I've Been Tagged!

I guess I will respond to this tag…sorry it has taken me so long. And sorry Jamie that I didn’t respond to your previous tag, I’ll just count this one as my tag for that too, if that’s ok!?! Here it goes…

JOYS:
1. Nick ~ Nick and I are so perfect for each other. We just can’t get over how well we mesh sometimes. However just like any couple, we do have our tiffs at times, but they are definitely outweighed by how well we fit together! I’m glad that we married each other.
2. Kayley & Cora ~ Kayley is my big 3 year old soon. She is so cute and so smart. She is constantly surprising us with how smart she is. She always wants an explanation for things. For example, oftentimes she asks me why we take naps and why we sleep…I guess she just wants to play all the time and never sleep. Cora is almost my big 1 year old soon. She is also so cute and so smart. She is quick to pick up on how to do things. She is very loving. She is always eager to give out kisses to you and pat you on the shoulder with a few love pats. I sure do love our girls and am so grateful for them. If and when we have more kids someday, I’m not sure if we could get any kids that were any cuter or smarter!
3. The rest of my family. Other than spending time with Nick and the girls, my favorite things to do is spend time with family, whether we go on small weekend trips to visit them or just chat on the phone with them. I love that my family and Nick’s family are so close. I think it’s really special.

FEARS:
1. June Bugs ~ I hate them. The way the buzz and run into you like they are idiots…what are they good for anyway?
2. Heights ~ You would never catch me jumping out of an airplane. It sometimes scares me to climb the ladder to get into our attic.
3. Loosing a loved one. I know that I would be able to see them again someday, but it sure is hard living without them until then.

GOALS:
1. To lessen the amount of tv our family watches. We like to veg!
2. To somehow find a way to get rid of our weeds in our yard once and for all!
3. To make a habit of a consistent workout schedule and learn to enjoy it.

OBSESSIONS:
1. T.V. – Considering my #1 above, I have to list this as an obsession that obviously needs to be lessened. But what is more fun than just sitting and vegging with your family!?
2. Cleaning my ears out with q-tips after I shower…I have to do it or it feels weird the rest of the day.
3. Craigslist. I have a routine that I go through each day of things I’m casually looking for to buy on craigslist. It’s sad, but hey…I do find good deals…it may just take a while! I love craigslist!

RANDOM FACTS:
1. My birth mark is actually in the exact same spot as my sister Jan’s, however it’s the opposite leg. Funny too that this sister is the one that my body shape/style is the most like.
2. I can spin on a knee board. It takes me a while to get the courage up to do it, but I can do it. I also can stay on a tube a lot better than Nick!! :)
3. When I was little I wanted to be a Veterinarian, but as I got older I realized that my allergies would take the best of me and shatter my dreams. Good thing I decided to be a mom instead!

Well, there you have it, a little bit more info about me that maybe you didn’t know beforehand! Now I get to tag others.
1. Stephanie
2. Mary
3. Katrina

Good luck girls!! :)

Pictures from 4th of July Camping Trip

Here are some pictures from our 4th of July camping trip in Branson on Table Rock Lake. It was a fun trip with Grandma, Shannon, & John. The weather was crazy at night with HUGE thunderstorms....lightening literally striking a few feet away from us on the water. Ironically the girls slept great for being in such a bad storm. The only regret I have is taking a nursing baby camping. I think I'd much rather be pregnant camping than have a nursing baby...especially one with teeth...all the new sounds, she easily got distracted and in return, I got hurt! Oh well, it ended up being a great trip!
More pictures of camping and dining out and playing at the Branson landing play place...it was a fun weekend!

Happy 4th of July as told by Shannon Hufford

Well I was going to put a post of our eventful 4th of July festivities, but then noticed that Shannon had already put a great post on hers...so I just decided to copy and paste hers...but give her all the credit of course!!! However she did forget one huge detail that almost put me in jail! (Not really) The first night we were there we had the privilege of being next to some unruly male adults probably in their 3o's.

