MOM OF THE YEAR

Ok, so maybe not! You are probably thinking "yeah right" lol....well I never said I was perfect...BUT at this moment, I am to my teenager son Daniel! :)  we just got home, (its 12:35am) Natilie and I have been waiting in line with DANIEL, outside freezing our butts off surrounded by smoking gaming crazies (which I am amazed by how many people smoke these days, I swear we were in the front part of the line and I think we were the only ones NOT smoking, Daniel, Natilie and I were burying our faces in our blankets and coats trying to gasp for fresh air) so that Daniel could get his pre-ordered midnight release of Modern Warfare 3. There are probably some parents out there that forbid their kids from playing this, but we do have rules in our house, and if Daniel wasn't a good teenager, there would be NO way he would be playing it, but he really devotes his time to church, school, sports, helping out at home and he is SUPER responsible, he just loves anything military related and his hooked on this game (as well as Josh) He went all dressed in his camo army gear, it was nice to spend some time with the older kids (without little ones around, that doesn't get to happen too often) the line was INSANE , it was worse than a black Friday shopping line.

 Daniel, so very excited and more awake than Natilie and I were

 So tired, just before midnight (and freezing!)

 The first picture here  is just part of the line that was in front of us the second one is the line in back of us, but you couldnt see where it ends because it wrapped around the building, crazy!

SERIOUSLY, TIMES LIKE THESE I NEED TO REMEMBER...

To be thankful for my trials...we have been hit with another pain in the butt trial today, and I feel like just throwing my hands in the air and saying what the heck!!! Just when you think you get through the ones you currently have and things will get better than something else happens (at least that is how it has worked in my life anyways since I was a child) But as I am super frustrated today, exhausted and just feel done, I look around at my kids, my home, family, friends and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and still I have so much to be thankful for. I spent all afternoon reflecting on my life, and although I have had more trials than the average person, I look back and I have had to learn so much from those things that I needed, it in some way or the other made me a better person (even though it didn't feel like it at the time) I am thankful for my trials and my faith that sees me through them! (but I can't lie, I really would like a year break, from just the really big ones.....)

LEAVES, OH MY!!

 Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year!! I love it in Ohio when the air is crisp and the many leaves are changing and even start to fall to the ground, its just so beautiful....I have always been more of a country girl, my dream would be to have 10 acres and some horses and barn animals (hopefully someday :) but for right now I am thankful to have over an acre, our kids love our yard, and we do too, up until its time for Josh and I to rake our leaves. The first picture is after our "first" round of raking the front yard, and there is still a ton on the trees that still have to fall. The second picture is of our backyard and it goes all the way back to the solid forest line in the back, and of course our property hast o have tress all the way around our house and then throughout the yard. Josh hates to rake leaves and if he had it his way, he would cut down every tree and have none lol, but I try and look at it as, its pretty, the kids love to play in them and at least its a good exercise :)

 The kids had a BLAST jumping and playing in the leaves, although Justin did lose his new glasses in the MASSIVE leaf pile we had raked and we were all on our hands and knees digging away trying to find them because we couldnt afford to buy another pair, I said a little prayer and I am not kidding you 1 minute later, I found his glasses, the lord REALLY does answer prayers, both big and little ones!

Our kids are just like Mommy and Daddy, they LOVE to be outdoors, getting dirty and having fun, you can definitely tell they belong in our family, even the girls, we like to "try" and look cute doing it (although that doesn't always happen), but when it comes to camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, backpacking, digging for worms, bugs, snakes, shootin or guttin animals,  we are the first to dig in! WE LOVE THE OUTDOORS, I am in awe everyday of this beautiful Earth that our Heavenly Father created for us, another  blessing that I am so thankful to enjoy!

