Well, first off, i think our children are against vacations. I am sure you all remember when Forest and I went to Vegas in March and the day we left Owen ended up in the ER with pneumonia. Well, the day we left for this last little vacation, Miss Brielle ended up in urgent care with severe pink eye in BOTH eyes. THEN, not even half way to Hermiston on our way to The Dalles, Owen starts screaming and crying about needing to go to the doctor because his ear hurt. He loves going to the doc, so we thought maybe it was just an act of jealousy because Brielle got to go to the doc and not him. After him screaming the entire drive to The Dalles, and seeing that after we got there, his eye was also getting nasty looking, we headed to the ER after dropping Brielle at my grandparents house. Sure freakin enough, he had a terrible ear infection and pink eye. To make the story even better, the doc asked what eye drops Brielle was on, so he could prescribe the same for Owen. I told him and he looked at me like I was crazy and said are you serious? Uhhhmmm, YES! Come to find out, that drops that Brielle were on are not recommended for use in children AT ALL. They have a steroid in theme and it can cause serious permanent damage and even blindness. NICE!!!! So, he gave me enough drops for Owen to share with Brielle also. Good grief, I am so not looking forward to that bill. UGH!

After getting that all taken care of on Sunday, we laid low at grandma and grandpas for the week and then hit the zoo on Thursday. It was very hot, but we had a great time. Saturday and Sunday we went racing in Woodburn and had alot of fun. We are all very thankful and happy to be home. Now if I could get Brielles poor little nose to clear up. I am praying its just teething and allergies that's causing it.

Wow, what a long 8 day vacation it was!! I will update tomorrow, promise!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I had Forest get up in the attic and dig out "my" baby doll from when I was a little girl. I got the doll when i was really close to Brielles age. I put Brielles coming home outfit on it, and Brielle absolutely LOVES that doll. Its really cool to see her enjoying it as much as I did. That doll went everywhere with me!

Forest got another first place win at the racetrack lastnight. Woohoo!!!!!!!! We had a ton of friends there to watch him too, so that made it even better. We had a great time.

I am supposed to be packing righ tnow, but I am dreading it. We are leaving after church tomorrow for our little vacation. I am very excited about going. I think the kids and I will have a great time hanging out with grandma and grandpa for the week.

What a busy week already! I ended up going to The Dalles monday morning and stayed the night so my aunt and uncle could see the kids before they headed back to Utah. Thats a long drive with just me and the kids. Its a little over 2 hours. More like 2 and a half when you have to stop and pee! We had a great time though. Owen played so hard with his cousins. Brielle fell in love with uncle Jack, but that might just be because of her vast love for MEN. I am in SO much trouble with her, or will be someday. She absolutely LOVES men. Its ridiculous!!!! I am supposed to be doing laundry right now, so I can start to pack for our trip. We leave sunday. I am so excited and cannot wait to take the kids to the zoo in Portland next week. Its going to be so much fun. Owen is absolutely going to love it!!! We are going to be gone for 8 days. It will be a great little vacation for us all.

I know, I am a complete slacker when it come to this blog think lately. Bare with me, we have been crazy busy!!!! And its only about to get worse. I may not post much next week at all because we are going to be out of town from the 12th to the 20th. Forest has a class to go to in Portland for work, so the kids and I are going to go down and stay in The Dalles with my grandparents while Forest is working. We will get there sunday afternoon, the kids and I will stay until Thursday, then Grandma and I are taking the kids to the zoo in Portland and she will drop us off at the motel afterwards and we will stay with Forest Thurs. night and Fri. night. Then saturday morning we are off to Woodburn to do some racing. We will be staying in Woodburn Sat. night and racing again sunday. Then sunday we are staying in The Dalles again, and then heading home Monday. Its going to be so busy, but so much fun. I am REALLY looking forward to spending some time with Grandma and Grandpa and also going ot the zoo, oh and okay, the shopping too!!!!!

