Where Oh Where Is Leslie???

Oh My Goodness! Can you believe it has been two months since I last posted. Well I have been pretty busy. School let out on June 4th and I have been babysitting full time. We also had puppies born six weeks ago and we went to the beach for a week. We have done alot of boating with my parents and had Vacation Bible School. I can't believe that the summer is almost over too. The kids start back to school on August 12th. Its so not fair, thats about a week earlier than normal.



Here are a few pictures of all the things that have kept me busy for the last two months.

Emma got baptized a couple of weeks ago. This was her that morning. She was so excited and we were so proud of her!

Emma opening her birthday presents. She turned 7 on June 4th. It's so hard to believe!

Her ice cream cone cupcake cake!!

My little baseball player! He played real baseball this year! He really enjoyed it and that kept us very busy.

Here he is fueling up on Powerade:)

The kids are "surfing" at Myrtle Beach they had a ball. (not sure who the man in the background is he doesn't belong to us)

Emma doing the trampoline bungee bounce thing, they loved this!

Colton loved doing flips!

Playing on the beach in the dark is lots of fun! That was the night we were waiting for the fireworks to start!

We had a great time at the beach but was really happy to come home. It was terribly hot and very crowded. This is just a little of what has kept me so busy this summer. I will try not to wait so long to post in the future. I will be adding puppy pictures later.

Bad, Bad, Coon Dog!!

You see this sweet and innocent looking coon dog. This was last year when he was still a puppy. He has now grown up into a not so sweet and innocent coon dog. I'm so upset with him that I didn't even take a picture of him now.

He stays tied up all the time since he is a coon dog and likes to run off hunting things. We always make Colton let him loose for awhile every afternoon when he comes home from school. Well yesterday Smokey was loose and we were getting ready to leave for ball practice and Colton couldn't find him to tie him up. We were of course running behind so I told him just leave him loose and I will tie him when I get back home. Well I wasn't gone but about thirty minutes and Smokey got into a lot of trouble in a short amount of time.

When I pulled into the driveway I seen him chewing on something. He had killed a guinea. I walked around the corner of the house and there were two other dead guineas. I was very upset. I must confess, I have wanted these things gone for awhile. I told Travis to kill them many, many times. I myself was running around the yard at 6:30 Sunday morning in bathrobe, toting my bb gun and popping the annoying creatures that decided to give us a wake up call under our bedroom window. Even though they were loud and extremely obnoxious I didn't want the dog killing them. Now I'm worried about letting my chickens out.

I guess Smokey had enough of the noise too. Now we are down to three guineas. Maybe three will be quiter.

Please Pray!!

This is such a hard to post. I'm sitting here with tears welled up in my eyes and heaviness in my heart as I write this.



My sister Robin just lost her baby at 32 weeks pregnant. My mom, my neice Morgan, and I went to Atlanta Friday night to be with her and her husband Eric. We were able to see precious Little Eric and hold him. He was a beautiful baby with lots of hair. He was 2 pounds and 14 inches long. Nothing looked wrong with him at all except he wasn't breathing.



We don't understand and probably never will, why this had to happen. But as I was told yesterday by a very sweet lady at a restaurant "God makes no mistakes". I'm hurting for Robin and Eric. I had a miscarriage when I was around 12 weeks and that was very hard, but I know it was nothing like this. I wish there was something that I could do to ease the pain, but I'm afraid only time will do that.



Please pray for them. Pray also for Morgan, this is hard on her as well. We all miss Robin so much and wish we could just hold her and hug her and comfort her in some way. We know that Little Eric is in heaven being rocked by Jesus this beautiful Sunday morning. He will forever by "our little angel!"

I'm A Bad Blogger!

I have not blogged in so long! Sometimes I have nothing interesting to write about or just don't feel like anyone else would think it is.

We had a great Easter weekend! Travis was off from work this weekend, which was very nice. I wish he was able to be off every weekend but he's fortunate to have a job. We took the kids fishing on Saturday. We all had a great time, but no fish for dinner. Colton caught the one and only fish of the day and we threw it back. We enjoyed fun with the family and a nice dinner at Travis' Grandmas yesterday!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here the past few days! Its in the eighties today. The kids are outside spraying each other with water now. They said they were so hot they were going to die. They better get ready for the heat, its not even summer yet. I hope it doesn't get could again.

An Eye Opening Movie!!!

