Here you go Mike!

Mike wanted to know where the good picture was!

Ryan & Shanna's Wedding!

On Sunday, September 28th we celebrated my baby Brother, Ryan, and his beautiful bride, Shanna's Wedding! Everything was wonderful & perfect! Enjoy some of my photos...

Mom with all 5 of us and our spouses!

Ryan, John & Scott chatting

The 2 most important people at the wedding!

They were so nice with the cake...however after I walked away there was some craziness going on with the cake action! Don't know what was in the frosting, but Ryan's face was burning!

Val looking like a deer caught in the headlights...My beauty blinded her!

Val was screaming "Hey" cause I was so close to their faces & I blinded Court!

Ryan & Amanda

Shanna & Riley

This photo will end up on Court's my space for sure!

Mom, Aunt Jo & Grampa!

Mike thinks he is so funny! Did he forget that I have a blog?

Why I Love a Farm!

On Saturday I had an opportunity to attend a hugely enormous grand opening of a new barn! Whoopee! Right?!? Check this out...my Dad and baby brother, Scott, had it built to make room for 700 more cows! It's measurements are crazy! 118' x 484', and is 40' tall at the peak! A football field is 160' x 360'. Photos below are during the construction phase, but you will get the idea! The other buildings are the original farm with 2 other barns added within the last few years. They provided a huge pork BBQ and invited the whole town, topped off with square dancing in the afternoon & DJ for the evening. So much catching up to do and not enough hours in the day! It was so much fun and I loved seeing people who I have not seen since I was knee high to a grasshopper! I will always be a farm girl at heart! Instead of a fairy tale life, mine was all about farm life! I grew up not only with great parents, but the best grandparents, aunts & great-aunts, (I want to say uncles, but really it was my great-uncle Robert I loved the most!), and cousins(1st, 2nd, 3rd & so on)...we had the best life...and stories...

Here you can see how big it is in comparison to the actual farm!

Look at how small the trucks along the building look!

I have got to share with you how much fun we had growing up on a farm & we only watched TV on Saturday mornings and Atari wasn't invented until I was in 6th grade! We got to run in fields and pastures (mostly unsupervised), catch crayfish and tadpoles in the creek, walk through the glen to see the heart-shaped pool (actually, I still love to do this the best), ride mopeds, 3-wheelers (before they were determined to be unsafe) & snowmobiles...one time we had a million of us (ok, ten or so) on a Grizzly 4-wheeler...it was acrobatic genius on our part! We always spent all summer in Gram's pool(I hate swimming in ponds...gives me the heebie geebies) & we were always annoyed she let everyone and their brother (literally) invade "our" pool! It's a miracle any of us "younguns" survived, since our uncle always tried to drown us! I learned how to square dance, play pitch, pinochle & canasta by the age of 10...I considered myself a professional, but my grampa used to pretend he wasn't annoyed anytime he had to have one of us kids as a partner! We built forts and tunnels in the hay mound, painted an old chicken coop lavender(to make myself a nice place), played hide 'n seek in corn fields(now that is fun!), stepped in cow poop (that's why I'm so tall), rode on the tractor with my Dad (I can still feel the wind on my face (Glory!)...we never went slow...except for once when Dad had to stop when my brother fell off!)...we used to ride in the back of trucks...sometimes with the tailgate down & once I was brave enough to touch my sneaker on the road...that was too cool! Kids don't try that at home! We had a brawl with my cousins once (actually I think it was everyone against me, they sent the youngest to be on my team...big help that was!) at Gram's with grasshoppers and spiders in green food coloring! We were so rotten! We had our share of "accidents" too...Steve took a ride on the Big Wheel under a barbed wire fence and sliced open his neck, Scott broke every bone in his body before the age of 8 & then decided to out do himself by nearly being crushed in a tractor mishap, Val tried, unsuccessfully, to ride her bike down a hill at 100mph and ate dirt instead. I've stepped on nails & even caught my eyeball on a nail & still have the scar...I could continue, but frankly I'm sure you don't want to read all day! Back then my dad's cousin Roberta was my idol...she wore blue eyeshadow and called her car Bessie (come to think of it was the same color as her eyeshadow)...i can even remember what the steering wheel looked like, because I thought it was very cool how she placed her hands on it while driving. She was so glamorous! Forget Miley Cyrus!

