Flashback Friday!! The Copycat Little Sister!!!

So when I came upon this next picture it made me laugh because that would be me in the middle with the shiny wig on. I was a clown, or trying to be a clown, Alyssa was a clown and since I thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread I was always trying to do and be like her. I remember that I had originally wanted to be Madonna (when she had brown hair) but when that idea was not panning out I saw that Alyssa was going to be a clown so at the last minute I wanted to be one too. My mom did her best to find me something to wear that would be somewhat clown like, this was back in the day when people didn't spend crazy amounts of money (well we didn't) on Halloween costumes, you just made them out of whatever you had around the house. I guess it took more imagination for those answering the door to figure out what we were :) Anyway I remember wishing I had the cool wig and outfit like Alyssa but was just happy that my older, cooler sisters let me stand with them and their friends for a picture!!!

Thanks so much!

I just wanted to say thank you to those of you that were kind enough to comment such caring things. It really meant so much and I appreciate it, really! Yesterday was a rough day and I am glad that today was better. I am truly blessed to have the friends I do, thanks also for the chocolate chip cookies that were delivered while still warm!! :) Love to you all! Yay for friends!!!

I don't know how much more I can take!

So tonight we found out that my Uncle Don (whom just lost his wife, and his Grandson Adam is in a coma) is now also in the hospital. He went in early this morning and as of right now they don't know what is wrong with him, they are running tests. Their family has been through so much already, with some being with Adam in California and now some at the hospital in Utah with my Uncle and still reeling from the death of my Aunt just a few weeks ago. Sometimes it is so hard to see the light at the end, I have a strong faith and yet sometimes I wonder what all this means in the big plan. Why all this at once? Jimmy and I are struggling with our own road ahead, with so much being uncertain. If it were not for the Gospel I truly do not know where I would be right now. I feel drained and sad and pain that I have not felt in a very long time. I was also reminded today of my sweet friend whom lost her child a year ago that would have started 4th grade with Lexi and Gabby. We picked Gabby up this afternoon after school so that they could play and they both spoke of Kenzee several times. I feel, just sad.

1st Day of School!

How has time gone by so fast? It seems as if it were only yesterday that Lexi was hair on a little body. She is growing up to be such a great little lady, we are so proud of her. I sometimes miss the silly little girl that she was, she often used words that were beyond her age and size. I wish that I had slowed down more to appreciate it all in the moment. She is now closing in on 10 years old and I couldn't feel more blessed than to have her as my daughter. She and I rode a few crazy waves together, sometimes I think she held me up better at times than I held her. I have grown as a person and a mother being in her charge. I love who she is and the potential I see in her, I don't take credit for Alexis because I think she was born Alexis and there wasn't much that needed assistance, I mean the girl potty trained her self before she was two. She is what you might say "An old soul", she is a wonderful big sister and Jimmy and I love being her parents!
This picture is from Lexi's first day of pre-school (she was not even 3 yet)!

Plane Crash

This past weekend two friends of our family were on the plane that crashed in Utah, David & Cecilee . It had been a while since we last saw them but when I found this link on my friends blog I thought I would make it available to any of you that may have known someone. You can leave comments to any of the families that lost a loved one. This tragic accident is so far reaching please keep all these families in your prayers.

James is 7 Months Old!!!

Well my little boy is already 7 months old! He is such a joy and we are so happy to have him in our family. I need to document the things that he has been doing so I don't forget.
In the last month he:

Has gotten his first two teeth
He is sitting up
He rolls all over the place
He laughs and smiles tons even at strangers
James loves his Daddy and cries if Jimmy walks away from him (Jimmy is wrapped)
He makes sounds like cookie monster
He loves other babies and kids!
He loves his toys
He has started to bite when he gets really excited (ouch for the nursing mom)
We have started giving him some baby food and he loves the fruit
He tries to steal my food if I am holding him while eating
Water is a favorite of his and he loves to drink it from my water bottle
He will finally take a bottle
He still sleeps really well

Flashback Friday ! The "CHARMING" 80's!!!

How can you look at this picture and it not take you back in time? This is a picture of me in 1985, we had just moved to Vegas and I had somehow managed to already be in on the latest trend, CHARMS!!! Charm necklaces, bracelets, belts, hair things, shoe things! I remember every time I got a new one I was going to be that much cooler, I had the hair the clothes and the CHARMS!!! What more could a girl ask for!?

MOVING & ADAM UPDATE!

