Daisy's Gone :(

Daisy left us last Wednesday and went to a new foster family where she has other dog friends to keep her entertained. I miss her because I no longer have my late night buddy that lays behind my chair guarding me. Even though our life is now less caotic and I am not constantly cleaning up you know what in the back yard and my shoes aren't getting chewed up anymore :). She loved shoes, and Nathan loved to throw mine out in the yard for her when I was not looking :). I called to check on her a couple days after she left and the lady said she is adjusting well and seemed to get along with most of her dogs.

The boys were sad in this picture (at least Tyler was), he was forcing his smile, because he knew she was leaving that day. He understood what was going on and Nathan just thought we were taking pictures with daisy for fun. I was disapointed that my camera lens had a smudge on it and I didn't notice it in time to get new pictures :(.

Tyler giving Daisy a "headlock hug"... poor dog, she was a good sport

and put up with a lot at our house.

Nathan Loves her. The Morning after she left he looked in her kennel, then looked out back and started calling for her. When she didn't come he looked at me confused and I had to remind him she was gone :( It was sad. When we actually met the new foster mom and moved Daisy from our van to her vehicle, Nathan was asleep and stayed asleep until long after we got home, so he never actually saw her not come home with us. Poor thing :(

Tyler keeps asking why we sent her away and it makes me feel bad, even though I know it was better for us. I just have to explain that she was never ours to keep and that she was just staying with us until she found her family. He doesn't always like my answer, but usually it's enough.

Despite missing her extremely sweet personality, I must say, I do love going back to my pet free home. I used to always want a lot of pets when I was younger, but that all changed when I had kids. Probably because I don't want anymore mess to clean up than I have to :) LOL She sure was fun to have around for the short time we had her :)

By the way, she is still up for adoption so if any of you want a good, quiet, sweet, dog (that could benefit from obedience training :)), she is a sweetheart ;) (just let me know and I will put you in contact with the foster mom). I honestly would have kept her had Josh and I agreed the timing was right and Tyler was old enough to take good care of her. She is a love.

Slammed Fingers

Nathan and I each had a incident last week. I was getting ready in my room when I hear Tyler yell “No!”, a door slams, and I hear Nathan screaming in pain. I take off sprinting like I’ve never sprinted before (completely knowing what I would find) and quickly open Tyler’s door to release poor little Nathan’s fingers from the hinged side of the door. I’m fuming at Tyler but have to get Nathan taken care of (which was actually good because it gave me a chance to calm down before punishment). Last I heard Nathan scream and cry so hard was when he was circumcised, so I could only imagine the kind of pain he was in. His poor little fingers where badly dented, swollen twice the normal size, and quickly turning purple. When I applied Ice he screamed even more, so my next thought was "I need the Lavender and Helichrysum Oil!" I have had Miracles happen with that stuff! I found it and saturated his little fingers in it and held them firmly in my hand. I repeated this over and over until the crying stopped and the swelling started down. I thought for sure his finger nails would fall off despite my experience with how effective Lavender and Helichrysum oil are with healing. I repeated this throughout the day and by the next morning you could not even tell which fingers got slammed in the door! I was completely amazed!!!!

The very next day, (my turn!) I was opening all the windows in our house to let the evening breeze in. One of the windows got stuck diagonally so with all my might I try to straighten it out, but instead, It slammed closed on my fingers! I don’t think I’ve ever screamed so loud in my life!I have a high tolerance of pain and not even child birth made me scream like that! I’m honestly surprised my neighbor didn’t come over to check on me because my boys were in from the backyard in seconds to see what had happened :).
I soon realized why Nathan Screamed with the ice application, that just made needles shoot through my whole hand! Forgoing the ice, I applied the oils on my swollen, throbbing, shaking fingers. They were so beat up that one was cut a bit and bleeding on one side and the other side looked like it was cut under the surface of my nail (very strange). My boys of course were already concerned so I held back the swearing and tears and just hopped around like a dork :). The oils worked just like they did on Nathan! Besides a small, healing, cut on one finger and a small red line where the “under the surface cut" was there is only slight tenderness. It completely skipped the bruising process for both of us and there is no permanent nail damage. I was so glad!!! I wish I did not have to experience that, but now I know exactly how my sweet Nathan felt :( Poor little guy. Not fun! Just one more reason why I love those oils!!!!