Anyway, we always knew the meaning of hard work...and the importance of family, especially extended family...I am so blessed! Thanks for listening!

Who woulda thunk it?

My dear young friend Kara is making me do this because the crazy craft lady made her do it, and my other dear young friend Andrea warned me this would happen...however I have no one else to make do this...i need to have more friends with blogs...come on gals!!! If I can do, so can you! Here's my list...

Would ya have thunk any of these things about me?

1. I make a really great fish face...well, the kids think it's funny!

2. My nickname in high school was olive oyl...wish it still was actually!

3. I made $10 a week feeding calves when I was in 5th grade, and was really rolling in the dough when I got a raise to $50 a month!

4. I have never been to New York City or Niagara Falls, but I am not ashamed!

5. Since Mike and I married in June of 1993 we have lived in 8 different homes (owned 4 of them)!

6. I try to only kill flies and mosquitos! Everything else I usually let go outside!

Children's Dictionary

It is a really great thing when your children make up their own definitions to words that I thought were already in the dictionary...like let me use "no" as an example!

Riley thought it would be great to paint a piece of wood sculpture that she made, since she saw her 14 year old sis do it recently...I told her "no"...she thought that I meant...sure, go ahead and get out the paint and brushes and be artistic. I only found out that this was her definition of no when I saw my 3 year old son walking around with paint ALL over him & went to investigate (mind you, this is what I get for being on the phone for the thousandth time that day)! When I went to the garage I discovered a perfectly 80's style of splatter paint decor all over my garage floor and to add to this abstract design about 25 empty bottle of craft paint! Pretty cool, except that was not in my original design plan for my garage. Needless to say, I never yelled at Riley or Brayden! Whoa! And Amanda, bless her sweet little heart, helped me spray, sweep, scrub & wipe up 300 gallons of water and paint out of the garage...along with 1/3 of the paint that was supposed to be on the floor already! I might add I used the hose & green scrubby part of my sponge to get the paint off Brayden's legs & feet just to make sure he doesn't think "no" means I get a nice warm bubble bath when I'm done making a huge mess!

More to come...

Yikes Ike!

Alright I am functioning on 2 hours of sleep! That wind was so horrible last night! Now I'm freezing! We did have fun with the neighbor girls last night though! I have to say it is great to blog simply to get the pics off my camera...I have a lot of silly ones of the kids and now I have a place for them...It was dusk but the photos are still fun!We had a little trouble getting Brayden on top, Mike had to help throw him on top, it sort of worked!

Summer, Riley, Brayden, Courtney, Shania, & Amanda!

This is Riley's first attempt at fashion design...that is pink hair at top, not a halter top. Brayden is always a pain in the neck...he runs around marking up their designs!

This is Summer's business casual and bathing suit line.

Amanda's evening wear and bathing suit line...they are now taking orders!

Amanda & Brayden...we keep telling hime he's lucky he's cute!

Me & Amanda Bug!

No matter how stressful the day, week, or even your month is...silliness is always the best remedy...be a kid!

For my insane friends!

I am so insane to be doing this...Okay, so this may be fun! However, I must admit I am only doing this because I want my friends to like my blog better than some crazy craft lady(whom shall remain unnamed)! Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with spending an afternoon doing your thing while photographing yourself and every step along the way, but like I said at MOPS...it's got to be a sign of child neglect! :) Speaking of child neglect...where is Brayden...oh wait!...let me get the camera...hold on I'll find him...

There he is...behind a book! I should have known, what a good boy he is! Alright, I've got to go accomplish something today & I don't think creating a blog was on my list...I'd show you the picture, but it's not written down! Many blessings to all of you today & I'm going to pray I haven't created a monster...actually it's your fault girls! Toodles!