My Vacuum Mechanic and Old Man

A few days ago my vacuum broke. When I would push the power button it would turn on only if I held it in. As soon as I let go of the button it would turn off. So yesterday I asked Jeff to fix it. He went over, looked in all the hoses and the bottom and said, "I don't know, its not clogged." I just look at him like, that's it, that's all you got? I mean, how does he expect me to vacuum? So I guess I was looking a little, annoyed, b/c next he said, "Well, I'm not a vacuum mechanic." Well, that made me laugh, never heard of a vacuum mechanic. So I rolled my eyes, sat down and started to look at the vacuum myself. See, this is how you get your man to do the work, act like you are going to fix it! After watching me for a minute he says, ok, let me look at it again. Well, he broke out his screwdriver and took apart the handle and some how fixed it. I couldn't help but get a smirk on my face. I said, "So you are a vacuum mechanic!" We both started laughing! So, thanks to my hubby for fixing my vacuum! ;) Lately he's been complaining about his side hurting, down near his ribs. Then a mysterious rash appeared. I immediately thought of shingles b/c my mom had it and I remember her getting a rash, although her's was on her temple near her eye. And I remembered our pastor in the Azores having it on his stomach area. Well Jeff and I started laughing about him having shingles b/c its a disease for older people. So I had a good time calling him an old man last night and he jabbed back at me b/c of my back problems. He always likes to call me old b/c I'm 6 months older than he. Today he had a dr appointment to have his rash and pain checked out. Guess what? He has shingles! I can't believe I was right! So my man really is old! ha ha. Please pray for him that it will heal up soon. I guess he's been under a lot of stress and so that is what brought it on. I love my vacuum mechanic old man. :)

BBT Fall Festival and A Hit to the Head

Yesterday our church had its Fall Festival. It was a fun day spent with our church family. The kids had bouncy houses to play in, we had games like corn hole, some kind of golf ball toss game, a scavenger hunt and a game of baseball. The baseball game was adults against the teens/kids. It is still weird sometimes to be on the adult side. The game was going great, I had hit two balls myself and had caught two balls for my team getting two outs. I never do that good in baseball, its never been my sport. All good things must come to an end. I was on second base, Jeff hit the ball high so I took off for 3rd, the ball was caught so I turned to run back to 2nd. Jake, one of our teens, was standing in the way not letting me go by so I ran for it anyway when BAM, I get hit in the head with the baseball. The pitcher, Daniel, threw a line drive ball right for Jake but instead hit my head. Everyone heard it hit, especially me! I didn't fall, but I bent over trying to catch myself b/c everything went fuzzy on me and then the tears came pouring out. It.Hurt.Bad. Bethany and a few others came running, I asked for Jeff and then he made it in time to catch me. I got very dizzy and my body started to feel heavy. He said I almost fell over a couple times before they got me to a seat. Lucky for me we have a nurse and a fireman at our church so they checked me out and decided I was ok. I didn't black out so I guess that was the ok for me to stay and not go the the ER. But wow, I'll tell you, I've been hit in the face by a spiked volleyball that hurt and caused a fat lip, never have I felt that pain in my head before. Just so thankful it was not hit by a bat or I would have ended up in the ER. Today I'm feeling ok. My head is tender but the headache is gone, don't worry mom. :) Even with that happening, I will say, yesterday was still a fun day at our church. I love our church family. We have wonderful people who really love the Lord and are our family here in GA. :)

Update

Gabe got to shoot his bow this afternoon and he hit his target! Way to go buddy! :)

Gabe

Monday was Gabe's birthday! He turned 8 this year. Like always, I have to say, I can't believe how fast time goes! Just 8 years ago I was living in the Azores and was on my way to the hospital to have my little man. After having him it felt like I would have him as a baby forever, but now here he is, 8 years old and growing too fast. For his first birthday he got one of those little toddler activity tables, something safe and colorful unlike his bow and arrow that he got this year. :) I'm so proud of the boy he has turned out to be. He is so friendly and kind and giving. He is always ready to dish out compliments that he sincerely means. He loves to help me out and to be a blessing to others. I will have to say, he is all boy. Thankfully! He has always loved bow and arrows. Of course we've always gotten him the toy ones but they always break. He has even attempted at making his own, which lasts a couple days then breaks. So Jeff and I decided to get him a nice one. He was elated to find his bow and arrow on Monday. Jeff hid it from him and made him look; it was just too big to wrap. Sadly we still have not had time to shoot it but he has had a great attitude about that. For his birthday this year he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. We took a couple of his friends and had a great time. He asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate chip mint icecream. Sadly I messed up the cake when icing it, but he had a great attitude and decorated it for me to hide the mistakes! It still tasted great and we are already down to the last slice! I'm looking forward to another year with my little man. I can't wait to see who he will be at age 9! Love you Gabe!