As Shannon mentioned in her post, it was very rainy and thundering and lightning constantly at times....so close it was shaking the ground underneath us! Well being a nursing mother at this time, it was a struggle to get Cora to sleep. I finally got her to sleep and our nice neighbors decide to come next to our site to set up there tent and also relay every last cuss word they could think of in the book! Oh and at the top of their lungs too by the way!! Of course, Cora being a light sleeper, woke up!! I was infuriated!! I was really close to going out and giving them a piece of my mind, which would have not been good as I was so tired trying to get Cora to sleep (other mothers with infants know this feeling of empowerment!) Luckily, I calmed down as I thought it was more important for me to get Cora to sleep than cause more of a rucus. Surprisingly Cora did finally fall asleep and the guys finally went to sleep about 1 hour later. Crazy night! Please read on to see what else occurred that weekend! Thanks for the great blog Shan! :)

Shannon writes....

"Realizing we didn't have any July 4th events planned, I went into panic mode and called my sister-in-law Colton and arranged for a weekend rendezvous (yes it's spelled right ;-). No worries, my friends, it's not the type of weekend rendezvous some of you may be thinking of. Colton and I are close but not THAT close....hehe. Anyway, so we decide to plan a last minute camping trip in Branson for the July 4th weekend. Surprisingly, so did 90% of America. As a result, we ended up with a rather interesting weekend.

I called every campsite in the area only to find out that they were all booked. That's rather odd I thought....it's the 4th of July - apparently the biggest camping weekend of all year!! Well, luckily, thanks to my persistence, we finagled a campsite reservation for Thursday night at the Table Rock State Park. However, the only minor twist was if we chose to camp a 2nd night, we'd have to book our booties to a first come first serve spot since ours was taken the 2nd night. We figured we were up to the challenge and signed up - despite the ever present warning of potential rain showers in the area. After all, we convinced ourselves, camping isn't for the weak and we could muster up enough courage, strength, and energy to laugh at Mother Nature in the face. Well, as it turns out, Mother Nature was the one laughing.

Night #1: John and I arrive first and start setting up camp. Midway through propping up the tent we hear an odd sound. Within seconds we get hit with a downpour rain shower. We begin to cover the tarp over the tent and make a run for the truck cab. After sitting in there for a few minutes we realize we aren't made of sugar and decide to venture back out into the rain. After the rest of the crew arrive, we take a trip to Walmart for a few more necessities: tarp, bug spray, and batteries. We head back to our camp and still more rain. We make a few minor modifications to our original sleeping plans and put Nick/Colton and family + Mom into the tent, while John creates a makeshift tent in the bed of his truck for us. By the time we were ready to retire for the evening we were completely waterlogged but cozy and safe in a water tight tarp, tent, truck bed cover. So tight that it turns out we were now fighting for air. We attempt to sleep admist loud booming thunder, torrential rain, and bright lightning. I lay awake feeling proud of ourselves that we didn't resort to the hotel option from earlier.

Day #1: We awake to bright, dry skies. Apparently the little ones (age 3 and 11 mos) slept better than the rest of us. We enjoyed breakfast and began packing up camp for our relocation to our next spot. So far, so good...well as good as can be expected in this environment. We spend the day at the lake and riding the sea-doo. We spend the evening hours eating dinner out, perusing through Branson Landing, doing some retail therapy and watching fireworks.

Night #2: John has headed back to Arky for a golf tourney and I decide to stay behind and endure a 2nd night. Amazing how over zealous I become when I enjoy one day of dry weather. The 2nd night was dry and not too shabby...however the 2nd day was not.

Day #2: We woke up to a sunny cheery sky, enjoyed some breakfast, and sat around basking in our lake-view (as in we were a mere 5 feet from the protruding/rising lake water). Not too long after we heard the familiar thunder come back for another visit. We ended up getting soaked to the bone, holing up in a minivan with two small children, and throwing our wet camping gear into the waiting vehicles. At this point, I was wondering what possessed us to challenge the forecast, the weathermen, and Mother Nature.

Actually, all in all it was an enjoyable time. Anytime we can spend with family (especially my two little neices Kayley and Cora) is a wonderful time. They were the best campers out of all of us - we were all surprised and jealous.

A few random stories....

After our lake outing we decided we were all in desperate need of some showers. The girls of course were faced with the challenge of showering two small children in a nasty bug infested shower facility that provided luke warm sulfur water - all while trying very hard to avoid touching the nasty concrete floor with our bare feet. I opted to take Cora with me while Kayley went with her Mom. I absolutely LOVE when babies are covered in water as they are extra squeezy and cute. However, in this environment, I spent more time trying to hold onto a 10 mos old covered in soap. She was a good sport but I did have a few near misses as I almost dropped her on the ground. It was hilarious but rather traumatic for her.

