Deer Widow Weekend

So I was a widow for only a shot time last week! Hooray! Bryan got a nice buck opening morning just minutes after first light. Some people below him scared it up to them. He was hoping for a bigger deer but is happy with this one. It's a 24 in 5X5 for anyone who cares. We are having it made into jerky as we speak. It was nice to have him home for the week that he had off for the hunt too. I needed his help because I'm having some heath problems that I'll get into in a later post when I know more.

He did get to go up a few times with his brother hunting. We did a European mount where you boil the deer in a big pot. So gross. At least this year he did it in the back yard instead of the front. I know were red necks but I hate to look like it! I'm proud of you Bryan! All of your running to get in shape and hiking all summer paid off!

Bryan and his brother Cory.

Cory and our kids with the deer head. My boys loved the dang thing. So gross.

Bryan and his brothers- this is how his head turned out after we boiled it. At least it doesn't stink this way! That is Joe's baby James with them. Oh he is so cute!

Pumpkins!!!

We grew a bunch of pumpkins in our garden this year. I was trying to have a little fun with some settings on my camera. I love growing pumpkins but they take up SO much room in my garden. I'm not sure I'm going to grow them next year. But the boys love them!

This one is his pumpkin. I'm glad Blake doesn't get the having to have the biggest pumpkin yet or they would fight over it.

Ty loves his pumpkins.

Family Photo's 2009

We went up where we went last year to get a few family pictures. It was the day after I hurt my back but I did pretty good getting around. They turned out ok. My boys didn't really corporate most of the time but we survived. Sorry the quality isn't as good. I have to lower the quality to be able to post them with my slow internet. Enjoy:

Happy Birthday Blake!

I know it's past his birthday but I wanted to post pictures of my baby's 2nd birthday!! Blake was so funny about the whole day- he loved every minute of it. The kid cracks me up. He kept telling Tyson what to do all day. So here is a few highlights of pictures of the day:

How can you not LOVE a face like that? Look at that concentration!

My brother took this picture- what is up with the frown?? So funny!!

A fun toy my mom got him. Ty had a really hard time allowing Blake to play with all of these fun new toys because he wanted first crack at them I guess. Poor Ty!

I always let them help me mix up their cake then lick the cake mix off the beaters.

I got him this from shopko and as soon as he started to play with it the lights and sound quit working. So I took him into shopko last week to exchange it and he saw a toy gun he wanted. I have NEVER heard my kid or any other for that matter scream that loud. It was awful.

Blake is turned into quite the interesting kid lately. He is into weird things that he has to have. Like he always wants his shoes on. He is even sleeping with them on! But he tries to put them on himself. He still is crazy about his toy guns. Even if he isn't holding one if I get after him he takes his finger and pretends to shoot me. I'm sure he has NO idea what he is meaning by that but it kind of cracks me up. He still talks like crazy. He loves to give mom hugs and kisses now. So cute. He doesn't like to sit in the sandbox like Ty does and play he would rather be kicking a ball across the yard or exploring. He likes to play alone a lot more then Ty does and he has his certain movies that he loves to watch. He can already count a little bit and knows part of the ABC song. He FINALLY will let me read to him if it's a short book. It's interesting to see the different personalities in my kids. I can see some weird things that Blake got from me that Ty doesn't have. As a child I was scared of a lot of things but ESPECIALLY dogs. Poor Blake got my fear of dogs. He didn't used to be that way but my mom's nice black lab Sammy comes up to him and if he is on my lap he is fine but if he is standing he freaks out. Ty on the other hand tries to ride on his back like a horse. Tyson likes to find Bryan when he is hiding and have Bryan jump out and scare him. I HATE people jumping out to scare me. Blake runs and find me screaming when Bryan does this- another mom trait. So I'm sorry Blake I gave you my scardycatness. I hope your dad can get that out of ya.

I'm so happy to have you in my family Blake! You make my life so much fun!

Oh my back!!!

