Rich and Joey's "Staycation" and other news

Remember those days as kids when I'm sure we all at one point or another camped out in our backyards? Well Joey had his first experience of backyard camping this last weekend. Rich had to go and make an apperance at Scout Camp. Joey wanted to go but Rich thought he might have to help with some of the activities so Joey had to stay at home with the girls, poor boy. Rich told him in an effort to make him happy and smooth things over that the upcoming weekend they could camp out in the backyard.

Any of you that know Joey well knows that he is brilliant. That kid is smart. Well, he didn't forget. He brought it up everyday so there was no getting out of it for Rich. Friday night rolled around so they set the tent up. Joey was so excited. He got to play with flashlights in the tent and enjoyed having good quality time with his daddy.

As for the rest of us, nothings new with me. I am excited because we got a new laptop so I am able to work on the blogs easier. I have really been working a lot on the mommy blog so hopefully we can get traffic increased to the blog so I can help contribute to the family more.

Lillie is just as sweet as ever. We have recently found out that she is lactose intollerant like Joey was as a toddler. It stinks because we had to switch her over to soy formula. Hopefully she will out grow it like Joey did. She is so close to crawling. I am just waiting for the day for her to take off crawling all over the place. I have started buying clothes for her in the next size up. I just bought her size 18month clothes and she is only 8 months old. I think that within a month we will be totally in that size. Its crazy that she is so big. Joey had his 3 year check up and he is between the 3rd and 4th percentile on weight and height and at last check Lillie is in the 60th for height and 90th for weight. We call her chuggers (combo of chubby and sugar).

The BIG Party

Last night we had Joey's 3rd birthday party. We had a great time. We invited my family and Rich's family plus a handful of friends. The theme of the party needs to be explained. Joey said he wanted a "fishing" party. The park with a pond we were going to reserve is booked through June. We decided we would try and do it here but I could find absolutly no fishing decorations. All I cood find was ocean stuff. I bought the ocean stuff and decided to call it "deep sea fishing." Joey approved. I am bummed because I didn't get any good pics of the decorations but looking at the other pictures you can see some of the decorations.

We had a great dinner. My mom cooked home made chilie and we cooked hot dogs on the grill and put out Fritos. People had chilie dogs or frito pie. I also made homemade rootbeer (if you want the recipe let me know). We also let the kids beat up a pinata!

"Hit it Joey hit it!"

I made the cake. Bottom tier was cherry coloda and top tier was key lime pie. YUMMO! Of course, like always I made way too much.

Being shy while being sang to

I called it, the artsy fartsy mosaic fish cake

As we were cutting and serving cake Joey and all the kids decided they wanted to open presents. I ran over to try and stop it from happening just yet but to no avail. I gave in and tried to snap some good pics but it was impossible. There were too many little kids crowded around and the sun was starting to set so there are some serious shadows. All that matters is that Joey had a great time!

Thanks to all that came! We love you and appreciate you!

Kamryn

Jayci

Ethan

Kyi

Quincy

The family

Future Home: Episode 1

As some of you might know, we are planning on selling our new home and builing a new one. First step in that process is complete and I am so excited and happy. The property has been officially deeded over to Rich and I and recorded at the clerks office. Our home is on the market and just this week alone has shown three times! Here are some pictures of the land where we are building. Its going to be up behind my parents house, so that will be awesome. We are super excited to be closer to them as I am sure Joey will love it. I will keep you all posted of any further developments.

The view from what will be our front door

Looking down to my parents house, the little play house was mine as a kid!

Pretty cactus in our future backyard

Sears Pictures

I just wanted to let you know that I took the kids to get some professional pictures taken at Sears. I didn't want to post all the pictures on here, its just too time consuming. Check out the link on the right to my web album. There you can see those pictuers plus others. Here just a sampling of a few of the pictures.

Happy Birthday Joey!!!

Joey is finally 3 years old! I can't believe how fast time flew by. I went birthday shopping for him on Saturday and I truly found myself holding back tears thinking that he technically isn't my little toddler anymore. He is taking being three years old very seriously. First thing he said when he woke up was "MOM, I'M THREE TODAY!!!" I thought it was cute.

After church we went up to my parents and had a small little "party." I don't know if I would even call it that but Joey did so, there ya go. We had cake and presents (from us and my parents) and Joey also insisted on having a few balloons. We found a few in the garage and blew them up. We just wanted to make his actual birthday fun and special for him. It ended up being really nice, low key and now chaos.

