Tour of Lucasville Ohio

I got this idea from Amy at In Her Shoes, Lori at House of tafka, and Jen at Against All Odds. Please keep in mind that I live in a very small town and it's just a given that if we really want to go anywhere we have to go to the "city" aka, the biggest nearby town that is 20 minutes away. So I'm going to try to go with just my town, I doubt I'll get to 10 though.

1. We could start off with lunch at Wendy's or Subway.

2. Then we could go to the Lucasville branch of the Portsmouth Public Library, it's pretty small but they do have kids programs and a nice kids section.

3. After that we could go shopping at the Family Dollar store or Dollar General, or maybe even Save-a-lots for some cheap groceries.

4. After all that excitement we could head back to my house and go for a hike in the woods or just a small walk to the creek so the kids can throw rocks into the water (truefully this provides hours of entertainment for my kids, lol)

5. I would say by this time we would have bored ourselves to the point of needing to eat again so we could head to Giovoni's, Spencer's, or Happy Days for some pizza or other dairy bar type foods.

6. Next we could go to one of the local schools and let the kids play on the play grounds.

7. If it's summer when you come, then we could head to the drive-in to watch 2 movies for the price of one, if the weather is good that is.

8. Next we could head to my grandma's house, she's a very sweet lady who I am sure you would all love. And I am sure she would feed you something while we were there.

9. If you come the first full week of August we could head to the county fair. There are a few rides, lots of farm animals, and lots of tastey food. Or if you happen to come one of the 3 weekends when Trade Days are going on we can head over to the fair grounds where they have a bunch of tables set up with a whole lot of junk to buy. They also always have lots of animals (farm and exotic) so it's kinda like visiting a nasty dirty zoo.

10. After all that fun we could go to the local post office (as long as it's before 4pm) where you could send a postcard back home saying "HELP, GET ME OUT OF HERE".

Woo Hoo, I made it to ten!!! As bad as it really sounds, I still love my town and have no desire to live anywhere else.

Easter Pictures!

Coloring Easter Eggs

The gang getting ready for the traditional Egg hunt at my grandma's houseMe and my girls
Our family!
The gang at my Mother-in-laws

Elianna!My Cheesin' girls

Bethanie looking silly at her the egg she found

The next several pictures are pictures that I zoomed in on Elianna so you can see the many faces of Elianna on Easter. She looked SO pretty on Easter yet look at all these silly faces. She just wouldn't cooperate so I could get a good picture.

And one final picture, My sister went back to work on Monday so I am babysitting her 2 girls I just had to show off the babies chubby cheeks!! Isn't she a cutie? She's 6 weeks old already, hard to believe!

I've been tagged...

By Lori at House of tafka


This is new to me seeing as how I have only been blogging for less than a month now :)


The rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Be sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.


Here goes:

1. I am pretty much a slob! I am terrible, horrible, no good, very bad at keeping my house cleaned up. I try but it gets out of control SO fast and alot of times it really makes me feel defeated.


2. I am afraid to fly in an airplane. I KNOW if I ever get on a plane, I will die. I have had nightmares about being in an airplane before and woke up in a cold sweat and screaming. However I have always wanted to ride in a helicopter and a hot air balloon.


3. I pick my nose, sorry but I do! I do it in private and wash my hands afterwards but I just can't help it, It drives me crazy to have boogies up there (and I have ALOT) and a tissue just doesn't do the job good enough.


4. I thought for sure I was going to die more than once as a child. The first time was because I touched an outlet in Kindergarten and it shocked me, I thought for sure I would die, I just patiently waited for it to happen without telling anyone, lol. (Heather reminded me of this in her meme about being delighted that she didn't die in the night)


5. I use to think I had cancer as a child because my hair fell out so much. I use to always tell my mom about my hair yet she didn't ever seem concerned, I thought eventually I would just die of from it since she wouldn't take me to the doctor.


