Happy Anniversary Honey!!!

Today is our anniversary. We have been married nine years. It's really hard to believe that we have been together for a decade. We were together for almost a year before we were married. In some aspects it seems like we have been married for a century though.



We were married very young, I was 18 and he was 19. We had Colton just over a year after we were married. Things have defiantly not been easy over the years, but it has been fun. Well its fun most of the time:)



Travis and I truly are soul mates. I know that we were destined to be together long before we knew. He is an amazing husband. Yes he has his faults ( a lot). But so do I. But he is very good to me, he works so hard so that I can stay at home with our children, he loves to buy me things and spoil me (when we can afford it). I never have to worry about him going out and drinking or doing drugs or fooling around. When he is off he is spending his time with me and the kids.



We have been through a lot over the years and with each tragedy or hard time I think we have just gotten stronger and learned to depend on each other more. Marriage is not easy, but when you find the right person it makes it easier. I know I have found that right person.



I know we will face harder times in the future, but with Travis by my side I can get through anything.



I Love You so much Honey!! You are the one I dream of sitting on the front porch with and watching the sunset when we are old and gray. Happy Anniversary!!

I tried to post some pictures, but for some reason its not working.

I wish I had my Camera!!

Saturday evening around 6:00 the kids and I were heading to the grocery store. We were on a small road a few miles from our house and you will never believe what we saw. We saw a momma bear and four baby bears. I could not believe it. It was so cool.



Well it was cool since we were in the car, but it would have been really scary if we were in the middle of the woods. It seems that black bear keep getting more and more populated in our area. We are already completely over run with deer, now it will be bear too.



It was still exciting seeing them and the kids were really excited. I pulled off on the side of the road to see if we could see them in the woods and Emma started crying, she was scared they could get in the car. Now Travis wishes he could see them. Too bad I didn't have my camera, well its probably good because I would have wrecked trying to take a picture.

I Survived!!

So the big day came and went and I'm still here. I did better than I thought I would, I only cried a little as I seen the big yellow bus pull away with my babies. But Emma had a wonderful first day of school and can't wait to go back on Monday.

Her second day didn't go as well. School was great, but she got scared on the bus. She was so pitiful telling me about a first grader that wanted her to be his girlfriend and he tried to kiss her. But her big brother was sitting with her and he protected her. I just hope he's still protecting her in say...8-10 years.

The Big Day is Almost Here:(

I'm still here. No I haven't been out of the country all summer, just hanging around in VA. I just really haven't felt like blogging much. We have been kind of busy. We've went to the lake with my parents a few times and camping once. But mostly I have been busy gardening. I have made tons of pickles. I made sweet pickle spears, cucumber sandwich pickles, pickle relish and zucchini pickles. Speaking of zucchini, this was my first year planting it and all I can say is WOW. We had enough zucchini for an army and a half. I tried giving it away and it seems you can't give the stuff away. So I made some pickles and froze some, I shredded and froze some for zucchini bread and we ate alot. But you kind of get tired of it after a while. I also picked lots of blueberries from my mom and dads and froze some and made some jam.

So the rest of the garden hasn't done as well as the cucumbers and zucchini and squash. We have tons of tomatoes, but they are still just as green as can be. I really hope they ripen soon because I really want to make some more salsa. It was soooo good. Our corn is looking hopeful but still kind of weak, I hope we have some, last year what we did have got ate up by bugs, hope that doesn't happen again. Our green beans were not good at all. I'm not sure what kind they were, but they were tough and had no flavor and I even tried to pick them before they got too big.

Every year the garden is a learning experience and I'm trying to figure it out each year. Next year my garden is going to Rock. Well it kind of does Rock now....lots of ROCKS.

So I've been really sad this week. I think I've mentioned this once or twice or five hundred times, but my baby starts kindergarten this year, and the big day is only 6 days away. I'm trying to stay strong for her sake, she is so excited. But it is so hard. I have been at home with her since she was born and I'm not going to know what to do without her. I didn't have as hard of a time with Colton, because I still had Emma, but now I don't have a baby at all.

Don't get me wrong, there has been days this summer that I can't wait for school to start. Especially when I here "Mommy, Colton pulled my hair, and stuck his tongue out at me." or "Mommy, Emma pinched me" or "Mommy, Colton called me stupid." Yeah that gets very annoying. Maybe I will like the house all too myself. Wow I want know what to do.

Emma has gotten really bad a tattling here lately. At their school the kindergarteners have to wear a tail pinned on their backside if they tattle. So I have a feeling my little girl may be wearing the tattletail a lot. Hopefully not. I'm just praying we have a good school year.

Pray for me as the big day arrives, that I stay strong and remember they all have to grow up and she will love school.

I forgot to post about two weeks ago our other kitty Mr. Whiskers died. We found him dead in the barn. He didn't have any marks or anything like he had been attacked. The only thing we think that could have happened was he may have found rat poisioning that we had put out last year. We had it under things so the dog couldn't get it but the kitty could probably get in those areas where Cody couldn't.