He was so excited to open his presents

One happy little 3 year old

"Oh a new trike!!"

My mom, made homemade fried chicken because his favorite meal is chicken and french fries. After dinner we let him open his presents from us and my parents. He was so excited. Its wonderful to see the happiness on a little kids face, expecially youre own and know that you put those smiles there. Gosh, I love that boy!! Anyway, this si the extent of his party until the 19th. We are having his official birthday blowout at our house on Friday. We invited the rest of the family and some of his friends from nursery at church. Check back later for those pictures, it will be fun. I'm doing a under the sea theme for that party.

Joey, blowing out his candles

Helping grandad put his new trike together

Waterguns are his new favorite toy!!

Anyways, hope you enjoy some pictures from his "real" birthday.















Happy Birthday Joey, Mommy and Daddy loves you very much!!

Haviland Lake

On Friday we went up to Haviland Lake, north of Durango, to go camping for the evening. Our good friends, Mark and Maria invited us to come and stay in their camper with them. I was very grateful they had a camper, because I am a big wimp and really didn't want to camp in a tent with Lillie. We had lots of fun! Joey was so excited to be able to go. He loves Mark and Maria and, loves camping. He is spoiled also the camping he knows is camping in a camper since my parents have had a camper his whole life.

We had dinner by the fire and roasted marshmallows. Rich and Joey went and played near the lake. We stayed nice and cozy in the camper that evening. Maria made us breakfast burritos the next morning.

Unfortunatly, the trip was over almost as soon as it started. Mark and Maria had to get back into town fairly early on Saturday so they could pick up their dog at the kennel.

All in all it was a great trip, short and sweet, but to be honest just the right length for me and Lillie.

Heres some pictures of us while we were there!

Lillie's first camping trip!

Eating dinner. I loved this shot of him in his hat.

He was so excited to build a fire

Joey and Mark

Lillie and Mark

"Finally, they let me roast marshmallows!

We told him he could load the marshmallows himself and he thought it would be a good idea to put on on each end, silly boy!

The fire was never big enough, he always wanted to "help" and add more

Me and my boy

All of us

I swear he was happy, he just has an ability to look grumpy in pictures, too funny!

Joey, helping again. He wanted to help use tools so bad, finally mark let him help take town the camper.

Be Eternally Grateful, We Have It So Good!!!

When its Joey's turn to say family prayer before we go to bed he always says the same thing..."Thanks for all we have..." His words are true. I am grateful by what we have but really we have it great. We are so blessed. All of you reading this blog are very blessed. We have rough patches and hard times in life but it is important to remember how good we truly have it. Recently my extended family was having a lot of trials and heart ache and it effected me. My grandmother is suffering from breast cancer and I am so worried about her, my dad was diagnosed with basel skin cancer, my mom was dealing with some trials of her own. All of this trickled down to me and I really have been effected by it all. All of us have had times of trials in our lives and it is important to remember that somebody out there has it worse than you. When you are complaining that your washing machine keeps backing up (love ya joc) be grateful you have clothes to wash, when you complain that you can't go out for dinner be grateful you have food at home to eat, and this is my problem, I complain my house is too small when I should be grateful I have a roof over my head.

The following video is not intended to make you feel guilted into giving money to any charity. I don't even know who to give money to if you wanted. My intention was to make you really think about how good we really do have it here.

I am however warning you, don't watch this at work, I cried like a baby and I would rather you be at home or somewhere private so you can really reflect on your life.

Rich and Angie

I realized I have been doing a lot of talking about the kids but not any about the rest of the family.

Rich is doing great! He still works for Energen Resources as a Lease Operator. He has a bunch of wells that he is responsible for. He likes his job and really likes being outside everyday. We joke around and say that we are part of the oilfield pet club. He has brought hme a few lizzards (we kept those for a while in a tank), a triantula (that one was gone immediatly) and most recently a 6 foot long bull snake named Reggie. That one was also gone the same day. Rich caught it for his brother Aaron and it was only at our house for a few hours, during which he was in the garage in a cardboard box. He still works with the young men at church. Thats fun for him because he has excuses often to go fishing and do "guy" stuff.