6. I went to college and graduated! I was pregnant with Bethanie on my last quarter there. I had one class that I had to finish within 6 months of graduating in order to actually get my degree. It was Senior Project and I was required to write a thesis on something to do with Math that had to be at least 20 pages long. I was completely clueless so I put it off all summer, then when I was going to get started was when my problems started in my pregnancy and Bethanie was born 3 months early. After she came along and then got to come home, the paper was the farthest thing from my mind. Here it is almost 8 years later and I have still yet to check into what I need to do now that they completely changed the program. I am really scared they will tell me I will just have to start over! It took me over 6 years to get through it the first time WITHOUT kids (but working full time). Maybe someday (like when Elianna starts school) I'll go back.


Now I will tag...Sabrina at PE mommy, Jen at Alpha Girls, and Betsy at Belphia Sorry ladies if you have already been tagged!!

Our first ever camp-out!

I don't think I have mentioned it here before but I am a girl scout leader for Bethanie's troop. We have 15 (and 1 more wanting to join) first grade girls in our troop. This weekend we went on our first ever camp-out, it was indoors (thank goodness since it poured the rain) but still ALOT of fun!!! On Friday I went to pick Bethanie up at school and also picked up 2 of the other girl scouts. And we started on our journey. First just sitting in the drivers seat listening to them in the back was hilarious!!!! Some of the things they said and did cracked me up!! We headed to my sister's first to drop Elianna off, my mom was coming there to pick her up to keep her over night. The girls didn't want to stay in the van, so they all headed into my sisters house. Little did I know, my sister had just gotten out of the shower and didn't have the bathroom door closed so she could keep an eye on her almost 2 year old, lol, oooppps!! The girls are in my care for less than an hour and they have already been flashed, lol, by a breastfeeding, 5 weeks post partum big mama. Then we leave there and head to the convenient store down the street to pick up some snacks. I let the girls pick out what ever they wanted and I spent over $20!!! Then we headed on our way to the old school where the camp-out was to take place. On the way the girls were picking out all the "creepy" houses they could find, lol. It was so funny hearing them..."creepy, creepy, ooohhh WAY creepy" lol.

When we arrive the old school is obviously VERY old, the one girl says as soon as we pull in..."Sarah! What are you thinking bringing us to this creepy old school?" We get signed in and carry all out stuff in. After we meet up with the other 5 girls and the other leader from our troop the girls get warmed up with some little activities then we have dinner-taco in a bag, which most of the girls thought was "totally gross". Then they went to different stations, they learned about Mexico and how to play a new game similar to checkers called Coyote and chickens. They made castanets (out of big buttons) and a flower at the craft station. Then we went to the dance station...Oh my, we had so much fun at this one. I can honestly say I made a complete fool out of my self by showing everyone how UN-coordinated I truly am, lol. We learned to do 3 different line dances. My co-leader and myself were the only adults to take part but we had a lot of fun...other than the fact that the one mom that stayed RECORDED us, ahhhhhh.

Then we found out that we were suppose to bring stuff for a fashion show, somehow neither my co leader or myself read that part of the flyer. The girls were a bit disappointed that they were not going to get to participate....that is until we found out someone had brought a whole tub of extra dress-up stuff. The girls had so much fun! Bethanie and a couple of the other girls didn't dress up but they still had a ton of fun watching all the other girls "modeling". After that they served S'mores, omg, my girls were SOOOOO excited. (one of the girls on our way there told me she wanted to make s'mores and I told her we probably wouldn't because we wouldn't be able to have a fire, when I told her they were serving them she said "SEE Sarah, I told you", lol.)

