Home Sweet Home

Gilmore Adventure Race On Saturday Justin & I and Justin's brother Trent and his wife Lindsay all competed together in the Gilmore Adventure Race up in Prescott. We had to be at the race to check in by 7am, which meant we had to wake up at 3:45am to leave by 4:15am. NOT exactly the best way to start a race day, but it's what we had to do. We drove to Prescott, had breakfast at Cracker Barrel (love that place!) and made it to the race site. It was held just past Prescott up in the mountains. After check-in we went and set up our 10x10 square at the Staging Area (the spot where we leave all of our stuff and come back to get different items throughout the race). We couldn't help but laugh at ourselves as we saw all these other teams around us wearing sponsor shirts, working on their super sweet bikes, stretching and getting themselves pumped up for the race....and here we were. None of us really wearing proper clothing (it was cold), we had our $4 shirts from Walmart with ...

POOP Last week I went in to get Dale up from his nap. Not wanting to hurt his eyes, I nicely chose not to turn on the light when I went to get him out of his crib. I put one hand under his arm and the other under his bottom to lift him up out of his crib. Instead of a nice padded bottom, I felt a warm mushy grossness... Apparently it's a big mistake to put your child to bed with just a shirt and a diaper on. Dale had woken up, pooped, taken off his diaper and thrown it out of his crib. Unfortunately before he threw it out of the crib he stepped in it and proceeded to walk all over his crib and try to crawl up the side. He still had a nice glob stuck between his cheeks as well (which was now on my hand). The kid was all smiles though, it's like he knew he had done something different that day... Oh motherhood is a wonderful thing! Laugh it up Dale... If only I could say you'll get yours one day, but the fact is you probably won't since you'll never be a mother....

What a Tender Heart I had a chiropractor appointment today (I have tennis elbow, have had it for about three months...from what?! Who knows. I think it's from carrying Dale so much) and afterward I decided to take the kids to my parents' house because we were close by and hadn't been there in a few weeks. It was around the time of day that my mom is usually taking her afternoon nap on the couch, and in the car I said to the kids, "Okay guys, if we get there and Grandma is asleep on the couch, we are going to say (as I patted my cheeks) GRANDMA WAKE UP! YOUR GRANDKIDS ARE HERE! IT'S TIME TO PLAY GRANDMA!!!" The kids smiled and Brighton said "Except we won't hit her in the face, I think I'll wiggle her tummy" and I laughed and said "Sure Brighton, you can wiggle her tummy". I then went on to say that they should give Uncle JP a hug too. JP is my mom's brother who is living with them. He is about 87 years old, has no family livi...

"Guess what Mom! You can put salt on umbrellas!" - Adaira

Warning! Marathon post!!! We have had a busy time since our last post! We've been working on another yard project outside and I had a birthmother have her baby last week and any time I have one of those my whole week is pretty much shot and I have paperwork, hospital visits, placement ceremonies, visits to downtown Phoenix to process interstate paperwork (the adoptive couple was from out of state), etc. So pretty much I won't be blogging when I have a placement, but my next birthmother isn't due until October so I have some time to breathe for about a month. My SIL Angie reminded me this morning that perhaps it's time for a blog update :) so here goes: Bringing Home the Playground! We bought this playground over four years ago when a playground distributor was going out of business. He actually showed us his invoice for the set and we payed exactly what he paid to get it, so although it was expensive it was a great deal for a vinyl clad playground. It's been at...

"Have you made the blog private yet?" - Special Agent Justin Owens "No" - Me "We need to do that" - Special Agent Justin Owens "Why?" - Me "BeCAUSE I don't want people to see our stuff. There's weirdos and pedophiles out there and I don't want people to have access to our stuff" - Special Agent Justin Owens "But we have friends who aren't really close friends that look at it" - Me "What about people that don't like law enforcement and the IRS and see stuff like this and come do crap to our house" - Special Agent Justin Owens "Ha Ha" - Me as I type this as he is talking to me.  "They could come shoot us!" - Special Agent Justin Owens as he quietly shakes his head and gets up and leaves and mocks me for mocking him. "I'm drinking milk without a cup so there!" - Special Agent Justin Owens Okay I guess I should make our blog private. Justin is in law enforc...

