14 Years Ago

Fourteen years ago on a Friday night my parents, Ricky and I went out for fish fry at Jakes Restaurant in Wauwatosa. As we were sitting at dinner my stomach started feeling noticeably strange. But I love to eat (in fact I weighed about what I do now but was much larger in size at the time). So we stayed and finished our meal.

Afterwards we headed over to my Grandmother's house since she was caring for Connor who at the time was about 2 years old. Since we already had babysitters Ricky and I had no other choice but to go on a date of our own leaving Connor with my parents and grandmother.

We headed home in a rush on our way to our over night retreat. I can't remember why, but Ricky did not have a house key and crawled thru the kitchen window to retrieve a few things we were taking along. But soon we were on our way again.

We enjoyed our time together that evening for the most part. I was a bit moody and still quite uncomfortable. But Ricky was his patient self and stood by me to make me feel the best I could.

We stayed up until midnight and soon after we met a new acquaintance that we have loved ever since. He was a little worse for wear when we met him. He had a bump on his head. His skin was a bit dry and raw. And he was visibly upset.

We named him Kevin James McElvain. He was our biggest baby at 10lbs 3oz.

And as we have gotten to know him over the past 14 years I would say he is my child with the biggest heart too.

Love you Kevin....Happy Birthday!

School Days

Let me tell you about the first day of school...

3am Puppy jumped off bed. Ricky let her outside

3:15 Puppy barking outside. Ricky let her inside

4am Delaney comes into our bed nervous about her first day of school

4:10 Puppy jumps off bed but goes upstairs to sleep with Kelly.

6:05 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze

6:15 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze

6:25 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze

6:35 Alarm goes off. Wake Kevin. Crawl back in bed

6:45 Alarm goes off. Wake the girls

Side story:

So I go to wake Kelly, and Myrtle is still sleeping so peacefully

at the foot of her bed. She looks up at me with her sweet puppy eyes and

wags her tail. Awe..."she is so sweet" I think to myself. I sit on the side of the

bed to wake Kelly and....I feel something cold and wet leak up through my

pajama pants? I think to myself as I stand up to investigate, what spilled?

I turn around to investigate and what do I see?

A smushed piece of mushy poop!

That good for nothing puppy pooped on Kelly's bed

and I sat in it! WHAT?!?!

6:47 Kelly wakes up quickly

7:00 Ricky leaves for work

7:10 Grandpa picks up Kevin

7:35 Girls are ready to head out the door

7:45 Discover our usual road to school is closed. Detour

7:55 Arrive safely

8:00 Enjoy a donut and some time with St Matthias parents

8:30 Head home

11:00 Connor wakes up (must be nice)

Durning the day I did a bunch of stuff around the house

but got nothing done.

3pm Pick up kids from school

3:15 Home to discover Connor was not watching the dog and she ate a big chunk of fabric off our chair in the living room. Anyone want a cute beagle puppy?

4:15 Take Kevin to Grandma's

4:30 Take Kelly to swim

5:15 Ricky at the gym to coach Kelly's volleyball team

5:30 Take Connor to volleyball

5:45 Pick up Kelly from swim

6pm Drop Kelly at volleyball

6:15 Pick up Delaney from a friends

Grocery Shop

7:30 Pick up Connor from volleyball

8:30 Ricky back to the gym to coach Kevin's volleyball team

8:45 Kelly and I make Kevin a birthday treat for school

9:30 Girls in bed

10pm Drop Connor at his friends

10:30 Give Kevin a foot massage

11pm Kevin in bed

Clean up house

Watch a bit of TV

12:30 to bed

Now let me tell you about the second day of school...

The puppy slept in her kennel

I did not sit in poop

The road to school is reopened

XM radio is turned on in my car for two weeks free starting today:)

Looking at the calendar I only have one place to drive tonight

I am home alone with my dogs posting on my blog

I am even thinking of crawling back into bed for a bit

Wow what a difference a day makes!

Plaid

The Catholic School kids went back to school today. And this year, like every year, I spent little time back to school shopping for clothes.

I love school uniforms! and my little peeps who wear them!

Pancakes Anyone?

What can you do with pancake batter in a squirty bottle? Well you would never believe it if I told you, so view it for yourself at "Jim's Pancakes". When we went to the blog to view Jim's creations we were simply amazed at what the man can create with pancake batter and had to give it a shot (or should I say squirt) on the McElvain fry pan.

Kelly chose to create the stacked toilet pancake,

adorned with chocolate poop in the bowl.

Delaney was into animals shapes.

First she created a mouse.

And then a pig.

Pink pancakes do not really look very appetizing do they?

Kevin went all out whipping up a bee hive stack

with an order of small bees on the side.

I'm not sure I recommend trying Jim's pancake creations at home unless you have a lot of time, coupled with a good dose of patience. We spent about 2 hours in the kitchen, taking turns transforming batter into these tasty treats. And are you wondering what my pancake turned out to be....well it was round, because by the end of the whole event that is all that I had the energy to create!

Getting Back

This week on the Bella Blvd Blog it is "Back to School Week" where they are featuring some great back to school projects. If you take a look today you may see some familiar faces...

