I love being a mom!

It is Friday night, I just got out of the shower, and boy am I beat! Even as tired as I am I will find the energy to go play a game of candy land with my daughter. I need to treasure these moments when she WANTS to be with me. Her highlight tonight is going to be playing a game with Mommy and Daddy. How could I not work up the energy for that.
Marc is 17.... wow, I almost typed 16.... can he really be 17? He is spending the night at Brendan's who is now 23..... Marc would much rather play X-Box with his brother than hang around his Mom. Marc would much rather do just about anything than hang around with his Mom, but I know he still loves me. He just doesn't want to hang out and do things..... wait, I take that back. Last Sunday we had an afternoon out together. We even went to see a movie. He said he would go see it with me in the afternoon, but not at night. No, I do not blame him.... I am sure I probably felt the same way.
Anyway..... thinking about this has just made me think about how much I enjoy being a Mom...... even when I am beat!

Captured Moments

I think that is going to be the colors for my new studio. I have already decided to go with the Shabby Chic decor, and green and blue are two of the main colors I have to work around. I found this while looking for a new background and now I am inspired!!

Merry Christmas

It is Christmas morning and I am sitting here quietly waiting on everyone else to wake up. It was a late night last night, but I still can not seem to sleep in like everyone else. I was not up at 4 like when I was little.... but still here I am. On a regular morning you have to practically drag me out of bed.
I wouldn't think I would be up and excited. This Holiday has not been my best. For the first Christmas I can remember I have not made any Christmas treats, sent out any Christmas cards, or been in a jolly mood. I did not even by anything for Christmas dinner until yesterday after noon.
Even now sitting here it is not like I am waiting all excited or happy. I am just awake.
I think I will go get some coffee.
Merry Christmas Colette......be happy for your kids..... tomorrow is just another day, but today is Christmas.

Christmas Lights

Well I decided to go with the first thing I thought of...... and that was Christmas lights. I really love looking at the lights. Both on the trees and on the houses..... even at the mall. I always think of the Christmas when Cassie was almost 2 and we were driving around looking at all of the pretty lights. She would go OOOOOOOOOOOO, more? She would repeat this over and over again. It was so cute. It was also what I was thinking put in the simplest way.

I don't know where the time is going this Christmas. We have both trees up, but I still need to put ornaments on the big family tree yet. We have some of the outside lights up, but none of the new stuff we bought last year. Dale bought this really cool music thing that syncs with the lights, but he still has not had any time to get it up. He also bought these rope lights to put on the ground so when it snows on them they light up the snow. Well the snow is on the ground, but no rope lights to make it glow. Maybe next year. I bet it is really pretty. I will have to take a picture if we ever do it.

Okay, now one of my favorite Christmas memories. It was the Christmas I finally asked my parents if Santa was real. I need to keep pretending for my little sister Rhonda. I was always the first one up on Christmas. Well actually I would get up in the middle of the night to see what Santa left, since he did not wrap our gifts.....play for a little while, and then go back to bed and wait for the sun to peak up over the horizon. Then I would run through the house wishing everyone a Merry Christmas to wake them up.

Well, on this particular Christmas my sister and I were sleeping in our playroom right next to the family room. I woke up in the middle of the night as usual, but Santa had not been there yet. I hurried up stairs and woke up my mother and told her she forgot to put out the Santa gifts. Then I went back downstairs to wait with my sister, who was suppose to be sleeping, but was waking up. She asked if Santa had been there yet, and I said no, and since my mother was now making noise, I told my sister we had to play a game for Santa to come. I would plug her ears and she needed to hummmmmmm. She did and it worked. Santa came!

I am afraid this Christmas is going to be here before I know it. I have not sent out cards, or made any goodies. I have done most of my shopping (thank goodness for the internet!) I just have to wrap it all. I usually really enjoy that part, but I need to set down and relax and take time to enjoy this holiday season. Maybe sit back and look at it thru my little girls eyes. That just might do it! I will have to blog about all my new outlooks while I am doing that, but in the mean while I really need to feed the little girl.

Being me.....

Well hello Colette, nice to see you after so long. So are you going to try and work on your blog?

I was thinking about it. I talk to myself all day long so I guess I could just type to myself on here. I wonder if I will ever go back and read any of these? I think I would have to make this blog pretty interesting to not only type it once, but come back and read it some other time. Way to much pressure. I think I will just go with the flow and not think about this so much. I think that is why I had trouble keeping up with my blog before. There was pressure that I put on myself to make it interesting.

Well I thought I might do this.......but the big guy just called and had a fit I was typing on my blog. Well I will take my sick little self and go down stairs and try and figure out more of this book work. I think trying to do book work with a fever should be a no no. But what do I know. This business was never my idea. I wasn't even asked if I thought we should do it....... Just like everything else, I was just told we were and now I have to find my silver lining. I guess that would be that Brendan and Ashley live here now. That does make a nice silver lining.

Oh well, Until next time........ or when ever Dale deems it ok that I blog.

Okay, this a test and only a test to see if I can really post on my blog from my phone....... If this works be afraid.....very afraid!!!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Gotta Love Summer

Boy do I love summer!!!! It is not only because my birthday is in July, and anyone who knows me knows I love my birthday....... even if it means I am getting another year older. My parents always made a big deal about birthdays when I was growing up and so the expectation has always been very high. But I digress..... summer is about more than my birthday, or two of my four children's birthdays.( I just happen to be sandwiched in between) Or my husbands or his sisters or even one of the grandsons. Wow, we have a lot of birthday in the summer! Okay, I am digressing again.

