28? What the crap!!!

Shut the front door?!?!? Twenty Eight? Impossible-no freaking way! I cannot believe I am going to be 28 tomorrow. For some reason- this year I seem OLLLLD. 2 more years in my twenties and then its bye bye youth- hello face lifts, "can't drink caffeine to close to bed or I'll never sleep", bladder control problems and menopause. No.Thanks. :)
I feel like 27 was a vapor...a smelly breathe breathed out by the crap of life....it was a mist I am thankful to be beyond...but a year that was, in my opinion, sucky. One I'd love to redo- with better results...but since I can't....its one foot out the door and a turn of the page for this girl.
28...Im gonna rock at being 28. I'm gonna reach the goals I set out to do, gonna rediscover who I am. I'm going to have no apologies for the person I am or the way I think and feel and I am going to own everyday of it, volunteer more, read more stories to my girl and pinterest daily!  Hey, 28 doesn't sound so bad! 

Happy Birthday to me!

PS, My sweet daughter is always thinking about everyone else. Tonight before bed she got a little emotional and said "but mama, daddy didnt take me to buy you anything for your birthday! what am I supposed tot  give you?" and I said "you can color me a beautiful picture!" and she said she does that everyday.....and then she said "let me think about it and I'll let you know tomorrow." So sweet. Love her.

Dear Vaughnie

Oh my love. You are four! How did you so quickly turn 4 years old? I remember holding you as a baby and wondering what your voice would sound like, what your first day of school would feel like, what your little personality would be like. I have never been so blessed. Never. You are my most precious. Every single day you say things and do things that melt my heart. Your sweet smile, your precious face. Your new hair cut-oh my. You look so grown up! Everytime I tell you I love you to the moon and back you tell me "I love you to the sun and back cause its farther away." or when your quietly playing and I say "i love you vaughnie girl" you say softly and quietly while you continue playing "I love you more mama." My cup runneth over. You are a gift. I thought I knew what life was about and daily you teach me, remind me, make me laugh until I cry, make me cry because I love you so incredibly much. This 4th year has been so very trying and difficult for us as a duo....but girl, you hold strong. You remind me that "we'll be just fine mama" or that "we're all we need" or that "its gonna be alllllright." and your right. We got it all right here with each other.  You are wise beyond your years. You still have your most trying times as every child and test me more than I think I can manage sometimes but you have quiet understanding that sometimes things are just not what you imagined and thats okay. We are bound for great things my love. We are about to move into our new home and I am so blessed that you manage changes so very well. You are my everything sweet girl. Your mama is so very very very proud of you. Happy birthday my love. Happy 4th year.

Love you so incredibly much, love your mama :)

Illinois & Happy 4th Baby

A couple of weeks ago we went to Illinios for the Color Drive. MUCH CHERISHED time on the farm {which happens to be my most favorite place in the entire universe} and a memory that we have been having since...well...since I can remember! We go every October, over Vaughn's birthday weekend and she thinks the entire festival is just for her. We let her think it. Its sweet. Fall festivals, garage sales galore, family coming out of the woodwork {we have a huge family-love every.single.one of them}We gather at my gmas and have hay rides, weenie roast, tractor rides, laughter....pure bliss. pure joy. This year, I was blessed by my ability to go for an entire week. It was perfection....except that we are missing my grandpa. Oh, my heart aches every time that we drive into the town and I know he will not be standing at the door saying "hey sis" and giving us big hugs. I miss his smell, his laugh, his hands, his stark white calves, I miss seeing him walking in from the field and just sitting back and enjoying his family. He was the glue. We miss him every.single.day. But he is sure talked about when we all get together, we bring him back by loving our memories of him together- as a family.

This year, gma had a garage sale during the "color drive". Oh the stuff that woman has. Oh the value she see's in it all!

Can't forget about the cows. Hours of entertainment for the kids. Thanks cows...for the babysitting.

Amanda said these are not photo worthy- I beg to differ- To all those who knew nothing of their existence. Here you have it, wheat buns! Who'da thunk it?

Uncle Phillippe taking the kids on a 4 wheel ride (much to fast, I might ad) ;)

Much like the Iowa State Fair, the one "must have" food at the color drive? a corndog. Sick, I know- but oh so tasty.

Andrea, my cousin who came all the way from Az to see us! She'd never experienced the soggy goodness of a walking taco. These were, well....not the best I've ever tasted.

FOUR! 4?!!!! F.O.U.R!?!?! How did my BABY girl turn 4 already!? We celebrated with a balloon decorated room, gifts, color driving and family time. We even baked a multitude of cupcakes!

