Why I keep my floors clean....

So I was cooking dinner and heard my 1-year-old grunting and didn't think much of it. I look over and she is laying on her belly; which is not her normal position for the grunting business I thought she was doing.

Apparently it's more fun to eat raisins this way:

Notice, though, her shirt. Yes, it does say, "Future Valedictorian". I still have high hopes. She also decided to tatt herself up today. Her sister has similar tatts on her arms and stomach.

I think it blows my chances of running a licensed daycare.

South Dakota

We traveled (by car) to South Dakota a few weeks ago to visit JB's family. It was a pretty painful car ride for all of us, but it was worth it to visit with his family we don't see but once every few years.

El & Shay didn't care much for South Dakota. Shay busted her lip within the first 2 hours we were there and I thought she was teething, but turned out she had double-ear infection. El cried everyday saying she wanted to go home and turns out she had this fever/sore throat thing going around. Needless to say, we left on a Friday to go up there, and we left on Wednesday the following week to come home. Not much fun for mama either, who couldn't set Shay down....ever without her screaming.

It may be a while until we travel that again. JB's mom decided it was probably easier on all of us for her to travel to IL. We agreed.


4 Generations (Great-Grandma Ole, Grandma Cathy, Daddy JB, El & Shay (notice how Shay loved it).

Nanny with El on the carousel

The family outside of Great-Nanny's house.

Happy Birthday, JB!

It's been a month since my last post and it seems all I'm finding time to post now are birthday announcements. :) Well, it's time again. JB's birthday is today.

Happy Birthday, Honey and we love you.

Here's a pic of JB with the girls taken at Storybook Land in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Notice El on the right; she's saying "YeeeeHaaa". She's going to be a cowgirl.

Happy 3rd Birthday, El!!

My oldest turned 3 this past week so we celebrated with a party yesterday. Lots of jumping, swimming, fighting, eating, and candy. :) My big girl...where does the time go?

Can't pass up this pic

This is the morning of Easter. I love pajama pics and who can pass up posting these smiley girls!

The BIG 1!!

What a week. El has pneumonia and to find that out has had been poked for blood samples twice, had chest x-rays done 2 different times, a catheter put in to get urine to test, and a CT scan to find out if it was more than just pneumonia. What a trooper. I racked up 12 hours at Dr. offices this week and that was just 2 days. Got bless medicine. I'm thinking about getting some myself.

My baby turned one yesterday. I can't believe it. Seriously can't believe it that a year can fly like it did. She told me she wanted to eat at Red Lobster for her birthday....who wants to turn a baby's request down? El fell asleep during lunch, but Shay was loving the attention.

Change

I thought it was about time I took dad & Jenna's picture off the main screen. :) The girls & I visited JB a few months ago on a day off while he was working in Southern IL. I thought it would be good if he was in a picture once in a while with them. Otherwise, people talk. :)

The water was friggin cold and we were even indoors; Shay tried to like it but her lips were so blue. El swam anyway with her blue lips. We moved to the hot tub and that was much better for all of us.

My Perfect Parents

My dad, living a Vegas dream.
My mom, the always serious, never-funny.
They're a perfect pair.

CONGRATULATIONS, Mr & Mrs. Cantrell

Congratulations to Beth Iffert & Gary Cantrell who traveled to Vegas last week and got married Friday the 13th. 50 family and friends ventured that way to celebrate.

Word was, Christy & Beck had celebrated a little too much before the wedding, but they made through. Here are some pics of the family. You decide....I think everyone had a Vegas time.






I wish you forever happiness.

New pics

We are sooooo ready to be able to go outside and play. Here are some random pictures. We've been getting pretty bored lately. The girls even wore bows in their hair for about 4 minutes while I got pictures. :) I also thought I'd better get some pictures of them loving each other before they figure out that they don't really want to love each other.

The big 40

My parents celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary on January 25. I put it in the paper but never got around to posting it. Sorry about that.

Congrats and may you have 40 more!

They were the grade-school sweethearts who got married during mom's senior year and I'm sooooo happy that they did!

We love you and many of us can take lessons from you two.

Snots & Sayings

You would think there would be only so much snot a kid can produce. My girls have been working OT producing snot. Kaydo spent 3 days in the hospital this week for pneumonia. Kids and their sharing. Why couldn't they just share peanut butter crackers....wait, maybe not.

El is so adorable and comes up with new sayings all the time. Now she says, "Mommy, I'm sick. I have the coughers. I'm sick real bad." So cute. I say, "No, honey, you're not sick real bad. You'll be okay." and she's happy with that and moves on. I just wish she'd quit using her arm as a Kleenex.

