Kiss a wookie, Kick a droid.

Thank you to my friend Liz who had this on her blog so I had to borrow it to share. To all those who have Star wars lovin kids like me!

Merry Christmas!

I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I haven't posted because I always think I need to have pictures but I haven't taken many lately. That will change soon with Christmas coming. We have been busy finishing up the shopping and now that the kids are out of school I can't decided if that will help me or not. Preston is always willing to help and watch the kids but then having them all home, well, lets just say that by 9 am Monday morning I was already lecturing them about how I was NOT going to have fighting for 2 weeks straight. We are going to the Christmas Carol tonight at the Playhouse and I am so excited. My mom, Warren, my brother John and his 2 boys, Rick, Preston, Parker, Landon and I will be going. We went last year with out Landon so I am excited for him to see it for the first time. My mom wants this to be a yearly tradition. I say "okay" to that. I am sad that I haven't seen Ricks family much this year and wish we could of driven out to see them but maybe next year. Christmas Eve will be spent with at my moms house, and that is always the best. The boys get to open up a few of their presents from grandma and grandpa and play with their cousins, which will be fun since they have haven't seen them much and have missed them. Christmas day will be low key, just our family together, playing with the new toys. We have been discussing the real reason for Christmas with the boys and my heart is full when I see them discuss why we celebrate. Even little Carter was with me at Hobby Lobby and saw a giant nativity set but the baby Jesus was missing. He kept saying "Where Jesus go?' over and over. It was so sweet that this tiny 2 year old new Jesus and where he should be. We hope every one has a great week and if your travelling be safe!

My sister in law sent me this video and I had to post it. It is too funny, every husband should watch this especially this Christmas season.

Country Elves....

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

My Elf yourself boys

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Dance Carter Dance!

Just thought I'd share a fun little video of Carter and Bryana "dancing".

Thanksgiving 2008

Here are some Thanks giving photos. Here is Carter and Bryana playing with one of the many trees at grandmas house. As you can see Carter really enjoyed Bryana's headband. They really have fun together.

Below are the boys at the kitchen table enjoying their Thanksgiving feast. Here is the adult table with my brother and uncle, Rick, Warren and Mom.

Here is Erica and mom dishing out the goods.

We had a very nice relaxing Thanksgiving vacation. I did my annual Black Friday shopping at 4:30 am. I think I'm still trying to feel normal after that. I had a successful trip. I am so grateful for so many things this year! I have a great family and great friends. I'm a blessed women! Thanks to those of you who make my life so wonderful!

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Thanks Elaine for posting this and making me search the web for more on Thanksgiving. I never really questioned why we have Thanksgiving. When I read President Lincoln's Proclamation for Thanksgiving and day of Prayer, I realized how important it is to teach our children what our country thought Thanksgiving was back in 1789 and in 1863.

I know its long but well worth the read!

This historic proclamation was issued by George Washington during his first year as President. It sets aside Thursday, November 26 as "A Day of Publick Thanksgiving and Prayer."
Signed by Washington on October 3, 1789 and entitled "General Thanksgiving," the decree appointed the day "to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God."

Later, on October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the observance of the fourth Tuesday of November as a national holiday.

By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,Secretary of State

My 5 sons....

For those of you who have seen our van you recognize the title of this post. It is what our licence plate reads. I "wear" it in pride, or my van does. I never thought I would be a mom of 5 boys. I never thought that my days would consist of constant wrestling, football (indoor and in the front yard), and every and all things electronic. I have long gotten past the fact that when I bring them all with me to the store I will ALWAYS get stares and almost always get comments. I don't mind the comments, I know we are an oddity, not only do we have 5 kids which is rare in Omaha, but they are all boys. I like to think that people just can't help comment because they are sooooo darn cute, or maybe it's because it they are always soooo darn loud. This picture truly captures the love that they have for each other! Oh, I'm such a proud momma.

Happy 2nd Birthday Carter a few weeks late...

My "baby" just turned 2 on Oct. 24th. I can't believe how fast time has gone and how big he is getting. Out of all my boys, he needed to stay the baby the longest and is probably the one that has grown up the fastest!!! Stop! I can't handle it! It is really hard for me to be done having kids and I just needed him to slow down, I need more time to enjoy these years with him. We had a small little party with just our family and he LOVED blowing out the candles on his doughnut, if you have read past posts you know he has a love for the pastries.

Coming home from the hospital.

Hospital picture

First Birthday

Opening presents

Blowing out the candles.

Singing Happy Birthday

Our Ghosties and Ghoulies

Preston the nerd.

Landon the army guy.

Parker the grocery bag.

Carter as Yoda.

