Camp

So Marissa left today for her first overnight camping experience!!! She decided this year for the first time to go to sleep away camp. In past years when Alexis has gone she wanted nothing to do with it. She hardly ever sleeps away from home.

Last year she went about 45 minutes from here to stay with a friend from school that had moved out of the district and at about 2am I got a call that she was scared and wanted to come home...so I drug myself out of bed and Ed and I drove up to get her... by the time I got to her friend's house she was dead asleep on the couch!! Could have killed her!

The camp is about an hour from here so I'm hoping she makes it through and stays until Friday as planned! Crossing my fingers!

I told her a million times that once I signed her up and paid for her spot that she would have to go and stay there the whole 5 days. When we were having these discussions a few months ago she was completely fine with it, but as the day got closer and closer she seemed a little hesitant. There were only a few tears when I left her today so I'm hopeful!

We miss her already!

I took my camera today hoping to get some pictures before we left her there, but as we were pulling up tpt he camp I went to set up my camera and realized that the memory card was still at home in the computer! :( (Ed's fault) LOL So needless to say the piture avove is an old one!

Marissa's Tournament

By the time we got a new camera tournament was just about over so these are all of the pictures I got this year :(

It wasn't our best season anyway. Alexis was not drafted this year and Marissa's team lost every single game.

They all played their hardest, but we came in last place which was kind of surprising to me because last year we only got beat once and in the end we finished in second place. Guess that's just how it goes!

Marissa was catcher this whole season and absolutely loves the spot. Guess she is following in Alexis' foot steps!

The highlight of the season for Marissa was during our first tournament game. A girl from the other team was coming in to home when Marissa noticed that the girls foot never touched home. So she turned to the umpire and told him. According to tournament rules the umpire is not allow to assist in telling her what to do so all he said was "what are you going to do about it?" Marissa remembered from one of Alexis' games a few years ago that you could "challenge the play" She told the pitcher to toss her the ball then she tagged home plate and the girl was out, no run scored!

Marissa was so proud of her self and so was her coach. I think she has learned alot over the past few years watching the older girls play! Good for her!

Hope we do better next year!

Finally

We finally got a new camera!!!! Just wanted to throw a few pictures up of Jillian since she is 16 months and I have not been able to take any for so long. I missed all of her being 15 moths!

I can't believe how old she looks in this one just hanging out watchin a little coos coos as she calls it ( blue's clue's) and in these pictures she looks like a total redhead. Sometimes in a brighter place it looks blonde. Hard to tell since she still doesn't have very much!

Looks super red here to.....hmmm maybe she is a red head! I called that as soon as I found out I was pregnant.. both Ed and I have red heads in our family..neither of us have red hair so I figured she would. I always heard it skips a generation.

She is finally starting to talk... some of her words are cacka (cracker with no "r" sound), alessis (alexis), wissa (marissa), up, and sometimes you can get her to say peas (please). and of course coos coos for her favorite show at the moment!

We are also trying to take the bottle away right now which hasn't been going very smooth. the first morning that I tried to put her milk in to her cup, she threw it at me and screamed! So we are only giving her the bottle once a day first thing int he morning. None at daycare and none before bed anymore. That morning one is going to be tough. I think ti would be like someone telling me I couldn't have coffee in the morning anymore... so I feel her pain! LOL

She's Going

So after a few weeks of back and forth on trying to decide IF I would be able to let Alexis stay with my Aunt for the month of August and fly back here on her own...we have come to a decision!

She will be going, but I changed her ticket to a flight where there is a stop but no change of planes. When I call the airline customer service to change her flight I started talking to the rep asking if they had a lot of unaccompanied minors that fly. She said a ton and was surprised that I was this worried about a 12 year old doing it. Kids only have to be 5.. yes 5 to fly alone!! WHAT?!?? Are you kidding me? I could NEVER do it.. i would be a nervous wreck the whole time putting a 5 yr old on a plane alone!

So needless to say Alexis is thrilled!! And shocked i think that I finally said yes. Let's say a little prayer that all goes well and I don't have a heart attack when she flies back here ALONE next month!

Parenting Dilemma

So Alexis has been invited to stay with my Aunt in August ( we will all be flying in for a week and then going home). Alexis has been invited to stay for an extra 3 weeks and then fly home a few days before school starts. She would be staying to help take care of her cousin for a few weeks ( she is 5 and Alexis is 12).
Alexis and I have talked about this for the past few weeks and I really am leaning towards not letting her stay and just fly home with us as originally planned, but she is not letting up.