Our 4th of July weekend was great. We went on our wine tasting tour saturday and had a total blast. It was awesome! The kids stayed at Stephanies house saturdya night. Paul and Sheryl were down, so they kept them while we went on our tasting thing. They went out on the boat and they are both so tan it makes me sick. I am so jealous of their little tans, its not even one bit fair!!!!! Anyway, I am off to make breakfast for the monsters!

My internet has been down for what seems like FOREVER! But alas, it has been fixed...today, wahoo! We haev another super busy weekend ahead of us. We are going on a 6 hour wine tasting tour on saturday amd a busy day in Hermiston on sunday. This past week has been very busy also. We have had doctor appointments, dentist appointments, hair appointments, internet fixer dude appointments! The list goes on and on. Paul and Sheryl got here this afternoon and will be staying tonight and tomorrow night with us. They will be taking the kids with them to Stephanies house saturday while we are on our tour. They are actually keeping them all night so its looking like party night for us saturday, YAY!!!! We are actually going on the tour with some really good friends of ours that moved to Idaho. It will be nice since we don't get to see them very often and they are so much fun. Anyhow, its late, im tired and I have a busy day tomorrow. I have to rest up for my pedicure tomorrow!!!

Pictures to come soon......I promise!

Today is Forest and I's 5 year wedding anniversary. Yay us..haha! W got our concrete poured yesterday! What arelief it is to have that done. This evening when forest gets home, we will take off the forms and see how it all looks. We will have a busy weekend building the fence and putting gravel in. We poured a retainign wall along the property line so we can level out the ground with gravel. The fence will be on top of the wall and it will go all the way to the side walk. Before it was just to the end of the garage. The gate will also come out farther. The whole point of this project is so we can park that big ol car trailer behind the gate. The fence will be 6 feet tall until the gate, and then it will be 3 feet tall all the way to the sidewalk. We also added 4 feet to the driver way. It will be nice to have it a bit wider now.

Tonight after we get all that done, we are going to head over to the Cool Desert Nights event. They are haivng a big cruise tonight. We try to go every year. Its alot of fun. Owen really liked it last year, so I am sure he will be super into it this time.

Yay for Thursday! Our fence project is coming along nicely still. We have a concrete truck coming this afternoon to pour the retaining wall. We are almost there! It should be about done by this weekend. My mom is coming up this morning and we are going to go shoppping! Our main thing to get is a baby shower gift for a good friend of ours. Her shower is saturday and I am really looking forward to that. Hopefully the kids arent complete monsters today being that Owen woke up at 6:30, stood in the hall, and screamed, I WANT TO WATCH TV!!! Needless to say, he also woke up Brielle. UGH!

Can you believe how much they look alike??!! This is my cousin Brok.

We had a huge weekend! We went racing friday night, but we wont talk about that. He had a first round loss again. Saturday Forest worked on our fence all day. We are making it so we can park the car trailer behind the gate. Its a huge project, but its coming along nicely.

My cousins from Utah are here, and they got to come up and see us yesterday. That was alot of fun and my kids loved playing with them. I have to make it short for today, we are off to hermiston for hair cuts and teeth cleanings!

Brielle and I had a fun day out yesterday! We hit Kohls first and found some great deals, then we hit the mall for a couple of hours and found some more great deals! I found an outfit, including shoes, to wear to the wine tasting tour we are going on on the 4th of July. I am very excited for that. We are going with some friends of ours that we havent saw in awhile. Forests parents are going to be here that weekend and offered to keep the kids over night at Stephanies, so WOOHOO, party for us!!!!! Forest and I are really looking forward to it.

Owen has been gone since tuesday morning. He went down to Stephanie's with Sheryl. She has been here for the week. They won't be back here until tomorrow morning. She is staying with the kids tomorrow night while we go racing too. So that will be a huge help. Its so tough to take Brielle with us. Owen is easy because he is so into it. But Brielle is a bit young yet. Forest talked to his Dad lastnight, and he is actually coming down tomorrow for the races! He wasnt able to come with Sheryl because of big projects at work. Well they ended up needing a special tool that they have at the office here, so Paul "volunteered" to come and get it. Well, I have a full day of cleaning up after little Miss Tornado today. Stay tuned......

