Crappy day at work. Bleh.

Off for a girls lunch with April. Olive Garden, makes my heart sing!

Father, Son and Friends playing

Worn out from a weekend at the games.

Caber  toss

The sound

On our way to a Celtic rock concert

The majestic sounds

Of a bagpipe band in full sound.

Off to work

Long day ahead but its all good. This weekend we're going to the Highland Games for Katlyns Birthday. I'm so excited!  I'm hoping her friend gets to come but if not, we'll make it super special for her.

This 'happy birthday ' will b better.

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Birthday bread! Yes, My birthday. :-)

life as we know it

so yeah, it takes me a while to remember to post. maybe I need to look into a quick post feature for my phone? hmmm...

things are trucking along here. working a lot, time with the family, searching for free time to do anything. not much of that these days.

Canaan gets his license next month! the official ones where he can drive by himself! yikes!!! I'm already praying and already worried. LOL! he's a good driver though, I just want him to remember that and not let teen idiocy get in his way. it will be a huge help with us though once he can drive on his own. between his baseball and work and our work and the other kids, having one that can get around on his own will be wonderful. I think he'll be surprised at how much he cant just "go" whenever or wherever he wants though. yeah, he's not making that much money right now only being able to work one or two days a week. ;)

he also goes and gets his 4 wisdom teeth taken out this friday (the 17th). its the 5th time we've had to reschedule the appt, so it better follow through this time. he's worried about it interfering with his Varsity ball practice, but he'll have a long weekend to recover, so NO, we're not going to reschedule!!

Garrett (the 5yo) recently got leg braces. he's a avid tip-toer and has been for years, so we're using those now to help stretch out his tendons in this legs. at first he liked them (they have spiderman on them!) but now he grumbles and complains. he does at least keep them on for the 2 hrs each night. buuuut, he'll be starting to wear them all night soon, so we'll see how THAT goes over with him.

other than that, he's been really good. I've been impressed with him at school. he's staying on blue the last almost month, I guess. he's picking up stuff so quickly now. I can really tell he likes kindergarten much more than he ever liked preschool. and with his tendency to get bored easily, this is very good!

Hunter is going for another perfect attendance school year. this will be his third one if he makes it. he's very proud of it too.  he's staying on honor roll, loves math stuff (GOT to get that from his daddy!! LOL) and is starting to like writing. He left a cute letter on my desk last night about a magazine he found that had super hero articles in it. he also signed it "your sweetheart, Hunter" ;) sweetness, huh?

Sarina is such a little diva. a good one though. LOL! that girl, I tell ya, you can tell she's the baby in the family and that she gets some coddling. Gavin can be the worst one to do it too. maybe that's why he's her favorite brother?? She can bring out the crocodile tears at the blink of an eye if someone does something to her (now this could be anything from sibling hitting to just not letting her have a piece of candy!). sometimes it gets really old. lol! 

she's a sweetie though, loves snuggling and getting loving. hams it up for the camera, loves her baby minnie mouse dolls and hello kitty. bows, frills, girlie things are her life for now, though she will keep her eyeballs glued to a nintendo ds if I let her! pouting ensues when it's taken away...

Gavin is starting to like middle school finally. he told me this himself last week. always a good sign. the kid talks constantly about drawing and mario. I DO mean constantly. I sure hope he gets a career in the art field because if he doesnt, its a good waste of vocabulary on his part. LMBO!! his grades are good, just a big of struggling with the math and social studies, but we're getting a handle on those too.