Ian was a ghost.

Carving pumpkins

okay so every year we go to my moms to carve pumpkins and eat. This year when we asked Ian what kind of face he wanted on his pumpkin he said, "I want and angry face, (pause) like dads."
We all laughed so hard, after it was done he said, "Yup that is the face like dads."
Here is rick with his angry face.

Anna helped Landon carve his pumpkin. A big thanks to her, Landon was so glad to know he didn't have to stick his hand in the yucky inside. What whimpy kids I have.

Okay so Preston did his own and he wasn't whimpy.

The boys in action.

My mom always goes all out. This year the boys had flashing pumpkins in their drink, carmel apples and tons of candy. Oh and chilli which isn't really their favorite part.

Here they are at the kids table.

Fun Times At Vala's

Our sweet Preston.


Carter the naughty

Homer or Rick? hmmm

Preston took this picture oh me, so I told him I would post it.

My ghosties and ghoulies.

Rick and Ian

Vala's has this huge jumping pillow that the boys had fun jumping on.

Driving the tricycle around the track.

my 5 boys!

Let the fun begin.

Our cheesy Carter.

Little Bo Slugger

Okay my friend Kristen posted this picture of Ian on her blog so I had to copy it and share it. Can you tell they have girls? And we don't. Oh the black mail this picture will bring in the future.

Reflections of Christ

This will be the best 5 min you will have all day. This is an amazing video that I found from another friends blog. It is a collection of photographs by a man named Mark Marby. They were displayed at the Mesa Temple visitor center and are now put to music. Please enjoy this beautiful video. Remember these are photographs not paintings.

This is for Hailey & Eric...

Do you think it's cold in our house?

Do you think it is cold in our house? Well Lola does. This is how I found her the other night before bed. We were trying to wait till the last possible minute to put on the heat and when I went to lock up her kennel I found her bundled up in her blanket that had somehow made it out of the kennel and her face wasn't even showing. She popped her head out for the picture. :)

Tagged!

I was tagged by both Julie and Jillso check out there blogs to learn more about them. So I'm supposed to share 7 random things about me. That will be hard cause I'm pretty open about my randomness, but here goes.

#1. I LOVE to blog surf. If I could spend all day surfing peoples blogs I would be in heaven. of course it probably would get old but there are so many neat things on peoples blogs. I have found blogs that have made me want to be a better mother, wife, daughter of God, cook and decorator. Yeah for fun blogs!

#2. I love Broadway musicals, and now so do my boys. Today while listening to Mamma Mia in the car, Carter started singing "Money, money, money" along with the song and I had to smile. Rick hates musicals so I'm glad that my love of all shows with random singing has rubbed off on them. I spent a week with my mom in New York and we went to different shows, Hairspray, Wicked and Phantom. LOVE THEM!!!

#3. I love movies but I don't have to be one of those people to be the first to see the new ones. We watch an abnormal amount of them and have seen practically every pg-13 movie and under that our Hollywood video owns. I guess that's what happens when you don't have cable.

#4. I love reading teen novels and anything by Jodi Picolt. I go to the teen section first at the library. I am not a big Jane Austin fan but like more the more modern fiction. Some of my favorites are the Uglies trilogy, of course Twilight ,(which I don't really consider teen) and Unwind.

#5. I am also a party girl. I love hosting parties, I haven't done a ton recently but Ive had jewelry, food, scrapbook, children's books and more. It's a great excuse to get the house clean and send my boys to the basement.

#6. I am extremely sad to be done having children. If someone could just hand me the babies, that would be perfect. I, like Julie, love everything about babies. It makes me sick to think I won't have any more, stinkin' body, given up on me!

#7. Lastly I LIVE for the day after Thanksgiving. I love everything about it. It actually starts weeks before when the ads get put on the black Friday websites early. I plot my route and get my ads on Thanksgiving. The Day after Thanksgiving is actually the reason I have the Sunday paper. My moms husband knows how much I love ads so he got me a subscription a few years a go so I wouldn't be so stressed about missing the ads. I actually love looking at the Sunday ads also, but shopping for deal at 5 am is magical. This year will be a sad day because my tag-along buddy Cyndie moved so I will have to find a new friend who doesn't mind getting up early and getting their heals hit by shopping carts from random shoppers. The best is afterwards going to IHop and getting breakfast and finishing our shopping by 10 am. Still enough day to enjoy with family. Did you know that http://www.blackfriday.info/ has a few ads already!!! Oh the excitement!

Okay I tag Megan, Jana, Dawn, Elaine, Kristen, Jen G., Bobbie and Jenilyn

Just wanted to share

Our new favorite book. We picked this up at the book fair at the kids' school and it has become a favorite. Check it out here. It has the cutest pictures and the story makes me laugh.