We hit the mall yesterday and I got a new swimsuit. Stephanie and maddie met us (Sheryl, and the kids and I)at the mall. Steph got a swimsuit too. Then we went to Olive Garden for lunch. It was oh so yummo!!!!! I loe that place. We got home and laid the kids down for their nap and when they woke up we played outside in their pool. Its going to be a hot one today too. The high is 90, yuck! Its my day to mow too. Sheryl is heading down to Stephanies this morning, but maybe I will see if I can mow before she leaves. I ususally mow when Brielle takes her morning nap around 10, but its already 66 outside at 7:30 this morning. I am going to be mowing the neighbors lawn too!!!

Forest had a three day weekend, which is always nice. He spent friday working on a costumers racecar and then saturday we went down to Hermiston. We went to see my parents for a bit and then I went and took pictures of baby Parker. He is so stinkin cute, I LOVE THAT KID!!! We went to Stephanies for a little bit. Sheryl is in town also. Yesterday, Sheryl came up and we went to church. Forest and I were teaching in Owen's sunday school class this week. It all 3 year olds. Well the teacher for the 4 year old decided to not show up , so we had the 4 year olds also. We had 15 kids between the ages of 3 and 4. YIKES!!! It was too terrible though we made it through. After church we came home and had lunch and naps. After the kids woke up and got around, we headed out to the Country Mercantile. That place is awesome. I love going there. They have the best of EVERYTHING. After we checked out all the neat stuff, we had dinner and icecream out there. It was YUMMO! Sheryl is staying today and tonight with us also. Her and Owen just headed out for their Starbucks. It started out as being called their mojo, but now Owen calls it jo jo, so they went to get their jo jo. Its something they do everytime Sheryls is here. They have been doing it for about a year now. They sneak out in the morning, usually just the two of them. Sheryl gets coffee and Owen either gets chocolate milk, or hot chocolate. Owen really enjoys doing that with Memaw and he calls her. I think after breakfast, baths, and getting dressed, we may head to the mall today, yay!!!!

Slacker

I know I have been slacking the last few days, so I just wanted to say that we have had a very busy weekend and I will be back tomorrow for sure with a better update....and pictures!

Hows are those for some looks!!?!??!!?!I finally was able to get my backdrop and studio lighting set a couple days ago. I can't wait to use it for real. I set up the backdrop yesterday just to see how it was, but it needs ironed badly and I didnt have the lights set up. Brielle was posing for me big time though. She is such a girly girl! owen was sleeping, or else I would have a bunch of him too.

The pictures I took of my friends baby ended up being lost, so this weekend I am going to go back and do them again. It will be much better this time with the backdrop setup. I cant wait!

I just filled up the kids swimming pool. We should have a ton of fun this afternoon. I will make sure to get lots of pictures to share!

After making those pies, the bbq was cancelled. The weather was getting pretty nasty and nobody wantes to risk the chance of getting rained on. So, I decided to go spend the night with my parents. So sunday night I went down there . My mom kept the kids for me for a couple of hours and I went to one of my best friends from high schools house and we did a small photoshoot with her 6 week oild baby boy, Parker. He is ADORABLE!!! When I got back to my parents house, I looked at the pictures of my dads laptop, well when I got home yesterday, I went to look at them and do some editing and they were not on my card AT ALL anymore! I was almost panicking. I called mom adn told her what happend and I am hoping that the program I used on dads computer aoutomatically saved teh pictures to the computer and then deleted them off my card. That is pretty common, I just didnt think of it at the time. Dad had to run into the office for something and his laptop was in his truck, so hopefully today I found out whether or not Dad has the pictures. If not, its not too big of a deal because I recently bought a backdrop and studio lighting set that is supposed to be delivered today. We will be able to get better pictures with all of that. Maybe this weekend I will go down and do it again.

