Friday, July 27, 2007

Kelli Coffey Video

A tear jerker of a video I spotted on one of the blogs I frequent. Fixed the link. :o)

Click Here

Wegerzyn Gardens

I took the little ones to a playdate at Wegerzyn Gardens. There is a very cool children's garden there. We wandered through, checking things out. Teagan liked the bridge that went over the fish pond. Tatum liked the music garden. They both had fun playing in the sand box, but their favorite was definitely the waterfall and stream.


Teagan was fascinated by the animal fountains. They spray water every couple minutes. He just knew water was going to come out of there.
Ahh, water!
He and this little girl just laughed and laughed at this turtle.
Wrangling the turtle

The cave
They had fun chasing each other through the cave too.


Tatum teaching Teagan the fine art of increasing water pressure.
Oh, there are puddles too!





More park pics

These are all pics from our trip to Sycamore State Park.Yes, Travis does need a haircut.


Eww, this rock is yucky, Mama.
The only one brave enough to stand on the rickety old bridge.
Can you read the T shirt? Yes, sarcastic parents do get their payback in the form of sarcastic children.

Searching for rocks to toss in the water.

Tanner really thought he could catch minnows by hand.


A Walk in the Woods

We took the kids out for a hike at Sycamore State Park last week. A wee bit of time with nature. Of course, when we got back to the van after an hour or so, they were all about the technology, begging for the AC and to turn the DVD player on. Ugh, my poor techno starved children. I tried to tell them how my brother and sister and I spent hours walking through these woods and playing in the creeks, catching crawdads in summer, and falling through the ice in winter, when we were growing up. While they had fun, they weren't all that impressed.
Tatum, Dad, Teagan, Travis and Tanner

When Teagan figured out Tanner could carry him on his shoulders, he didn't want to go back to Dad. Brotherly love! Tanner wasn't too keen on Teagan sticking his fingers in his mouth though, especially considering, he'd just been tossing dirty rocks into the creek.


Saturday, July 21, 2007

Summer Fun

Today was pretty warm out, so the kids begged to play in the water. As you can tell from the pics, even Buddy got in on the fun.

Tatum was not too happy about getting splashed by Teagan, but he thought it was hilarious.
You'll notice they didn't want to sit in the water. Apparently, it was too cold.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Four letter word

You know which one I mean. The one that starts with D. The really bad one....... DEBT!

Bobby and I, okay, I took a look at our debt about a year and a half ago, and I was appalled. You know, when you look at your bills individually, as they come in the mail, it doesn't seem so bad. But if you put it on a spreadsheet and total ALL of your debt together, it's enough to give you a heart attack. And this is just consumer debt I'm talking about. I'm not including the mortgage.

Anyway, I was determined to start digging us out from this hole we are in. After all, "The debtor is in servitude to the one who lends to him". So, we came up with a semi plan. We started with a budget and try to stick with it, although we are both bad about dining out. We don't live as frugally as we could, but we haven't added any more debt. I don't think we have used our credit cards in over 6 months. I always pay more than the minimums, even if it's just a little. Then last month, we sold our boat. While we did enjoy taking it out as a family, last month was June and we hadn't used it once this year. It was $16,000 debt for a few months of enjoyment. So, it's gone. Off to Kentucky with a couple that is retiring and can enjoy it more. Next, we paid off a couple credit cards and said bye bye to our outrageous interest. Now, to cut them up. And today, our Suburban met it's new owner. Now, this was really hard for Bobby because he loved that truck. And I have to admit, it was a gorgeous truck. But it really clashed with my closet environmentalist beliefs. Less debt, less gas. Win-win. Plus, he refuses to sell the motorcycle so....... c'est la vie!

Unfortunately, this has made us a one vehicle family for the moment (one paid for vehicle). Well, three vehicle actually but I don't see myself driving the RV to work, or the motorcycle to the grocery store. :op We will be paying cash for our next vehicle. No more financing.

We have little remaining in credit card debt, but add in the two remaining financed vehicles, my student loans, and the darn timeshare...... (if anyone offers you a free 2 night stay just for sitting through a 90 minute info session, just say no!)

