Pictures

We had the kids pics done in April for Mothers Day presents. They turned out cute I thought. They were tons of fun. All the kids did so good! These are all of the grandkids on Jesse's side. Yes, Kaden's the lone man. Not for long though! (Tera's pregnant, not me!)

Unwelcome Guest

Most of you know that I HATE yard work. The only flowers that survive are the ones in my planter because I don't have to weed. I hate the dirt. I hate the spiders. I hate mowing the lawn. I hate maintaining gardens (at least I would if I had one.) But since we are selling the house and Jess has been super busy at work I decided to bite the bullet and mow the backyard. There I was mowing along when a snake slithers out from against our  house and charges me. Yes, I hate snakes, yes I screamed. Kaden and Ellie thought it was cool and were not afraid of it at all. So I go and get Jess who is luckily working at home that particular morning. He asked me why I didn't just run it over with the lawn mower (GAG!) He gets a bat and starts to "shoo" it out of our yard. I asked him to please throw it over the fence but he stated that he didn't know how to handle snakes. As he was "scaring" the snake away it kept jumping up at him trying to fight back which made me shiver all over! Anyway... we lost the snake when he crossed BACK INTO our back yard. I was super brave and finished mowing the lawn anyway. Yes, I was on my tiptoes, yes, I had the eebiejeebies the whole time. That night I had a dream that I reached in a drawer to grab a pen and it turned into a snake. I woke myself up when I screamed out loud. Well, last night Jess found our friend a second time, once again curled right up against our house probably looking for a hole to slither right in! This time I made Jess throw it over the fence for sure. Hopefully he stays away this time... at least until we move!

Here's the nasty little thing! Sick.

You have to look closer to see the snake but he's there, not too excited to get on the shovel.

The snake kept falling off the shovel. Gross.

Jess launched him over the fence. I'm sure someone driving on the interstate got a scare!

My Angel Ellie

I felt like a lot of my posts lately have been about Kaden... I do have TWO children really. And I was thinking and realized that I have never posted about Ellie's One. One is such a huge part of our lives it definitely deserves a post. Ellie has four blankets and all of them have names. They are One, Two, Three and Four. They are named in number of importance. All of them must be laid on her in order when she sleeps each night. Ellie will correct you if you call one of her blankets by the wrong name too. But only One is super important in her eyes. She would take One everywhere if I would let her. When she is crying only One can really calm her. One can stop almost any fit and will keep her quiet in the car for hours. When she cuddles One she sucks her index finger (a habit I am trying to break, no non-nutritive sucking after age two right Wendi and Jami?) and fidgets with the blanket with her other index finger as illustrated below. We couldn't find One when she went to bed last night and it took her forever to fall asleep. At least it's not a binky I guess!

Another thing that makes me laugh about Ellie is that she loves to accessorize. She is such a girl. She has to have bows in her hair, her fingernails painted and her necklace and watch on. She's in that stage where she says funny things that make no sense. Like the other day she said that she didn't like our realtor because he smells like a dinosaur. I'm sure it makes sense in her mind. We still laugh at that one. Love you Ellie baby!

Whacky Weed Whackers

Editors Note: This post is in no way meant to insinuate that my husband is lazy or a slob. He works very hard at work, school, his calling and home. Everyone has their areas of clutter in their life, for me it's my junk drawer in my kitchen. For Jess lawn care and his truck do not take priority over other things. But when he does put in the effort it looks great! That said...

I have been telling Jess to go buy a weed trimmer for two years. Finally on Friday he decided it was time since we had an open house on Saturday! Definitely helps with curb appeal! And of course, my landscape manager Kaden was so excited he was beside himself. He kept pestering Jess at the store asking him which one he was going to pick and to hurry so we could go home and use it. We got home too late so he had to wait until the next morning. He flew out of bed nice and early and ran to make sure dad wasn't "weedwhackering" without him. Too cute. Two buds.