Ratatouille

Sunday night at approximately 1:45 a.m., yes you read that right A.M.!!  I got up to go to the bathroom and I could hear Ricky making lots of noise in his room.  I thought it was weird but headed back to bed. About a minute goes by and Rick comes flying into our room with a flash light and says "dad, get up there is a huge mouse in our house!"  So Kent doesn't move, he is sound asleep.  Me on the other hand sits up and say "WHAT?"  Rick again, "mom its a huge mouse come look." It was in his room and when he was trying to get it, it ran under his door and into the living room.  So I stumble to the living room he moves the girls chairs and it scurries across the living room into the bar.  My eyes are now wide open, I say "Rick, THAT IS A RAT NOT A MOUSE!"  We now go into the bar and its behind the dog house. Rick hands me the flashlight and he moves the dog crate.  It runs out behind where I am standing, I get on my tippy toes, yell and jump up and down.  The rat is now chasing me.  My heart is in my chest and I am freaking out!  It runs into the dinning room and darts behind a playpen I have sitting there.  Rick says "MOM, GO WAKE UP DAD,  CAUSE YOU ARE NO HELP, I NEED HIM TO HELP ME,!"  I say "dad is not going to get up, he is sound asleep he will tell me its no big deal.  I tell Rick get a bucket and we will trap it.  So Rick gets a bucket while I hold a flashlight, keeping an eye on the rat from a very safe distance I might add.  Rick moves the playpen it darts out and he gets it with the bucket. Problem is its head is sticking outside of the bucket.  I say "yayy, you are my hero you got it!! BUT I don't thinks its dead."  So Rick lifts the bucket up and slams it back down on the rat.  Now there is a trickle of blood running on my tile floor.  Ricks replies "mom, its dead now!"  Now Rick wants a pair of yellow Kitchen gloves to dispose of it.  I don't own any.  He gets a pair of rubber gloves and I get him a bag to put it in.  Rick says, "mom, don't you want to take a picture of it for your blog?"  Way to look out for your mommy son!  I say oh yes, grab my camera and snap a quick picture and then he disposes of the rat, he even cleans the blood off the tile for me!  My hero!!

Of coarse now I can't sleep.  I envision more friends of the rat running through my house.  I think of them  in bed with my girls or me. So I had every light on and sat at my computer with my feet up and talked about it on FB until almost 4:00 a.m..  Let me tell you how many people are up at that time on FB.  We had over 200 entires on my FB page.  I have not found any droppings or any other rodents running around. So I am hoping he was the only one and we killed him before he could go get his friends like in Ratatouille. 

Amy and Hannah's Birthday Bash!

Saturday was girls annual swim birthday party. 

Instead of making gift bags for each of the kids that attended the party, I decided to get a bunch of toys and stick them in a basket for each kid to take something out on there way out!

 Pre party pool 

 Tables all set

 Amy requested red velvet cupcakes and Hannah wanted a white cake with strawberries inside.

 Now the fun begins.

 Fun day with great weather.

 Happy birthday my sweet 3 year old and sweet 8 year old.

 I love this picture, i am not sure what the girls are discussing but the look on Amy's face is so sweet.

 We were deep in conversation about winning the lotto and what is best to take the money all at once or payments.  Danielle was finding out what we would get each month or year.  

 The party is all over, last guests went home and we sat down had a glass of wine and Kent had a cigar.

Thanks everyone for coming and all the sweet gifts.  You all spoil our kids!  

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

It's all about Amy

June 23,2003 a beautiful girl was born.

Named Amy Nicole

she was a 7 lbs 11 oz bundle of joy.

How did she turn into an 8 year old?

I made these little aprons for the girls.

 Yesterday, Hannah and I started to make Amy's birthday cake.  Amy wanted Strawberry shortcake.  Anyway, Amy wanted to help make her cake.  Since it was her day, we let her.

 They took turns putting in the ingredients.

 They enjoyed a little of the batter.  Do you let your kids lick the batter?

Since it was Amy's birthday it was her choice at what we did.  She had wanted her BFF to come over but they had plans for yesterday already.  She wanted Chicken Stars for lunch and swim all day.  So thats what we did. 

Amy was helping Hannah get the goggles tight.

 Then she jumped in with Amy.

 They giggled and laughed.

 Amy showed me some tricks

 I even got in the pool for a bit too.

 Cartwheel into the pool.  Do you remember doing this when you were little?

 Flips

 This week is VBS (Vacation Bible School) So we got out of the pool and cleaned up for that.  It's 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. every night for the week.  Kind of puts a damper on dinner for Amy's birthday.  Plus Kent had to work late on Thursday, so we went to dinner early on Wednesday for her birthday before VBS.  When we got home on Thursday, daddy was still working in Thousand Oaks and Rick had left to do some piercings.  Ya, know the boy pierces people right? So it was just us girls for cake.

Happy birthday Amy.

 Hannah and I sang to her.  She blew out her candle and made a wish.

 Then I set the timer on the camera and we attempted to take pictures of the 3 of us.

 Hannah was in a silly mood, it was hard to get her to smile pretty.

 So we joined her in silliness.

 Then we ate the strawberry shortcake.

 Then we opened gifts.

 More silliness.

 Clothes and headbands.

 Glee karaoke for wii.

 ihome, charger and speakers for her ipod touch.

 Then the 3 of us sand along with glee.