Catch Up

So like most people on my blog list, I have not been in the mood to blog. But, I'm making myself do it since I have a little bit of time this afternoon. We've been doing school for a couple of months now. The kids are doing great. I've recently started babysitting a little boy who is 16 months old and a little girl who is two. Its nice to have some extra cash. The boys have been playing football this fall. We are ready for it to end so we can begin tae kwon do. (I know I didn't spell that right but I don't care) :) Both of their teams are doing great. Josiah is the kicker for his team, Gabe has played in many positions on offense and defense. I don't think they will play next year though. They both want to go back to soccer. I've been so busy with school, football, church and babysitting that I have not been couponing which totally bums me out. I hope to get back to that. I am planning on trying out a couple of my pinterest recipes this week. I did one last month and it turned out yummy. It was the honey garlic chicken in the crockpot. This time I am trying the cupcake tacos, pizza bites and the bite size caramel apples. Other than that I want to do some more fall decorating. I saw someone in my neighbor hood cut off the top of a pumpkin and put some mums in it. It was so cute! Gotta do that for my front porch. Well, other than that, nothing big going on here. Next month we are going on vacation to Missouri, which I'm so excited about. Maybe I'll fit in a blog next month as well. :)

1st Day of School

Today Josiah, Gaber and even Tara started school. Josiah is in 5th, Gaber is in 2nd and will be in 3rd in a month or so and Tara is doing pre-k. It went very well for a first day. I gave in and let the boys sleep in. I told them that they would have to get up at 8:30, which they think is so early, but since we were out late last night with some friends I let them sleep in one more time. Even Tara slept in for me. I got up at 8 and had an hour to myself to do my devos, eat breakfast and watch a little tv. Today was Tara's first real time to sit down at the desk and do school. She did numbers, shapes and letters. We've been working on this in the past but I let her know that now she is actually doing school and she was SO EXCITED! She did a great job too, I hope she stays this motivated for the next 13 to 17 years! The boys weren't as excited. They did handwriting this morning then this afternoon they did their regular classes. Gaber got threw 2 paces and asked if he could do the 3rd tomorrow. Uh, NO! Reality shock kid, WE HAVE STARTED! :) Today I went to my first parents meeting in the homeschool group I joined. I'm very excited about all the programs they have going on this year that the boys can participate in. There will be fall, Christmas, and valentine parties. Skating and bowling parties. There is a boy's club, science fairs, spelling bees, geography bees, everything that public schools offer. And actually our spelling bee kids compete against the public school kids for a chance to go to state. Pretty awesome. I'm hoping to meet some great ladies and make some new friends threw this and I hope the boys will make some friends as well. Tomorrow the boys are joining football. Jeff is very excited about this, much more than when they played soccer. So, it looks like we will have a busy year with school, the homeschool group and football, plus church. :) Looking forward to a great year! Pray for me though, I have a lot on my plate! What have I gotten myself into!? (j/k)

Camp

Jeff and I took the teens from our church to senior camp last week in southern Georgia. The camp name is Venture of Faith. We had a great week and great teens to work with. We are truly blessed to have the teens we have! They are so much fun and accepting of others who are new to our group. That has always been a thing Jeff stresses on them, to accept others no matter their differences. The preaching this week was awesome, the singing was awesome, the activities were awesome and the food was awesome. :) Awesome. We had two in our group get saved and two others surrender their lives to God. Very awesome! :) Here are some pics... After the pose where Jeff is being held by all the guys, Jeff got thrown in my one of the teens. All the other teens ran away! So, Jeff and Joe went in the lake...and they've found alligators in this lake in the past, maybe they'll find Jeff's sunglasses in there someday.