Anyway, on to happier things! FOREST WILL BE HOME TONIGHT......YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got my pies done lastnight for our bible study group bbq today. I made fresh strawberry pies and they look so yummy! Brielle ended up missing her afternoon nap yesterday becaue I really needed to go to the store and by the time Owen woke up so we could go, it was close to her nap time and then by the time we got back, it was dinner time, and then it was too late for her to have a nap, so she went to bed about 7pm lastnight. I put Owen to bed at 8:30 and finished up my pies and cleaned up a bit. I watched tv for a little while in my bedroom and talked to Forest on the phone for a few minutes. After I talked to him i was getting sleepy. It was 10pm. I only made it 10 m inutes before I went in and got Owen out of his bed and put him in mine. Usually when Forest is gone, I let Owen sleep with me. I thought I would be tough lastnight and try it by myself, but i am a big ol' sissy and only made it 10 minutes. The kids both slept til 7:30 this morning, so that was nice. We are going to go to Church at 10:30 this morning, then home for lunch and naps and then off to our bbq. I need to make a side dish of some kind today too to take with us. Anyhow, thats our day!

We went racing lastnight and the kids stayed hom with my nieghbor. It was nie to be there without the kids and worrying about them. Although, we were home early because Forest lost first round. He red-lighted, he left too early so the other car automatically wins. It was a bummer, but you cant win everytime I suppose. I have got a pretty busy next few days ahead of me. Forest left this moring for Lewiston. He will be working there until tuesday night. I am going to make a couple strawberry pies and a potato salad for our bible study group bbq tomorrow. Too bad Forest is going to miss it! Sunday we have church and the bbq, adn then monday I will be spending the day in Hermiston to see my grandparents who will be in town. Monday evening I am going to take some pictures of my friends new baby. He is about 6 weeks old now and way too cute! I am looking forward to our photo shoot.

This is for Grandma Marcine. I want to start collecting more of these. I have one figurine and I have a good start to the nativity set. http://www.willowtree.info/

Owen playing in our trailer at the race track last weekend

Showing off her pigtails. Arent they CUTE?!?!?!??!

The pictures that arent labeled at all are from yesterday evening. Owen has way too much fun on their swingset. He is going to wear that thing out!

So Forest will have tomorrow off! That great because now he doesnthave to miss the race, BUT he has to work saturday through tuesday and he will be out of town! UGH!!! I hate when he is gone. It is so rare that he has to work like this, but when he does, I absolutely hate it. Oh well, what can i do? Monday I am for sure going to hermiston to see my grandma and grandpa and I most likely will stay the night with my mom and dad that night. I have quite a bit to do to keep me busy. Sunday we are going to a bbq qith our bible study group, but it looks like that will just be teh kids and I. I am going to make a potato salad and a couple strawberry pies I think. So saturday will be busy doing that, then church sunday, then naps and then the bbq. Anyway, thats my sob story for the week.

Disappointed

Forest informed me that he most likely has to work out of town all weekend. The found a leak someone near Lewiston that has to be fixed. I am so bummed! Friday night is another points race and being that he is the leader in points, its gonna sick for him to miss this race. It will for sure bump him out of first place. Saturday we were going to go to Hermiston for a carshow, and then sunday we were having a bbq at the park with our bible study group. Looks like it will just be the kids and I doing that one. Oh well, life goes on I suppose.

I went shopping lastnight with my best friend and we were husband and kid-less for the first time in FOREVER!!! I bought a dress to wear on the wine tasting tour we are going on next month. I may return it and find something else though. It shows alot of cleavage and I dont know how comfortable with that I am going to be. We shall see I guess....

I will be posting more pictures of the kids soon. I feel like busting out the camera today!

Not much to report today. The wind is blowing (big surprise, huh?) and today is mowing day. So, it looks like I will be mowing in the wind. Yay, thats just an invitation for my allergies to act up even more. Which by the way, have been aweful!!!! At least the kids havent had too much trouble yet. I have their prescription on hand though for when it does start, because trust me, it will start!

