Question for You

Ok. I do have pictures to post but I thought I'd better post without this morning and get something new on my blog since it's been a whole week. I worked out 3x last week (3 days in a row and took the kids swimming on Thursday after I had already worked out that morning). I was pretty proud of myself and was tired but not really sore. I even tried a rpm class (spinning) and felt like I got such a good cardio workout (the seat was too hard and I had one of only 2 padded seat covers!). We had a fun date night with the Harkers and the Bybees - shopping (Cam got new shoes), dinner at Red Lobster and then volleyball at the Harkers building with some other couples. It was so fun. I had always wanted to play with Tammy and Meredith. I could tell my body pump class had helped my arm strength because I was able to serve without pain and I even served out the back a few times! I haven't done that in years. Boy have I got some new discovered muscles. I took the kids shopping for some new clothes on Wednesday and we had a memorable time at the mall including Mia tripping while running in Childrens Place and spliting her lip open and gushing blood all over her face and my hands. I only had a diaper in my purse and held that to her face to stop the bleeding. It finally stopped and we ran to Macy's too clean up. She had a fat lip with a scab on them for days after. She is finally looking back to normal. Then on Saturday I was trying to get some laundry done plus helping the girls clean out the playroom and closets and I went into my closet to get some more clothes for another load and I accidently pulled on the iron cord and it fell right on my head!!! I think it took me a second to process what had happened and that it really hurt! Then I screamed at the girls because they weren't cleaning (not my best moment) and realized I was bleeding. Then I called and screamed at Cameron for not keeping the cord out of the way of the laundry basket! I had a headache for hours. Not sure why I didn't take advil earlier. My head is still tender but there doesn't really seem to be a scab or anything.

Ok here is what I need help with: My ankles and hands seem to always be swollen. Why is that? Cameron said I must get too much salt or not enought water (I doubt both of those) because this has been going on for months. My ring that Cameron gave me for our anniversary is a 7 (I always thought I was a 6.5) and my socks leave rings around my ankles daily. Yuck. But I don't think they look swollen. Do you guys have any ideas for me? What can I do? I know the obvious would be to go to a doctor. But I'd like some idea of what I could try before that one. Anyways. Let me know. . . Ok. Now this is an edited part that I'm adding. I think I'm just fatter and older. That is the obvious explanation. I was just hoping it wasn't that. That's life I guess.

More from our weekend!

I was in a hurry this morning (and being pushed off the computer by Chelsea who wanted to play games on her new favorite website: Barbie.com) so I didn't get all my pictures downloaded and all my journaling done before I posted. So here I go with our weekend continued:

This is Mia enjoying some of her candy in Grandma's living room!

This is the Easter Bunny after he got done hiding eggs! I saw him while I was standing in the living room and took these pictures through the window. Then the kids saw him and chased after him. Mia was sad that the bunny was gone. She kept saying "where'd the bunny go?"

Chelsea(24th turned 5) and Janelle(22nd turned 9) with the fancy cupcakes I made them to celebrate their birthdays.

This Weekend

We started off with no school on Friday! We had Chelseas 5th birthday party that day. I made it easy on myself and let her invite 3 friends plus an extra helper for me to go shopping and to ice cream. I gave them each a purse with $5 in it (since she was turning 5) and took them to Claire's in the mall and let them pick whatever they wanted. After that we went to Dairy Queen in the mall and they all picked out an treat. Then I drove them all home! It was pretty easy and they all had fun since I don't think they are usually let loose to pick whatever they want in a store like that. My girls came home with high school musical jewelry, easter necklaces, headbands and a Hannah Montana wig (Morg bought with her own money she brought). They were really happy and want to shop there again.

Joceyln Ashton, Morgan, Afton Harker, Chelsea, Shanalee Wolf, Heather Peterson, Mia

At the mall to spend their money!!!

Easter Morning. Don't you love their Easter baskets? It hardly felt like Easter since their baskets and decor were stuck in our Othello storage unit.

New Easter clothes.

Hunting for eggs on a windy spring day in Mattawa.

Sneak Peek!

