I nearly lost Jake!

Yesterday morning, Jake went with me to drop the girls off at school.  On the way home, we were discussing whether or not Josh would be up when we got home.  Jake decided that he would still be asleep and wanted to stick Josh's hand in some warm water to help him pee the bed.  I told Jake that he would have to clean the sheets if he did.  Jake had the nerve to tell me, "What?  I thought you would be happy to clean it.  That's what woman do, isn't it?"  After that, everything is a blur.  I know the boy made it home somehow.  How, I'm not sure. 

Good luck with that!

This morning on the way to school, Jake told me that he had decided on the names of his kids. He has decided upon Lennard, Phitspatrick and Gertrude. I tried explaining to him that his woman might have some names of her own picked out, but he is convinced that she will be alright with these names. Let’s all just hope that he has two boys and a girl!

Mother’s Day at the Roberts’ house Part 2

After that wonderful breakfast, I was given my super duper gifts. 
Mike fixed the grill.  The gas stuff stopped working, so Mike had to take it all apart and get new parts.  I'm so impressed that he is able to do stuff like that.  I really appreciate him.  :)

Then I got some solar lights.  They are really cool.  We went out and looked at them last night (in the rain) and they look so nice.  Mike said something about needing some to take on future campouts.   haha

I also got a new cat litter box.  Now, you might be thinking this is kind of not such a great gift.  Well, you'd be wrong!  Mike knows how much I really HATE taking care of the cat litter.  These animals of ours seem to need help with their aim.  Most days I am having to clean the floor from litter that gets kicked all over the floor.  This thing should hold all that litter in the box so I won't have to do as much sweeping!  YEAH!!!

Then while at the Kids and Cops last month, Emma and Mike got me these wonderful glass spinners.  I couldn't ask for anything more.  :)  Fortunately for me, the day wasn't quite over yet. 

After church, we came home to a wonderful dinner.  I ate so much food I could barely move.  Emma made more deviled eggs.  She found a good recipe and made them all by herself.  :)  She is quite excited to be able to make something by herself.  :)  Then after dinner, the kids put all the leftovers away and did the dishes.  It was a real treat!  I wish every day was Mother's Day.  :)

Mother's Day at the Roberts' house Part 1

This is what I saw when I walked into the kitchen this morning.  Emma and Josh were hard at work making a special breakfast for me.   They debated making just me breakfast.  Then they decided to make a buffet breakfast for everyone to enjoy.  I'm really glad they did. 

They pulled out the "good" china and actually used placemats and nice napkins.


They made the food look wonderful and enviting.  They cooked so much food that you would have thought we were feeding an army.  :)

Josh even made up a new recipe that Mike and the kids loved.  He is on a banana chip kick right now.  He put a banana chip in a marshmallow and stuck them in the freezer.  Josh drizzled some with chocolate and everyone seemed to really like those.

  They even used the flower arrangement Mike got me as part of the breakfast buffet.  They hung bananas from the pot and put the "rose" flowers I made for my primary class in with the flowers.  It really looked neat.  I told them that we should make this buffet a new family tradition on Mother's Day, possibly Father's Day as well!  :)

Kids and Cops

Saturday was the annual Kids and Cops for Lake Dallas (the little po-dunk town we live next to). It is where the local cops try to have fun with the kids so they are not so afraid of them.  It is always a lot of fun. This year, Jacob was in Austin at a goal ball competition, so he had to miss the fun. We forced Josh to come along in spite of his deciding that he is too old for such celebrations now. Haha Emma and Elaina each received a t-shirt and a bag full of fun things like a coloring book, ruler, matchbox car, pen, pencil, and such. Josh was actually jealous of the stuff the girls got in their bags, since he was too "mature" to go get one himself. haha There are also fun activities for the kids as well. In the past, Lifeflight was there to let the kids look inside their helicopter . They must have been called away because we saw them fly over the house before we left. :) One year they had pony rides for the kids. Elaina loved that! Then another year they had some bounce/trampoline things for the kids to jump on and get really high. Emma really enjoyed that. This year, the petting zoo was back again. It is always a big hit with my kids as well as LOTS of other kids that come.

They also had a little train for the kids. Elaina is the only one who rode the train. Josh just wasn’t up for it for some reason. Haha Elaina was thrilled.

