giving thanks.

so thankful.

i am so thankful for so much in my life.

gavin
dan
our families
maddy, bella, lilly
our home
freedom
safety
dan's wonderful job
love
our faith
kisses
the joy that gavin brings to our hearts
the snow :)
delicious food
pandora
good movies
friends
dan, mine and gavin's health
our heated garage ;)
the holidays
jimmy johns
gossip girl, haha
wine


to go along with how thankful i am is how nervous i am for our family pictures. we tried someone different this time and i'm NERVOUS! gavin wasn't the happiest camper and it was cold outside (40, but with wind).. so we'll see. if not i will just self time our camera and do it ourselves. --also, i found this amazing editing program! i played around with it all day today (after installing it for what seemed to be an hour) and found some really great lighting's, tools, ect.
and with the nerves here comes the amazement. our friends are so great. i am B-L-E-S-S-E-D to have each and every single one of them in my life. through the good, bad and everything in between they are there for myself and dan, no questions asked. and.. justine surprised everyone the night before thanksgiving, it was fabulous seeing her face.
and even though the amazement is great, love from my little boy is even better. my poor gavin is having troubles with his sleep. we think he's having night terrors (which start around 18 months if it is so) and wakes up SCREAMING. i've spent a good 10 hours thursday and friday night combined awake, laying in the spare bedroom with gavin playing with my hair, snuggling with his "muuuma." thankfully he seems to be okay if we leave the door open, a night light on and the hallway light on as well. it might send our electricity bill up, but it's worth those couple hours of sleep. secretly, i kind of miss the cuddles.
from love to relief. although gavin brings so much joy&love to my heart i am not ready to have another darling child. i thought i was, but was mistaken. my baby fever is over... for now. so many people around me are getting pregnant and/or having babies, now i'm just excited for them, not jealous! feels good. i'm sure dan has mixed emotions about this.. he can never keep up with my mixed emotions on this subject.

life is... good.

i'm disgusted.

today i just so happened to turn on the tv at 3:02pm. (i try to keep the tv off in the afternoons and with all this christmas music i've found i usually can do it)... the first thing i hear is this child screaming and his mom saying something along the line of "you don't lie to me"... OKAY, you have my complete attention.

it was dr. phil.

today on his show there was this "mother" who had 6 children (woah), some of which were adopted is what i gathered, anyways... this little 7 year old boy, kristoff, got in some sort of trouble at school and received "three pages??" at school- which is a bad thing from what i got. so the kid came home with these warnings from teachers about how he behaved badly in school and the "mother" FLIPPED. she screamed in his face telling him he was a bad kid, a liar, ect ect. THEN she sat him on the counter in the bathroom and filled his mouth with HOT SAUCE!!!!!????!!?!?!?!? WHHHHHHAT the F! she continued to yell at him while he had the hot sauce in his mouth.

-i've had hot sauce in my mouth once at courntie braatz's house when i was in 7th grade, we thought it was fun??, and i've never done a "dare" again like that.

okay, so after this hot sauce she continued to put this kid in a cold shower? WTF? this kid cried and cried and said sorry upon sorry and the "mother" just kept yelling at him. PLUS this was all videotaped by her 10 year old daughter? why would you let your daughter see this? how traumatic for her and this poor kristoff. so she sent this video into dr phil and asked him for help.

everyone in the dr phil audience was disgusted by this woman and had numerous things to say. i didn't end up watching the entire episode but from what i saw this "mother" needs some serious help.

so okay, i watched this and sat and held gavin and tight as i could for as long as he would let me hold on to him, and bawled! it was so sad! here this kid got adopted by this "mother" hoping for a better life than what he had in russia and this is how she treats him. urgh! totally made me mad!

i thought a lot about how upset i sometimes get with gavin and how i get frustrated, and i'm sure i'll get even more upset/frustrated as he gets older, but i could NEVER, i repeat, NEVER traumatize/hit/hurt my child the way she has done to hers. when i was little i got a "whoopin" aka a smack on the ass and an occasional mouth full of soap, when i called my mom the "b word", but that was it. and i still don't think i could do that to gavin. gavin is going through this stage where he's biting (only me), hitting (only me and the poor dog) and throwing things (at me)... but it's not even when he's upset, it's just like something he's doing. he gets to sit in the time out chair for 1.5 minutes, if i can keep him in it for that long, but that's it. i've read enough books/magazines, heard enough that if you hit your child they are more likely to grow up with a troubled life and will be more likely to hit/hurt others, and that is not what i want for my son. seeing gav upset by getting his finger caught in a cupboard is hard enough, let alone knowing you caused your own child pain, i don't know how she can look at herself in the mirror.

this also makes me think of this video about this little boy that died from his mother and her boyfriend abusing him. WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO. how disgusting.

honestly my stomach is turning. here God grants you with this amazing gift of a baby, (wither it's yours or not) and these horrible people hurt and kill their children? uuuuuuuuurgh.

i know he's not yours, or 7, but how could you hurt someone like this? every baby/young child is happy like this at some point.

people are digusting

5.28.2011

it's love..

my dear friend, ashley noble is getting married to the love of her life, joel gaullrap. aren't they just adorable together?

i am well aware that she is marrying her best friend and is going to live... happily.ever.after. i am so happy for her and joel and cannot wait to help them celebrate 5.28.2011. they are so beautiful together!

i have NEVER been so jealous of someone in my entire life. in a good, loving, friendly way. she has the most ROCKIN bod i've ever seen, the most beautiful hair, face, lips, eyes- everything, she's petite with some enormous and gorgeous boobs (i'm not a lesbian, i'm just jealous) and an amazing set of legs... URGH I JUST LOVE HER TO DEATH.

she just posted these engagement pictures online and i honestly just fell in love with joel and ash ALL. OVER. AGAIN. THEY ARE TO DIE, I DIE I DIE I DIE!

by the way thomas byers, from minneapolis/st. paul area took these amazing photos. there were 93 of them but these were some of my favorites.

just wait till the wedding... you know i'll be posting TONS of photos! her dress is exquisite! i'm simply obsessed! ashley, if you're reading this i love you and am SO happy for you!

oh no! it's frankenstein!

happy halloween!

from my little frankenstein!

