Neighbors

One of the awesome perks of living in this neighborhood is the high turn-over rates for the neighbors. Just as soon as they start to get annoying- they move. It's pretty nice.
One of the not-perks of living in this neighborhood- is our neighbors (well, 99.9% of them) are very annoying- and it doesn't seem like they move out quickly enough.

Between louder than loud 'bomp-bomp-bomp-swear word-swear word-I'm gunna kill your guts out-bomp-bomp' music blasting through the parking lot at all hours (and I do mean all hours) of the day and night, their ghetto fighting in the streets just to hear themselves scream louder at each other on display for the entire neighborhood to see, and their horrible parenting skills.........  they certainly are quite an awesome bunch of people.

Our direct next door neighbor on our left side, is quite possibly the only ones we like. They are from Ghana- they are really nice- aside from the fact that they think they can treat us like family, which includes walking in the door without knocking........

The one next to their left side? Well- currently they are one of my biggest headaches.

She is a single mom of two girls. Both of which have different baby-daddy's. She is the one who gets into the majority of screaming fights around here with random family members. She's gone at it with others in front of all the neighborhood kids, at dawn and at dusk, and everywhere in between. She just doesn't have her act together. She is almost 30 years old- and acts 12. She is always asking to borrow my phone, because hers is constantly cut off due to an unpaid bill.  Her kids are shuffled to and fro- and don't have a very stable life..... in short-  She's One Hot Mess!

Yesterday she came over in the morning , crying after one of her volatile screaming matches with her aunt- which left her with zero baby sitter for her work shift that night.  She begged me to be a last resort person to watch the kids. I told her that I was an absolute last resort. She told me that she worked across town- it was a new job, so she couldn't call off- and her shift was from 9-1am...... from there the stories kept changing throughout the day.

She ended up leaving with her friend for her 9pm shift- at 7:30- and when she dropped the girls off- her shift magically extended longer. I told her that I would be sitting in her apartment until she got home, and to please hurry back. I asked her where she worked. She said Wendy's. (Okay- why is it she got a job at a Wendy's across town..... when just less than a mile up the road there's like 300 fast food restaurants?)

We kept the little girlies over here until bed time- She has a 2nd grader and an 18 month-ish old. The littlest one kept right by my side- so I sat down with her to play blocks with her and the boys...... the 2nd grader didn't know what blocks were. That's right- she'd never played with blocks- and she didn't know what they were for. It was a little strange.  We put some silly cartoon on with silly music and I grabbed the little one's hands to dance with her. She instantly jerked her hands back and had a look of terror on her face. I just kept wondering what someone had done to this child- to cause her to not be able to have fun, dance, be goofy, and smile with the rest of the kiddos. This wasn't the only time during the night that that happened. Her knee-jerk reaction was always one of fear. Any 'normal' kid thing- wasn't normal for her. Sad, huh? No 18-month old should deal with that.

In our home, regardless of who is with us, we have a routine and follow it. One of our nightly routines is reading family scriptures and doing a family prayer.   I told Chip to pick a basic bible story for the girls to hear- just in case the other girls had any questions- so he picked Daniel and the Lion's Den. The 2nd grader had never heard of this story before- we told her how angles were sent to protect Daniel by God- and that God listens and answers prayers. This is a direct quote from her " Ohh cool! Do you know who else is like God?.......... Willow Smith!"  "She can totally do everything God can do too!".

Yeah. That happened.

We were a little........ um........ okay, honestly,  we were laughing hysterically on the inside.

After family prayers- I brought the girls over to their house and put them down for bed..... put country music on for the girls to listen to (I figured they needed a break from falling asleep to rap....),  and then I waited down stairs- in her unfurnished house (except for a flat screen tv) - for her to get home from work. Luckily I had my trusty laptop and Netflix on demand to entertain me.

Around 1-ish there was a pounding on her door. It scared the poo out of me. I had no idea whether I should answer it- I didn't know if it was a new potential baby-daddy, a pimp, an irate bill collector, a ticked off relative or whatever at the door. I decided to open it anyway. (yeah, I would totally die in a horror flick.)  It was- (I think, as I never could clarify)- one of the baby daddy's. He hitched a ride over from a city about 20 minutes away to come and watch the girls. This is his direct quote " I didn't think you should be sitting over here all night watching her kids while she is out partying with friends"........