Sweet Justin's New Glasses

 It has been 3 1/2 years now of every type of medical testing that our big boy Justin has gone through (along with our Wade as well, which makes it rough to have two kids go through this) He has seen his regular pediatrician, a cardiologist, a neurologist, a developmental pediatrician, and an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, has had NUMEROUS hospital tests, MRI's, labs/bloodwork and more. All still trying to find out why our son has such severe speech and receptive language delays, and some doctors think he is on the Autism spectrum as well (but just not as severe as Wade is) but honestly who knows. His last sedated MRI that he had done this past summer, showed he had asymmetric optic nerves (which I guess they say can be common in kids who have developmental delays and autism) so they referred us to yet ANOTHER doctor, an Opthamologist which we saw about a week and a half ago. They wanted to make sure there was no deterioration of the eye or nerves. So we went in, they dilated his eyes, we sat and waited for 20 mins. the nurse came and did one test then took us into a room as we waited for the doctor. The doctor walked in and said "hi, your son needs glasses, I know that's not why you are here, that we are looking at his nerves, but its good you came in now" I was shocked, I wasn't expecting, that (even though maybe I should have because I am almost blind without my contacts and have a bad astigmatism) but I thought it was going to be another wasted appointment and the doctors weren't going to find anything wrong, well I guess in this case I was wrong. Justin has some vision problems AND a bad astigmatism. He also has one eye that dominates over the other, and the doctor said our goal is to get him used to wearing glasses all of the time, and in 6 months if the dominance is not better than he may have to wear a patch over his glasses to try and correct that (which ought to be fun). Justin is doing very well adjusting, he is very, very, very funny about routine and things being in place, so we think he will do well with wearing them, I just never thought my 4 year old would need glasses so soon, we tried a few pairs on and got to this pair which were blue and Justin was done, he ONLY wanted these blue ones and didnt care about any other glasses, he kept showing them to the ladies saying "blue glasses" it was really cute and we think he looks really cute in them :)

THANKFUL DAY 1

So I saw on another's blog a very cute idea that I am going to give a try too. From now until Thanksgiving, posting every day something that I am thankful for. What a wonderful way to start of the holiday season, there really are so many things, big and small that we can or should show gratitude for. I have a list a mile long in my head right now, but we will start with a simple thing. Today I am thankful that all of my kids are in better moods and seem to be getting over their illnesses, for modern medicine like antibiotics and good doctors!! :) What are you thankful for?????

4 sick kids

Everyone knows that it is not unusual for our family to be sick all year round. I wish I could say it doesn't happen that way and I cant say that I am surprised since my sister and I were always sick when we were little (and still get sick quite often to this day) but really, I would just like a break. I am a little OCD about things being done, clean and in their place, you would think because of my constant cleaning and sanitizing people would not be sick! Oh well, we are just lucky to have those good immune systems I guess. So 4 of the 5 kids (Justin, Wade, Delaney and Natilie) are on antibiotics as of Monday and for the first time ever, we didn't even go Trick or Treating for Halloween, I feel bad not taking the kids but figured we better not expose them to anymore germs, maybe next year! I hope this is not a glimpse of what this Winter is going to be like since this is the 2nd round of meds they have been on already since fall started! Now I hope that Mommy or Daddy don't get it!

Halloween/Trunk or Treat

 We had our ward Trunk or Treat/Halloween carnival last night. Everyone did a fantastic job setting it all up! The last time I dressed up in a costume was way back in high school, and every year josh and the kids try and talk me into it but I would never! Well this year I caved and decided might as well and after doing it I realized that it is SO much fun, I think I will have to do it next year too :) I was batgirl and Daniel, well he is 13 now, so he wants to think of unique costumes, and since we love sports and had an awesome Afro wig I got for 2 bucks at my favorite store Gabriel Brothers,  we decided on the old basketball player Dr. J Erving

 Josh kept it simple, he was just going to wear the wig, but I borrowed my Dads Cavs jersey and told him he can go as the Cavs player Anderson Verejao, I thought it was fitting since Anderson is our last name :)

 We doctored up a costume of Wades from last year and Miss Delaney went as Supergirl, but boy was she SUPER cranky!! The activity was totally past her bedtime!

 Justin went as a Robot and he just LOVED his costume, both boys had SO much fun at the activity

 Wade went as Clifford the Big Red Dog, Wade can't stand anything on his head and originally Cliffords face was on a hat to go on his head, well I cut that face off and hand sewed it to the front of his costume, it worked good enough

 My Natilie went as Cleopatra and thats not a wig, its two cans of black temp hair color that is more like hair spray and left her hair SUPER stiff, she actually has 2 costumes now, this one and an Avatar that pictures is the last picture of this post

 Wade having fun pushing Delaney while she stuffs her face with a yummy cupcake

 Our cute friends the Ward family, here is Heidi and Joseph

 Our other cute friends the Tora's! Here is their son Gabriel but my dumb camera was acting up and the picture isn't clear

 Batgirl and Princess Leia getting ready to take on the world!