It was getting late after 10:00 p.m., daddy and Rick still not home.  So we went to bed.  I let the girls sleep with me until daddy got home.  I am sure he loves when he gets home at 12:30 a.m. to find he gets to carry not one but two girls to their beds before he can go to sleep.  :)
The big birthday bash is Saturday so hopefully we can make it up to her then.

Happy birthday my sweet Amy girl,

I love you so very much.  I am so proud of the young lady you are turning into.  You have such a caring and loving heart.  You always want whats best for everyone else.  You are a terrific big sister, always helping Hannah and trying to teach her new things.  You are also an amazing little sister and love your brother so much.  You complete our family in a way that no one else could do.  Thank you for being who you are, I hope you never change!  

I love you.

Love,  Mommy

This post is for Tawnya!

It's really about Father's day, but Tawnya said I have been a slacker on blogging (which she is right) and needed to get some pictures up ASAP!

So here you go girl friend!

Father's Day weekend.

 Kent's turn to pick what we do.  Of coarse he wanted to go to the river.

So we loaded up the cars and headed to the river.  I originally was going to follow Kent Friday night.  With diesel prices what they are we have decided to leave the excursion at the river and commute back in forth in my jetta.  Getting 42 mpg makes more since then 17 mpg.  With me not working and money is tight it makes much more sense.  Any how, my parents decided last minute to go to the river as well, I haven't seen them in 2 months!  I decided to get all my stuff together and hit the rode before Kent.  This way I was able to get there and have dinner with them and catch up!  It was really nice to have that time with them.  They had a great trip and missed all of us, they really enjoyed the time too.  I guess we were having too much fun because I never took one picture!  

Our friends daughter Krista asked if she and her friend could join us on our boat Saturday, we said YES!!  The more the merrier right?  Well, turned out her folks, little bothers and her grandpa all decided to hit the lake with us too. Woot woot looks like a fun day to me!

We all hooked up and launched the boats and jet skis, found a beach and set up camp.

The kids wanted to tube so Kent blew that bad boy up and off we went.

 Hannah was crying in the middle so they were telling us to STOP!

 Justin and Jarrett

 Krista and her friend Katie.

 The crew.

 Krista and Katie.

 My princess and me.

 So Hannah wanted to ride with Krista, they were sitting a bit to forward and when Kent took off the front of the tube sunk.  Krista had cat like reflexes and grab Hannah as they went into the water.  Hannah never even got her hair wet, thats how quick Krista was at keeping Hannah afloat.  Hannah freaked out and would NOT get back on.  So sad too because she LOVED the tube.  Kent should have taken off faster so the tube would have lifted the front.  So they never got to ride. 

 That didn't stop Travis and Amy from jumping back on.

 Or from doing any tricks.

 Finally back on the land.  Having a much needed lunch break

 Kids just goofing around.  I love how much fun Amy and Hannah have with the boys. They really get along great!  

After a great day on the water, my parents came over and we BBQ burgers and my mom made a fruit salad.  Then my dad ran back to their place and got spinners and we placed spinners into the night. Again, having too much fun for pictures. UGH.


 Father's Day Morning

The man of the hour!

Hubby, daddy, dad, best friend, lover and all around amazing man!

 Opening his new kicks, socks and watch!

 After gifts Kent wanted to go out for breakfast, we headed to Earl's Castle.  We also had a flat to attend too on the excursion.  We have had a plug that was leaking in the tire for sometime now.  I took it to have a patch done on Friday before we left for the river.  On Saturday when we returned form the day on the lake the tire was flat!  We drove from the launch ramp to the river house VERY slow.  Sunday, Kent filled it with air and we took it to the only tire place open on Sunday/Father's day in Bullhead City. They tried to patch it but it was too large.  We ended up buying a used tire to get through the summer.  When we bring the excursion home in September, we will replace all four tires.

Anyway, we got on the water later then expected.  It was another great day and Sunday had NO wind!  Kent actually single skied, he did awesome, the water was glass.  He was shredding and enjoying the ride.  I on the other hand was driving the boat and had my 7 yr old flagging (illegally, I might add) and was unable to take any pictures.  Hopefully fourth of July weekend we will have another adult to help out.  Then Amy knee boarded.  She is really getting good, she was shredding from side to side and was contemplating going outside the wake.  She would get close and then get scared and head back into the middle.  It was so cute and fun to watch.

 Look at that girl!

 Me and my baby!

 So after yesterday we decided to make Hannah try the tube again.  She freaked out!  She isn't afraid of the tube but the water.  So strange.  So we told her to try and if she didn't like it we would stop.  Well she screamed and I felt like we were traumatizing her so we stopped.  Then I asked her to ride with me.  She screamed bloody murder but I made Kent keep going.  I held her tight and tried to comfort her.  It was NOT happening.  She put her hand out to say stop to daddy, but he just waved back.  I told her she had to use the sign for stopping when you are on the river.  So she reached up and tapped her head.  Kent couldn't resist that and stopped the boat.  We were safely back in the boat and she was fine again.  I sure hope we can over come this obstacle.  I am going to show her some past pictures of her tubing, hopefully that will encourage her again.

 Hannah wanted to find a SANDY beach and play for a while.  So daddy found us a nice beach and I actually laid out on the engine area of the boat while the kids and daddy did this

 and that.

 Ahh, a girl after my own heart.  Relaxing on the blue water, without a worry in the world.

Happy Father's day to my wonderful hubby, my amazing father and terrific father in law!

You guys are all very special and have been great inspirations to all of us. With out you we would be nothing.  Thanks for all that you do!