday. But this is so typical of him... making plans, paying for his plans and THEN telling us.

Oh well... we will deal with it. :o) I'm a trooper. Most days anyway.

So we've got a free day at the zoo this Saturday through our homeschooling group... that is one day down :o) A few more to go. Thankfully my husband's parents are awesome, they've even offered to let our visitor stay with them! I may take them up on it if he drives me nuts enough! LOL

Meet my family...

2009-01-01T21:26:00.005-07:00

I thought I would take a moment to introduce my family.... because I can :o) And no one really reads this stuff anyway! :o)

This is me... sadly, since I'm almost always on the clicking end of the camera this is one of my rare pictures. I'm 29, for now. :o) I will turn 30 in less than a month. No, I'm not worried about it. I'm only as old as my kids make me feel! :o)

This is my adorable, goofy, loving, amazing husband. We've been married for 9 years. We met online (on Yahoo IM), and married 4 months later. He's been a gas station clerk, an incredible tow truck driver and is currently a milkman... really :o) He'll be 39 in February. Yeah, he's older. Would you believe that his younger sister is actually 6 months YOUNGER than ME?! :o)

These are my girls. Our girls. Our wild children who we love more than life itself, but occasion we want to throw them out the window. :o) My youngest just turned 2 in October. She is a handful, but so stinkin' cute! I don't know where she got her curls from, but I love them... except when I have to brush them. Next to her is my oldest. She'll be 10 in less than 2 weeks! Oh man! That is a scary thought. She thinks she is a teenager, I swear. But she still loves Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers (her favorite is Joe, of course.... but really, I understand!). Next to HER is my middle girl (with a HUGE middle girl syndrome!). She is 6. She is also amazingly profound sometimes. She loves to sing. She wants to be a chef like Emeril more than anything though, ever since she was 2!

That's my family. Now that you know about us, and what we look like, you know who to avoid :o) Just kidding! :o) Happy 2009!

Happy New Year's Eve...

2008-12-31T20:47:00.002-07:00

are you having as exciting as I am?? Right now, my girls & I are watching Disney Channel's Totally New Year ... very exciting :o) Chris Brown and the Cheetah Girls are on Zach & Cody... don't know what I'm talking about? Not missing much :o)

Later, after I put my whiniest, I mean youngest, to bed, we'll camp out on my bed and continue to watch Disney.... until Dick Clark comes on, of course! Then we'll have a Rockin' New Year's Eve :o)

Rick is off working... keep him in your prayers, its windy out and all the drunks will be on the road in a bit.

Happy New Year to you all!

You know you are NOT grown up...

2008-12-29T23:30:00.001-07:00

when you have to ask your kiddos to sleep with you! LOL

I just hate when Rick has to work because I don't sleep well, and to top it off... tonight we're having Chinook winds. My understanding is that they are like California's Santa Anas... but cold :o) They run about 20 - 40 miles per hour, but they are predicting 80 mph gusts. Um. I live in a mobile home. That just sounds scary :o) Add to that, Rick has our aonly car.

I told my SIL that if I get terrified I'd be calling her in the middle of the night to come pick us up. She laughed. Not sure if she realizes I'm kind of serious :o)

So far so good. Geez, I gotta grow up! :o) Just not tonight! :o)

Christmas has come and gone...

2008-12-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

and while I'm sorry that the feelings associated with Christmastime are going away (though I'm trying really hard to keep them with me!!), I'm quite glad the non-stop activity associated with the 'family Christmas' is done! Phew!

We live VERY CLOSE to all of Rick's immediate family, except his younger brother and HIS family. They live in Victorville, Ca. Well... they flew in Christmas morning with their newly foster/adopted son, Isaiah. That was super cool! But oh my gosh the plans started flying and being thrown out!!!

Christmas Eve, it was planned that we would open presents at my MIL's house with ALL the grandkids... there are 6 here (my 3 girls and my SIL's 3 boys) ranging in ages from 2 to 12. It was LOUD, and crowded! Fun, but in all there were 17 of us crowded in my MIL's apartment living room... wow! Rick had to leave at 6PM to go to work... that sucked.