My Garden

Here are some pictures of my garden. I have zucchini, green peppers, tomatoes, grape tomatoes, corn, carrots, strawberries, cantaloupe, and watermelon growing. Some are doing better than others, but I'm just excited to see something happening being this is my first year. :) My two zucchini plants. One is doing great, the other...well look how tiny! Not sure what I did wrong. Tomatoes! A little green pepper! grape tomatoes! cantaloupe Oh and I have an apple tree, but not sure if they are crab apples.

Coupons!

Thanks to my sister-in-law, Nicole, I have been couponing for 2 or 3 months now and I will have to same I am addicted. It took me a while to get the hang of it and I did almost quit. Let me tell you, I am so glad I did not give up. I have a pantry full of food that I paid less than 1/2 price for and sometimes almost nothing! I'm not one of the extreme couponers that pay 2 bucks for 900$ worth of groceries, although that sounds awesome. I am just finding great deals on food and cleaning supplies and getting my moneys worth. Today I bought around 60$ worth of food and paid 24$. (That is including buying the kids candy at the checkout with no coupons or deal :P) In the past I've bought over 100$ worth of groceries for 40 bucks. Not bad! I hope to some day be much better at this and come home with more, but for now I am loving what we get and so thankful to Nicole! :) FYI, my now favorite grocery store is Publix! Love their BOGO deals! Yep. :) All of this food was bought with coupons! :) And here is just a cute pic of Tara and I.

Blessings

I haven't been on here for a while and so when I logged on I saw all the new changes and it took me a minute to find how to do a new post. I do need to blog more often because a lot happens here in our house! :) So my title is "Blessings" b/c I wanted to share two new ones the Lord gave us. The first one started months ago when Jeff and I were talking about him teaching CPR classes for some extra money. The thing holding us back was buying the dummies. Earlier this week we found out his work is buying new ones and so Jeff mentioned that he would like the old ones. The next day he brought home six of the dummies, for free! We are hoping he can start teaching two classes a month now. :) Our second blessing happened Wednesday morning. Tuesday night our family went door to door selling candy for the boys to raise money for church camp. Jeff ran into one of our neighbors who owns a pawn shop. He told Jeff to come buy Wednesday and he'd give a donation. So Wednesday morning I took the kids into his shop. He asked how much they had left, they both had about 1/2 a box left. Then he asked how much it cost for them to go to camp. I asked him if he really wanted to know, ya know I didn't want to give him a guilt trip. He said yes so I told him 140 and the box of candy makes them 20 bucks. (Each of my boys had already sold one box). So he said, ok, so you've made 40 dollars each and you still owe 200 for camp, I said yes. So he pulls out his wallet and gives me $200! I was shocked. He told Josiah he was proud of him for doing the talking the previous night and not having his dad do it for him. So, he took both boxes of our candy and we left $200! :) So I had enough to hand in our money for the boxes and an extra 152 dollars for camp for the boys. God is good. :)

Birthdays, Motorcylces, Laundry Soap, and a Raised Garden.