 Our other cute friends the Vallen family, they had an AWESOME family costumes from Star Wars

 Natilie and her friend Hannah

 Mommy and daughter picture

 So super heros were the in thing this year, there were 5 batgirls total (including me) here is a picture with a few of them

My friend Emma and I goofin around

This is Daniel and Natilie before they left for school on their Halloween party day. Natilie was SUPER excited to wear this costume. She had earned 20 bucks from my dad with doing some work around his house and she LOVES Halloween like the rest of us and really wanted to go to an actual Halloween store to buy another costume to wear to school, we spent 2 hours at 2 Halloween stores, both places were absolutely insane and I had Delaney with me screaming her head off because she was tired and there was no carts, but the costume Natilie did want, was all out and then she saw this one someone had put back and just decided to try it on and she LOVED it and the sweet part about it is that it was regular 49.99 and she got it for 15 buckaroos :)

SEPT, OCT AND A WITCHES PARTY!

We have lots to do these last few months and I have been once again slacking in the posting department but with the holidays rapidly approaching I want to document things as they happen. In the month of Sept (the same day Josh and I ran the half marathon) we also went to an Indians game that eve. My dad got us tickets from work and we all had a great time! As I have mentioned before our ENTIRE family are sport finatics, and we are introducing it to our little ones while they are young with hopes that they will grow up to love it to! Our whole family went to the game except Natilie who was enjoying her new kitty she got at my ex husband's house.

 Justin is my lovey teddy bear, he loves to give his little brother and baby sister kisses and hugs! I just wish these pictures were a little clearer

 I just love Delaneys cute behind in her little Levi's

 I don't know how she fell asleep that fast after her snack in the highchair that's not even padded!

 I had left my purse on my bed with thoughts that it was out of reach of Delaney. I laid her down for her nap in her pacnplay at the end of our bed and when she woke up I went in to get her and she somehow stretched her little arms out far enough to snag my purse, rip open my make up bag and destroyed my eye shadows and evidently she was hungry because it looks like she tried to eat it too!

 We have a great little park by our house that has a big pond that the kids LOVE to go and feed the fish and ducks. The fish there must be used to being fed because if you hold the bread out right above the water, the fish actually poke their noses out and take the bread right from your hand, its the funniest thing to watch and wade and Justin LOVE it.

 This is how Wade is usually attached to us, he is our monkey that loves to hang off of us.

 Delaney wanted to just eat the bread herself, our little chunker..

 and me, at least documented that I was there, not the best picture

 This is just one picture of how we spend our days with miss Delaney..she is always into EVERYTHING!!! I guess she feels the need to follow in her big sisters footsteps, my girls have been way worse with this type of thing

 Daniel and Natilie had their fall band concert and they both did an exceptional job. We really loved the music they played. Here is a picture of natilie and her friend (who everyone confuses these two and mixes their names up, they look like they could be sisters) In the picture below is Daniel in the 8th grade band, I wasn't able to get a close up of him, but he is just left of center with his clarinet.

 I made my first loaf of bread! I don't have a bread machine (which I really want one) and I have never been brave enough to make bread and lately I have been trying to do more things to occupy my mind to help me get through this tough period of life I have been going through. I must say, the bread turned out WONDERFUL! I couldn't believe it, it was just perfect and tasted so good, it was an egg bread and the loaf ended up being huge and I didn't double the recipe. The whole loaf was gone by the next day though, can you tell we are a family of carb lovers!

 I decided to make some Halloween cookies to drop off to some special friends. I LOVE Halloween and was really excited to use a new sugar cookie recipe that turned out fabulous!

 I had recently got a surprise invitation in my mailbox to attend a all women Witches Party by my friend Stephanie! I don't get out much and I was SUPER excited to go to this all by myself and enjoy a few hours with friends. It was SO SO SO much fun! The deal was you had to wear a witches hat to get into the door

 Stephanie (left) and Elizabeth (who won most creative witch)

 The yummy Halloween themed food to eat, which was all DELICIOUS!

 The Witches

 I played the donut on a string game. here is Rachel, Elizabeth and I waiting to start. Elizabeth was sure she was going to win and talking smack but I thought to myself  "we shall see about that one missy ;)"

 I got my whole donut in one mouthful, I have always been told I have a big mouth (in every sense of the word lol) but literally too, I used to compete with boys and girls when I was a kid of who could fit their fist in their mouth and I always won!

 I won my first round and the final round. After we were done, Elizabeth said to me "Jennifer you are the most comeptitive person I know" that has always been a very strong trait of mine since I was a kid, I usually won't talk smack, I just like to do it silently, although my hubby says that I can be too competitve lol...

My wonderful friend Ursala and I showing off our witchy hats and smiles. We really had a blast and Stephanie sure knows how to go all out and throw one awesome party!