A Pastry thief among us...

So our little carter has turned into a pastry thief. The first time it happened I didn't have my camera ready to document it but he and the dog enjoyed yummy apple donuts my mom got us from Nebraska City. It usually goes something like this. First I hear rustling, then their is quiet, then I realize that something isn't right and as I look into the kitchen this is what I find.

-Second offense: Donuts from Walmart, jelly filled.
Even though I'm yelling "stop!" he stills smiles for the camera.

Trying to put it back and act like nothing has happened.


-Third offense: More donuts from Walmart (I know I probably shouldn't buy any more donuts)
I know this looks like the same day but notice his shirt is different.

Once again putting the half eaten donut back.


-Fourth offense: Cupcakes from Grandma. I know your thinking that I should keep these further back on the counter, but he likes to climb.

Guilty face smeared with frosting.

Ahhh but it tastes so good. I will definitely keep the pastry's up and better yet I'll just stop buying them. Yeah, that's what I'll do. :)

Happy 10th Birthday Chandler!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

On October 11th 1998 our second child was born. She was due October 12th and after a few days of on again off again contractions I went to the hospital at 6pm on that Sunday night. We anticipated her arrival with great joy. We had our little boy and now a girl. Her room was ready, painted pink of course. Her closet was already filled with cute little dresses and shoes. I had made Rick redo her room so it was perfect. We had her name all picked out, Chandler Renee' McInelly. While laying in the hospital bed with my mother in law sitting next to me and Rick and the rest of my family sitting on the couches eating McDonalds, I noticed that while my water had broke my contractions were not getting any harder. As the nurse was coming in with the poticin to get them going my mother in law noticed that Chandlers heart rate was down in the 90's. She asked the nurse if anyone realized how low the heart rate was. The answer was that they (meaning the other nurses and resident on staff) were watching at the front desk and if anything was wrong they would see. No sooner did she say that then the resident come in and kick everyone out. As she tried to get Chandlers heart rate up, it dropped again into the 40's. She made the quick call to have an emergency c-section. From the time they made the call to the time she was born was a quick 7 min. I was knocked out because I had not had an epidural yet and when I awoke 2 hours later, my sweet husband was next to me in the recovery room trying to explain to me what had happened while I was asleep.
I only go over these events now because it has been 10 years! 10 YEARS! I remember those events like it was yesterday. This single event changed my whole life. She was put on life support until I was able to wake up and hold her. I never heard her cry. I never got to see her eyes. I only got to hold her and love on her for a small amount of time. She was 8 lbs. 15 oz. And had a head of dark blond hair. As we have added kids to the family she and Ian looked the most alike, though there were times that Parker's baby pictures were identical to hers. They were never able to give me any reasons for her short life. No answers to why. Only the faith that we have knowing that she came and received her body and that her mission was done. Her short life touched many and still touches people as I share her with others.
I have no problem talking about her or showing off her pictures, though they are sad pictures to look at. I want people to see her, to know she lived. I want people to acknowledge her life no matter how short it was. She is and always will be a huge part of our family. Her picture hangs on the wall with the others. She is our angel baby, that gives us another reason to strive to return to our Father in Heaven. She needs us to be worthy to raise her and I want to raise her. I long for the morning of the first resurrection that I will be able to hold her and this time she will be able to look at me and I will see if her eyes are blue like her brothers or green like her dads.
I write all this because its all I have of her. It's all I get, once a year we buy flowers and balloons for her grave instead of polly pockets, webkinz and baby dolls. Thank goodness for the knowledge that our family has of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It gives us hope and peace. It fills the hole in my heart that is empty because my family isn't complete right now. But some day it will be, I just have to be patient, and some days its really hard.
Thank you to all my friends who over the years have been their for me. Evan after 10 years, they still remember her. Thank You!!!

Thought this was fun...

A friend of mine had this on her blog. Find the fourth picture in the fourth folder, so here is mine.

This is a picture of me and the boys last October 11th. Strange that I do this 2 days before that date. We are at my daughters grave, we go every year on her birthday, Oct.11th. We always go and sing happy birthday and take pictures of the family. Each year we have a picture of us here and it is fun to see the family grow with each year. Love you Chandler! I tag anyone that wants to do it.

Sabrina the Trainer

I just had to post some funny pictures of my sister, who was in town this past weekend, showing my mom some exercises.

Okay if you click on this one and make it bigger my sisters face just cracks me up.

Of course Carter couldn't resist getting on grandmas back, she was on the floor you know and if your on the floor your fair game.