Also, on a different journey to our wonderful restroom facilities, Kayley notices a june bug laying feet up by the door. She explains to her Mom.... "Look Mom, that bug is tired....he's had a hard day. He's sleeping because he's had a very hard day". It was adorable and hilarious. She couldn't stop sympathizing with that bug over his hard day and we heard about it all the way back to camp. "

Our Garden

Here is our garden for this summer for those of you wondering if I could be a green thumb!! :) We've been really impressed with the outcome of our crops. We have zucchini out of our ears (as you can see with the picture of the girls with one of the zucchini we grew) and lots of other plants. It's been fun! These pictures were actually taken about a month ago so our corn is about twice that high and has corn on it now!! :) Yeah! So, if you ever come to see us, we'll send you home with some goodies!!

Cute swimming pictures

I had to blog these pictures as I just think they are so cute!! I'm a sucker for babies in swimming suits!! I usually always keep my camera handing when we go to the pool...so just fyi...there may be more swimming pictures later throughout the blog!! :) Kayley always loves to help me get ready for the pool..she is such a grown up now. She always helps me round up Cora to get her sunblock on, etc. It sure is cute! More pics to come on the blog too!!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

What is a summer without baseball?!?! Well, we were lucky enough to watch Judson and Edward's baseball games a couple of times this summer. They are both great players and we enjoyed watching them play! In these pictures, Judson is in the orange jersey and Edward is in the blue jersey. And of course the girls loved playing in the dirt! I got some cute pics of Katrina and Cora, but Kayley and Olivia also had just as much fun in the dirt!

Helmets?

This is a clarification post. In the pictures I posted earlier about our trip to Arkansas, Nick is shown riding John's motorcycle. Well, Stephanie (my sister-in-law) made a comment about him not wearing a hemet...which is what I was thinking too Steph! However, luckily Nick really wasn't very good at shifting from 1st to 2nd on the motorcycle, so he never went very fast. But, even if he had gone fast, he wouldn't have been pulled over as we learned that Arkansas has no law on wearing helmets while on a motorcycle. So, even though it's a beautiful part of our country...it's full of idiots who don't wear helmets! Don't worry in case you were wondering John is NOT one of them!! :) He does wear his! Plus, if Nick had fallen off the bike...he was going so slow it would have just been like falling off of a bike!! :)

Our Trip to Arkansas #1

Pictures from our trip to Arkansas....
Driving range....Daddy gave Kayley a few tips and then John gave Nick a few tips!! :)

John was nice enough to let Nick ride his motorcycle and Kayley had fun with Shannon and Brady!

Our Trip to Arkansas #2

Ok..I know that these pics are a little late in coming on here. I had them all ready to go a week ago and the computer did something funky...so here are the pics from about 3 weeks ago when we went to go visit Shannon and John in Arkansas. I had been to Arkansas once before when I was in high school for a basketball camp and it was pretty hick-town and so we were expecting about the same for our visit. We were corrected. It's actually a really beautiful part of the United States. We had a great visit. We went to Abuello's to eat (a highly recommended Mexican Restaurant!!) It was yummy! Then we saw where Shannon and John both work...I guess they do have to work sometime! Then Saturday we did a bucket of golf balls at the driving range and it was really cute to watch Kayley hit the golf balls and to help us pick them up when she hit them. Then we took the girls to the pool while John & Nick did guy stuff and went to the shooting range. Then we had a fun barbeque with some of their friends (indoors as it started pouring down rain right when we were ready to walk out the door.) We had lots of fun and we have the pictures to prove it!! J See below!

The Love of Sisters

Here are a collection of photos of the girls. They are now learning how to play together now that Cora is more mobile. It sure is cute to watch them...at least when they aren't fighting. Kayley likes to take things away from Cora and as soon as she does, she immediately turns to Nick or I and spits at us to sort of tattle on her. It's cute, but can be annoying at times too! One of their favorite things to do is play in Kayley's room. Kayley likes to run to her room and yell for Cora to come running after her. Cora has to crawl pretty quickly, but eventually gets there...then when she gets there Kayley runs into the living room and calls for her to come get her again...it's pretty cute! They are growing so fast, but we are loving every minute of it!!