We are going racing again this friday night. It looks like both kids will be going with us since I cant find anyone to keep Brielle. We will see how she does I guess. Its just a little hard on her with her being so young. Owen does awesome. He is totally into it too, so that helps.

Anyway, off I go to play referee between Owen and Brielle. He thinks its great to hurt her as often as he can, so I have to watch them like a hawk. Please Lord, help me through the three's and get onto the four's!!!!

We had another busy weekend. We went racing friday night and Forest made it to the semi finals, but ended up not winning that race because there was something on the track that made him lose traction and the car went a bit sideways, so he had to let off the gas and that cost him the race. It was a bummer, but it was still fun. The next race is this coming friday. Not sure why the track decided to do them back to back. Brielle stayed with Stephanie. If I can find somewhere for her to stay while we go racing, I do. Its hard on her to be out that late and with all the loud cars. I talked to my brother lastnight and him and his girlfriend Kara are most likely going to come to the house to watch her this time and I am thinking I will probably leave Owen here too since he is in absolute LOVE with Kara.

We didnt get him til 1:30 am from the races and then got up early with Owen. We had three graduation parties that we went to that were all outside and it hit 100 degrees that day. Yay, summer is here, but unfortunately so is the heat, yuck!

Check ups, food allergies and meetings.....

I thought Brielle's 15 month check up appointment was yesterday afternoon, but after not getting a confirmation phone call the day before, I called yesterday morning to make sure and the idiot receptionist had scheduled it for Friday. I know for a fact she told me wednesday on the phone and I am going to be extremely busy friday getting ready to go racing that night, so I knew I wouldnt have done it that day. Anyway, we were able to reschedule for this morning. She is FINALLY 20 pounds and she is super long at 30 inches. She had to get two shots, but she seems to be handling it just fine now.

I asked the doc about Owen because the poor kid has been having some pooping issues. He is potty trained, but he still sleeps in a diaper or pull-up because he is unable to stay dry at night yet. He wakes up in the morning and poops sometimes and its terrible! Okay, so a little history, we have know since Owen was under 2 years old that he cannot handle apple juice. It goes straight through him and gives him aweful diarrhea. It actually gives him an instant rash, but its more like it burns his skin. Anyway, lately that has happend a few times, and I had no idea why. It has actually happend alot over the last 3 years and we just thought it was Owen. We know for sure though that happens when he has apple juice. Well, a couple of weeks ago when Forest's parents were here, he had a really bad day where he would have super small accidents in his pants and when he did make it to the toilet, it was super watery. I asked the doc about it today and she said it sound like a possible food allery to her. I was thinking, oh great, how am I going to figure this one out! As I was putting Owen down for his nap, I got to thinking, and when Forests parents were here, Sheryl had bought a big bag of apple slices, adn we had all been munching on them like crazy, including Owen. So, apparently, Owen must be allergic, or at least has a bad reaction to apples. Poor kid. He has had a decent amount of apples lately, and his diapers have been aweful. I am in the process of trying to get his little bum cleared up right now. So no more apples for Owen!

Wow, that was alot. Hopefully that wasnt the most boring thing ever...haha! We have our montly car club meeting tonight also. I always look forward to that.

Pictures, being sore, and check ups

These pictures are all from this past weekend.

Brielle ADORES her uncle Bryce (my brother)

Man, I am sore today! I did a pretty good workout on the Wii Fit yesterday afternoon and then after dinner we hooked up the kid trailer to Forest's bike, and we all went for a bike ride, neighbor kids included. It was alot of fun, but I am paying fo rit today. I can't wait to do it again hopefully tonight. Brielle has her 15 month check up this afternoon and she will be getting shots, so we will have to see how she is feeling. I am anxious to see how big or should I say, how little she is. She was 17.5 pounds last time at her one year check up, so hopefully she is at least 18.5 or more.

I will update on her appointment for sure tomorrow.

It's about time!