Christmas Day, we got to do our present opening at our own home. We were incredibly blessed by a local church that 'adopted' our girls for presents. My oldest got like 4 pairs of sneakers, and all of them got lots of jeans and t-shirts. They also got about 4 toys each from the church. From us they got 2 toys each. From MY momma they each got 3 presents (1 was clothes... they were TOTALLY burnt out on clothes! LOL).

Christmas Day NIGHT, we went to my SIL's house where she made Swedish pot roast. Oh man, it was SOOOOO good! There were 21 of us, including 7 grandkids (my BIL had made it in, remember?) and my SIL's ILs :o) That was also loud, but we were all having fun falling in love with Isaiah. :o) Rick had to leave at 6PM to go to work... that sucked... again.

Day AFTER Christmas, we got a phone call from FISH (which, I believe, is an extension of Loaves and Fishes, but I'm not positive) wondering why we hadn't picked up our gifts. Huh? I thought the church WAS the gifts from FISH (they were in connection, I was told anyway)! So we went to FISH to pick up our gifts... there was a bag for each girl (each with at least a pair of shoes, shirts, pants and toys!) and a bag for Rick and a bag for me AND an extra bag! Oh my goodness!! God REALLY blessed us this tight Christmas! (Did I mention that my MIL bought us our tree???) In my presents, there were 6 new bath towels, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Oddly, I loved it! :o) And the sweater I got? A beautiful, fuzzy red one... LOVE IT!!

Day AFTER Christmas NIGHT, we went to dinner with Rick's parents, his brother (and his wife and Isaiah), his younger sister (and her husband) and all of us. So eleven of us descended upon Red Robin :o) That was fun! And loud :o)

Don't we look happy? The midget in the front is my youngest, Abigael. Then going clockwise its me, Emmie (my middle girl), Kiera (my oldest), Richard (SIL's husband), Amanda (SIL), Bryan (BIL), Brittany (BIL's wife), Isaiah (BIL's son), Ray (FIL), Sue (MIL) & Rick (my honey!). It was so cool of the waitress to take our picture, we left her an awesome tip :o) She deserved it!!

I'm now unwinding (while washing all the new clothes and towels!!!) after everyone has gone back to 'normal'. Until New Years anyway, I'm sure! :o)

Rudolph: Real nose or fake nose?

2008-12-24T01:38:00.000-07:00

That is the discussion my almost-10-year-old daughter and my 6-year-old daughter were having as I was putting them to bed tonight. :o) My oldest holds that Rudolph really WAS born with a red nose. My middle girls says no, that when its foggy, Santa just puts a blinking red light on the lead reindeer's nose.

That was such a funny conversation. My oldest seemed to really be mad that her sister didn't agree with her, and she really seemed to still believe in Rudolph and Santa! More power to her! :o)

So how about you? Is Rudolph real, and does he have a red nose? Or does Santa put a fake nose on whoever is leading the sleigh? :o)

Horton hears a... baby yak?

2008-12-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

My middle daughter, Emmaline, reminds me of the baby yak (did YOU know she was a baby yak... I had no clue!), Katie, on Horton Hears A Who!

"In my world everyone is a pony, and they all eat rainbows, and poop butterflies."

Just had to share... she's just funny that way.

My husband IS the milkman!

2008-12-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

A while back, my husband was looking for a job that was better than the one he had... he stumbled upon Longmont Dairy. Not only do they have cows that they milk and bottle said milk, but they do HOME DELIVERY!!! I didn't even realize that milkmen still existed, let alone near Denver!

So now my children really do look like the milkman :o)

And if you are wondering, it is a VERY hard-on-the-body type job... and quite cold (since they drive with the truck door open, even in -15 degree weather!). BUT so far the tips have been awesome... he brought home Belgian chocolates and Hillshire Farms stuff this morning!! MMMMM...

