Congratulations Mitch!

My handsome son graduated from High School yesterday!

What an exciting time in his life!

The proud parents!

And the sibs are proud too!

Even the girlfriend is proud!

The last walk down the school hallway ...

We spent time on Friday evening, most of Saturday, and Sunday (around graduation) going to open houses and celebrating with some really awesome kids!

And then there was today ... Memorial Day ... and was it ever memorable!

We made, what has become our annual, trip to the ER. Abbi took a spill on Kevin's dirt bike, and burned the back of her leg pretty badly. After some morphine by IV, and a cleaning up of the wound, she got all wrapped up and we headed home 3 hours later. The best thing about going to the ER so often, is that after I give them our name, they don't even need to ask for our address, phone number, insurance info, ect... Because it's already there on their screen. :) So the end result for Abbi is that it's hard for her to walk, because the worst of the burn is right behind her knee, so the bending hurts pretty badly. I need to redress the wound twice a day until the oozing stops, and keep giving her either tylenol or advil. Tomorrow I'm planning to take her to school, and might do that all week. Tomorrow afternoon is her Oh So Important Field Day! She's pretty bummed about that, but has also figured out that she can probably do the frisbee throw, and maybe even the hula hoop contest. :) What a trooper!

So on to my busy week! Just call me Super Mom! Mitch's open house is Friday evening, and my list is growing. Now with Abbi's burn, the intensity will increase. I've got some amazing family that will be helping me with pictures, baking chocolate sheet cakes (yum!), and I even asked Grandma if she could help Abbi clean the play house. After the end of this week, life will continue on it's crazy out-of-control path. But truly I'm thankful for each one of my kids, and the excitement they bring to our lives!

And I Got It For A Buck ...

I am sooo excited about the junk table that I bought at a garage sale recently! I'd been on the hunt, well ok only 2 antique stores and a few shops in Shipshe doesn't quite qualify for "hunting". I have a great aversion to garage sales and I'm not quite sure why. I don't have any horrific childhood memories of them or any ghosts in the closet either. I just am never lucky enough to find anything that I feel is worth the time and effort. OK, confession time here ... starting to "garage sale" at 10:00am or 11, probably doesn't really help my chances of getting the GREAT FIND! I'm beginning to comprehend that there are some people in my neck of the woods who drag (yes, drag) their kids into vehicles at 7:00 or 7:30 and begin the hunt ... even going so far as packing those poor sleepy eyed kids a breakfast to eat on the way. Who Knew????

So anyway, here is my great find! I failed to take a before picture, which I wish I had done. It had a lovely gold-speckled laminate top - think back to your Grandma's kitchen table. If you look closely you can see the beautiful edge. This picture is with one coat of Kilz, which is at the point that I thought about blogging about my great find. The helpful people at Varns & Hoover suggested I sand the top before painting. I tried hard not to laugh, as I said, "I only paid a buck for the table! If it doesn't turn out, I'll just throw it in our burn pit!" So I thought the Kilz was even a little "over the top". (hee hee no pun intended!)

These are the lovely plants waiting to sit atop my finished masterpiece ...

Ta Dah! I wanted to leave the lovely edge exposed just for memory's sake, and the flowers are simply a circle sponge dipped in the appropriate colors.

... and completely finished. The plants on the table are cilantro (which I love for black bean and corn dip), lemon something-or-other (for smell), and pansies (for color).

Here it will sit on my patio, right beside the grill where we can use the table space for all of our grilling paraphanalia, as needed. Or just for extra table space when we have company - like graduation open house! And to think ... I Got It For A Buck!

And to the person that I "stole" this beauty from ... when you come to the pool this summer, I will place my lovely glass lemonade dispenser on top of this gem, and serve you the best tasting lemonade you've ever had! I won't hold the fact that you drag your kids out of bed to get the bargains, against you ... I love you anyway! You Go Girl!!!

Finally, I want to add a few pictures that truly say the "Spring is in the Air" and "Summer is Right Around the Corner"!

My strong and handsome husband is loading the pool cover, as he says "and we have a pool because....??????" To which I reply, "so we can swim and you can complain about opening it!" I have helped uncover this pool tooooo many years to take his complaining lightly! The cover weighs as much as a small 747, without fuel of course.

A special treat one evening last week ... Uncle Derald showed up with his Harley and offered rides to anyone brave enough. Abbi loved it!
.... and so did Grandma! She had just picked a beautiful bunch of lilacs, and after I helped her swing her leg over the seat she was ready to go! Does anyone else think of the movie Wild Hogs when you look at this picture??? Or is it just me?

Happy Spring ... Wonderful Summer ... to all my friends and family!

Uno .... dos, tres, cuatro

This is UNO! Our new puppy. Notice his one white paw, hence the name! We also thought it would be cool to give him a spanish name as a way of celebrating Alli's experience in Nicaragua, and her ever-increasing knowledge of the spanish language. I can't wait until she gets home, I'm going to take her to El Camino and make her order all of our food in spanish. It will be too cool to see the eyes of those suave Mexican waiters, when they hear their native language coming out of the mouth of a blond haired, blue eyed young lady.And here are dos, tres, and quatro! Our baby kittens, or should I say Abbi's baby kittens. I really don't know what their names are, but I thought it would make for a fun title of this post. :)

Our little place in the country is just exploding with animals. First we had the kittens brought to us by the boy's barber. Then we picked up the puppy at an amish home close to Topeka, a few weeks later. Abbi still has her parakeet Tweety, and sometime this week she wants to bring her horse Ginger to our place so she can enjoy the sweet fresh grass in her pasture and also make use of the new horse shelter that we just got! Abbi also has to start riding her a lot to get ready for the fair.

A sad little story of Abbi's love for animals ... On Saturday, Abbi took the Gator to Uncle Terry's to get D-Worm for the puppy (he definitely needed it! I won't say any more) and came home with a baby robin that they had rescued from the jaws of Terry's dog Boaz! Abbi kept that bird in a box in my laundry room and fed it bird seed, and worms that she went out and dug up. Sorry to say that little guy "flew the coop" sometime through the night, last night. I told Abbi that she did a great job of taking care of that bird, but it just really needed it's Momma!

Can you guess what Abbi wants to be when she grows up????

What a Man!

Last Saturday Mitch got all cleaned up and went to the Northridge Prom with his very special sweetheart.

Did you notice the crutches on Kevin? He has a possible stress fracture on the top of his foot. We will find out more this week......

That's all for now, I'm busy "entertaining" a friend of Alli's who just got home from Hesston College. Just a little bit of interaction with college kids is good for my soul!