First Days....

First Day of School, Aug. 17th 2009

Cayden is in the 4th grade and it still blows my mind that my little boy is this big. He is such an awesome student, he loves loves to learn and always tries his hardest. Thanks for being you Cayden and wanting to be the best you can be.

Our sweet little Ally girl is in the 2nd grade now, wow! It seems just yesterday she was so sad that Cayden was going to school all day and she was in preschool for only half day and she would get so bored at home without him. She is a little social butterfly and has ALL of her friends in her class this year, poor Mrs. Hendon! She is seven going on seventeen and Travis and I are doing everything we can do keep her "our little girl" for a little longer.
They were both so excited they could hardly stand it, they were both up and dressed before my alarm even went off to wake them, I am so glad they both LOVE school!

"Bye mom" she is off, Cayden was already long gone.

Now another first day, if you have a tendency to get queesy (sp) easy then maybe this next post isn't for you...

My first day of canning meat. Yeah I know alot of you could probably do this in your sleep but it was my first day and I got 4 other suckers, I mean people, to do it with me.

I have canned before, beans, applesauce, jams, etc. but my first time doing meat. We had 180 lbs. of beef. Yikes!

Here is a small glimpse of some of the meat in an ice chest being transfered from the "thawing staion" aka bathtub to the kitchen.

Here is a very small portion of the lids and one of the three canners we used.

Shannon Carver very studifully picking out the thawed meat to put in jars and the still frozen meat to go back to thawing. *Notice the clorox wipes on the the counter by her. We used many of these through out the day* Shannon and Lori were AWESOME and had their system down of putting the meat in jars, while the rest of us salted, sealed and dealt with the pressure cookers, oh and the 5 kids we had.

Again just a GLIMPSE of the jars. I think there is about 30 jars in this picture and I believe we ended up with just about 200 jars, give or take a few.

Lori, such a good sport to transport the meat from the "bloody bath" to the ice chest to the kitchen. Not the job I would have most preferred but we all did a little of everything. Kind of gross to see that bathtub full of bloody water. We joked all day about that Brooke and Heber (we were at Brooke's house and Heber is her hubby) better not get in a fight and have the police called, cuz with all the DNA all over the place it would have been quite the seen, lol! I know kind of twisted synical thinking huh?

We had a good time, it took us 12 hours to do it all. We could hardly stand on our two feet by the end of the night, well except Shannon who was playing the wii at 9pm while we waited for the jars to finish pressuring, but with some energy strips, coke and dr. pepper we did pretty dang good! Look forward to our next canning adventure ladies.

What a MONDAY morning.....

So let me start, I woke up and didn't feel like eating (unusual for me) so I simply ate a plum, took a handful of different vitamins and headed to the gym to teach my class. I had no class, due to everyone being out of town, so I decided to just work out on my own. I couldn't figure out why but I kept feeling like I was going to puke, I wasn't working out THAT hard. Just about the end of the workout I couldn't make it any longer and made a dash to the bathroom. Then, I get the kids out of daycare, still not feeling well, and head to Albertsons where I have preordered 180 lbs. of beef, thats right 180 POUNDS. It was a great price and so a friend and 4 of her family members (friends too) and I decided to can some meat. So I am loading up this beef into my shopping cart(s) and it is gross and leaking blood on me and the kids and the floor, yuck!!! So we are checking out and we have to ring up each pkg. of meat since they are not exactly the same amounts, there is 24 of them. We are about 1/3 of the way through ringing them up and double bagging them and Ally says "mom, grady stinks." Well, you may think so what, you can change his diaper when you are done. Well, not so easy, he is now potty trained or mostly potty trained. He has an accident (poo) every once in a while. Of course today, that time would be when it happens. I offer to pay Cayden 2$ if he would take him to the bathroom, dump the underwear clean him up and put his shorts back on. He agrees and takes him and is gone no longer than 2 minutes and comes walking back with a disgusted look on his face and explains there is no way he can clean this one without poo getting everywhere. He says it is down his legs and everything. Oh brother, so I finish bagging this meat and paying for it (which took like 15 minutes), meanwhile telling Grady "don't move, stay still". I leave Cayden and Ally with the carts and head to the bathroom, Grady walking like a penguin in tow. I get in there and start stripping him and it is EVERYWHERE!!!! Up the back, down the legs, in the shoe, just everywhere. I toss the underwear, wrap up his clothes in paper towels, and start the wiping process. I had to use paper towels since the toilet paper would just rip. He starts crying that I am hurting him, and I keep reminding him "you shouldn' t have pooped in your underwear, huh?". I finally manage to get him all wiped off, after about 50 wet paper towels, no joking. Then I sit him in the sink to really clean him with soap. Finally, all clean. During this process I am thinking to myself " I have nothing to put on him" "I didn't bring any change of clothes" (We have been past this stage of training for a while). My only plan was to wrap him in paper towels and head out, just as I was about to do that I realized I had a sweatshirt, whew! I usually get cold after working out and sweating and then heading to a grocery store where it is cold and I was actually prepared for that and grabbed a sweatshirt. Yay, I am in luck, so I grab my sweatshirt and throw it on him, roll up the sleeves and head out. Wow, and this had all happened by 10:00 in the morning! It was definately a MONDAY!!!!!

Better Late than never....Ally's 7th birthday!!

Ally's 7th birthday!!! Only 2 months late,lol!! She is such a sweetie, we don't know what we would do without our little Ally girl!!

Here we are lighting the candles on her flower cake!! They could hardly wait another minute to eat!!

Here is all the girls after busting open the pinata and getting the goods.

Just before blowing out the candles, gotta love the one tooth in the front!!Claiming their candy! I felt bad, you know how pinatas usually take FOREVER to break, well not this one. Ally had a couple good swings and then the smallest of her friends got a couple and that was it, that was all she wrote. I guess as long as they got the candy they were happy!

Ally and a few friends and cousins before the party began.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR LITTLE PRINCESS!!!!!!!!!

We love you sweetie!