DIFFICULTIES WITH BLOGGER

Some of my posts have changed their layout on their own. It makes it a little difficult to match the text with the pictures. Sorry about that guys.

Costume contest at Petco. Oct-06

Christine entered her rabbit (Baby) in this years pet costume contest. She entered a few years ago and got second place. This time she won first place. Her prizes were a blue ribbon, a petco gift card, a sack of cat food and a certificate. At the judges table they had put dog treats in bags to give to all the contestants. When they saw that Christine had a rabbit they filled a bag with hay for her, although I'm sure she would have loved the dog treats. It was so nice of them. I think part of the reason she won is because everyone brings their dogs, and when a different animal is entered they think it's cute. The judges thought she was just the cutest. Baby will stay on her back while you're holding her forever without struggling to turn over. Christine put a doll dress, bloomers and shoes on her. We forgot the doll bottle. When she entered her a few years ago she walked around the store with the bottle up to her mouth. Sooooooooooooo cute. Baby kept her dress and bloomers dry. Believe it or not she is potty trained. She will wait until she is put back in her cage to go. Have a good day!

Picking pumpkins at the public pool. That could be a tongue twister.

Friday night the pool had their annual pumpkin swim. We invited Dillon to go along. When the lifegaurd gave the signal everyone got in the pool and picked out their pumpkin. Of course you had to swim with the pumpkins first, that was the best part. It was a lot of fun. For $5.00 you got to swim for three hours with pumpkins, take a pumpkin home, bob for apples and have treats. The lifegaurd had fun sparying all the kids. No I wasn't watching the lifegaurd, I was watching the kids :) Have a super duper day! Christine is not in the second to last picture, it's a picture of other people and pumpkins.

FALL CARNIVAL AND COSTUME CONTEST

I signed up weeks ago to help with the fall carnival. I talked Ashley into helping out. She was planning to take Christine around to play the games, but they didn't have enough people to help out, so they were in charge of the fishing game. I was in the same room doing the bowling game. You know, you stack the coffee cans and the kids roll the ball to see how many they can knock over. Then they get to pick a prize. The girls played fair and rolled the ball like you do when bowling. The boys on the other hand, didn't like the rules, so most of them kicked the ball instead of rolling it. It's been a looooooooooong time since I've been hit with a playground ball. They were only 10 feet away from the cans, so when they kicked and missed the cans, they got me. Two hours of kickball was plenty for me. We had fun, and Christine got to go around to the games with Ashley for the last half hour.

ASHLEY GOT A LITTLE CREATIVE THIS YEAR WITH HER PUMPKIN CARVING, AND CHRISTINE DECIDED THAT HER PUMPKIN NEEDED SURGERY, SO IT WENT UNDER THE KNIFE.

SO EXCITED

Christine entered her cigar box guitar in the Lynden fair. After the Lynden fair was over, the things that the girls entered in our county fair were sent down to Puyallup. They were judged and put on display. After the fair they sent everything back to our local 4-H office. When I picked up Christine's guitar it had a sweet "Special Merit" ribbon along with a blue ribbon tied to it. When Christine saw it she was sooooo excited. It's the little things, like seeing your nine year old get so excited over her accomplishments. Have a good day

CHRISTINE'S SENSITIVE SIDE. THIS HAS HAPPENED SEVERAL TIMES. MOST OF THE TIME IT'S AT BEDTIME WHEN SHE IS REALLY TIRED AND EMOTIONAL.

More everyday things. This is really long. It's details about bedtime and Christine. Bad dreams, stuffed animals, and a sensitive girl. Christine came out of her room tonight after being in bed for maybe five minutes. She said that she was thinking about a bad dream she had the other night so she couldn't go to sleep. We both went to my room and got in bed. She started crying and I of course asked her what was wrong, other than her bad dream. She told me that she feels so bad about not giving her stuffed animals enough attention, and that the ones on the bottom of the container never get ANY attention. She said that they are never comfortable because they are all heaped together, and upside down. I told her that they are all together, and that they get a lot of attention from each other. She said that when you have stuffed animals you need to give all of them attention, and she said that the ones at the bottom don't even see daylight. So, we got all of them out of their tub and she gave each one a hug and put some at the foot of my bed and between our pillows. The others she put carefully back in their tub. She said that she doesn't want anymore stuffed animals because she has too many already, and she can't give them all attention. I told her that when relatives ask me what she wants for Christmas, I will tell them that she has plenty of stuffed animals. How do kids end up with soooooooo many stuffed animals? She doesn't want anyone to get their feelings hurt by telling them that she doesn't want more. When all the animals were comfy and ready for bed I told her that she really needed to get to sleep. She said that she had too much on her mind and that she just couldn't sleep. So I started talking to her about her dance lessons and how much she has learned. I asked her if she wanted me to sing to her and she said, "no I'm fine." My singing would probably cause her to have nightmares. Singing is not one of my talents. Her stuffed animals talked to her as well. Well, I talk for them. I'm really not nuts. Almost done. I asked her if she wanted me to rub her back so she would get sleepy, (A friend of hers had head lice so I have been checking her every day to make sure there is nothing moving on her head) and she said no that she wanted me to check her for head lice because that makes her sleepy. It's the playing with the hair thing, it makes me sleepy too. I checked for lice until she fell asleep, which was just a few minutes. Before I left the room I moved some of the animals around on the bed so she would know that they were awake and having fun. She knows that they don't really move or have feelings, but she loves them like they do. I went through the same thing with my stuffed animals. I'm ok with not spending time with them now ( I'm kidding) and I promise I don't share my bed with twenty animals every night, but every once in awhile, I do. So, I really should go check on all of them, and make room for myself in my bed. Goodnight and have a good day tomorrow.