My reasons for not wanting her to stay are because I'm scared to death to let her fly back on her own. My aunt lives about 3,000 miles from here and there is a change of planes during the trip. I know Alexis is responsible enough to get from one plane to the next, but everytime I start to consider letting this happen I get physically ill in my stomach. All I can think about is 911 and the "what if's". i know me being on the plane with her would not stop any of this stuff from happening, but at least she would have someone with her IF it did. I know the chances are very slim of anything like this happening, but I'm terrified!!!!

Alexis was calmly asking me today if there was anything she could do to change my mind so after some talking we agreed to blog about it and see what other people think.. parents or not. So please comment and let me know what you would do if it were your kid ( even if you don;t have one yet).

This doesn't mean that I'm going to go with the most popular vote but I think ti will be interesting to see how many people think like me and how many think I'm way to over protective

BTW I have already called the air line and kids 12 and older are allowed to fly with a change of planes, but there is no escort to and from the gates! SCARRY!!!!!

... Alexis would like everyone to know that she is highly responsible and that the war is totally under control and that Barack Obama is ending this thing as we speak so NOTHING is going to happen! (her words)

Our Anniversary (3 Years)

Wednesday was our 3rd wedding anniversary. We have a million pictures that one of Ed's friend's took loaded on to our computer so I decided to post some of them.
All of the professional ones are stuck in my wedding album and I'm not sure how I would go about scanning them! Maybe next year.




In some ways the last 3 years have totally flown by, but in other ways it seems like Ed and I have been together for a lifetime!

I still feel like I was so lucky to find him! I truly believe that he is the one person in this whole world that completely understands me, all of my moods, my ups , my downs and my in betweens!






I always tell him that I love our boring little life together. I don't mean that we are not busy or that we don't have fun together, I just mean that it is so nice not to have a ton of drama or issues in our marriage. That's something I have had a lot of and am glad that it has been left in my past!

I'm so happy to have gotten a second chance and got to see what it was like to be 100% in love with someone and have them feel the same exact way back!

I have yet to find something that Ed will not do for me or a time when he has not taken my side.

Since I STILL don't have a functioning camera ( did I mention that not only did my camera break, now my old one isn't working right either) I wasn't able to get any of us this year on our anniversary date night!

The biggest disagreement we had in all of the planning was over what our wedding song would be. I love country and he is obsessed with 80's rock bands! We ended up picking you had me from hello, but I so so badly wanted it to be bless the broken road by Rascal Flatts. Everything about that song reminds me of our dating days! Oh well, since he would not agree to use it I had my cousin sing it during our reception.

The entire day went perfect.

This picture cracks me up because leading up to the wedding I told Ed that he had better not shove cake in my face after I spent hours getting ready. Then he made me promise I wouldn't do it to him... HA HA HA.... I guess back then he didn't know any better! I was shoving such a huge amount in that it looks like his lower jaw is practically unhinged from his face!

Some of Ed's buddies trashing our car. You would not believe the stuff that was written on our windows.. I'll keep those pictures to myself. This is a family blog!

14 months

First let me just say that all of these pictures were taken by my friend Michelle. I just totally stole them off of her site. As soon as I get back the ones I buy I will post them to!
www.michelleevansphotography.blogspot.com
www.michelleevansphotography.com

Jillian at this age looks EXACTLY like Ed. We can not go anywhere without at least one person saying... OMG she looks just like you! WHATEVER! I guess I just don't have any dominant genes because none of my kids look like me. Poor Marissa has been asked several times if she was adopted!

Hopefully she doesn't kill me!





Jillian turned 14 months yesterday and these pictures were taken last weekend. I love every single one of them and am so thankful to know someone as talented as Michelle.

I'm in love with her smile in this picture. Jillian is pretty shy compared to the other two at this age. She's kind of quiet (like ed) and takes a while to loosen up!

Jillian, I want you to stay small forever. Right now I worry that since you are so far behind in age from Alexis and Marissa that you won't have any one to grow up with. For this reason only your dad and I are seriously considering having a 4th child (gulp!) If that never happens I have begged Alexis and Marissa to make sure that they are always always close with you! Your laugh lights up my day and your dancing cracks me up every time I see your little feet stomp around!