The good news is, despite the sacrifices, our heads are sticking up out of the hole. $34,000 worth out of the whole!!!

Thursday, July 05, 2007

The aftermath

So after I ran across the yard to pick up the crying toddler, I noticed that his forehead was covered in blood. I didn't get a before pic for obvious reasons. Who wants to hold off an injured kid just to get a pic, and who wants to see a bleeding toddler anyway? This was about 10 minutes later. You see he was over it rather quickly. He even said cheese when he saw the camera. And no, he doesn't have red highlights. That is blood in his hair. He was not too keen on me rubbing it out, so it will have to wait for bath time.
Can you make out the small gash on the right side of his scalp? Yeah, apparently head wounds do bleed more. I washed his forehead and held a cold rag to this spot for about 30 seconds and the bleeding stopped.
You probably can't tell in this pic, but he does have the beginning of a small goose egg above his right eye. How can falling off one step cause so much damage?

What is that?

Teagan and I spent some time in the yard. We were weeding and planting. Well, I was weeding. Teagan was pulling up my sedum. We planted this meadow sage along our back fence. It was home to a couple tomato plants and a cucumber last year, but has been empty up until today. This is the opposite side of the fence. I think I planted 2 coneflowers, 2 coreopsis, 2 achillea, and 2 of something else two summers ago. It's starting to look a little chaotic now.
Anyway, the question of the day is, what the heck is this? I have been concentrating on weeding the actual garden. Since this has been growing back by the compost bin, I have just ignored. Don't let the picture deceive you. Whatever it is, it is about 5 feet tall with a stalk as thick as a tree branch. Any ideas? Behind it, you can just barely make out the pumpkin plant that appears to be growing in last years compost heap. So much for throwing out the jack o lanterns.
Here is a close up of the flowering part. While I was back there, trying to figure out what this is, Teagan was standing on the back step, yelling at me to come make him a drink. Apparently, I was taking too long. He attempted to come get me but tumbled off the last step instead.

Happy Birthday Payton!


Yes, I am a bad aunt and missed my niece's 3rd birthday at the end of June. So here's a shout out to Payton!!! Hope you had a happy day, girl! I know your Mom and Dad are on the move from Texas to Alabama, so hopefully someday soon, we'll get to hang out.

Happy Late 4th!

We went to the Preble County Fairgrounds for some small town fun on the 4th of July. The kids enjoyed some time in those big inflateable jumpy things, and took a ride on the tractor train. If you've ever been to a Fall farm festival, you know what kind of train I'm talking about. There was festival food, of course. Travis opted for nachos, while Tanner and I went for the walking tacos. Tatum and Teagan had chips and bites of ice cream. That's nutritious, right? I think those count as a veggie and dairy, no? Bobby had a really yummy pulled pork sandwich. Nothing better than food out of a rolling trailer, I say.

They saved the best for last, of course. We headed over to the grand stand for the fireworks display. They started right before 10 pm and lasted 15-20 minutes. It was a pretty cool display for a small town. I was impressed. But then, I LOVE fireworks. Am I the only one who has tear jerking, heart pounding euphoric moments when exposed to fireworks and marching bands? Yeah, I'm weird.

Anyway, I forgot my camera which just sucked. These firework pics would have been so much cooler as we were sitting right underneath them. Maybe next year.

Monday, July 02, 2007

July 1

Yesterday, we went to Krista's house. She needed a bunch of handy man type stuff done, and since she is a single woman, she took advantage of her BIL. We took advantage of going over there to have a family cook out. Of course, dumb me, couldn't find my camera until we were ready to go home. So these are the after math. Teagan had to get cleaned up after playing in the stick pile (for the fire pit). Krista didn't think far enough in advance to get Smore fixin's, so we had to settle for Killer Brownies from DLM. Thank God for Mom because Krista tried to feed us healthy food. :op
After we left Krista's, we parked down by the river to see the firework show. That black abyss behind Tatum is the river. It's too dark to make out the family of ducks swimming along.
Okay, so the firework pics didn't turn out so well, but you get the point. This is from my vantage point in the truck. It was too cold to stand outside. Yes, too cold, in Ohio, in July.