Last month, March, was Josiah's 10th birthday and Jeff's 30th. We asked Josiah where he would like to eat for his birthday and he told us Taco Bell. Easy. He had a few friends over, played some games and had Taco Bell. :) I also made him a lemonade cake with sour skittles on top, another request of his. He is such an easy kid and usually so happy. These two requests of his made him the happiest 10 year old that day! :) Jeff is much more difficult...just kidding. :) I planned a surprise birthday party for him this year, and did it a week late so that one, he would be surprised, and two so that some friends of ours from Florida could make it. On his actual birthday we went out to dinner with the kids, which bombed b/c we left to late and so all the restaurants were too full. So we ended up eating at Hibachi Express. Yeah. I didn't even make him a cake b/c he usually shares with Josiah and plus I was planning oh getting him one for his surprise party in a week, so that added to Hibachi Express made for a lousy 30th. I.Felt.Awful. *shaking head* I so wanted to tell him that I'm actually a good wife and I have a wonderful party planned for you, you just have to wait one week! But I couldn't. So poor Jeff was in a very sad mood all week. A few days before his surprise party he finally admitted to me that he was hoping for more of a celebration for his party, it is a mile stone. I just had to tell him sorry and I would do better in the future. So, finally the day of his party rolls around, thank God, and the cooking and decorating begin while he is at work. A friend of ours has Jeff come over right after work to help "work on his truck". At 7 pm I call Jeff with a plumbing emergency and so he comes home to 40 people standing in his garage! :) Then he gets a second surprise when he walks into our kitchen and sees his two friends from Florida standing there. It was great! :) Oh, and he got a cake! :) Baskin Robbins, chocolate chip cake just in case you are wondering. Jeff had a great 30th and he now knows that I'm not an awful wife! ;)
So this month we (Jeff really), bought a motorcycle. Somehow I thought it would save us money, but so far I was completely wrong. *shaking head again* But he loves it and hopefully down the road we will start to see savings from gas. It is a Dukati if any of you out there care to know that. :)
Today I made laundry soap (I know you are wondering why that was in my title). I got the recipe from the Duggar book I read. It was super easy to make and I hope it does well cleaning our clothes b/c it will be a real saver on money. Right now the 5 gallons of it is sitting in my kitchen sink b/c its to heavy for me to lift out. Silly me. But I have a strong husband who can lift it out soon and put it in the laundry room where it belongs. :) I will let you know how much we like it and if its worth it.
Jeff built me a raised garden this month. I cannot wait to plant my veggies! It is 12x3, if you are wondering. I plan on planting tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, strawberries, and carrots. I was also thinking about garlic. We shall see. I will get pictures and post 'em!
So that's what we've been up to, basically. :) Happy Wednesday!

Valentine Cookies!

The kids and I made cookies yesterday to celebrate the day and b/c I had a craving for some sugar cookies! :) I think they had a lot of fun cutting them out and decorating them, and I had a big mess to clean up in the end. :) Here are some pics!












Gaber took this picture of Tara putting sprinkles on her cookies, I thought it was a neat shot. :)


Gaber also took this picture of their cookies when they were done. I don't think they used enough sprinkles. ;)

Heaven or Walmart

Jeff was talking to the boys about getting baptized a few nights ago while we were eating supper. Both boys this past year got saved and so now the next step is baptism! As Jeff was explaining what it is and why we do this, Tara started saying, "Me too daddy! I want to!" Jeff looked over to Tara and asked, jokingly, "Tara, do you know where you would go if God were to take your life?" Tara responded, "Yeah. Walmart!" :)

A Quick Sum Up

I've been surrounded by family for the past 3 months and now here I find myself back to normal, just the kids and I. We moved into our house in November and had family visiting two weeks later. December we drove up north to Missouri and Wisconsin for Christmas and we were surrounded by many family members and old friends. In January Jeff and I had his parents visiting for 3 weeks. They left Monday and Jeff left today. The house is so quiet! The kids and I decided to get out of here for a bit and so we went to BK for lunch and to play in their playland since it is such a beautiful day! We had a yummy but not so healthy lunch and the kids had a fun time playing. Tara made a friend, another little 3 year old girl. After only a hello they took of running together holding hands. That always gets me how little children can be so friendly so fast! Well after a few minutes the other little girl started chasing Gabe so Tara ran behind her yelling, "HOLD MY HAND! HOLD MY HAND! HOLD MY HAND!" I finally got Tara's attention and explained to her that she doesn't need to hold her hand the whole time, then I got her mind off of the disappointment by showing her the little birds bouncing around the tables eating up the food off the ground. Tara loved this! She quickly grabbed a french fry, tore it into pieces and then threw it at the birds. Well, the birds flew off so she yelled, "Come back birds! I have food for you!!!" :)
I've not blogged in a while, so I've skipped some important dates, like Gabe and Tara's birthday, Christmas, New Years and I'm sure I've missed blogging about some funny stories, but to sum it all up I will just add some pictures from the past few months. :)



boys doing some raking for us



Gabe's 7th Birthday party



Tara sitting with her Great Grandpa Rybold



The kids on our trip to MO. I love this picture b/c of Chloe sleeping on Siah.



Tara and Clifford at the Children's Museum in Wisconsin



The Boys at the Children's Museum in Wisconsin



Josiah at the museum (Did you know that Josiah is also Art? Just saw that above his head):)



Tara getting her first professional haircut, she had so much fun!



First time getting hair blow dried. (or blown dry?) :)



Christmas day



Jeff and I with our youth group at the teen winter retreat here in GA



Tara using her almost new princess umbrella on a rainy day in January.