I love that you can be outside more...... I love the feel of air conditioning on my skin when I come in from the heat. I love the longer days. I love the smell of rain on a hot summer day. I love to relax and just gaze out at the lake. I love dangling my feet in the cool water. I love the smell of bar-b-que. I love the feel of the sun on my skin and the smell of sun tan lotion. I love all of the festivals there are to go to. But most of all I love seeing family and friends.

It always seems like summer is when we either visit family and friends or they visit us. We just got back from South Dakota visiting my parents, sister and her family. Now we will be seeing Dales sister and her husband soon. Then my eldest son Brendan and his girlfriend for his 21st birthday! (opps I said the B word again) Then we have my best friend from Kansas and her son coming to visit. I am so excited!!!
We still have plenty of summer left for more visitors.......and now you all know how much I love them.

One of the nicest things about summer is having my son Marc here all summer with us!

The Old Fashion Photo....or 2 ....or 3

Well, we are still visiting family in the Black Hills. The weather has been more like April than June, so we have been limited on our days that we can go outside to play! I still love playing tourist with my kids and being lead around by which ever family member draws the short straw for the day....... but we have had to modify our activities because of all the rain.

One of the things I really wanted to to while we were up here was get an old fashion photo taken. Just happens that is something we can do on a rainy day...... First time up in Keystone we had Marc and Cassie get a photo. It was so fun to see those two all dressed up. Cassie loved her dress and wanted to buy it..... Marc loved holding the guns and a whiskey bottle...... but complained that they didn't even put anything in it. I don't think he was hoping for whiskey...... just to look like he REALLY had some whiskey. After all, how tough is a cowboy that has an empty whiskey bottle?

Well after Cassie was done charming the photographer and Marc was done charming all the bystanders, we ended up with some really cute photos.
Now it continues to rain more and more ever day. Marc and I got to go to Deadwood on Saturday with Rhonda and Hali. While Cassie stayed home and watched her grandparents. Not only was it rainy, but very chilly on Saturday....... and since we are not big gamblers we had to find something fun to do in Deadwood. First Rhonda came up with this great idea while I was looking in one of the many gift shops. We should all get funky hats to wear while we walked around Deadwood....... after all it is raining. Really we had a blast with this, and I think Marc has decided to wear his for all special occasions.
I guess we got so into the dress up thing and our choice we limited to do in the rain so guess what we did?????? We had an old fashion picture taken!!!!! The place was really busy, and we had to wait, but it was so much fun. Marc was such a good sport. He was game to do pretty much whatever we wanted, but when the girl was trying to dress him and couldn't find a jacket to fit the length of his arms she called him "orangutan arms". All in all we had more fun getting ready for the photo than having photo taken. It just did not compare to the place in Keystone...... and there prices were outrageous!!!!!

The next day my brother-in-law Marty got back into town, so we decided to head back up into the hills. Mom stayed home to cook..... and Dad to watch mom cook. (He says this does not happen often and didn't want to miss it!) The kids and I went with Rhonda and her family. All plied in my new Suburban!!!!!! (So that is what all the seats are for.) Of course it was rainy and we had to look for indoor activities. We went to the National Presidential Wax Museum, which was very interesting, but then we went looking for something else to do. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I have heard these old fashion photos are fun to do!!!! I know you are so thinking NOOOOOOOO! Step away from the studio. But no, we wander on in and get all excited about a new idea we have. After all now there are 6 of us, and who knows when we will be together again. We had a great day, and the photographer was the same one that was so good with Marc and Cassie. All in all we had lots of fun even though it rained. And now I have some great photos to add to my wall at home!

Storybook Island....... again......

If you have ever been to Rapid City,SD and you have a little one you have probably been to Storybook Island. It is definitiley one of the jewels of this city. I have to admit that I was really looking forward to taking Cassie there. All of my other children have been there multiple times, and I have tons of pictures of them with the various character. It is always fun and interesting to see who they have added since our last visit. Well, it has been quite a few years and they have really improved the park.

We have always had a routine for going threw Storybook Island..... go to this setup and pose with this character........ Thus we have all the kids with the different characters throughout the years..... add the new ones as they are added to the park. You wouldn't think that we actually go to someplace like this to let the kids play? Not when you have a prime photo opportunity like this.
Problem number one..... someone forgot to inform Cassie of our plans. She seem to think she was there to run all over and play. This child is use to having her picture taken, but when there are so many wonderful things to see and play with you can't really expect her to stop and smile on command. So both mom and grandma had to get really good of catching her on the fly.

Problem number two.......something like a dozen school buses dropped off a bunch of wild animals impersonating children. OK, I have been to Storybook Island dozens of times over the years and I have never seen so many wild children out there before. So to make the challenge of getting Cassie's picture at the designated spots even more challenging..... we had to snap our shots in between the little heads that kept running in front of the camera.

All in all we had a wonderful day..... and it was very enjoyable to see Storybook Island again......Secretly, I think Marc was more excited to see it than Cassie..... or maybe that was just him putting on a good face for his mother. Yeah, probably just a good face. He was a very good sport. He was even very helpful keeping some of the wild children out of our shots. At 6'2" he is very intimidating to the little ones. Except Cassie.... she knows she has him wrapped around her little finger.
Well we are off to do more exciting things in the Black Hills today.