It was now time to get ready for bed and get out sleeping bags out. That's when I realized I had forgotten my pillow!!! I was going to be sleeping on the HARD floor with only a sleeping bag and NO pillow. After a while, Bethanie was a sweety, rolled up the top of her sleeping bag for a pillow and let me have her little round one she brought. So even though I still wasn't comfortable, I did at least have a pillow (even if it did keep rolling out from under my head, lol). The girls took a LONG time to get settled down and to go to sleep. The little girl who was laying beside me decided she wanted to sleep with me in my sleeping bag!! I kept telling her she couldn't get in but just kept insisting so finally I unzipped the sleeping bag and layed it out so she could be beside me. We ended up switching places so I could be on the outside. That girl absolutely wollered me to death until finally she layed down, pulled her sleeping bag over her head and she was out! Once they calmed down and layed still all the girls went to sleep fairly easily. We had no problems what so ever! Even having 2 who had never stayed away from home!! I didn't sleep real well, especially when one of the teenage girls from another troop, who had started out 6-8 foot away, rolled over and was laying right up against me!! But I could move!!!! I was really afraid that laying on that HARD floor all night I wouldn't be able to move at all the next day, but other than my hip feeling like it was bruised, I felt pretty good!

In the morning, we had breakfast, did another craft (a taco pin), busted some pinatas, learned a few new active games, and practiced the line dances that we had learned the night before. Then we loaded up and headed home. I was exhausted, but can't wait for the next one. The girls AND myself had a great time!!

Face Lift!!!

Well, it's been almost a week and I haven't had a chance till now to give a shout out to Chels for making my new template here! I absolutely love it, it couldn't have been more perfect!!!! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!!!!!! Sometimes after a long day (when I am tired I tend to ramble on and on and on and on, so I usually just skip it those nights to spare you the pain of reading my ramblings)and don't write a new post but still make my blogging rounds to check in on everyone else, I pop in here just to see my page again, lol, I still get a huge smile on my face everytime it pops up, I just love it that much :) Thanks again Chels!!!!

Letting Go...

I just read what another mother wrote the other day "I have realized that parenting is just constantly having to learn to let go, little by little". At first I though "Whatever". Then the more I really thought about it, that is SO true! First as a mother you cary the baby in your womb, no one else can hold, feel, or feed the baby. Then you give birth. You have to "let go" of having that baby inside, doctors and nurses, the father, other realtives, and friends all get to hold the baby, maybe even feed her. Eventually you have to leave the baby in the care of someone else. Then the baby learns to sit, then crawl, then walk and suddenly they don't need you as much, you again have to let go, you are forced to no longer have complete control of protecting you child, after all babies DO fall quite a bit and you can never be right there every second. Up to this point "letting go" is not real hard. But then...they start school, gasp. Bethanie starting school was really hard for me. I had been home with her since she left the NICU, and other than family and one very close friend who would watch her from time to time, she was ALWAYS with me. Then she started school, for 7 hours 5 days a week I had no control over what she was doing, who she was doing it with, what she was eating, so many things were out of my control, even her safety. I LOVED her teacher and have all 3 years she has been in school. I quickly learned that I could trust the school, they had Bethanie and all the other kids' best interest in mind. I felt they would do what ever they could to keep her safe and still give her a good education. I thought I was for the most part past having to "let go" for a while.

That leads us up to today. Today Bethanie will be riding the bus home from school. I am not sure why I am so overly nervous about it but I REALLY am. After all I rode the bus from the time I was in kindergarten till I graduated from high school and I only remember 2 bad things happening in all those years. 1. a boy lit a cigerette on the bus and smoked it, he didn't try to get anyone else to join him or anything but since we all saw him do it and not tell on him, we all got lectured. 2. I saw a friend's dog get run over right in front of us by another bus. My friend saw it too, it was very tramatic as a child. And those are the only 2 things I can think of happening while on the bus in the 13 years I rode. I can actually remember many more fun times on the bus than bad times. That doesn't help though.