So for years and years my lower back has given my trouble. For the most part it's better more then it's worse so I usually don't worry very much about it. My brother has had MAJOR back problems and it's taken years, physical therapy, lots of working it out and tons of dr.'s before he feels like he can function without meds. I've always worried if I didn't workout more that someday something like that would happen to my back. Well it happened. I was in Tyson's room picking up his books that were on the floor then all of the sudden I had a sharp shooting pain in my bad and down my legs that dropped me to the floor. I was screaming it hurt so bad. I've been in labor twice before and granted I've always had a epidural so I don't know what the full labor feels like but the pain I was in was worse then labor for me. I wonder if I feel that way because in labor it hurts then you get a minute or so break then it hurts again and my back I was in pain constantly. Poor Blake was standing next to me when it happened and he kept asking "you ok mom? you ok?" So I try to get to my room but I could hardly move. I called Bryan in tears because I didn't know what to do. I had to have Blake hand me the phone because I couldn't reach it. So I was like that for a couple of hours- I at least made it to the couch and laid on my side hoping to find some position that would relieve my pain but nothing worked. I would either be in TONS of pain or just annoying pain. It didn't help that my kids thought I was kidding and kept hitting me and trying to jump on me. They thought I was fake crying like I sometimes do. I wasn't faking it this time though!

ANYWAY Bryan came hope to help me feed the boys lunch and ended up taking me to the chiropractor. It seems I have sprained my lower back in my pelvis. Who sprains they back?? He had a name for it but I can't remember what the exact term is. They call it a mommy sprain from bending over and picking up kids and from what your hips have to do in labor. It was like a ticking time bomb so when I bent over to pick something up my body just gave up and let go- which sprained it and is pinching a nerve. He said it was a 9 MONTH injury! But I hopefully won't be in as much pain as I was then. Honestly since about the time we left for the dr. I have been feeling well enough to at least walk around and function a little bit. At first there was no way I could get around without crying in pain. So I can't bend over to pick my boys up unless I sit down, have them come to me and stand up. It's too painful anyway right now. It was a chore getting Blake out of his crib this morning while Bryan is at basketball. Poor Bryan had to take the afternoon off yesterday because I couldn't do anything. He had to help me bath the boys and change the diapers. Pretty much anything that makes me bend over at all it's extremely painful still at this point. I at least got some stretches that he wants me to do (pretty much for the rest of my life) and to ice my back. Bad thing is I can bearly sleep because it hurts all the time and my poor boys want me to hold them and it's hard to do it.

So moral of the story is: when bending over to pick up your kids- USE YOUR LEGS! It hurts too much to sprain your back!!!

Blackout

Last night around 7:30-8 we went into a brown out. My tv started freaking out and so did my dishwasher. Then my lights were on but very dim. So annoying. Then it got worse... it went totally black. Lucky for me we had the brownout first because I could tell something was up and I got my flashlights out and candles then got my kids in their pj's. Bryan didn't come home until 9:30 and it was hard to keep the kids entertained in the dark that long. I've now learned how unprepared I am for something like that. I was especially worried about it getting cold in my house without power to run the furnace. Lucky for us the power came on around midnight and we kept warm enough.

Then this morning we spent a fun filled time running errands while Blake was screaming his head off. I have yet to see a kid act that bad in a store- mine or someone else's even. So embarrassing.

I'm back!

I'm back! My stupid internet has been down for almost two weeks and I've been going nuts. I wanted to post a lot on my baby's 2nd birthday and this is the first time I've been able to do it. I have lots more to post but won't be able to today. So here we go!

We went to my parents house a couple of weeks ago and did a mini party for my baby's birthday! My parents found this cute Elmo truck toy with this hat. He loves to ware it around.
We went to the local university homecoming parade. Batman was nice enough to pose for the picture. I had to play parade with Tyson the rest of the day though. He would throw me candy and I would have to pick it up.

My mom with me and my boys.

My cute boy. Oh I love him!

I just thought this photo of Blake and Bryan was sweet.

Our family- Tyson is already starting to pull faces. Nice.