Last night we watched the movie Food, Inc. Wow! I had seen lots of buzz about this movie in bloggy land for awhile. I found it on Netflix instant and we decided to watch it last night. This is pretty rare for my husband to actually want to watch something that I do. He was amazed by it too. He likes all of those conspiracy theory type documentaries anyway so he really enjoyed it.

If you have not seen it you defiantly need too. It made me really look at the food we eat and where it comes from. It made want to be able to grow or raise 100 percent of everything we eat. I know that is not possible, but I would like to as much as possible. If I can't grow it or raise it I want to know where it is coming from. We did purchase a beef from a friend of my dads and I'm so glad that we did. I know that it was raised humanely and without the antibiotics and growth steroids like other meat is raised. I was in tears at times seeing how horrible the conditions are that these animals live in.

I have always shopped for the lowest price. I can't afford free-range, grass fed, natural or organic meat and produce. Well I look at it a little differently now. If I can pay a little extra for something that was raised in a good environment and at its own pace instead of given chemicals to make it grow in half the time, I will. I'm on a mission to look for local produce and meat, to help out the little guy, instead of the big government run corporation. Its sad that the government can't look out for the well being of the American people because they are getting their pockets padded by these big corporations. They are forcing the little farmers out of business. The farmers that actually care about their animals and the food they raise are being sued and losing everything because they don't want to do what these companies are forcing them to do.

I usually do my grocery shopping on Thursdays. I can't this week because I will be babysitting a baby. But I'm really concerned now. Where do I go, what do I buy. I can't afford to spend $200 a week on groceries, but I don't want to buy this contaminated stuff anymore. I want to look out for the health and well being of my family. There are some changes a coming to this household and hubby is completely on bored. If you haven't seen this movie and your like me and just buy whatever you can afford you defiantly need to watch it. It's a real eye opener. Let me know if you've seen it and if it changed you!

I Had Three Banties!!!

My Grandparents brought me these three beautiful little banties on Sunday. I just love how cute and little they are. We brought them home from my parents house and put them in the guinea section of the chicken coop, where the guineas don't stay. They are wild and crazy. Thats the reason my grandparents didn't want them.

Well all was good the first day. Then the second day I went out to feed them. I pulled the big door to the coop shut but didn't latch it or anything like I should have. As soon as I opened their door the rooster went crazy and flew right over my head and out the door. There was no way I was getting him back in. So he strutted around our yard and the neighbors yard all day. He crowed and called for his ladies, but everytime I would get near him he would run away as fast as he could. He roosted on top of the chicken run with the guineas. We should have got him while he was asleep and put him up, but we didn't.

Yesterday when I was getting the kids ready for school I seen him running around in the yard and he was fine. I heard him crow a few times during the morning and I was really happy. Then when I went out to feed around 11:00 he was no where to be seen and hasn't been seen since. I think the neighbors bird dog that killed one of my guineas may know something about it. He was seen around here quite a bit yesterday. He no longer messes with the guineas. I think they all got smart and gang up against him. But I have a feeling that Mr. Rooster couldn't hold his own against that stupid dog. I'm so upset with myself. He was so beautiful. But I am saving the eggs, they are supposed to be fertilized up to thirty days after being with a rooster. So I'm saving the cute little eggs to be incubated at my moms so that we can have some baby banties. I hope they aren't as wild!!!

One of the girl banties

All three

Mr. Rooster was so pretty! I'm hoping he will turn up but have a very bad feeling about the whole thing!

I Think I'm In Love....

With These!!!!

I was needing a new washer really bad. My dryer was only a year old and working good but hubby insisted that we needed a matching set. I really, really wanted a front loader. I've wanted one for years. I love the fact that you can wash so many clothes in them at one time and that they are energy effecient. Its only supposed to cost $14.00 a year to run the washer. Hope thats true. It turns out that his boss had purchased these for an apartment that he owns and they were too big so he asked my husband if he wanted them. Since we are getting back a pretty good chunk of money from taxes we decided to get them. We got a good deal on them too!

I didn't think I would want them stacking. But it really does save the space especially in my little bitty laundry room. He even put me up some shelves and bought me a laundry sorter. The best part about these is my husband knows how to use them. I went to the grocery store yesterday and came home to him doing laundry. I nearly fell over, he had even washed the comforter and blankets off of our bed, because everything else was caught up. I hope the new doesn't wear out for him too soon. I could get used to a man doing laundry.

I really love these just wish they could fold the laundry and put it away too!