Shay now says, "Mama" along with other jibberish as she crawls using one leg to push her along. I bet JB can't wait until another year or so and he'll have 3 hott girls talking his ears right off.

And the Award goes to.....

Thanks, Mrs. Campbell for tagging me with the Fabulous Blogger Award. I would like to say that my five addictions are:

1) Definitely coffee. I like it as bold and fresh as can be. My coffee maker will grind the beans and then drop them into the filter but that is way to noisy for early morning sleeping babes, so I grind them the evening before. I drink 4-5 cups. I don't sleep much; is it cause I drink coffee that I can't sleep or is it I don't get sleep so I must drink coffee. It's the latter. I figure I'm a coffee addict like my father.

2) My DVR. I mean, come on, if you have it, you know what I mean. I would pay $50 a month instead of $5 if I had to maintain this luxurious pleasure of having my shows recorded. I don't miss setting the VCR.

3) Rock of Love Bus: As dumb as it may be, I can't live without it. Haven't missed a season. Will Bret Michels find love this time? Oh, the drama. I do have to watch the DVRd version which is fine because I normally watch Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Go, Diego, Go during the day (not by choice).

4) My hair straightener. I think back to before I had one and my hair really must have looked like crap. Not that it's beautiful now, but at least I have control. Before I bought one, I never thought about it, though, so I guess it wasn't on priority. :)

5) My family, of course. I have a pretty good husband and perfect kids. Husband may be gone quite often to work, but it makes it that much sweeter when he's home.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday, today, to my wonderful mom. She truly is a wonderful mother. I learn from her everyday. We love you!

El's new sled

We thought 2-year-old El was ready for a Jeep. She's not so good at steering, holding the pedal down, or stopping, but we have high hopes. Here she is in our basement since it was cold outside. She already has a bit of road rage.

What the Santa?

Okay, here is the classic picture of a young child damaged by the "big guy". Props, though, to the Junior Women's Club for their Breakfast with Santa setup.
Shay simply questions why the hell is she sitting on the lap of this weirdo? El just wants to get the frig off?

Happy Birthday, Scout

Scouty turned 4 on December 2 and that Saturday her padres had a bowling party for her at Parklanes. It was soooooo much fun and El may turn out to be a professional bowler. Daddy is hoping for a tennis player and golfer (but I'm not good at either of those). He's coaching her in this pic. Get used to it, El.

Shay's First Thankgsiving

A little late, I know, but I wanted to post this pic of Shay &

her first Thankgsiving. She is truly a Schackmann....which means she loves to eat. My mom used to make the comment that whoever I dated better have money cause it costs a lot to feed me. Thanks, Mom. It's true.

I was tagged!

Sorry, Hannaman, it took so long for me to do this. :)

Here are the rules:
1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Write 6 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post(or as many as you want)
4. If you are tagged, do it and pass the tag along.
5. Enjoy

Here are some random facts about me.........

1) I have a heart-shaped uterus. Weird, I know. The Dr said it's kind of unusual. I say my kids definitely start life being loved.

2) One eyebrow is much higher than the other. Not really noticed until I wear my glasses.

3) I broke my leg when I was 6 when swinging from a rope playing Tarzan in my dad's shed. My neighbor Marissa Dion and I were hanging on the rope jumping from insulation bag to bag when the rope broke mid-air. We fell to the concrete and Marissa landed on my leg in a not-very-good position. I had a home tutor (Stephanie Pasero) for weeks. I figure that's where El gets her love for climbing.

4) I have had 7 speeding tickets, all before I was 23....my dad was my driver's ed teacher.

5)I, like Hannaman, LOVE my kids and can't believe I actually have them and feel very blessed everytime I look at them.

6) This is difficult. I'm a pretty boring person, really. I, also, pretty much only wore black t-shirts (either Harley or Hair-band) in high school and thought I was cool. I thought my hair was similar to Axl's and loved it. When, really, I rarely got my hair-trimmed, bought boxes of color regularly and really didn't know how to take care of hair (still don't).

I'm thinking nearly everyone has been tagged and I'm not sure who hasn't, but I'll tag:

Angie K
Sammy Jo

Morning Joe

I get up pretty early. Not necessarily because I want to; sometimes I'm prodded by little voices. But, I must say I love mornings and when I'm on my 4th cup of coffee, the sun is starting to come up. This is a pic of the sunrise over my favorite hickory tree in our backyard. Just thought it was cool.