Happy Halloween

Well as much as I love Autumn, the fresh crisp air, the beautiful leaves changing colour in front of your eyes, I really don't like Halloween at all...I honestly don't think I ever did. I remember even as a child not wanting to dress up and look 'silly'. Just one of the many weird sides of me I suppose. I try very hard not to project my dislike of the holiday on the kids though. They genuinely love dressing up (and do on almost a daily basis). We have more princess dresses, super heroes, chef, pirate, king/queen and doctor/nurse costumes than most toy stores! They love it! To be honest, they are adorable when they are dressing up too, I love listening to the role playing they do, its great....

For Halloween this year, instead of traipsing all over town looking for the perfect costume...and to save money...'we' decided that they were going to use something that we already had. They could pick whatever they wanted and if it needed to be fixed a little I would do it (from being used all the time, most of them have little tears here and there). Well here is what they came up with..aren't they just the cutest things!

Dagan and his little girlfriend Hannah!

Harvey, neighbors dog...doesn't look too happy to be a ninja turtle!

Ty very very generously offered to take the kids out in the frigid temperatures this year and I got to stay home! With less than 8 weeks before our newest member arrives, I've been really tired a lot lately. It doesn't take much to wipe me out completely. So, I curled up...well ok I didn't curl up, I stretched out :) on the couch and watched a girlie movie and ate pizza, all by myself! It was a much needed break! The quiet house was wonderful....Thanks Ty!

Last weekend we also got together with some friends and all the 'kids' carved pumpkins...well they drew the faces and the dads carved them...not sure who had more fun!

Emma drawing on her face...

Dagan and Austyn fishing out the seeds so they could roast them...

The finished products...

Happy Halloween everybody, hope it was a good one!

just a few things...

Well I've been sitting here (on my exercise ball because my back hurts) adding pictures to Facebook and figured I better add them here as well....

My growing 'little' bump....

The two layouts I did for my class last week....

and way out of chronological order....a few from Austyn's Tea Party Birthday...

And a few more from Mom & Jim's Visit...

Beautiful Autumn colours from top of Blarney!

All the fam infront of Bunratty Castle

Ok, thats it for now.....I think I'm caught up on the pictures to add, at least for a little while...

Don't worry about anything; instead, PRAY about EVERYTHING!

Philippians 4:4-9

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.



How very true this scripture is.....its funny I am very strong in my faith in God or in my religion or in my relationship with Christ...however you want to say it! I pray regularly, I spend time in His word (admittedly not as much as I should), go to church..and actually listen...etc....so why is it that I still have such hard time when the 'bottom falls out' so to speak? Tough situations make you do two things, get closer or further from God, I think. My own opinion here. Ok sorry not trying to make this a religious debate.



Well we had the proverbial bottom fall out in our life a couple weeks ago...ok so it wasn't quite that bad but seemed like it at the time. We are lucky no matter what happens we have a wonderful family, fantastic children, a new little one growing stronger and stronger inside me and Ty and I have a very strong relationship with each other as well as strong faith. So really, we were just fine, but when your husband's boss tells him that his job was made redundant...nice way of saying the job is gone...and he is the provider for the family, it can be a bit scary! Especially if you add in the fact that you have 3 kids, a dog, a cat, and only 10 weeks left in a pregnancy...then add in along with all that our normal stuff like rent, power bill, phone bill, food, etc.....it can be very scary!!! Well Ty has made some good contacts since being here, almost 3 years now, and thankfully within a very short time (a couple days) we had 4 job offers! So that is truly amazing...especially in this economy. Well we decided against opening something in town here.....various reasons.....and accepted a position in a nice small community in Carrick -on-Shannon. Its about 1hour & 15mins or so away. I think it will be a great opportunity for us. We had to take a bit of a leap of faith with it, as it is currently only open 2 1/2days per week and obviously that wouldn't be enough to support us, so he will have to work at getting it built up into a full-time practice. The owners seem to be great. He went to Chiro school with Ty in Dallas and is from the Dallas area...so a good Texas boy can't be bad! ;) Seriously though, I think its a good deal. It does mean we will be moving, yes again, but we are going to try to hang on til the summer, stay out our lease at this house and then the kids could stay through the end of their school year, would also mean I would stay at my current doctor and hospital. I think being here through to the summer would make the transition for everyone a little easier. We'll see....time will tell.