So we were once again able to find someone to rent the condo, we are very excited about them they will be a perfect fit! We actually didn't have to search much at all to find them, I was out in the hall with James on Sunday and I was just chatting with a friend telling her about looking for a renter and she said she was interested. She and her husband came that afternoon to see it and decided to rent it. The Lord works in wonderful ways! We had been slightly bummed when our last renter backed out but we had faith that the Lord would provide the way for it to work out and He has, quicker than we could have imagined. So we will be out of our Condo by the last week of September as they will move in the 1st of October!



Cousin Update!

As of last night Adam has been doing much better, there were scary days this week but he seems to be rebounding somewhat, he is still in an induced coma and not out of the woods yet but it is good to hear the improving news! We just continue to pray that the Lord will see fit to return him to us. We love you Adam! I found some pictures of him lately from when he was very young and thought I would share!

AMAZING SHE IS STILL ALIVE!

So as many of you know I have a thing with looking through old pictures and once again I was going through some (you see I am working on getting them scanned into my computer) and came across several that made me laugh and also wonder how the heck Emily made it to her teen years!!! My sister Emily is 12 years younger than me and when she was little I would dress her up and take pictures. I was also guilty of taking a large metal bowl that mom had, placing a pillow in it and then Emily on top of the pillow and spinning it around and around. Poor thing, it really is a wonder how she is still a functioning person because we thought of all sorts of ways to torture her, it was like having a human pet!! I don't know if we took the pictures documenting it to show her later as an intimidation tactic or if my mom took them to have evidence against us older kids in the chance something went wrong!! In any case, now that Em is nearly 18 (which makes me feel old) I feel a little sorry for her that she had to endure being not only the youngest but youngest by far, but only a little, mostly it still gives me a good laugh to look at all we did to her!! :)

These pictures are just the tip of the ice berg, poor little Em. If you notice in the picture of her wrapped up and still standing we are all surrounding her with weapons, the one to the left has a pretend shot gun, that is me behind her and then that is Lys, I believe, to the right. I put a box on her head and then took the picture. That would be Alyssa pinning her against the cabinet and then the bottom right picture is of me and Lys holding a Lemonade stand using the little kids as picketers to draw attention, I think we may have paid them a WHOLE DOLLAR!! :)

And yet she loves me anyway!

Happy Anniversary Chet & Lys

Holy crud it seems like it was just yesterday that I was wearing a dark green bridesmaid dress and standing in there line shaking the hands of people that I didn't know. Now here it is 13 years, 3 kids and 4 states later and Chet and Alyssa are better looking and happier than ever! For the record Marissa and I still take some credit for you two getting together and we are so glad it worked out! However we will give you guys the credit for it lasting so long :) Love you and hope you have a wonderful day!!!

Useless Information & The Barber's Pole!!

For years my family has teased me about remembering people, places and things that are random at best. Jimmy says I have a memory like an elephant and there isn't a movie we have watched yet that I haven't given him what we call "Notes of Interest". If it drives him crazy he has been nice enough not to say anything, but every time we go somewhere i.e. the grocery store, out to eat, the mall, the gym, you name it and I will see someone that I somehow know, even if that meant I went to their cousins birthday when I was 7. I had assumed for years that everyone was like me but the older I got the more times I had someone say "How the heck do you remember that?" and then I started figuring I was nuts.

Not only do I remember faces and names pretty well but I have tons of useless info just floating around in my brain, like why the poles outside Barber shops are red and white. I don't know how I know, but I know and surprisingly that tidbit came in handy in a class one time. I retain lots of information about celebrities and other famous people, I recall conversations from when I was six, I even remember a dream I had in the first grade, not an aspiration , but an actual dream that I had. Some of my friends have said that I am the link in the Six degrees of separation, meaning somehow through someone I know, I am connected to everyone else in the world. I also tend to keep in touch with people or find people that I knew when I was 5 and haven't seen since then :) you know who you are out there!

I am hoping that there are others of you that have similar quirks that you would love to share. Maybe you know some random fact or perhaps you too remember people, places and things in abundance. So let it all out, go ahead leave a comment about something that has stayed in your head and you have waited for the perfect moment to share it.

Oh and for those of you wanting to know why the pole outside the Barber shops are red and white. Well back a long time ago some medical procedures were done by barbers so they would use a rag dipped with blood or later dye, and wrap it around a pole (stick) to let people know that it was a medical place and as time went on the medical and hair cutting parted ways but the red and white striped pole stayed with the Barbers.