Ok. I know you guys are all dying to see what my house plans look like;)!!! Since I could think of nothing else to blog about and I've had complaints that people are tired of checking on my blog and only seeing my manly husbands bum- I will blog this:

Here is my future kitchen and great room. Who knows when it will actually become reality but I am hoping that it will be by Christmas time. The pantry that you can only see the beginning of is about the size of my girls room right now! So it will be so nice for stocking up on food. We are being the owner/builder so we have lots of work to do. I have a bid for framing and have the plans out to bid for lumber and trusses. Cameron is working on getting the road approved to get to the house. We're moving to Othello to be on the farm again. Any suggestions? I am actually meeting with the architect tomorrow night to make some minor changes and have the final sets of plans printed so I can get more bids for the other major stuff.

I know . . .

you're all going to be jealous! But I married a "real" man. Although this particular task did take years of convincing that it needed to be done. Ever since I first set foot in this house over 5 years ago I wanted new light fixtures since the ones installed by the builder were the cheapest available. But we only managed to replace our bedroom ones (1970s bug catchers) and the dining room. Finally now that we will be putting our house on the market asap I've convinced him that it would show better with some decent lighting. So I purchased them and he went to work. We weren't sure how he'd get the chandelier down but he managed it what I think is a manly and, for me, scary way.

Cameron starting to work.

Doesn't this look scary?

The new chandelier and you can see the new light in the upstairs hallway plus the paint job.

This is the painting project soon after I started.

Cameron got all of the lights up but two. One of which I decided I wanted to go back to Lowe's and get a different one and one chandelier for the staircase which our ladder is too short for him to reach. As you can see I also did some painting downstairs this month. I had to stop where I did because if I didn't it would be never ending and I'd have to paint all the way up to the hallway upstairs. I think it looks pretty good with the 2 colors. So as you can see Cameron is an amazing husband when it comes to handy work! (not the painting though - that is my job)

How'd you get your name?

My sisters blog on Tuesday told how everyone in her family got their name. It was interesting. And something good to journal (since I plan to one day print my blog and put it in a journal). So here it goes.

As some of you know I grew up in a family of R and M names: Robert (Dad), Marilynn (mom), Russell, Melisa, Robynn, Michelle, Ryan, Megan, Rebecca. My name obviously needed to be an M name. I remember my Mom telling me one of her other choices was Meredith but other than that I'm not exactly sure how she ended up with Megan. She'll have to finally comment and tell me.

So Cameron and I started our family with Collin Dean. Cameron wanted to name him Dean and I wanted Collin so that is how we ended up with that name. Everyone thought he should have a family name but Cameron didn't want to name him Collin Cameron. Dean is his brother Kerry's middle name and my uncle Carls middle name (but he is definitely not named after Carl). Looking back now we realized we should have named him Cameron Jr. because he couldn't be more like Cameron. Morgan came next and I had a long list of names and out of the list Morgan was the one Cameron liked so we stuck with that. We named her Morgan Rebecca after my twin sister. When it came time to come up with a name for Chelsea again I had a list I think narrowed down to about 3. The other names were Chloe or Savannah. Anyways, I told Cameron if he choose a C name we'd have to stick with the pattern of C M that we had accidently started (like my parents accidently started R M). Cameron choose Chelsea and I picked Lynn as her middle name. I wanted it to be after my mom, Marilynn but I thought that sounded way too long so I just used the end of her name. A few of my good friends in high school (Jen and Christie) both had the middle name Lynn and I thought it sounded cute with Chelsea. Mia was pretty easy to pick. It had to be an M name at this point and that was my favorite. Really I began liking the name after watching the disney movie "Princess Diaries" so many time with the girls since the main character played by Ann Hathaway is named Mia in it. Since we had used Rebecca and Lynn middle names from my family we decided Mia's middle name should come from his side and named her Mia Jane after his Mom. The girls name in my family growing up did not have a middle name (mine is now my maiden name). I didn't like not having a middle name so I gave my girls one. Oh I forgot to tell how Cameron got his name. The story that I've heard as that his name originally was Clyde after his paternal Grandfather. He was called that for the first few weeks of his life until his baby blessing were Val (his Dad) was inspired to instead name him Cameron. He said that name instead of Clyde during the blessing and that has been his name ever since. I'm glad because I'm not sure I could have married a Clyde. Sounds like an old mans name to me. I'm not sure how he got the middle name Lon. Guess Jane will have to fill me in on that one.