Ty has been at the new place for a full week now and has a positive view about it so that makes us all happy. Bad timing....he helped to plan/coordinate the Chiro Assoc of Ireland's annual seminar or whatever they call it, so he has a lot going on this week and weekend. The schedule was different this week and then on top of that he will be gone for most of the weekend. The good news is that the kids are out of school next week for Mid-Term break so maybe that will help a bit, just to have some time to relax and not run all over creation. It should help me anyway!

Ok, that's enough rambling for now......more soon!

Revved up Birthday!

For Dagan's birthday this year, we had a great idea (thanks to my very good friend Stacey whose son, almost, shares a birthday with Dagan) of having a Pinewood Derby Race. Well most people here had never heard of such a thing but when we explained it the dads..errr kids, were VERY excited! We asked Ty's mom to please get some 'kits' for us from the hobby store, finding them stateside is easy as every Boy Scout troop across the country does these races every year! Actually they do them so much that it is crazy the things you can get/upgrade your cars with, its amazing!

So Ty set out to making a track for the big race...he along with his three fabulous helpers made this:

And the kids started getting their cars ready, they sanded them, painted them and then we helped them decorate them...

Finally its race day...we (Ty) made the track so that it would fit in the kitchen/dining room since we can't count on the weather here...good thing too because although it wasn't raining it was windy and cold out! He set up the track and of course had to test it out...make sure it worked right!

Mom was visiting during this fabulous day and so she helped me (A LOT) in getting ready. We made the cake and the fairy cakes (small cupcakes) for the party. Instead of just inviting Dagan's friends, we invited the whole family, brothers/sisters/moms & dads too. So we made hamburgers and hotdogs and plenty of snacks for all the racers and spectators! We all had a really good time. I think there was around 30 people in the house, mainly the kitchen and sun room.

Chocolate cake....very yummy!

....just have to test this track for myself!

Race cars awaiting their big moment!

Even the girls got into it!

Honestly I think the dads were WAY more excited about making the cars at first...don't think the kids really knew what it was all about. BUT they must have figured it out quickly because when they all showed up on party day the kids AND the dads were VERY excited!!!

We all had a great day.....and we might just have a part time business started here....renting out that track!

Happy Birthday sweet boy! We love you lots and hope you had a fantastic wonderful day!!!

Mini Book Complete...I think

Well the class was last night and I think it went well, especially considering the chaos that went on in the house in the hours preceding the class. I got up in the morning expecting to get the kids off to school and Ty off to work then I was going to finish cleaning up the kitchen (we had class at the church last night so we had dinner dishes and pots and such in the sink and on the countertops). I went to unload the dishwasher and the dishes hadn't finished washing. The little light on it was flashing and couldn't figure out why. To make a long story a bit shorter, the washer wasn't working either and I figured out it wasn't the appliances out to get me it was the water! Well we rang the owners and he came by, figured it was the front tank out of water, turned the water and compressor thingy (technical word, honest) off in the garage and said to leave it so that the tank could fill. He left. I'm pondering this and thinking it doesn't makes sense as we have an excess tank in the back and it was completely filled. Is that not the reason for this tank? Well Ty rang the owner again and they discussed it further, all of us scratching our heads because it just didn't seem right. To make matters even worse, in cleaning up the entry way, of the house, I went to pick up a rain jacket that had fallen off it's hook and when I did I discovered the dog had decided she didn't need grass to pee on, the coat would do fine. No idea why...but seeing how it was a 'waterproof'' jacket when I picked it up, not knowing it had been peed on, well lets just say it went everywhere. I put the coat and 2 backpacks, a cap and another little bag in the bathtub because I can't wash them, I don't have any water! So now, I have a very clean floof in the entry way, added bonus, but a bathroom that smells terribly of dog pee, washing to do and a kitchen full of dishes to wash as well. Needless to say, I was past the point of frustration at this point! Well later on, as Ty is driving Dagan home from school he asked him if, when he was playing outside yesterday, did you do anything around the back of the garage near the big black tank? "YEP" he says, "I turned a little red 'wheel' " Oh, says Ty. So when he got home, sure enough, the 'wheel' he had turned, had turned the water partially off to the house! Since it was partially off, the dishwasher and washing machine weren't getting enough water to run their cycles which is why they were turning off! Simple solution to fix, thankfully!!! It was a rather stressful morning trying to clean up the house and no water but we laughed about it in the end. Dagan was very sorry and had no idea that would happen and actually felt terrible about it. His little face was priceless when he was told that I had no water all morning! Poor guy! He was just being a boy, as they say...and I got the washing started and my dishes done before the class so that made me happy too!