That was all it took. I grabbed my laptop and left him with the keys and the girls and left.

I really hope she enjoyed her one "emergency I have nobody to watch the kids so I could go to work- because I'd get fired if I called off" freebie....... because there's no way I'll be doing that again.


This morning her 2nd grader pounded on my door at 7:40 wanting to know if she could stay with us until our kids got on the bus some 30 minutes later......

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Tonight around 8:45 the mom came over to thank me for last night.

She ended the conversation with "Can I ask you for another favor?".................. "I'm driving to Cleveland tomorrow with my mom to drop off my little sister for college, and I need someone to get my girl from school and stay with her until whenever I get home......... my aunt said to ask you first before she'd help".............

My response?  "Um... I have doctor's appointments for my kids tomorrow. I can't."
(It's true, the boys do have doctors appointments- so I didn't lie............ but their appts are for 1pm. :D)

I can't believe she couldn't even wait 24 hours to try and pawn her kids off on me again.

Uggggg....... some people........

The Cat

This past week we did the unthinkable.

We changed cat litter.- Feline Pine pellets (little wood pellets)

The cat, Finn disagreed with our choice. He has been voicing his opinion by taking every opportunity to pee on the floor- in front of his cat box.

The cat almost lost his life when Miles snuck into the kitchen and slid and face dove into a big puddle of cat tinkle.

Chip has been trying to take power back- he's refusing to feed Finn his favorite wet food until Finn starts peeing into his box.

Last night we changed back to the old litter. (Feline Pine- shavings)

Finn still wasn't happy with us because he hadn't gotten his happy wet food. (remember, he's grounded from it until he tinkles in his box again).....  so he peed on the floor again last night.


Battle of Wills.  Cat's going to lose.
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Anyone want Siamese cat age 14-18, no teeth, pees on floor, meows incessantly, and likes to sleep in crotches? 

Good to know....

These past few weeks have been amazingly funny for me- not funny as in I'm laughing all the time, but funny as in- people are telling me the funniest things.

I have had not one- not two- but THREE separate people tell me that when they are talking about bad things happening to themselves, they can always say "At least we don't have it as bad as Chip and Breezi".... HA! That cracks me up. I'm your pep-talk source. So cute! 

I also have had someone tell me that they wish they had my life because I didn't have any trials, (I don't think this person has read my blog.), and I always handle everything with grace.... (again, melt down city?)- HAHA! That made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants. (but I didn't, because that wouldn't be handling that situation with grace.)

I think both of these things are compliments- at least people are thinking about me :)

I also was told I need to create a reality TV show by a few people. I wonder what the title would be?  Suggestions?

Eh'- who am I kidding, if I got a reality TV show, it'd all go straight to my head and then I'd end up doing stupid things like going on Dancing with the Stars, do daytime talk shows, and then probably get divorced from Chip just to amp up the ratings.

I might also become a contortionist. I hear that they make for good ratings.

Alli's Life

I feel really bad for Alli most of the time.

(I said MOST of the time, because sometimes she's in that pre-teen hormone rages stage, and I want to sell her to the gypsies.) 

Alli always has to be the responsible one. If I ever leave the room (for a shower, to cook dinner, etc...)  she gets put in charge- which also means, if anything bad happens..... she gets the blame.  Let's just say in our home, nothing ever goes well when I'm out of the room. 

Alli hardly ever gets her way. She really wanted a new backpack for school this year, but her old one was perfectly fine- so I said no, she could use her old one.  She cried and cried because *O-M-Goodness!* her old one had Tinkerbell on it... and what THIRD GRADER would wear such silly things like Tinkerbell on their backpacks. The horror.  My parents sent her a plain green backpack out of mercy.  She was the happiest child in the world opening up that backpack. (it even had lip gloss tucked in the pockets! Score!)

Alli also gets the bum end of he deal when it comes to baby pictures. See.... Chip and I were really poor. As in, we only had a Celeron Processor computer with dial up internet connection and no long distance on our phones......  when she was born. Which also meant: we didn't have a digital camera. That poor kid had to have her pictures taken with a FILM camera until she was like 3 1/2 (we got our digital camera right before Maggie was born.... like a week or so before)- so if you want to see baby pictures of Alli- 99% of them are blurry,......... and I'd have to go get the negatives (aka: find them)...... Lame, right? 

