New York, New York

Start spreading the news
We leave in July (probably)
We want to be a part of it,
New York, New York
This family of almost 7
Is longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York
We want to sleep through the night in the city that never sleeps
To find we're king of the hill, top of the heap

These little town blues (cuz you know how small Houston is)
Are melting away
We'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If we can make it there
We'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York.

The Livestock Show

Trent's parents and his sister Melissa came in town for Easter weekend. On Good Friday, we headed over to the Livestock show. It is nice having someone else with you so that we can have a few pictures of the whole family!

Adam loved test driving all the big tractors!

The girls loved petting the bunnies!

Easter Morning

We have church at 8:00 am. Every Sunday it is a challenge to get everyone ready and there on time. I told the kids we probably would not have time to look for eggs and their baskets until after church. I told them, we could only do it before church if they were all completely ready! So here they are at 7:00 am, completely ready for church and patiently waiting on the steps to go find their baskets and eggs. If only every week were Easter!

Adam was the hardest to photograph, he was either running, eating candy, or napping whenever we had the camera out. He had a great time and looked cute too, even if we don't have the best picture of him.

Look closely . . .

Look close to the right and you may discover something!

Things that make me laugh and things that don't

This made me laugh today . . . While driving home from HEB, there was a truck next to us-- a big ford f-350 King ranch edition covered in mud- driven by a man with a mullet, a ball cap and a yellow muscle shirt- holding a teacup poodle on his lap. I don't know why the little dog made me laugh so hard, but it just seemed so out of place. I am sure the pooch was wondering how it got there too!

This made me laugh yesterday . . . When driving past HEB, Julianne asked me what it stands for and I told her I didn't really remember. The founder of HEB (a grocery store) has a funny name in my opinion. His name is Harold E. Butt (but he goes by Harry). I just didn't want my kids thinking about Harry and his rear end.

This made me laugh . . . remembering the Redi - clinic that is so close and deciding to take Catherine there yesterday morning to see what was wrong with her (flu? strep??? ) instead of calling our dr who is still in Sugar Land, making an appointment, and driving 25 minutes each way. How convenient!

This didn't make me laugh . . . finding out that the Redi Clinic doesn't take our insurance and it would cost 69 dollars for the exam and that would not even include a flu or strep test.

This made me laugh . . . after driving to Sugar Land, seeing the regular dr, doing the flu test and strep test and being told she doesn't have either -- just a cold virus. (I am usually slow to take my kids in over normal symptoms, but with spring break starting I could just see the flu going through the whole house and the whole week being miserable)

This made me laugh . . . how great Catherine seemed to feel all day long. How come she couldn't have had even a tenth of that feel good energy in the middle of the night, when she was moaning and coughing and shivering and ensuring that I not sleep?????

This didn't make me laugh. . . when she woke up this morning at 2:00 am throwing up!

This made me laugh . . . finding that Nesquick makes an even larger size (I always have bought the 70 serving container and today HEB had an 85 serving MEGA container)

This didn't make me laugh . . . cleaning chocolate milk off my floor, table and chair legs after Adam spilled it everywhere this morning.

This made me laugh . . . realizing while grocery shopping that really, my favorite "comfort food" is Bob's Texas style Jalapeno chips.

This didn't make me laugh . . . that HEB didn't have any and so I settled for a jalapeno corn chip that while OK, is NOT the same.

I'm not dead!

It has been 8 days since my last post. And there has been a lot going on . . .

1. Hives -- gone -- I washed all her bedding (some of which was new- but had been on her bed for a week with no problem), made sure her bath wasn't too hot or too cold, made sure she wasn't going overboard with some different soap and then the fourth night she didn't get them and hasn't had them since. All the websites say most of the time no one knows what causes hives.
2. Our leather couch was approaching 1 year and one of the cushions seemed to be wearing a little more than the rest. I called and since it was under warranty they sent out a leather couch repairman and he touched it up beautifully. As he was leaving I asked for his name in case any of my friends or family needed anything done, since he had done such a nice job. I never suspected that 2 days later, one of my sweet young'uns would stick a really sticky bandaid on it and then rip it off taking off a small section of the top of the leather. But, he came again yesterday and it looks like new -- so if you ever need leather repaired I can give you a good name.
3. We had our 1 year anniversary in our new home. We closed on Feb 28, 2007. We had a home inspection, they came and touched everything up, did a few repairs, it was great! The house felt like new again. And then we had a huge rainstorm with a lot of wind and we got a leak. The funny thing is, we had this leak exactly 1 year ago. Apparently, when it rains on March 3, the wind blows a special way that it never blows at any other time in the year. They came a year ago and resealed the windows and a carriage light and we never had another problem until March 3rd rolled around again and then the same leak. Now it is not huge, but it is a problem. They came and checked it out and can't seem to find where it is coming from, so tomorrow they are spraying down the house with hoses and having a guy with infrared cameras come to be able to see through the walls. It is such a small leak that they don't want to tear up too much just trying to find it, so they are getting pretty high tech!
4. Many of you know about this -- but I haven't wanted to blog about something that is not 100% set in stone, but there may be a move in our near future (like really near) and I have been spending a lot of time on the phone, on the internet, looking at stuff . . . give me a week or two and I will post a lot of really good dramatic stuff. But it is just a little premature for now.
5. Trent has been working long, long, long, long, long, long (do you get the point????) hours and I think I get tired for him. I don't know how he does it, but the thought of what he is doing makes me yawn. So I think I have been sleeping more. You know, the kids are finally all in bed, I have laid with each of them and read a lot of boring books, I yawn everytime they yawn and then when they are all finally asleep, well . . . there is not much else to do, so I think I'll get in bed and read my scriptures . . . and well I try, really I do, but they just have a way about putting me right to sleep.
6. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, laundry, play with kids, help with piano, help with homework, play with kids, patch up "ow"ies, snacks, play, bike, parks, shop, get ready for spring break and easter, and all the other little things -- they just occupy time and space!

So really, sorry for the long hiatus (as madelyn would say "You took forever"). I'll try not to be forever again. And really as soon as everything is official, I'll have a big announcement coming up soon. So keep checking.

Contest Cancelled

I checked my email this morning and found that my adsense account has been disabled. This is what the email said.

"While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSenseaccount has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Sincekeeping your account in our publisher network may financially damageour advertisers in the future, we've decided to disable your account."

I read the FAQ's and they disable accounts when they can identify any user who appears to click for the sake of revenue generation and that user becomes a "risk" to their advertisers. So . . . sorry, contest over. Don't click on people's ads unless you really want to see what it is.