Now back to the crafting subject.....The ladies seemed to like the book and didn't appear to struggle creating it...which is great because I think I struggled enough for everyone! My brain had a hard time with this project for some reason...not sure if it is just mushy preggo brain or that I was out of practice or what it was but no matter the reason, I still had a hard time! Ok enough of that, regardless of how I got there, I ended up happy with the result...so here is the whole book in all its glory (ok maybe not but here it is anyway)

I adore this picture of Austyn, don't remember now whose camera it was from but the look of amazment on her face is priceless!

I think I'm finished with it now...some pages still look like they are missing something but I don't know what so I'm stopping for now. I'm still wrecked from the class last night...my back is still sore! Kinda sad when crafting makes you hurt so much.....

Thanks for looking...

Finally crafting again!

It's been ages since I sat down and actually 'crafted' anything. After we moved I offically got a Scrapbook Room and it was nearly 2 months later that I got it cleared out and it looked like something more than a storage unit. Well there are still a few boxes in it but I have shelves up and my desk put in place and most of my crafting stuff is somewhat out of boxes, it isn't organised yet but its getting there. I scheduled a class to teach on Monday so after Austyn's birthday party last weekend, I got busy on getting a mini-book created for the class. The book spells TRAVEL and the papers I used were ones that I found at a scrapbook shop in Kansas when we were home a year ago. They were being clearanced out so I couldn't get the amount of each page that I would normally get but I got what they had and made it work. Well I could tell that I was out of practice as my brain really had to think with this book....I guess that could be a little from the pregnancy too, my brain always seems to go to mush when I'm expecting.....either way it took a lot of brain cells to kick in to gear to get this silly book completed but I finally did and I'm happy with the result. I will print out pictures this weekend and add those along with some finishing touches around the photos, then it will be completed...class is monday so I better get busy! Here's just a peek at the front of the book...I'll add some more pics when I get the book completed (probably after the class though)......stay tuned! TFL

Birthday...Baby....& Back 2 School....

We've had so much going on lately, it seems. Austyn turned 6 on Saturday and we had a special day with her, it started with a 7am breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls and a couple presents! Then after Ty got home from work we went to the Leisure Centre for some video games & bowling. After Austyn beat us all at bowling we had a lovely dinner at a new Italian place in town! It was a nice family day and wonderful way to wind down the summer. (we'll be doing a birthday party with her friends from school in a couple weeks...so watch this space for those pictures too)

School started on Monday and our house was a buzz of excitement! It is so nice for me to listen to the kids' nervous energy as they got ready for their first day! They were genuinely happy to be going back to see their friends and find out who their teachers were going to be this year. When we got to school, all three kids ended up in the same classrooms they were in last year and the girls actually had the same teachers too! That was a surprise for all of us. But, at the end of the day when we picked them up the two girls' classes had actually been rearranged and Austyn now has Emma's teacher from last year and Emma (and Dagan) have new teachers to the school this year. It was a wonderful change for the girls though as all their friends from the last 2 years were in the new classes so they are still together! Needless to say they were VERY excited about that. Dagan still goes home at 2 and when I picked him up, I think he was a little overwhelmed with the day, he didn't say much.....which is SO unlike him! haha He just said, yes it was a good day, yes I like my teacher, I had fun....all very short and direct responses. He fell asleep later in the car so I think it was tiring on him...

Also, last week, we took the kids to a doctor appointment where they got to hear the baby's heart beat! Their faces were fantastic...their little eyes were huge and they grinned from ear to ear when they heard it. The doctor was great, very good with kids, she explained everything she was doing and why she was doing it....what position the baby was in, how big 'it' was etc...they were delighted. Before church last week Ty took this picture of me and my little 'bump'...I was about 23 1/2 weeks or so in the picture.


I have my next appointment at the hospital with the OB on 6th October. The kids are going with us then also and we should be getting a scan so they will be able to actually see what the baby looks like in there and if the baby cooperates we'll find out if we're having a boy or girl. Cross fingers he/she is in a good position and not camera shy!

Ok....well that's all for now....back soon with more pictures and updates on the baby's progress.....