Now let me reiterate I really want to hear your random bits of trivia, so come on don't be shy exercise those Temporal Lobes, even if you don't "know" me let me hear your thoughts on the subject.

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY MARISSA!

So one of my dearest friends just had her birthday and I hadn't done a post yet for it so I am hoping that "Better late than never" counts on this occasion!! We have been friends for wait let me count..(jeopardy music playing)...17 years! Man we are getting old! Oh hold on maybe it is almost 18 years cause it was the beginning of 7th grade, anyway it has been a long time and I love this woman as a sister! She has been there for me through many a dark day and a million sunny ones! Here's to you!!

Swimmers Take Your Mark!!!

Today was a busy day and I will post about all that but let me start with this:

Late this afternoon I was up at my parents house and I was going to go to the gym but was feeling somewhat unmotivated due to the KILLER HEAT, so my mom suggested I go swimming. I decided to take her up on that idea, they were on there way out so I had the entire house and pool to myself AWWWW (choir singing). I can't even think of the last time I was able to go swimming without a child to watch or hold onto, so I felt a bit giddy about the whole thing. I got into the pool, put my goggles on and suddenly I went back in time, I was 10 again. I don't know if it was because I have been watching the Olympics or because I need to get out more but nonetheless the water was calling me. Taking my mark at one end of the pool I dove in and swam as hard as I could to the other end. Coming up out of the water as I touched the wall I knew I had won the race and the crowd was going wild, it was an amazing feeling.

And then reality set in, I was not the winner of a race but a nearly 30 year old women who has not swam competitively in 20 years and the dive into the pool was more like a seal sliding from land to sea on it's belly. I am sure my swim time was closer to hours than seconds, the screaming crowd was probably the brakes from a CAT Bus that runs behind my parents back wall, but does any of that matter? To me it was the best feeling in a long time to just be swimming alone with my thoughts. After several laps I rolled onto my back and stared up at the wispy clouds and listened to my breaths going in and out of my lungs, it was a moment that I wanted to relish in. Swimming a few more laps I reluctantly stepped out of the water and found my towel to begin drying off. I made a promise to myself then and there to make more time for me to be alone, to recharge and feel refreshed. I felt renewed and more capable to be the Wife and Mom, this may seem silly but for me it was an awakening and a lift to my spirit.

When I checked the time I realized that I had been in the pool for nearly an hour, it had not felt that long but boy what a difference.


Back to the events of the day.
I started the day with an early lunch with one of my favorite people, Marissa. It was for her birthday that just passed, we both brought the little ones with us and it was great to have their cute little selves there.
We followed lunch with a stop at Jo Ann's Fabric where we found some lovely things. I was excited to find some fabric to make bedding for James out of and I discovered some fun patterns for a dollar each!
While at Jo Ann's my friend Sara who had been in the area stopped by and assisted me in my quest to become more sowing literate.
Both Marissa and Sara are much more fantastic with a sowing machine than I, so why not learn from there expertise !

We all left Jo Ann's and headed in three different directions, mine was home. The rough patch of the day was hearing a message on the machine from the women who had wanted to rent the Condo saying she was no longer able to. We were disappointed by this news but we know that the Lord will somehow allow it to all work out as it should. I then spent a little while talking with the kids and Jimmy and then headed to my parents to Wax my mom and have an Olympic Day Dream!


UPDATE ON ADAM
Adam had to be resuscitated 3 times the first day in the hospital but they now have him in an induced coma to keep him stable and make it easier for them to run tests. I had said that he was in a motorcycle accident but there was much confusion when it first occurred, so the correction is that he was on his bicycle going down a hill and his girl friend was behind him when all of a sudden his bike came to a stop and threw him over the handlebars causing him to hit his head over and over again as he fell. They have said that he will be in the hospital for sometime and they will not know about any long term problems until he wakes up. Things are still very fragile and we are just praying that he will make a full recovery. For anyone that knows him there is a website set up so you can leave messages for him and the family. Once you get to the website type in Adambullough1.

Grace Strikes Again!!!!!!!

I guess maybe I am becoming immune to her attacks because when I got home last night from my fabulous friend Sara's house (we did a work out video) Jimmy informed me that grace had cut her hair. He said that he had put the girls to bed and went in to kiss them good night a little later and he found Grace with scissors and she had cut her hair. At that point I was too tired to think about it and I just went to bed thinking it wasn't gonna be too bad. Then she came into my room this morning and I almost cried, all her pretty curls were GONE!! To top it off Lexi came in a few minutes later holding a large chunk of her own hair in her hands and explained that Grace had taken the scissors to her hair as well (while she was asleep) . Lucky for Lexi she has so much hair that you really can't tell, but Grace was another story. I remained somewhat calm and just thought "It's just hair, it will grow, and it can be fixed." I made a quick call to Sara and enlisted her to help me fix the Fox tail hair cut that Grace had given herself. She came to the rescue and was able to give Grace quite the cute cut!!! Thank you Sara a Million times over, seriously you saved Grace from being sold to the Gypsies!!


