Megan Strikes Again...

We went to dinner at OutBack Friday night. Usually they give us a booth, but this time we were seated at one of the round tables that can seat eight to ten people. Dinner was great and we all had a good time. As we were leaving Megan says "Mom, did you see how big and wide that table was?" I said "Oh yes! That was a great table". "Well, thats how big your head is" she told me....

Thirteen Things about My Daughters 1. UP until I had Faith the kids were named in alphbetical order; Ashley, Debra, Jessica and Megan. I didn't even know it until a friend pointed it out. 2. Every other one of my children is afraid of the dark (Ashleys not, Debra is, Jessicas not, Megan is, Faith is too little to tell). 4. Also every other one has cried when they started school. (Ashley did not etc...) 5. Debra, Jessica and Megan have all had nightmares about the movie The Ring. Which their Father let them watch when I wasn't home. 6. Barney was a new show when Ashley was around three or four, and all of my kids have loved him. I have now suffered through about 14 years of Barney). 7. None of my children like pork chops. 8. All of the girls have had a pink room at one time or another. Which means we have never had a time when there wasn't a pink room in our house. 9. Debra and Jessica both fell and got stiches in their forheads at the age of two. 10. None of the girls (or me)have ever broken a bone. 11. All of my girls struggle with math. 12. none of my girls like nuts on their ice cream sundaes, but they all love cherries. 13. All of my children are absolutely spoiled rotten..... Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)


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Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Silly Things I do... 1.I am a compulsive rhymer. It makes my younger kids laugh and it embarasses my older ones (my favorites are silly billy, crazy baizy, honey bunny) 2. I call all my kids sweetie bugs. 3. I sing very loud, but I always sing the wrong words so everyone knows when I mess up (and we all laugh and laugh). 4. Instead of saying Wal-Mart I call it Wally-Mar and a soda is a sody. 5. Our baby sucks a pacifier and I call it a ninny. 6. I drink tons of water and I always ask someone else to make it for me, but I don''t ask for a cup of water, I ask for a freshie... 7. I am very forgetful. I have come up with several ways to help myself remember, but then I forget to do them. 8. I can't sleep with socs on, but when I am running around the house my feet must be covered. 9. I am afraid to go under water without holding my nose. 10. I have never in my life dived head first into water. 11. I can not sleep without my body pillow. My husband claims he hates it, but sometimes I catch him trying to use it. 12. If I know someone has a secret I can't stand them not telling me. 13. My five year old and I have secret names for eachother that no one else knows. And instead of a cool hand shake we have a cool kiss we do at bedtime (we hold hands, kiss eachother on each cheek, then one kiss on the lips, then hug and then three quick kisses on the lips). Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants



Wordless Wednesday

Works for Me Wednesday

Dishes, Dishes, Dishes....

Atleast three times a day my kitchen sink is filled with cups. It seems every time one of the children get another drink they use another cup. What my sink is not full of though, is silverware. Every few weeks I find myself buying more forks and spoons. The best I can figure is when the children clean their plates they are accidentally throwing the silverware away. After years of washing too many cups and not enought silverware I finally came up with an idea. I went to Wal-Mart and bought each child their own plate, bowl, cup, fork and spoon. Each child has a different color (the younger ones have strawberry shortcake and care bears). Each child is responsible for and only allowed to use their own dishes. If they lose their forks or spoons they have to wait until I go back to the store to get a new one. I've been doing this for years and I've never had to buy new silverware more than once and my sink is never full of cups.....This idea has saved me lots of frustration and money....It works for me....

Wow its hot....

My goodness, today is another scorcher! It's been one of those weeks where you either go swimming or you just stay inside. Staying inside doesn't sound too bad. There are plenty of chores to catch up on; clean carpets, scrub down walls, catch up on paper work etc, etc.... The only problem with stayng inside is that the kids are in here too.. Its only been a few hours but they've already gottnen in trouble for rough housing, jumping on my bed, arguing and giving eachother wedgies, yes thats right my precious little ladies are giving eachother wedgies..... Forget the chores, forget the air conditioning it looks like we are heading for the pool.....

Books I've read and really liked over the past two weeks....


































Setting Limits with your Strong Willed Child by Robert J. MacKenzie:This book was ofcourse bought and read because I have the worlds strongest willed child, otherwise known as Megan. I really enjoyed this book. I found it to very very informative and I was able to relate to and use the tips in this book. On a five star scale, I give it five stars.

Hollywood Wives The New Generation by Jackie Collins: I always enjoy her books. They are like getting with a good friend and gossiping the day away. This book is ofcourse about the new generation of Hollywood wives. There was love and betrayal amidst lots of money and sex.... Loved, loved, loved it. I give it four stars.

Motion to Supress by Perri O'Shaughnessy: This is the first of three books about Nina Reilly. This recently divorced and newly single mother finds herself representing the defendant of a high profile murder case. I liked this book right up until the end. I didn't find the ending (the solving of the case) to be believable. It seemed a bit far fetched. I will however check out the next book in this series. I give this book four stars too.

The Backwoods by Edward Lee: This was the most sexually violent book I have read in a very long time. I must say Mr. Lee is not at all afraid to let his imagination run wild. This book is not for those with weak stomachs. It is about a woman who returns to her backwoods home for her brother in laws funeral. His gruesome murder is the first of many.... I give this book four and half stars.

I definitely reccomend everyone of these books. I will be sure to get more books by these authors in the very near future.

How to have 15 Extra Days a Year

If you always feel harried and harassed to get everything done in your life, think about getting up just one hour earlier every day for a year, you will add 15 entire days to your life to get things done, according to Leif Hokanson of Personal Best Consulting.