I know, in part, my worry has to do with how quiet and shy Bethanie is. I worry that if they pass our house, she won't say anything. I also worry about the other kids on the bus. A bus driver has to keep her eyes on the road, she cannot possibly know everything that goes on on the bus. I guess most of my worry is simply having to "let go", giving someone that I do not know much about at all, the controll of my baby girl, my former teeny tiny little preemie baby girl.

Letting them grow up is SOOO hard, yet we really don't have any way of keeping them from it, do we? Once I get past this, which I hope goes very smoothly, then we will move on to the even more difficult things such as letting them spend the night with friends and (oh dear God help me) DRIVE, ahhhhh.

Oh SPRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG, where are you???

Here it is, the start of the second week of March and we have more snow on the ground now than we have had all winter. There is at least 5 inches out there and before the snow fell, we got ice, so to say it's slick out is an understatement. And to think that on Monday we had a 70 degree BEAUTIFUL day where we were out side all day until after 7 pm. We even ate dinner outside. I just can't wait for spring to get here!! Warm weather, staying outside all day without a coat, seeing flowers bloom, letting the kids be as loud as they want to be, and them being able to jump, run, bounce, get all their energy out, oh, spring, I long for you, it is my most favorite time of the entire year.

The only good thing about this snow...Church is canceled for tomorrow so we don't have to get up early. We don't have to loose that hour of sleep from springing forward for Day Light Savings Time.



Tomorrow, me and the girls are going to do something fun. I am not sure what yet, but I felt like such a grouch today. I even made Elianna go to bed early. She has become quite defient lately. She really knows how to push my buttons. For what ever reason, today, after getting after her a million times, the thought crossed my mind of what she is going to be like as a teenager. AHHHHH, I dread those days already! From the way the girls are now, I can see Bethanie being the good girl still. She, hopefully, will be like me and be too big of a chicken to do any bad stuff. I always thought of the concencoinces for anything I did. I can proudly say, as a teenager, I was a good girl, you can even ask my mom, she would say the same thing. Elianna on the other hand, oh my, I don't even want to think about it. I can see me and her going around and around, I can see her not obeying the rules, I can see her trying to sneak out, giving in to peer pressure. In other words, more like my sister, lol. I can totally see myself with a head full of grays by time she's 18 (if it's not already that way by time she is 5, lol). For me, just the thought of being a mom of teenagers is extremely scary. Well that is not what I meant for this post to be about. But it does remind me that I need to enjoy these young days while they are still here. I already promised the girls we would go out to play in the snow tomorrow, I'll just have to come up with something else fun for us to do together.



I keep falling asleep as I am writing this so I am off to bed. Good night and sweet dreams :D

Do you like green eggs and ham?

My princesses love them, Sam I am. This is what I made for dinner for the girls on Wednesday night, they LOVED them, especially Elianna, I accidently made way too much for just the 2 of them, using 6 eggs total. I went ahead and put it all on their plates and Elianna ate ALL of hers, lol, and then asked for them for lunch the next day too.

Also on Wednesday, Bethanie lost a tooth! Her top front tooth. Here is her mouth preparing for her new adult tooth over the past few months. Here she is in September (doesn't she have a silly look on her face, lol) notice there is no space between her teeth hardly at all other than at the bottom where she had just lost her 2 bottom teeth.

Here she is in October, just barely getting a space between her top front left tooth and the one beside it.

Here she is in November, you can definitly see the space now

Here is December, it's getting bigger

Now here is January

Here is mid February, by this time people were asking if she had lost a tooth because the space was so big.

And finally late february, in this pic you tell the tooth had changed color. The dentist told me that was because the root had probably already disconected.

Her new tooth was simply pushing that baby tooth right out of the way. Last week it had pushed her tooth up in the gums some so when you would look at her straight on you could see the bottom of her tooth instead of the front like you normally would. However, you could hardly wiggle the tooth at all because of the new one coming in behind it. Finally she let me pull it! When she felt it come out she jerked her head back, the tooth slipped out of my hand and went down in the chair I was sitting in. I have looked and looked for that tooth but I simply cannot find it :( The tooth fairy did still come, though. Left her $1 and a note telling her if the tooth was ever found, she would be back to pick it up, lol. When the tooth came out it left a huge, bloody looking hole in her gums but thankfully it was gone by the next day. You could also already see her new tooth coming in.