Which reminds me that here at our house the sad day is approaching where summer ends, and the chasing, early mornings and homework start all over again (I can be a bit negative for a little while can't I?)

But I am not totally in denial. We have done some back to school prep work. We registered for a second year in high school and picked up a huge stack of books.

And we have done our back to school shopping, making the tough decisions about what color school supplies to purchase...

While we were out we even picked up some bonus office supplies...

That would be a pound of rubber bands to add to Kevin's rubber band ball. (Which by the way Kelly did a great job photographing for me.)

And let's not forget that other kind of ball...volleyball has started, so coach McElvain is already feeling a bit of the hectic life.

Non the less it is all good, and soon we will adjust to the new life style of back to school. But for now we will enjoy the 6 days of freedom that we have left!

Bella Buzz

The newest edition of the Bella Buzz is available for download today. Inside there is a little challenge that I did with Laura Vegas. The challenge was ..

"Create a layout, using at least 1 pattern paper from each of the 4 new collections, at least 3 different colors of letter stickers from the 4 new collections, and at least one other sticker/embellishment from each of the 4 new collections."

That kind of challenge is right up my alley. So this is what I came up with.
Make sure you check out the buzz. There is some big news today on the blog and in the newsletter about the first ever Bella Blvd design team call!

Move

I was doing some blog surfing tonight and stumbled across this video...had to share!

The caption that goes with it reads...

" 3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films.....

= a trip of a lifetime."

This was my fav of the three videos. Sit back and enjoy. I can guarantee you will want to watch it more than once.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Side Note:

My Ricky's comment after watching, "don't you wish sometimes that you could do it all over again?"

My reply..."We did do it...and, what we still are doing is great! We just don't have video."

Ricky, "Sigh."

What I didn't say out loud, is that I don't need be on the move, being here is all great, as long as I am being here with him. I have the videos in my head;)

Broken

That little piece in Ricky's hand is part of our kitchen faucet, a part that is broken and therefore it will not let any water come out into the sink. It just looks so happy doesn't it? It is almost as if it is laughing. As if it is laughing at us. Laughing because it, and about one hundred other things in our house are broken or unfinished, and we have no time, or are waiting for the parts to fix them! It is not funny little faucet face!!

Glad I could get that off my chest.

Violence?

Last night after mass I stayed for a talk on "raising your kids in a violent culture". As our family was deciding at the last minute if I should attend, my kids kept telling me to come home because they are so sweet and wonderful...not violent at all! I would agree, and contemplated going home, but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to stay.

The first part of the presentation talked about how violence starts at home and we pass violent behavior on to our children without even knowing it. Hmmmmm? A point made that materialism, jealousy, and keeping up with the Jones' cause violent thoughts and behavior. I thought it was interesting that many of the things that are valued, are only of value because someone says that is the thing to have, and not necessarily what we need at all. Something I already knew, but when stated that way really made me think. I consider our life style simple by most standards, but I am sure we could do even better as a family when it comes to materialism.

A second point and a word associated with violence that really stuck home was "rushing". Causing a hectic household can cause friction, lack of patience, and less than nurturing behavior. With four fun, active kids I am often times rushing to get life in order. So it made me think of what we already do, and what we can do to stop that rushing violence inside our home.

We are doing some things right already. This summer I cut out all my daytime hours so that I could be home with the kids. A sacrifice financially but so worth it.

And lately I have been trying to do some little fun things as a family. Wether it is playing a game at the kitchen table, completing a project they want to do, or just laying in bed and having a much needed conversation. I've been trying!

And the kids notice...last week we took them down to the lake front for an ice cream after dinner.

We took a walk along the lake, dipped our toes in the water, played some volleyball, had some laughs. A week later the kids are still talking about how fun it was. And it was such an ordinary thing to do. But it made us slow down and enjoy some time.

So today's reminder to myself and you is to keep trying to take advantage of the ordinary, find your peace, step away from the violence you make in your own life. It can be so enjoyable!

SWAT 2010-2011

So today officially marks the end of another swim year for Kelly. She says she does not know what she will do for the two weeks she will not be at the pool. The SWAT swim team is her second family, and there are so many good memories made among the chlorine fumes.

2010/2011 season was a great year talent wise for her too. At the winter state meet she was on the podium for every event she swam, and took 5th in the state overall. I made her a mini book to remember the weekend....

This was so fun to put together. and I really liked using the heat sheet and result print outs for paper for the book. Fun to look back on who was the competition and the final results.

Thanks for looking:)

Gone Fishing

Since last Sunday the house has been unusually quiet. Ricky and Connor had gone on a fishing trip with my parents to the Chippawa Flowage. I am glad to say that last night my hubby returned home. Looks like they had a great time....In between spending hours in my dad's fishing boat, they found some creative ways to entertain themselves.
Why is Connor concentrating so hard on the peanuts on the table. That is because the salt, peper and sun lotion bottles are kings and queens. Yes, that is a chess board made out of paper towel. This is what we call a low budget vacation for sure.

But low budget does not mean low interest.

The sights that God create are beautiful.

And the out of the ordinary, peaceful moments, are so worth while.