NEED A PET SITTER? CHRISTINE'S FIRST PET SITTING JOB.

A few months ago Christine was telling me that she wanted a job so she could earn some money. We were thinking about all of the different things she could do. Nine year olds don't have a lot of choices when it comes to work. She has a book for eight to twelve year olds about different jobs you can do. Right away she said she wanted to make cookies and sell them in front of stores. Ummmmmmm, no. I told her that stores don't let just anyone sell food outside their doors, and she wanted to do it every weekend! So I suggested doing what her sister did when she was around her age. Christine typed up this flyer and we put them up at all the feed stores, and I put an add in the paper. She waited patiently for someone to call. About a month ago she got a call. The family had one cat (Jackson) and he needed to have someone give him his pill (he has epilepsy) twice a day and feed him. Luckily they didn't live too far away. Ashley has had some jobs out in the county, and it just wasn't worth the gas and time when she was getting paid very little. So it's a little like a lemonade stand, your kids earn some money and you lose some. It's all perfectly ok with me, it's just one of those things that you do for your kids, and they learn a lot about responsibility. The lady she was pet sitting for told us that she was going to tell her friends about Christine and her pet sitting. I'm not sure that I can keep up with her and all of her activities. If she gets busy with pet sitting, it means that I will too. You guys have a super day!

BEING AN ORGAN DONOR

My mom was telling me last week that she needed to go in and have her drivers license renewed. I was looking at her license and it didn't say that she was an organ donor. I told her that she could be one if she told them at the licensing department. She asked me if I was a donor and I said yes. I know you can choose which organs you want to donate or you can donate them all. She couldn't believe that I was willing to donate my organs. I have never once thought about not being a donor. My organs would be doing absolutely nothing to help anyone if they stayed in my body. I told my mom that she wouldn't miss her organs if she decided to donate them. I'm writing this because of her reply when I asked her why she wouldn't donate. She says that she doesn't want any doctors to start removing her organs when she might still be alive. So, because the doctors have a limited amount of time to remove the organs, and get them to their new owner, she is worried that they might take them too soon. O.k. I know that people have been burried alive, but not very recently that I know of. I just wasn't expecting that answer from her. I couldn't change her mind, and she didn't even try to change mine because she knows that she never could. I know that people have different reasons for choosing not to donate, and I'm not saying that it's wrong if people don't donate, because it's not. It's a personal decision that everyone has the right to make for themselves. For me, knowing that I could save a life by giving away something that I no longer needed, made it easy for me to decide. I just think my mom has a very unique reason for choosing not to donate. I tried to reassure her by telling her that technology has come a long way, and that I was almost certain that the doctors wouldn't start cutting until they were 97% sure, that they could. I had to tell her that just for fun. She knows I was kidding. I hope this didn't upset anyone. I meant for this to be a positive post. Have a good day!

TWO OF MY VERY FAVORITE PICTURES OF ASHLEY. PIG TAILS ON TODDLERS ARE THE CUTEST THING.

Ashley when she was two on the wooden steer that grandpa Jay used for roping practice. Filling the water tub for the cows. She loved taking care of the animals.

MORE PICTURES OF THE GIRLS.

I think they were bored. Nicole seven months old, and sooooooo cute. Ashley five, Nicole four. They played so well together. There was no yelling or fighting between them.

A beautiful day for picking pumpkins at Bellewood Acres

My mom and her husband came over this month so they got to go with us to pick out some pumpkins. We watched all the steps that the apples go through before they go into boxes and head for the stores. My mom and Christine thought it was pretty cool. The apples take a bath, get directed up the rollers, come out the other side and a machine separates them by small, medium and large. After they go through the sorter the workers take them one by one and wipe them off and put stickers on them. I would dream about apples all night if this was my job. You guys were just dying to see pictures of apples I'm sure. I'm still waiting for you guys to make a blog. I want to know what's happening in your lives. Have a good day! Christine also picked out a pumpkin for her doll.

JUST MORE PICTURES

Four years old and proud of the cupcakes she made. I love that smile. Grooming the calf when she was four. Two appliance boxes for a car. She was six years old. I called Sears and asked if they could hold two boxes for me instead of breaking them down right away. They called a couple days later and I went to get them. I had to break them down anyway to get them in my car. We had to tape them back together once they were in the house. If I only had a brain. The awesome snowman she helped to build. Swimming lessons at age six. Ashley is the one about to jump in. Swimming is one thing that every kid should learn. It was so important too me with Ashley and with Christine. They have to be able to save themselves if they are in deep water. It's so easy to learn and it will benefit them for a lifetime.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT! Mariners baseball at the Kingdome and Safeco Field

The Baha Men at Safeco Field. September 2000 When Ashley was nine she started playing baseball. She played for three years. When she was eleven we started going to the Mariners games. Her friend Natalie was also a huge baseball fan. For four years we went to soooooooo many games. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy them (watching them on t.v. is fine with me) but there is a limit and I have a really hard time saying no (I'm much better at it now) and the girls wore me down. Ashley has been able to do so many things that a lot of kids are not able to do. She will never forget the good times she had with Natalie, and baseball is good clean fun. Natalie, Ashley and David Segui at Safeco Field Her first year playing baseball. She was nine. At the Kingdome for a pre-game practice with the Mariners. Notice that she has an Orioles shirt on. A true David Segui fan. The All Star Game was especially fun. My favorite player was Freddy Garcia. I am definitely a brown hair, brown eyes, sweet round baby face kind of girl. Oh yeah, and what about that arm! You know it's his talent that makes him my favorite :) Everyone have a good day.