We all were very sad. He was so cute and friendly and we had already gotten attached to him. Now we have decided we don't want anymore kitties. Even though my parents say that we can have the momma cat that keeps them supplied with kitties. We are thinking about getting her, but we don't know if we should even try that. Three kitties dying in a month is a little much. I think we just aren't very good at keeping cats.

Happy Birthday to ME!!

Sorry it's been a while, Again. Busy summer.



Well today is my birthday. I'm 27 today. I don't feel any older, yet. I have recently gotten several nice things though for my birthday.



My real birthday present from hubby was a clothesline. I know it doesn't sound like anything really special, but I love it. And hubby made a wonderful one. When he makes something he does it the right way so it will last forever. This one defiantly should. I love it. It has really helped me to keep my laundry under control, because it has six lines and I can hang lots of clothes at one time so its really nice and fun. That sounds weird saying hanging out clothes is fun, but so far it really is.



Okay and my other present was a new stove for my kitchen. It wasn't planned for, just had too. Our old stove was given to my husband by his great grandmother when he moved in to our house. We figured it to be at least 30 years old or older. It has really never worked too good, but it made due for almost 9 years of marriage. That is until Sunday morning when I was fixing cinnamon rolls for the kids and the stove made this horrible noise and then fire and sparks started shooting out of the sides of the oven. It scared me to death. But I quickly turned the oven off and it quit. The heating element in the bottom of the oven burned into. We decided that instead of trying to find an element we would retire the old stove and buy a new one.



I love my new stove. It's a white smooth top Fridgedaire brand. I can't believe that it can boil water in like 4-5 minutes, with my old stove it took at least 30 minutes to boil water and that was on a good day, sometimes it was longer.



So I received a clothesline and stove this week. When we went to Tennessee I also got a lot of things. A set of Henkels kitchen knives, a pair of Olukai sandals, Native sunglasses and a carpet sweeper. So this past month I have been really spoiled. The amount of money that we have spent this month is not normal. Please do not think we buy like this all the time. My blog is about trying to get thrifty, for pete's sake. But we were needing some things and while we were on vacation we decided to go ahead and get things that I really like that was good quality and last a long time. So it was a one time splurge. My knives and sunglasses have lifetime warranties, so that helps knowing if something should happen to them I can get another for free.



Besides a clothesline is thrifty, isn't it!

We're BACK!!

We just got home from the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We really had a great time, but are totally pooped. We were busy all week and didn't get to the room before 10:30 any night. But it was well worth it and we really had fun.

Wednesday we went to Dollywood. It was lots of fun. Colton was so excited he finally is 48" tall and could ride all of the rides. He wanted to ride the roller coasters first thing. We figured he would chicken out before getting on them, (he is scared of lots of things), but he didn't. He absolutely loved the coasters and rode them at least 10 times. He was completely hooked. Travis and I are so proud, we love roller coasters too.

Emma also was very brave. She was able to ride a smaller roller coaster called the blazing fury. It goes through a dark burning building and then the track is out and you fall straight down into water and get wet. We didn't think she would like it, because it is kind of scary, but she loved it and rode at least 6 times. She even fell before getting on one time and skinned her little knees up really bad, but she still rode. She was with daddy that time and when she came back to me she had blood from her knees to her ankles and it was still bleeding pretty bad. Travis was going to bring her back to me before the ride, but she insisted on riding. She said if she would have been with me instead of her daddy, that I wouldn't have let her ride. She's probably right, mommies are mean that way.

We had fun walking around Gatlinburg and we watched the midnight fourth of July parade and fireworks, which was a lot of fun. We did some shopping and a whole lot eating. I probably gained 10 pounds. Overall we had a very nice vacation and really appreciated our in laws for taking us.

Well when we got home we had some not so good things happen. First my parents came and fed our dog and kitties on Friday morning and they couldn't find one of the kitties. We was hoping and praying all the way home that it would be here, but it wasn't. My neighbor had found it Thursday morning ran over in the road. Our hearts just broke when we heard and then having to break it to the kids. This was Emma's kitty and she was so excited to get home to see it. She was upset, but overall took it very well. We called Granny she has one kitten left and said we can have it if we can catch it. It's pretty wild. I sure hope we can catch it.

If another kitty dies we are calling it quits on the cat department.

The other really, really, bad horrible thing that happened was...I don't even want to type it, it's so bad. Okay here it goes...there was a snake in our house. YUCK!!! SCARRY!!! SCARRY!!!
When we went open our front door it was curled up and went through a crack under the door. It was very small, like a garden snake or grass snake. But it doesn't matter what size, shape, color or if it was poisionous or not the fact is it was a SNAKE. A nasty slimey, creapy, crawley, reptile in my house.

My big strong hubby killed it and took it outside. Then I made him fix the door so no more could get in. Now I'm scared to go to bed. What if there is more? OOH! I think I want to move.

Okay so I'm being a little over dramatic. But come on why would anyone want those nasty creatures as a pet.

The whole reasoning behind getting cats is so they will kill the mice and birds in the barn so we want have snakes. All I can say is Mr. Whiskers better get to work!!