The suckiest part? He leaves the house at 8P and doesn't get home until after 9A on some days... then he sleeps all day. On the plus side, I'm still able to get the girls' schoolwork in! :o)

Merry Christmas!

Not my first attempt...

2008-12-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

at blogging, but maybe a better attempt? :o)

I think that I will make my first post in response to Ryan Detzel's Questions That No One Asked (if you haven't checked out his blog, This Is Reverb , do it... you won't regret it! :o)

So...

What's with the screen name?

No, I'm not a clan member! :o) There are 5 of us; myself, my husband and our 3 girls, therefore, we're a clan :o) Plus, my husband's heritage is Scottish. Made sense to me! Would you just get a giggle knowing that I signed up for Disney.com with this name, and they WOULDN'T LET ME at first?!?! They said it was inappropriate and they suspended my account! :o( Boo on Disney! (Not really!) I sent them a scathing (well, only a little!) email telling them that it wasn't inappropriate if my husband was SCOTTISH! :o) I got my log-in name :o) Yeah me!

THREE GIRLS!?! Are you going to try for a boy?

This is actually a question I get asked all the time (clearing the air early on I guess)... I can't tell you how many times we've been asked this by strangers even! No, we aren't trying for a boy. Yes, we know, we're in trouble when they grow up. Yes, we know we'll need more than one bathroom (we have two!). And no, it is not the man's fault! Would you believe that some stranger, after telling my husband how beautiful our girls were, went on to tell him that its the man's fault... WHAT?! I bet he has all girls, too :o)

Weren't you afraid your husband was some kind of creep, since you met him online?

One of those questions that you can see on people's faces when you tell them you met online (and not through eHarmony)... like they want to ask, but know better (better than the guy in the last question anyway). :o) I was so NOT afraid that he was a creep, he was just too sweet. And he liked comic books (his log-in used to be SilverSurfer... I tried to impress him because I knew who that was, but nothing else!), was in his late-20's and had just moved out of his parents. Um, looking back, I should have been weirded out!! LOL But in the end, he was (and still is) the most amazing man! Still as much in love today as I was December 26, 1999 when we got married in Las Vegas... after having met 4 months earlier! :o)

WHY would you move without a job?!

Oh yeah, THAT was a question that you knew everyone was thinking, but afraid to ask! :o) We moved from Morro Bay, California (between Cal Poly San Luis Obispo & Hearst Castle on the Central Coast) to Denver, Colorado this past June... yes, without a job. BUT we had family. LOTS of family! THAT is why we moved without a job, but plenty of money (that got eaten up by hotels when our landlord wouldn't let us move in... long story, another post I'm sure). My sister-in-law lives about 2 blocks west of us, and my in-laws live about 2 blocks south of us. Love it, usually. Except last night. Long, selfish story, another post, I'm sure.

What is your favorite article of clothing?

Oooh, good question that no one asked! :o) SOCKS!! I'm in love with socks! Except ankle socks, they make my ankles cold! :o) Knee-highs, tube socks, slouch socks... stripes, argyle, plain white... Christmas-y, Halloweenie (I said hollow weenie! LOL)... all sorts! The more the merrier! Know of a place to buy cool socks, let me know... I miss The Sock Drawer in San Luis Obispo, Ca!!! The coolest of cool socks, where the CC roller derby girls buy their socks, I'm sure!

What is your favorite blog to read?

That is a toughy... I'd have to say The Pioneer Woman. She 'introduced' me to Ryan's blog This Is Reverb and the pictures she takes of her food make me hungry! :o)

Do you like winter or summer better?

Last, but not least. I LOVE winter better... you can always get warm, but in summer you can just never get cool... you know what I mean?? I love the snow now, too... but only to look at. I'm knew when I moved here that I wouldn't be a skier, I knew I wouldn't be a snow-shoe'r (what do you call that???), I knew I wouldn't be building snowmen and I knew I wouldn't drive in it! :o) But I also knew that I would LOVE sitting on my couch, drinking my coffee, watching it fall. :o)