Katlyn has been our struggle. her grades go back and forth between in the toilet to doing well. honestly, I'm not sure if she'll pass the 9th grade at this point. we've done all the things we can think of except letting her fail herself and I'm on the verge of letting it happen. I cant do the girls homework for her and the only reason its not been done is her own laziness. yes and I'm sure of that.  might sound harsh to some, but we've been going through this for two grades now and she just bobbles back and forth with it. I love that girl like crazy, but she drives me crazy too. *sigh* she's so smart and has so much talent...

we're trying to get the funds to build on to the house. we thought we had it done this last week, but then that fell through and so I'm going to talk to someone else today to see if they can do anything. This is something we've been wanting to do for years and need SO badly. seems so frustrating that its the MOST difficult thing to get done! praying about it, God can open any door that looks like its padlocked.

in other good news, on spring break this year Robert and I will be going to Myrtle Beach!! ok, Canaan is going with the Varsity team for the Cal Ripkin Tourneys and we get to follow along. the other kids will be staying with their papa for the week. you may ask "why not take them all with you?" well, its a 9 hour drive and the youngest 4 do well to drive to papa's without having a melt down. the last time we went to papas (a 2 hr drive), Garrett informed daddy one hour into the drive, that he was lost and that momma needed to drive to papas. LOL! so we'll save that kind of family trip for when they're older and can handle sitting still so long. I have told Katlyn that she can come if she wants. at any rate, Robert and I have never had a honeymoon or vacation together, so this will be our first! and it'll be the first time I've been to the beach since I was 4 years old. yeah, been a while! so I'm super excited about it and am already planning my wardrobe, eating places and working on my tan. the last one is because I'm petrified of burning! I know I'll still be amped up on the best sunscreen I can use, but I'm hoping that having a base tan will help me out a bit. we'll see. the sun and I dont get along that well, no matter how much I love it. *sigh*

 

so I guess that catches me up on here more or less. 

Merry Christmas! !

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 today I officially accepted the position for assistant manager at zaxby's! starting monday I'm on salary and all the benefits that are with it. I'm super excited about how much this will help us out with everything and just overall doing a good job. I've got some great team members and its a fun place to be. Nine months ago I'd never thought this would be going on at this time!

such a blessing, thank you Jesus!!

Gina

School year has started. Lots of changes this year. Can't believe I've got a junior, freshman, 6th grader, 4th grader and

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so much to do and so little time. I think I've said that so many times and yet it still means the same thing. is there ever a time when there is so little to do with so much time? :) 

working full time has been a huge change for the family. a good one, but still a work in progress. summer break thrown into the mix makes things even more interesting, as it always does. 

the kids are enjoying their time off. C will be coming back from papa's tomorrow and the two middle boys will be heading back with papa for a couple of weeks. a different kind of quiet is about to erupt with the switch!

we'll be celebrating H's 9th birthday tomorrow before he goes to papa's. cake is bought (one of the big changes since going to work, I have no time to make the cakes myself!), most everything will be ready to be put together quickly so we can enjoy the day. daddy is going to take him and Gav to go see Transformers 3 as part of his bday gift. they will absolutely love that! I think I'll be here at home setting stuff up for them.

super proud of my beautiful 'baby girl'. Last night was her 8th grade promotion, and Lord, it was a struggle to get to that point this year! But she did it and she looked so very pretty. Her own style, easy to spot in a crowd too, LOL! 

She's excited about being a Freshman now and she and her friends want to have a 'fresh meat' party this summer to celebrate it. :)

 its been a good (busy) couple of days and its not stopping til tomorrow. C looks wonderful (you can see his pic on FB). he's still getting used to not having stuff in his mouth now.  he wears a retainer for 1/2 the day (they look like invisalign). we'll be getting his wisdom teeth out this summer per dr.s request before they erupt. so fun summer for him. not. we'll wait til February to start on K's teeth. hers will be a LONG process with a LOT of work in it. I'm dreading it for her, but she REALLY needs it, so I'm also looking forward to it for her. 

Gav loved his limo ride. they got to watch the Incredibles while they rode around. 
Hunter got not only an engraved medal and a tshirt for his 2 yrs perfect attendance, he also got a new bike! I'll go pick it up today for him. he was super happy, wearing his medal all day. 
I'll pick K up an hour before school lets out so she'll have plenty of time to get ready. plus she wants to meet one of her friends up on the square for pics. (our square has a nice gazebo area set up that people usually go before proms, etc. to do pics and such).
the fridge repair guy was here before 7:30 this morning! needless to say I was still in bed and had to have him wait a sec so I could throw on a dress. 

last day of school! gotta start planning VBS days! must also get the tarp out so we can have a slip and slide going very soon! super hot out there and kids are already asking for water!

and in other awesome news:

149 this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that makes 28.5 lbs gone!