Just a thought

Do you ever feel like you just give and give and give? You give of yourself and of your time. You give selflessly and tirelessly. You do this time and time again and absolutely nobody appreciates it?


The definition of instanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting to recieve a different result. So I ask you:


Do you ever feel like you just give and give and give? You give of yourself and of your time. You give selflessly and tirelessly. You do this time and time again and absolutely nobody appreciates it?


The definition of insantiy is to do the same thing over and over again expecting to recieve a different result. So I ask you:


Do you ever....

These are pictures of us on the fourth of July. Booga invited us to his house for swimming, cook out and fire works. We had a great time. Thanks Booga!

I'm Mobile...

Oh my goodness everyone! After almost 10 months our baby Faith is finally mobile. We didn't think she would ever crawl. As a matter of fact we didn't think she would ever do anything. With four older sisters, she would just look at something and cry until somebody brought it to her. Now seemingly overnight she crawls, pulls herself into a standing position, waves bye bye, says look (she actually says gook), baby and ba-ba. She also gives hugs and kisses, and for some crazy reason whenever shes trying to do something she sticks her little tongue out. She fell off the step the other day and got her first boo-boo. Her little nose is scratched. We have been trying to get her to blow kisses but she won't do it.. She has also started sleeping through the night. yippeee! She weighs 21 pounds and is 23 inches long (shes quite the little porker). She is the absolute joy of everyone in our house and never not ever has there been a more spoiled baby!

Belly Dancing

Anyone out there familiar with Shakira? She is a belly dancing bombshell from Columbia, made famous by her song such as "hips dont lie". In her "hips don't lie" video she is wearing next to nothing and dancing so provocatively I am amazed the television does not catch on fire. The picture shown here does not do Shakira justice. The woman reeks of sexual innuendo and she is absolutely georgous. I am not talking about Shakira because I am a huge fan, I am talking about her because my children are huge fans, especially my oldest daughter Ashley (shes 17).

Immediatly after seeing the "hips don't lie" video Ashley was determined to learn to belly dance. I was equally determined that she would not learn to belly dance. I told her belly dancing seemed a little too provocative for a young lady and I was against it. Ashley was furious. She honestly didn't understand my point. She said I was being unfair and narrow minded about belly dancing. She pointed out that she was allowed to take hip-hop dance classes and they were as provacative as belly dancing. I of course said "no more hip-hop classes".

I have been a Mother for seventeen years now. I have five beautiful daughters. In raising them I have learned that giving them knowledge is power. Not just for them but for me. If they know the reasoning behind my decisions they are less likely to argue about them. If they know that the points I am making are valid they are more accepting of my decisions. The times I have trouble geting the girls to take no for an answer are normally the times that I didn't explain my reasons for saying no, or the times that my reasons were not very reasonable. Just because I wouldn't choose it or I wouldn't do it, doesn't mean its wrong. Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean its bad. So when Ashley kept on and on about belly dancing I tried to think of the best way to explain to her why it was not a good idea. I figured if she could just understand my reasons she would stop fighting me about this.

So I thought about what I didn't like about belly dancing. I decided to weigh the pros and cons. In the con list I had Shakira and her video. I also had hmmmm..... well nothing. I remember the old time movies of ladies belly dancing, but they didn't seem so bad. Then of course theres I dream of Jeannie, I believe she belly danced at times, but can you consider I dream of Jeannie bad? I didn't think so. I tried to think of any stories on the news in which a teenager learns to belly dance and some terrible crime happens to them, but I couldn't recall any such story. It seemed I was having trouble convincing myself that belly dancing was bad, no wonder Ashley didn't understand.

Could it be that I was being unfair and narrow minded about belly dancing? Did I see one aspect of a situation and immediatly jump to a conclusion? Did I take one look at Shakira and decide that if Ashley took belly dancing she would turn into a sexy bomb shell from Columbia? Well it seems that I did.

I decided to do a little more research on belly dancing and I found this wonderful site. Did you know that belly dancing was originally a dance performed by and for woman only? They did it to help pass the time. I also watched a belly dancing class. It was a small class with woman of all ages. And while some of them were pretty good, none of them will ever be Shakira.

Ashleys birthday was July 2nd. The gift we gave her was belly dancing classes. She is very excited about it. I still feel a little worried. I have visions of her swinging her hips around the next family cook out, or worse, at the next teen party! But like all things in life, we give our children all the knowledge we have and hope they use it properly.


Thirteen people that really make me mad...

1. People who are only out for themselves. You know the ones; they act nice and sweet right up until they get what they want.

2. Greedy people. Hey, if you do for me, I won't do for you.

3. Mean people. People who honestly don't have a sympathetic bone in their worthless bodies.

4. Gossips. The ones who act so friendly and caring, and then as soon as they get hold of any personal information they drag your name trough the mud.

5. Smart ass people. The ones who think they are so much smarter, therefore so much better than others.

6. Moochers. People who always expect something for nothing.

7. Liars.

8. Advantage takers. People who will find a way to get something even if they don't need it, with no regard for the person they are taking from.

9. People who take advantage of their children. Example: people who make their kids pay bills that are not the kids responsibilities.

10. Rude people.

11. Haters. People who hate to see someone else do well and will do whatever they can to ruin it.

12. Jealous people.

13. Ugly people and I don't mean looks. I mean the peson who is everything on this list, and knows it.




Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)




Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants



Summer Reading Challenge

Happy fourth of July weekend everyone.....
I did get some reading done this week.
I finally got some books worth reading and
thanks to Roys hospitality the kids and I had
lots of hours at the pool this week.