So that is how our names came to be.

Weekend Pictures

Finally!!! I have tried at least 5x to post this pictures on Monday and Tuesday and it kept failing! So here they are. Mason, Chelsea, Morgan and Mia at Howard Amon park. Can you tell who's nap time it is?
We're so excited!!! We went to the park 2 days in a row.
Mia - taking a break
Here is the pile of tumble weeds that we had collected in our yard. We moved them across the street on Saturday. Can you see Collin in the middle of them?!
Morgan - working hard cleaning the driveway

Our weekend

This weekend I babysat our nephew, Mason. He is 3 years old (almost exactly a year older than Mia) but his size makes you think he is 4. Kip and Gigi went out of town for the weekend so we had him Thursday through Sunday and Regan and Ben from Friday on. I think Collin liked having more boys in the house. Cameron and I thought that 7 kids under the age of 10 is a bit crazy! We won't be trying for that ever!! We'd have to have triplets next year for it to even be possible. But the kids all had a good time. Mia loved having her buddy Mason around for a few days. And overall it was pretty easy.

To get out of the house I decided to take the kids to Howard Amon park on Friday afternoon. Collin went with Cameron to work after school and then we headed to the park. It was a pretty nice day and we hadn't been to this park since last spring. They were remodeling it then and it is sooo much better now. The kids all had a great time so we decided to go back again the next day. Cameron took the 3 boys to work with him so I never had to go anywhere with all of them other than church. I'm going to have to be better about taking the kids to the park. We brought a lunch on Saturday and enjoyed a couple of hours there. Too bad I couldn't find anyone to go with me. Later we did yard work as a family since it was the first really nice day that Cameron was home.

We did get a date night on Friday. We left Regan and Collin in charge while we went out to a quick dinner to Anthony's. Cameron was cleaning out his desk at work this week and found a $100 gift card to there that he got for Christmas and had somehow forgotten about. So the dinner was even better knowing we weren't paying for it. We even have leftover money so we can go again (but not enough for both of us to eat).

I've been trying to download pictures all morning for this but it keeps telling me there is an error. I'll just go ahead and post this and add pictures later.

Peaceful Sleep

So last night I randomly decided to take pictures of my family sleeping. I, as usual, was the last one to sleep. So first Cameron, then Collin and then I go into the girls room (lights off) and snap a picture knowing that with the flash the picture will turn out. So then I go in the hall to check out my handy work and looking closely realized that Mia was diaperless!!! Totally exposing her lower half to me in the picture!!!!!!

Aaaaaaahhhh!!! What is this girlie doing! Luckily things were dry and I was able to slip a diaper on her without disturbing how cute they looked all squished together. My 3 girls have to share a queen size bed at the moment. Mia was in a portacrib but she was always climbing out. So rather than risking an accident I put it away and pulled out the crib mattress to lay on the floor. That last one night. After that she decided she would rather lay in the middle of the girls and has been there ever since (about a month or so). This week I decided to turn the girls sideways on the bed hoping they'd get a bit more room but as you can see they still squished themselves together!!Anyways, back to taking pictures. I think my random thought to take pictures was a bit of inspiration since I never would have checked her so closely had I not had the picture to do so. If I hadn't things would have been a wet mess in the middle of the night! This picture here at the side is from her outfit change during naptime yesterday. This time Chelseas shirt and Morgans skirt. Doesn't she look so stylish?

Typical Mia

Mia in her favorite jammie nightgown that she'll wear all day long if we don't hide it. In her swimsuit that she put on herself. She thinks it should be summer all year long so we can go swimming every day. I had to put the swimsuits where she couldn't reach them so she wouldn't wear them every day. She found this one in the laundry because we did actually swim at the racquet club that week. She screamed happily "my swimming" loud while she was using the noodle to swim by herself. She was so proud (she usually uses water wings but she has broken but the one pictured here).

Well, my mother in law, Jane, after baby sitting Mia overnight called Mia the "walking tornado." We've always called her "messy Mia." But I think Jane's name really fits her. She causes chias where ever she goes. She typically changes her clothes 3 or more times a day. Usually into jammie nightgowns, any of Chelsea or Morgans clothes - perferably their skirts and shirts, t-shirt style dresses or her favorite tinkerbell dress up. When she is not making messes she is usually sitting in front of the TV with her blanket watching Dora with her fingers in her mouth.