Mwahahahaha! The Sales Ninja strikes again!

so I have a funny story. 
if anyone remembers, my Nissan that I got last year has been parked at the car dealers since December because of serious engine/computer issues. I've driven tons of cars (it seems like) but none of them were "it". so finally, FINALLY, he called me friday night to tell me he had another altima in (an 08 model where my old one is an 05). before going in saturday morning to pick it up to drive for the weekend, I'm talking to God and say "ok God, I'll know this is the car for me IF it has two keys with it" (most used cars only come with one cause they tend to forget to turn in both keys. and those darn keyfobs are expensive!). we go in to check it out and pick it up and he gives me one key. ok. no biggie, its not a deal breaker of course, and really I'd said it as a joke in a sense. 
its a great car, awesome MPG (avg of 25 in town!) and I really like the space/ride of the altima. so we decide to go for it and I go to get started on the paperwork today. before going to the bank I ask Doug 'do you know if there is another key for it?' and he says "OH, yeah, I've got it right here for ya" and pulls it out of his desk!  OMGosh!!! I was grinning so big, wanting to laugh my butt off at that one! 
God is so funny! 
so I'll get it all signed over and such tomorrow and finally be back in my own car! 

Easter weekend was good. rain rain rain and all, but we got to egg hunt between rainstorms. we had chinese for dinner after church cause my moms house is getting laminate floors installed and we're working on getting the countertops finished up, so eating out was easier for everyone.
I'm LOVING my new bar counter! its HUGE and awesome! hard to get pics to show the size of it and we've decided to put more cabinets under it on one side cause there's so much room left. means more space to put stuff! woo!!

I started feeling a cold coming on yesterday. :P that scratchy feeling at the back of the throat stuff going on. slept like a LOG last night! I hope it goes away quick!

 I've been so dang tired today! ugh ugh and ugh! seems like S never sleeps in anymore, she's up with the others at school time. *yawn*

today I took her to the peds cause she's had some large bumps to come up under her skin under her chin. they bother her and she's been scratching at the one that came up last week. this morning she came to me pointing to it and after checking it out, I seen a 2nd one had come up behind the first. she's not been sick, isnt sick and neither is anyone else in the house, so I was worried since it was at her glands and took her in.
she's on strong antibiotics twice a day for the next 9-10 days. the dr wasnt absolute what it was, but since the 2nd came up she wanted to treat it. (otherwise it'd have been warm compresses to try to just bring a large bump up). its not bumps, no pimple sites and such. they're not like the mailia that she deals with either. it does bother her cause she points it out to us. I'd not worried over just one, but since another came up behind the first, I did worry.
the dr said that there has been staff going around the area (though she did NOT call this that), but just so I'd know the possibles and of course it could just be a couple of very bad infected skin pores. she doesnt think its her glands since they shift when felt of. 
no ear infections, no fever, nothing. :p

and FTR, her 3yo measures!
38 lbs, 39.75", HC 20"

and for the heck of it, to compare her to her siblings at 3 yrs:

Canaan: 39 lbs, 40.25"
Katlyn: ? lbs, 38"
Gavin: ? lbs, 38"
Hunter: 35 lbs, 39.75"
Garrett: 34 lbs, 38" HC 20 1/8"

so yeah, she's right on up there! LOL!!

dh is in MN for now, coming home wednesday. *pout* I work the rest of the week and off on Easter.

still cleaning up the house from the weekend. bleh. not to mention, I WAS TIRED TODAY and couldnt get a nap. *whine pout whine* so I didnt do much of anything more than I had to.