Rich and Reggie the snake

As far as me I still stay at home with the kids. I guess I still technically sell Avon but I haven't been working to hard at it. I got out of my groove after I had Lillie and Joey hit the terrible twos about that time and I was hesitant to go anywhere with them. I help my parents out at the hardware store in the evenings by doing all the office work for them. I like it because I can help the family out a little bit but I can do it after Rich is home so I don't have to drag the kids with me. I also love doing cake decorating and all sorts of other crafts. Right now my current project is developing a website and a blog that I am hoping will bring in some money so I can contribute even more to the family. Check out my other blog and email me your stories so I can help make it grow and become an even better place for moms. Its called the Mommy Chronicles and the website is http://motherhoodisamazing.blogspot.com/ My other website is still undercontruction but I will let you all know once it is all finished.

This spring we had to find new homes for our beloved dogs, Bo and Duke. Bo was escaping from our yard everyday it seemed and I was very affraid one of these days his luck was going to run out on him and he'd get hit by a car or somethig bad like that. We decided it was in the best interest of the dogs that we look for them a new home. We needed to send Duke with them because they are buddies and would be very sad if they were seperated. I looked around and tried to find them homes here but it wasn't going very well. My dad was talking to a lady at the hardware store one day, she runs the Aztec Animal Shelter, and found out that they coordinate big dog rescues with a place in Denver. They were sending a truck out the following week. It was sudden but we knew it was in the best interest for the dogs. It broke my heart and I cried over them for about a week but I know it was the best thing for them. The good news was they got to go to the rescue together and the rescue folks were going to try and find them a home together. They also screen their potential adoptive families heavily, they don't give dogs to just whoever. That made me feel so much better. Bo and Duke we love you and miss you dearly!

"Baby Food Is Gross!"

I have not been able to get Lillie to eat much of anything lately. I tried religiously to get her to eat her 3 meals a day of baby food like to doctor told us to do at her 6 month check-up. She would take like 3 bites and then she'd be done. I was getting so frustrated because I want her to eat solids, she is so much happier when she has a full belly and solids just stick around a lot longer than milk. Plus she is old enough that she doesn't need to be attached to a bottle all the time. She loves the little puff snacks and she is really interested in what we are eating. I tried one night to let her snitch some rice and little things she could handle off of our plate and sure enough she ate like a pig. Light bulb moment, She doesn't like baby food!! This is hard for me because I was so by the book with Joey. I followed every recommendation there was to follow. With her, I'm just happy to get her to eat. Of course, I'm not giving her anything she can't handle or anything she shouldn't be having yet so we are ok but who says she has toeat baby food. A long time ago there wasn't even store bought baby food and parents did what I'm doing now. The other aspect of this is that she want to be in control, she like to feed herself. Here are some shots of her doing just that.

"This is so much better than baby food!"

Pizza Time!!

Last night Rich had a service project he had to go to. He was gone all evening so Joey and I decided it would be fun to make pizza for dinner. Joey loves to cook so I knew he would have a great time. I had been given some pre-made pizza crusts so all we had to do was add the sauce and the toppings and bake them.


First I gave Joey is pizza crust and put some sauce on it for him. I gave him a spoon and told him to spread it around. That kid spread, and spread, and spread. When I told him ok Joey you did good, he said, "no mom its not done yet." The only way I got him to quit spreading is by offering him some cheese and toppings to put on it.





He put A LOT of toppings on his pizza! Cheese, cheese and more cheese, a TON of pepperoni and some olives. Actually he did really well, in the olive department. It was the funniest thing, after he put the toppings on he said very matter of factly, "Mom, give me some more of that BBQ sauce!" I laughed and said, "honey thats not BBQ sauce its pizza sauce."

Between what ended up on the pizza and what

he ate, we used a lot of cheese!

"Its gonna be the best pizza ever!"

I made me a nice vegetarian pizza of course, cheese, olives, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts. For pizza it wasn't too bad! We baked them and while they baked I cleaned up the kitchen. Its funny, I was trying to not have a lot of dishes to do so I was using foil and paper plates. I even gave Joey a plastic spoon to spread the sauce with. I don't think it really mattered because my floor was such a mess from making pizza I had to mop when we were done.

We sat down to eat together, just the two of us. It was really nice we don't get to do that enough! He ate sooooo good, I need to let him make his dinner more often!