Go ahead and laugh, I know it's funny! Just be careful how hard you laugh cause the scissors can strike anyone at anytime without warning!! :)

This is Grace & Lexi after the run-in with the scissors!

This is while Sara is fixing her hair!

This is the end result, I actually think she looks pretty darn cute! When I asked Grace why she cut her hair she told me she wanted to look like "Darby" from Pooh and Friends. Crazy girl!!

Prayers Please!!

Last night my cousin Adam was in an accident on his motorcycle and has sustained a serious head injury. They do not yet know what the outcome will be so while most of you do not know him if you could keep him in your prayers it would be wonderful for our family.

That is him on the Left, he is only 22 years old and it was his Grandma (my Aunt) that just passed away.



While I know this is a painting of Christ, my cousin Adam actually posed for this painting so when I see it I think of him also.

With You by My Side!

With you by my side I can do anything.
With you by my side I feel strong.
With you by my side I am safe.
With you by my side I don't fear the road ahead.
With you by my side I will have all I need.

As I had posted earlier we have many changes that are on the horizon for our family. I have struggled in moments when I begin to think about who I will miss and what we will be leaving. I know that this is what we are supposed to do but it doesn't mean that it will be easy, and yet as Jimmy and I were talking about our plans in the upcoming weeks I looked into his grey/green eyes and knew that at his side everything would be Ok.

I was once a very independent type, I had my own place, paid my own bills, came and went as I wanted with no one to discuss it all with. I was raising a little girl as a divorced Mom and thinking that it could very well be that way for sometime and I was OK with it. Then July 14th 2002 came and my whole life changed, it was the day that Jimmy called me after a few years without contact. I knew he was going to be my helpmate, my partner. I wasn't going to have to walk this road alone, he would be there to lift me on the bad days and I for him.

There are many uncertainties on how this will all unfold and yet I am not afraid, not with him as my husband, not with him as my best friend. Yes, there are things that will be so hard to leave that I may cry the entire drive out of Las Vegas, but with Jimmy there to wipe my tears I know that as long as I have him I have "Home" with me.


So far all we know is:
We will be moving to Colorado,
Jimmy will be going back to school
We have someone who will rent our Condo

What we don't know today:
When we are leaving
Where Jimmy will work
If the kids and I will go first
lots of other small details

It's Coming HELP!

So I am coming up on my 100th Post and I want to do something fun but I am not sure what. I have seen a few different ideas and all I know is I want it to be simple and easy. How do you do the drawings through the comments? Anyone that is much more skilled than I in this area with a suggestion would be most appreciated!!! Thanks


UPDATE!! We are moving!!!!!!!! (More details to come)

Flashback Friday! Mom

Lately I have come across some old photos and I just love looking at them and realizing how young my Mom was and how fast time flies. I guess as a kid you always think whatever your parents age, they are an adult and usually old. Well in these pictures my mom is in her early thirties, HELLO I am not too far off!!

The one of her reading is perhaps one of my all time favorite pictures of her because my Mom has always loved to read. I think that in Heaven (although she is not allowed to die until after I do :) ) she will have a chair in a room filled with great books! I especially love the calm on her face, no stress, no worries, no kids circling just a young women enjoying some time alone with a book (well except for the one taking the picture). I don't know a lot about the story behind the picture but I love it!

This picture is another that I love, when I was little I loved the swings and some of my fondest memories are of my Mom or Dad doing an "Underdog" it's the word we used to describe my parents pushing us and then running underneath. I loved that feeling in my stomach as the swing flew back and then forward again, I felt like I was flying!

In this last picture my Mom is holding me and then my two older sisters are standing in front, I am not quite sure who the little blond girl is. This picture made me realize just how much my Mom had her hands full. In this picture I am not yet 1 and Janna (the oldest) was 4 and Alyssa 2, I have Grace who is 4 and James is 6 months she had three that were closer in age than my last two! I know, I know there are many of you out there with kids close in age as well but it just put things into perspective and made me appreciate what she did even more!

Love you Mom!