Explanation of pictures in the slideshow

I'm so excited I figured out how to add music! As you can tell, I love happy music or songs with a sweet message. I love music! I wish I was talented in that area, but unfortunitly I'm not really and just have to sit back and enjoy the talents of others :) One day I'll learn to play the piano and take voice lessons :) But for now I'll just add that to my running list of things to do. LOL

I'm also excited to have gotten the slideshow feature to work (took me a while) :) I should explain some of the pictures though. . .
If you noticed the ones with Josh and I building a structure out of cans, yes it is a Cannon (if you could tell from the photos). Josh's office (DEA Inc.) participated in the annual Canstruction event where groups donate can foods and build creative, themed, structures out of them to display then the structures get judged and the cans go to local food banks (go to .http://www.canstruction.org/ for more info on the event). Its fun. We dropped the kids off at my Mom's and spent literally all night building our cannon to "Blast hunger" in Fiesta Mall. We started at 9pm and finished sometime after 3:30am. So, I guess you could say we spent the night at the mall (how many people do you know that can say they've done that?) LOL. Crazy? Yes! But very fun! They were on display at Fiesta Mall in Mesa for one week. I just felt like those pictures needed some explanation :)

For those of you wondering about the Dog in the picture she is our "foster baby". January 29th I found her wondering our street hungry and timid. We named her Daisy and the boys LOVE her! She absalutely loves me and will hover around me at all times (she's actually laying behind my chair right now and does this everynight). She is my buddy. Unfortunately the timing is horrible we are not keeping her for good (I have mixed feelings about this). We are not ready to have a family dog and never planned on getting one until we were done having kids and Tyler was a teenager. Daisy is a sweetheart but will be leaving our home soon. :(

As you can see the boys love to ham it up for the camera :) They love goofing off in hats and get all huggy and cute. Don't let that fool you, they fight and whine throughout the day but I don't capture a lot of those moments :). Despite their constant fighting they are buddies and absalutely love eachother, it's adorable.

The Chucky Cheese pictures where from Nathan's Birthday. We have a tradition of doing one out of the ordinary fun activity for the boys' birthdays. That was the first time for Nathan and first time Tyler can remember going there. They had a blast! We were the last family there (didn't leave until 10pm!) Josh got the Jack pot shooting hoops, and I got the Jack pot playing Skee Ball! I think we ended up with 400 tickets by the end of the night. LOL We may have had as much fun as the boys, if not more :) LOL Tyler and Nathan keep begging to do it again :)

Some pictures are from Nathan's Birthday party in our backyard with mine and Josh's parents, siblings, and their families. It turned out great and Nathan loved his football & Basketball cakes as well as his new room. Instead of toys, Josh and I with the help of many, did a sports themed bedroom for him. He LOVES it! I often overhear him in there talking to himself saying "basketball....hopball (which is football)...Hoccerball.....Beasball......." That's Nathan language LOL He will just say that over and over, it's so funny how excited he is over sports. He will come find me and say "Basketball me mom?" which is come play basketball with me Mom! With the help of Grandpa Van Vleet and Josh, I made a soccerball headboard for his bed and he always refers to his bed as the "soccerball bed" and his room is the "basketball room". LOL He's so cute!

All the rest of the pictures are from Easter activities. There are some from Family Home Evening at Grandma and Grandpa Van Vleets house when we colored Easter eggs. The boys are so proud of their "artwork" on their eggs that they won't let us eat them. LOL They would get them out everyday to look at, all day, if I let them. :) LOL
The boys hunted for eggs in our backyard and had fun, then after church we went to the Beecroft's house (aunt Steph's parents) to have Easter fun with my family. They got to pet the horses (which Nathan and I fell in love with), hunt for eggs, and had a wonderful Easter meal. We had a busy but fantastic Easter.

So there's the explanation of the pictures in the slideshow:)

Nathan being cute at the park

Funny thing happened at church last week

Josh and I were asked to give the prayers in church a week ago and as I finished the opening prayer and started back to my seat, Tyler shouts out "Mommy, that was SO cute! I liked it!!!!" Everyone that heard (which was mostly the whole chapel) tried to hold back the laughter but it was too funny! I can't wait to tell him that story when he's older. I love what kids say (sometimes). Then there's the times when it's not so cute, like a couple days ago we were in the store and he blurts out to a "petite" lady "wow, you're little!" That same day he asked a lady what she had in her nose while twisting his face somewhat disgusted (first time seeing a nose ring), he asked that same girl if she had kids and when she said no, he said "well, You look like a Mommy." Then a few days ago when he asked a lady who had a Eastcoast accent "why do you talk like that?" Those are the days I decide I can't take them in public anymore :) LOL Got to love the honesty of children (Sigh) LOL

Nathan is saying really cute things too that are way less embarrassing Like "Mommy beautiful" and when I tell him he's handsome he says "No, Nathan best", He also gets into the "I love you more" battles that Tyler starts. Tyler says he loves me more than all the sand on the beaches and always adds on the end "and that's A LOT!" Their so much fun! I love the sweet things they say :)

Trying out the Blog thing

We have decided to give this a shot.
Welcome to Van Vleet Street! Where you can catch up on all the new things in our lives. I will try hard to keep this regularly updated.