Here she is. My sweet grandma. I know she'd kill me if she saw this picture. But this is her. My grandma. Exactly as I know her. Exactly as I love her.

on the Hay ride!

a favorite memory

I have been lacking in blogging about our Wisconsin Trip (was brought to my attention by my uncle Greg! Sorry!!) So I will blog about certain memories at a time. Our last night in Wisco was epic. We all went down to the pool for some R & R and while I put away our stuff, my mom stuck her feet into the hot tub. (sorry mom, I'm outting you here!). AS SOON as she did so a man, (see below) came "swimming over" (more of a slow hop- as you can see via the pick, this was unpleasant to watch) and said "well how are YOU doing tonight?" Uh-oh....it started.  My dad, me and vaughn watched from the pool, I could NOT Stop laughing as he literally held her hostage...he would NOT leave her alone. 45 minutes later and he was STILL talking to her...about things such as different kinds of Wisconsin cheeses and history of the town. Strange. He wasnt even from there. My mom, trying to be a nice lady just kept saying "woooow" "woooow". over and over. It.Was.Hillarious. My cousins ended up coming down as well and we were all laughing so hard as he hung himself over the side of the hot tub chatting with NO ONE but my mom. Poor thing, she tried engaging in conversation with us all instead and he just kept talking. My dad was laughing so hard. We all felt bad for her, but whats a person to do? As he was getting out to leave (finally, after what felt like DAYS) my cousins husband was walking in. The weirdo stopped and asked /yelled him about whether he was bringing a glass bottle into the pool because that is PROHIBITED! He then continued to pull some wall mounted thing down before he exited....a HUGE sigh of relief was let out , along with giggles. What a memory. ITs hard to put into words....so, if this post seems dumb, then I guess you just had to be there!

all of us gawking at the train wreck situation. Even vaughn cant stop watching.

Poor mom. Oh. Just look. Yeah, you can feel her pain. The crack kept getting bigger and bigger- us gawkers were suffering to!

a delicious find...

Is anyone else out there as addicted to pinterest.com as I am? Its doubtful, but if are- we shall be best friends for life! I am soo in love with this actually, that I am planning a pinterest party for when I get settled into the new house. Ideas galore on there I tell ya! In fact, I stumbled upon this website http://foodgawker.com/ on there and frankly, I am head over heals.

Its safer to be head over heals in love with a website than a man. I have learned. This website will not disappoint! I will be making the salted caramel recipe on there asap.

Check it out. If you fall in love too- its okay. We can share. Its not a man.

 **********************************New topic************************************
It is Vaughn's first picture day today at preschool ....oh.my.cuteness. She looked SO cute and was practicing her smile all morning. I cant wait to see them. And PS the cost of school pictures is outrageous.

Breathe.

 

It is finally fall y'all!!!  I could sit on the porch all day and breathe it in. I drove past a field the other night, late, and saw the glow of the combine lights and the haze around it and my heart melted, and a calm set in. I.Love.Fall. I love everything about it. The apples, the desserts, the way the air is crisp and cool, the candle scents, the activities, the smell of hay, the late night farmers combining and  readying for harvest. I love the football season and photo ops and the fact the the holidays are beginning. My favorite part of the year. October-December. Ahhh. Full of family, good memories and good food. 

T

Stop...Drop...Roll!

I think I should practice this with my girl! Tonight, while doing laundry the smoke alarm went off. I checked the oven, the dryer...nope....in fact, the smoke alarm in our kitchen is unhooked completely from the wall and has been since we lived here. I stuck my head out in the hall and everyone was coming out and leaving the building...ALL The alarms were going off. I came back inside, switched the clothes over and minded my own business...a couple minutes later it was STILL going off so we also went and left to see what the deal was. All three buildings around us were outside...it was the lady's apt from ACROSS THE HALL. She was at work but all the fire trucks, police officers came- it was chaos. They had to break into her place to see if there was a fire. Everyone was fine and we eventually went back in...but Vaughn was INSISTENT on going into her place and checking out the drama. I think I should start talking about fire danger. :)

I am packing us up this week...for Wisconsin, for our move....I HATE packing. HATE IT. This trip will be bittersweet. I am SO excited that my brother is getting married to a girl we love and who fits right in with our family. Its sad because my ex husband was supposed to be a groomsmen---standing up with all of us, he was supposed to be my date, my travel buddy, my HUSBAND still. I feel like I do really well until these sorts of things come up, and then I feel like a teenager, traveling with my parents (God bless them for allowing us to crash their vacation too and ride the whole way in the car with a 4 year old jabberer). Its a strange strange feeling and I dont like it one bit. I dont like doing things "alone" in the sense of not having a partner with me. I hate it. I am SO very excited to see family from all over, hot tub, swim with VE, and just have some time away. I cant wait to celebrate the love of Matt and Maria and am so excited to see it all take place. I am pretty close with my brother (and have gotten pretty close with his fiance) so it will be emotional for me, I am sure. They are a great, sweet couple and have done so much for me over the past year or so. LOVE them. LOVE weddings. Love LOVE.