Sorry I have been a slacker to anyone that reads this regularly! We had a crazy busy weekend. Forest had a four day weekend and we got a ton done! He worked late Thursday night, soI decided that our main bathroom needed a makeover. I went out with kids in tow and bought new stuff for the bathroom, including paint, and new flooring. Thursday evening after the kids went to bed, I got started. I painted the ceiling that night. Friday, I did two coats of paint on the walls and put in the new "stuff". Friday night, we did the floor. Man, what a difference it made! It looks pretty stinkin good if I do say so myself! Saturday I spend the day cleaning up the rest of the house and then we went our for Chinese food, yummy! Sunday we went to Church and then my parents and brother and his girlfriend, Kara, came over for a BBQ. We had yummy hot dogs and hamburgers with baked beans and chips, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was YUM and we had a great time hanging out and playing with the kids. Then yesterday I FINALLY did the dreaded grocery shopping. Oh how I pretty much hate grocery shopping. I love some good retail therapy, but groceries suck! And at last today, I am still not able to relax! Haha, relax, thats funny, right?!?!? Our lawn needs mowed and since I am so super nice, or maybe crazy, I offered to mow the neighbors lawn too. Her husband travels alot for work and he is out of town for the moment and her lawn needs mowed bad! OH and to add to the weekend, we also dog sat for the neighbor. They have THE SWEETEST pomeranian EVER. I totally forgot she was even here most of the time. She is such a good dog! Here are some bathroom pictures. I LOVE it!

I got my hair done yesterday and the color looks awesome. Its perfect and exactly what I wanted! Forest ended up working late late late lastnight. They had an emergency and it needed to be fixed asap. He didn't get home til 1am. I hate when that happens. Since he was going to be home so late, I stayed in Hermiston a bit longer so the kids could see papa and uncle Bryce. They had a good time with them, but they both fell asleep on the way home, so I put them straight to bed. It was only 8am. Thats close to Brielle's bedtime, but it was about 7:30 when she fell asleep. Same with Owen and he usually goes to bed about 8:30. So, needless to say, they were up EARLY this morning. Like 6am early, yikes! Being that I didnt get to bed til after 1am since I couldnt sleep, I am going to be a bit tired today. I need to try to get the lawn mowed too. Ugh!

Not a whole lot to report today. I am getting my hair colored and trimmed though! I can't wsit, its badly needed. We had to give in and turn on our air conditioning in the house yesterday. It feels MUCH better, although I still need to get used to it because it still feels a bit warm to me. Oh well, off to the salon I go!

Wow, what a weekend!!! We were extremely busy. Saturday we had our carshow and it was a huge success! It went perfect and could not have been any better. The weather was awesome also. Forest got 1st place with his car, which was awesome because he had some pretty good competition. Paul (Forests Dad) cleaned house! He ended up going home with four trophies. He won first place with both of his cars (cars were in different classes) and also poeples choice and officers choice with his 1972 Dodge Charger. WOOHOO!

Forest's car

Pauls Charger


Paul and Sheryls Challenger

Yesterday we didnt do a whole lot. We had to teach in Owen's sunday school class at church and then we came home and all four of us took a nice long nap. I still dont think I am quite caught up on sleep though.

It was in the low 90's yesterday and I am so ready for it to be warm....but not quite that warm yet! Its supposed to be the same today and I believe it because when I took out Brielle's stinky diaper this morning at 7:30, its already hot!!! It is supposed to cool down to the 80's for the rest of the week though. Let hope!

I posted yesterday, but it must have been having issues because it would not work! So, here we go again.

Sheryl (Forests mom) bought Owen the Toy Story movie a couple of months ago and hei s in love with it! Well, we let him stay up late and wait for Grammie to get here wednesday night. And Gramma, like usual, had prizes! She had found Owen a Woody doll. He was so excited when he opened it up. The next morning, Owen, Grammie and Daddy went down for coffee. On the way home they got Owen all jacked up about Buzz being lost and Woody having to find him. So, sure enough when they got home, Grammie had abother prize. Theyfound Buzz! He is on top of the world.

She also got Brielle a cute outfit and a little doggie purse. SHE LOVES IT. She puts it on her shoulder and struts around all over the house with it. It is the cutest thing ever.