(look at all that drool and if you look close you and see an orange tootsie roll that his godmama kept feeding him)

you are..

the best thing that's ever been mine

natures beauty

i love fall...

and the country side beauty.

and the barn..

and this magnificent lovely lilly



some action shots as lilly was running towards me.

i have been riding since i was three years old. my mom fastened me onto a horse, gave me a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and sent me on my way. i've never been thrown (knockonwood) and i've never ridden a horse i couldn't handle. lilly is our sixth horse and probably the best one yet.

ronnie, our first horse was a WILD, dapple, fiery arab who was not the ideal first horse for a child, but we made it work.

butch, the second was even worse. he was a HUGE 16 hand, dark bay, american quarter horse who was $3,000. we traveled to indiana to go get him. when i was little andrea ratike and i were riding him and he decided to roll. we had honestly just jumped off in time to avoid the horrible injuries he would of inflected with his 1000lbs+ body.

quincy, the thrid was another expensive bay, american quarter horse who was LARGE and naughty. he used to brake the horse trailer and back out of it with his extra large ass. he broke many lead ropes and crushed my toes plenty of times.

catch was my first horse. he was very old and actually had cancer. he was the perfect horse for me, fast when needed, but slow and steady. he was so trusting and so patient with me. we ended up giving him away to a farm with young kids where he could live out the rest of his years. PS- my mom gave him away without telling me... i'll never forgive her for that... annnnd i let her know all the time.

tyrnnery-lilly's mama was my favorite. she looked so similar to lilly.. and as crazy as lilly is too. she was the fastest horse but so mild. she did everything i asked her to, climbed up sleep rocks, swam in many lakes and rivers and bore to little fillies. sadly, tyrnnery was infected with west nile and had to be put down. watching her be hauled off into that trailer was one of the hardest things i've ever done.

and that brings us to lilly. my mom and i have raised her since she was born, doing her imprinting, working with the lead and now we're working her to be better than the best. she is now six years old, a dapple quarter horse-arab who is as spunky as the day is long. she can move as fast as lightning and can throw her hind end up in the air higher than i've ever seen. she is amazing. she's been trained with the amish down south to ride and pull and will continue her training this spring in howard lake. i look forward to hopping on her two times a week this spring and making her all she can be. i looove her!

i shouldn't be telling you this...

so i win the "failure of a mom" award for this week...
sunday: gavin got bit in the right pointer finger by a mule... dumb juiet. his finger is fine, but obviously it hurt.

monday: gavin fell down the stairs (he was about half way up) while "helping" me bring up the laundry. he cried for just about three minutes and then was totally fine. we called the ER and talked about the signs/symptoms of a concussion- he didn't have any of the signs but STILL it was the scariest thing i've ever witnessed and i hope/pray/wish it will never happen again.

tuesday: while spending my day with blaise we ventured out to the swing set, which is somewhat close to the lake.. mistake NUMBER 1 for the day. blaise wanted to go on the dock and i was trying to get him off of the dock when i turned around to not see gavin. ummmmmmmm PANIC mode, 100%. so i turn the other way only to find my dearest love walking into the lake. thankfully it was VERY shallow and he just got his jeans a little wet. mistake NUMBER 2 for the day. petey (their dog) ran away while jeff was trying to "shoot down the damn tree" and when i left at 4:30 they still hadn't found him. they did find him at 7. do you think i'll ever babysit again? urgh!
after talking with katy and hearing some stories of what blaiser has done in his younger years and this year i am okay with knowing that i have much more in store for me... and we (katy and i) are hoping that gavin's getting all of these horror events out of his system this week. tomorrow we are not doing anything crazy and are going to hide all of the power cords/anything dangerous.

my day did get wonderful.... eventually.
i went for an amazing jog, not sure about the mileage as i could never track it :) through the woods tonight. i brought with three dogs on this occasion... two good, one okay. maddy, our dog, was one of the good ones! on my jog i ran into, four HUGE deer. now i've never been scared of these beautiful and tasty creatures but seeing how HUGE they are up close, personal and alive was hugely intimidating! the dogs didn't scare them away, at first. eventually the deer pranced off, but i stood there for just about another minute in complete shock as to how close i was to these deer... two with huge antlers... ehhhhh. i actually picked up a stick (come on sam!) and ran with it the rest of the way. now i ask myself "what would this stick do for you???" as i continued my run through these deep woods i came upon more and more wildlife and the only thing that the dogs would scare was me. all of the sudden they would just STOP... directly in front of me and NOOOOOOOOOT move as i continue running towards them. this is where i gripped onto my stick just a little bit tighter. if the hunters who own this land have trail cams they will be interested to see me, in bright yellow, jogging along with three dogs and a stick... i came upon about four deer stands, two duck boats and one not so happy to see me duck hunter and his dog. he was walking back to his truck but was very interested how i was able to run on this property, being as it wasn't mine.. but wasn't his either. i did have to explain myself as best as i could and i think he was okay with it- maybe? he did give me a smile and say that the dogs were well behaved. hopefully i'm still allowed to run this course cause there aren't too many other good running areas in this town. and i don't want to drive to paynesville every time i want to run!