Dancin' Queen...See that Girl...She is a Dancin' Queen

ooooh yeeaaah!
Vaughn comes from latin routes and shares her dad's love of dancing. I on the other hand, was born with the moves of a donkey in a burlap sack. Ve took a summer dance session for four weeks this past summer and loved it. So now, she's started tap and ballet. These are the pictures. Her dad has her most fridays so dance is either the transition where I drop her off and we both watch her or where he takes her and I go watch her....either way- she loves that we are both there. There is a two way window that we get to watch the kids through once per month, so thats where some of these were taken (sorry if its blurry). She thinks she's big stuff.

 I think she is too:)

Its Apple Picking Time!

Disclaimer: It was not supposed to be 100 degrees today....not after the fall week we had last year.

Today, we visited a new orchard in the area. It was sooo much fun. We have been to lots of different ones in the past years and have without a doubt had a blast at all of them...but this one. Wow. This one blew the others out of the water! If you live in the DSM area, and have children, you MUST go to Center Point Orchard. We were there for over 4 hours and could have easily spent another 3 there. Easily. I didnt realize it would be soo hot today and the website said they had food so I didnt pack a lunch (plus I thought we'd be there an hour tops-not 4) so we had to eat an apple cider donut and apples off the trees....healthy. See the pics to see the fun! There were only about 10 other kids there (but the place is SO Huge that you felt like you were completely alone.)

Check out her face in these. She thought this cow milking was TOTALLY GROSS and weird.

this poor little dude had a bunch of leaves trapped in his horns and he couldnt see....I was too scared to help clean them out!

haha hahah hahaha.

What is more fun than a corn pool?? Corn Angels, jumping, covering herself with corn. She was COVERED in corn dust at the end of this but it was her favorite part of the day I think!

Even almost 4 year old girlies need to hold mama's hand sometimes!

This was a jumping pillow! HUGE and she loved it!!!

This slide was amazing.....maybe 300 feet long...HUGE! You can see the whole thing in the background of another picture! She LOVED it!

We went through a cornmaze. My first ever. I always wanted to do one. Never again. I was FREAKED OUT. It was over 4 acres and frankly, I was terrified after about 5 minutes. They gave you this little card that had pictures on it and then drop you off. At some of the dead ends there was a wooden "picture" like a wooden pig, hay bale etc. and a paper punch to mark that you found it. We only found 5. We started out in good spirits. The guy said he'd be back in a half hour and if we were not done then he'd be back later to check..I should have taken that as a sign. Lunch time. Hungry. Thirsty. Hot.  Nap time. Tired. Corn Maze.....hmmmm....smart move. #momfail  After a bit I started getting VERY claustraphobic. And scared. I could hear the tractor but couldnt see a dang thing and had no cell reception (thought about calling 911 to come get us out.) and I couldnt see how long we'd been in there because my phone was being weird. I swore it had been hours and hours. I was near tears. VE was hot and tired and she'd say "I want out of here." and then I'd whine and say "you know what? Me too. Im hot, tired, hungry, thirsty, my feet hurt, this corn is itchy and there are bugs. Dont whine to me." poor thing. We finally found our way out (obviously, since Im blogging) but it was not a fun time. I thought for sure we were bound to be in a lifetime movie..."lost in a cornmaze." I kept thinking for sure someone would come along but because it was on a monday morning it was dead there (kinda like I thought we were gonna be...dead) so no one else was in the cornmaze. I kept thinking "no one even knows we're here....I didnt tell anyone.....we'll never be found....ever." We got out and the guy who dropped us off there took the tractor back to the front so we could get food (donuts?) and water. He could tell we were miserable and angry. See the progression of faces on the pics. I can laugh now....then, I was so mad.

After the ridiculous maze experience, we got a bite and drinks and headed to pick apples! This was fun, relaxing, in the shade...nice! We even ate a few. ;)

This is what happens when you look up at an apple tree to long...they fall off and hit you in the face. Poor girly!

grabbing our pickers!

first apple picked!!

this is the face of a girl who has played HARD!