So the whole reason I decided to do this post was because, as is typical of Mia the past few months, I went in to get Mia from her nap (I have to wake up up 4 days a week to go get Chelsea from preschool) and she was once again not wearing what she was wearing when she went down to nap. This time she chose Chelsea's High School Musical shirt and Cheeta skirt (inside out) that had been folded and were awaiting Chelsea to actually put them away. So even though I was in a hurry I decided that I had better capture the moment with a few pictures of her typical routine. She looked so cute (minus the fact she didn't let me do her hair after her bath this morning) !So now it is only 3:45 in the afternoon and she has made many changes. I should have documented them all. They are as follows: the jammies she woke up in, then Dora nightgown, brown pants and flowered shirt, then this HS shirt/skirt outfit, pink dress up quickly changed into tinkerbell when she found it, now a blue church dress. So that makes 6 changes and I'm sure this is not the end of it. So if you can imagine I have lots of her laundry to wash (although that is where she sometimes chooses her clothes from - the dirty laundry basket). Although she causes me a lot of extra work most days she also brings a smile to my face over and over again!! You can't help but love Mia.

House Plans

So we are finally doing it. Not that it is started yet so it still could change. But we had our house plans drawn up and now that is all I can think about. I'm sure my friends are sick of hearing my one tract mind. I'm spending every free minute (and ones that shouldn't be free) on the internet (really my favorite - no pressure - place to shop) finding what I want for our house. Saving favorite pictures and ideas into a file. I got a bid on the framing. Since we are planning on being the contractor (to save us lots) I've got more to do than I even want to imagine. So if you think I'm being unsocial or something it is only because I'm working on these plans and trying to get our home now ready to sell. We plan to put it on the market this month and who knows exactly where will end up if it sells asap. So now everyone is in the know with what I'm up to at the moment. Now I've got to get back to picking out my doors and windows!

10 Things every women needs in her closet

I was watching Oprah a week or so ago and some stylist or something made this list of what we all need in our closet. The classics. Things that can go with everything (like the trends and mix and match). Bec asked me to post this list since I was telling her about it. I don't have everything on the list so I thought as I go shopping this year I'm going to look out and hopefully buy the ones I don't. So here is the list I wrote. Maybe on Oprah's website you could get the real list but I'm sure this is accurate. I recorded the show so I was able to pause and rewind so I could make sure I got everything right.

10 things every women needs:

1. Trench coat (I believe they said belted - I don't have but am looking for one in my price range)
2. black or white turtleneck (don't have either)
3. black pants with fuller legs to balance hips (I just bought some that fit- I got a great pair on clearance at Anne Taylor loft for $19.88 reg. $89. I had some I liked but sadly don't fit since having Mia)
4. Tunic (they showed a white one and I don't have one)
5. white jeans (I was shocked by this one - I'm not sure I'll get until my kids are out of their messy years)
6. dark jeans (I have lots of these- they recommended washing inside out to keep the color dark longer)
7. black dress (got this one coverd)
8. white denim jacket or a really dark, dark denim (again I was a bit surprised b/c I thought these were kind of out but they showed a few looks and they really did go with everything)
9. black skirt (I have one I really like but I'd also like more of a black pencil skirt - again I have one in a size too small)
10. timeless cashmere sweater (don't have this either - but would be nice if I could find one that didn't cost over $100)

They also said something about the trends and said everyone should have an oversize white handbag (I looked for one at TJ Maxx and Marshalls but still haven't found the perfect one - I ended up with a fun oversized black one though) and fun flats (like Leopard or colors)

So that is the list. I am going to try to break out of my Tshirt and jeans onsemble I wear most everyday and get something with a bit more style. I can see things I like but don't feel like they always fit into my lifestyle of stay at home Mom and farmers wife!! Sundays are about the only day I feel really stylish. I have some cute dresses and nice high heels (my primary class of girls love all my shoes).

I got to get back to my house. I have been painting. When I get my house put back together I'll post pictures of my handy work.