As for the new babysitting job I mentioned in my last post, it is off for now. I called to tell the mom that I would try it for 3 weeks and she said her DH had decided to not take the job because they agreed it was to dangerous. He would have been working 700 feet underground. But she said other work should be picking up soon and she would call when he found something. In a way i was relieved but in another I was a bit disappointed.

Well I am off to bed now, good night and sweet dreams :) hope you all enjoy your Saturday!

Ahhhh, he sleeps

Shhhh!!! PLEASE do not wake him! The baby boy, 9 months, I babysit for is taking a nap for the first time this week!! The last 2 days have been quite trying with him. He is obviously not getting enough sleep, his mom told me he won't go to sleep at night until around 10pm, is back up when she gets up at 6am and other than a couple VERY short naps (I'm talking 5-10 minutes about 2-3 times a day usually on car rides to and from my house and maybe one other time throughout the entire day) does not sleep through the day. And then I wonder why he cries everytime I set him down. So today I decided I was going to try really hard to get him to take a good nap, so far he has been asleep for 1 hour, WOOHOO!!!! Now if I can get my littlest princess and the babies big sister to NOT wake him up with their continuous fighting, I will be very happy.

Now as he sleeps what am I doing? Thinking! Thinking hard if I really want to take on the offer I was presented yesterday. The offer-to babysit 3 other children, 2 boys ages 3 and 2, and another baby girl almost 11 months. AHHHH, what am I thinking! Actually what I am thinking is if I take them I'll get alot more money coming in. I can put that money into a savings account and hopefully in less than a year I will have enough to build on the addition I am so badly wanting to add to our house. A "day care" space, I have it all pictured. A fairly big, open room with little tables for them to eat at in one corner, lots of open space to play, a closet/cabinet with all the art and craft supplies, lots of shelves for all the toys, a reading/nap corner. Even a little TV for cartoons or eduactional shows to watch during quiet time. This room will help tremenduously on keeping my house tidier, no toys strung all through the house, the perfect place to confine all the kids so they are not destroying everything in my house. And then if I quit babysitting after the room is completed, I can use it as a play room for my girls or a family room for the whole family. Now if only I can keep my sanity while working toward that goal.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Queen doth proclaim....

I started a blog!! OMG, I feel so up-to-date, lol. Of course I have already had problems, I wrote an entry, posted it, saw it ON THE BLOG, went to add another short one (the Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss one) and somehow made the first one disappear! And I can't for the life of me figure out what happened to it :/

Some explaining... As you have noticed on this blog I call myself the queen. Am I a queen? Heck No! Am I treated like a queen? HA, lol, NO! Do i dress like a queen? That's funny, another no. Do I even remotely resemble anything like a queen? hum, I'm afraid that would have to be another big fat NO! lol. So Why the name you are probably wondering, right? Well, I was trying to come up with a cutesy name and since my girls like anything to do with princesses, I declared myself the queen :) In reality I'm a big country girl who seldom wears make-up, sweats and a comfy t-shirt are my attire of choice, and I detest any shoe with a heel. And as for my girls, yes, they love princesses, dressing up, and anything fancy BUT they also like to play with cars and LOVE to go barefoot and play in the mud!

So now that I have spent all this time creating the blog, and re-doing my first post, I am too tired for a meaningful post so this will have to do for tonight.

Good Night and Sweet Dreams to all!

I nearly forgot....Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!! Thanks for all the wonderfully fun books you gave us to enjoy as kids and now again as parents :) BTW, Dr. Seuss is my all time favorite author!! I think we will have green eggs and ham for breakfast tomorrow since I forgot today.