Lately I've had to remind myself to pull the camera out and take pictures of our family every once in a while. These last few weekends and evenings have been so full of outside project work that we haven't had a chance to do anything fun. The coop was done enough to bring the chickens home but we have more chicken run to add as well as nesting boxes inside the coop. Justin has been working on those items every spare moment he has, and the next project to start immediately after this one is the clear out the area where we are going to put the playground (we bought a nice playground about 4 years ago and put part of it up at my parents' house). In the meantime, I'll just update about the kids. Brighton is doing great in school and really enjoys his teacher. I'm making more of an effort to find other boys his age so he can have more social experience with friends since Adaira has been his only friend for so long. I've noticed he's a little bit awkward sociall...

Bringin Home the Chickens! After many weekends of hard work out in the heat, Justin (and me! I helped some, but mostly Justin) finally finished our chicken coop & run (well almost, we still have some nesting boxes to put up inside the coop - but it's enough to bring the chickens home!). In the back corner of our yard, we have a ten stall mare motel that sits 7.5ft. from the fenceline. The 7.5ft. between the mare motel and the fence has always been overgrown with weeds, grass, and hornet nests. I thought it would be a great place to put our chicken run since chickens are great at keeping the ground clear of anything but dirt (they'll eat anything small and green, as well as just about anything that moves) and we wouldn't have to try and maintain this area anymore. The mare motel runs 60ft. long, so it is a great distance to give the chickens lots of space to run (and did I mention without the tall grass the hornets wouldn't have a place to nest?). We've got Bar...

 I may just be opening up myself to a bunch of judgment and criticisms with this post here but it is what it is. I've been thinking a lot about motherhood for the past few months. Most of my thinking stems from guilt I feel about my lack of mothering skills, in that I just don't seem to live for being a mom like so many other women I know. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids! But I also love my alone time, the time I have to work part time with other adults, and the time when all the kids are safely tucked in bed. Growing up I didn't dream about being a mom. I didn't like to babysit AT ALL! When it came time to start our family it really wasn't out of a longing desire to be parents (though I was excited for the new chapter in our lives), it was more about timing and that we'd been married a couple years and it just seemed like it was time to start a family. I'm not the super fun mom I always thought I would be, and my lack of "natural" capabil...

Monsoon Photos Furniture Makeovers   & Brighton's 1st day of school! The monsoons this year have been a little disappointing, but we have gotten about 2-3 huge rainstorms. Unfortunately two of them were at night and we missed them, but the one we got to enjoy was crazy fun! I love this time of year. As storms approach, the sky gets dark and all of the colors (blues in the sky and greens in the grass) turn vivid with a yellow hue. It's awesome! Approaching storm... Don was getting rid of these nightstands. Justin and I have never spent the money to get a proper bedroom set, and still don't want to spend the money, so I asked Don if we could have them. About 10$ in paint, new handles, a stick of sandpaper, about 30 minutes of time and a masterpiece is created!  I bought black satin spray paint to base coat it, then some oil rubbed bronze spray paint to lightly dust it with when I was done. It's definitely an improvement and they match the rest of our house no...

Blue Ridge Reservoir & Dam On Sunday we tried to do more things alone as family since we weren't going to church. We took a drive about 30 minutes away from camp to Blue Ridge Reservoir. I had never ventured past the first parking lot, but it turns out if you pass the first parking lot and follow the bumpy road for another mile you reach the dam. We hiked around it and down the canyon behind it and it was just beautiful! I've never seen a spillway before either and that was cool to see as well. The reservoir is huge, this is just a small portion of it behind us. The spillway. See all the trees? There are hundreds more just floating in the water behind the spillway just waiting for a huge rain to make things start flowing!  Cool blue-bellied lizard Dale must be smiling cuz he's got the best gig around! The canyon behind the dam was just gorgeous This excursion took place on our hottest day camping, stopping to cool off our feet in the COLD water was a great ...