They also had the local animals from the shelter there for the kids to pet and beg their parents to bring home with them. Don’t worry. Emma didn’t disappoint. She even had real tears because I told her TWO cats were enough. I might feel different if I weren’t the one who mainly cleans the litter box and cleans up after the cat throws up on the floor. Oh who am I kidding? Two cats are more than plenty for these kids. :)

Another attraction at the Kids and Cops get together is all the FREE food! You get as many hot dogs, sausage dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, and soda that you can handle. I felt sorry for the cotton candy people. Once my kids (and Mike) found out they had banana flavored cotton candy, it was all over. Haha

We also got to go inside of the jail house and take a look at where the prisoners get to live. They had the hallways filled with helium balloons and the kids had a really good time finding just the perfect balloon/string combo. Haha

The local boys and girls club also had some bounce houses set up that the girls really enjoyed. All in all, we had a great time... all for FREE! We’re already looking forward to next year!

Our "new to us" car!!!

Last Saturday on the way home from a scout campout, Mike was in a car accident. It was raining, and someone stopped suddenly in front of him. They swerved to the left to miss hitting the car in front of them, and Mike tried to stop before hitting her. The car slid and he hit her on the right side then went off the road into a small grove of trees. Mike and the guy with him were fine, but the car won’t run now. It doesn’t look all that bad, but its innards aren’t good anymore. Haha

We spent most of Saturday afternoon thru the evening looking up cars on craigslist and autotrader.com. We decided on our budget of $3500 (we could go a little over if absolutely necessary, but it would make it uncomfortable to live for a few months). Thank heavens we hadn’t spent our income tax money yet like we were going to do. :) Then while sitting at home Sunday night, we got a big knock on the door. Actually, it was more of a banging on the door. :) We went to see who it was and all we found was an envelope taped to the door with cash inside. It took our breaths away. Never in a million years would we think something like that would happen to us. Mike thinks it was the young men’s presidency who took up a collection for us. I don’t know. I’m just thankful. It was to be the first instance of Heavenly Father letting us know he was aware of our struggles.

Then Monday, Mike took off work so we could go find a vehicle. We had found a few Winstars that were about the same year as our wrecked van. He thought we could take parts and pieces off the wrecked van and used them on anything we bought. :) Apparently, this was not to be. We did a lot of driving Monday, but found vans that needed more work than we had the money to fix. For such a small budget, we didn’t have many leads. Then we were checking out a van south of Dallas. It ended up being a dud as well, but another vehicle caught our eye. They had a green Dodge caravan for $1799. We looked in it and it was spotless. Someone had really taken good care of this car. We had just talked ourselves into looking somewhere else when the salesman walked up. We took the van for a test drive and it ran really good. We ended up paying $2000 for the caravan (tax, title, license, everything).

It isn’t much to look at. It’s a 1995 and it’s been around the block a few times. The hood and roof are a different color than the sides. But, it’s a really nice, running, we don’t have to do anything to it, completely paid for car. The girls absolutely love it. They got upset this morning that Mike took it to work. “Why did daddy take the good car” is what I heard from Emma when she saw she had to ride to school in the blue car. The manual windows are her favorite part of the car. It’s funny to see how something I see as an inconvenience is her favorite part! Haha

Happy Earth Day!

Ok. I will admit. We are not a family big on earth day and such. We do have our recycling bin that gets picked up every Thursday with the garbage (different truck) and it’s usually filled to the brim (our bin, not the truck), but that doesn’t make us an eco friendly household. We try to reuse our plastic garbage bags and not waste anything, but that’s just normal everyday kind of purposeful living, right? Our latest purchase (before the new car) could really be deceiving if you didn’t know us better. :)

If you have ever stayed the night with us and chosen to take a shower during your stay, you would have noticed that our hot water takes quite a LONG time to get hot (especially in the master bath). Mike got tired of seeing all that money water go down the drain while waiting for hot water. We decided to collect that water and use it on our garden.

I found an old bucket in the garage and we used it to gather the water in while the shower gets hot. What is truly sickening and amazing is that we poured the bucket into our handy dandy water pitcher and we have been wasting at least 2 gallons of water a shower!

We quickly realized how much we really NEEDED some water barrels. I had been eyeing the one at Sam’s for quite some time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $80 a pop for one.

Then while at Lowes one day, we came across some water barrels on clearance.

They are 50 gallon tubs with a cool screen on top to keep leaves and debris out. The top pops off like a normal bin so you can get inside if you need to. They also have two hoses (one at the top and the other at the bottom) so you can get the water out of the barrel/bin. We went ahead and bought the last two on clearance. I have been pouring our bucket of shower water into the barrel when I don’t have time to use the water pitcher. Then I discovered it’s much easier to just open the lid and dip the water pitcher inside and water the garden that way. I have had enough water in them to use the water pitcher and water the garden with lots of water still left inside with little to no rain. Funny thing is that the kids now will not take a shower unless there is a bucket in the shower to collect the water, even if the water is already warm. Haha Who knew being “green” (even for monetary reasons) could be so funny! :)