Alli came home from school yesterday with a letter that says "To get to know each other better, we are going to complete two projects that entail describing ourselves and our families. We are asking that you send in a baby photo of your child and a family photo. We'll also use the photos for a 'guess-who' game." Not only couldn't I send a baby picture with Alli today (I need to go and print one off using a negative....) BUT Alli's not going to have much mystery with the whole 'guess who' game.

She's the only white kid in her class.

I'm pretty sure everyone will know who the white baby is.



Ohh well- This will all give her character.

On the plus side: Yesterday when Chip was dropping Alli off at the bus stop, she met up with one of her friends that she hadn't seen all summer long. She started speaking Ghetto with the girl. She just s-l-i-d right into it. Hilarious! I didn't know she could do that.... she even had the accent down!

I wonder if she can now write that she's bilingual on her college applications?

TOFW

Guess what ladies?!?

There's only 21 days left to pre-register for Time Out for Women! Pre-register is code word for: you can save money.

*Check out this post to see the service opportunities at Time Out For Women

*Check out this post to see the what Time Out for Women is

I know I mentioned it before, but if you or someone you know would LOVE to attend (and really, who wouldn't want to go) but really can't afford it,  Time Out for Women is offering a scholarship program. They are using the Widow's Mite principal, and you pay what you can (if you can only afford a quarter- that's what you pay) and TOFW will make up the difference. Sa-Weet! Huh?! 
* contact me at:  breezianne81@hotmail.com if you (or someone you know) would benefit from this special women's conference, but need the assistance to go.

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p.s. My mom is flying in from IDAHO to come with me! Wheeeee!!!!!!!
p.p.s.  I have two ladies wanting to purchase tickets at the discounted price...... but we need TWO other ladies who want to go- who also want the discounted price to let me know, so we can bundle that together and everyone can win :) 
(remember: you have to purchase FOUR tickets together to get that discounted price.)
p.p.p.s. I really like saying p.s.
p.p.p.p.s. if you want to check out the actual link for TOFW... here it is: 
http://deseretbook.com/timeout/event/151

A.B.C's........

It's that time of year again.....  Ya know. It's almost better than Christmas time to adults across the nation......  It's Back to School time!! 

This year was particularly exciting- since 1/2 of my children are now gone from me for 6.5 hours every day.

Here's our little back-to-school girls!
This morning when we woke up it was so COLD! Wet, rainy, gray, and nasty....  and it dawned on me.... 4 years ago when Alli started school for the first time- it was the same nasty weather.  I wonder if in 4 years when the boys start school if we'll have the same weather too..... Maybe it'll be a Kohrman tradition. :D

I'm not going to sugar coat it- this morning Alli was a little bit of a beast. I almost sold her to the gypsies. First her undershirt was bothering her- then her shoes were bothering her (she got the top part of her foot ran over by a huge, fully loaded, shopping cart yesterday..... so obviously it was hurting)... so she had to wear flip flops- only in her school, it's "illegal" to wear flip-flops- and then every thing else under the sun was bothering her.... she was in tears all flippin' morning before school started.
Yes... I know it was just her nerves over that 'first day of school' stuff- but still- sooo annoying.
Once she got to school, she was her normal, chipper, happy little self. Thankfully.

Alli's new backpack that Papa and Grammy got her. She changed her new favorite color to green this summer - and got her dearest wish granted when this beaut'  arrived in the mail.:D

 And our sweet little Maggie. Sure.... there were 'better/more normal' pictures that I took of her..... but this was just so, so "Maggie". Do you see that she matched? It's a Christmas miracle, folks!  (and she even picked it out herself! I know.... right?!!)
I was really nervous about Maggie at school. We are so lucky that we got Alli's old teacher for her. This morning Mrs. Keller said it was her 39th year of teaching- and she seriously is awesome. She loves her job, and loves all the kids.
Maggie walked right into her classroom, after a minute found a seat, and then came over to me and said "Bye, mom!"
When I picked her up from school she was beaming from ear to ear. Her first day was a success!! (Whew!)

Maggie's princess backpack. She loves it! You should see the little swagger she has when it's on her back. Hilarious!


So what did the boys and I do today without any sister's around to bother us?..........
We went to the zoo! 

 

Over all, I think it was a pretty successful day.

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and just in case you're wondering how I did on Maggie's first day of school........ the answer is: no tears.

Outdoor Movies

 We just so happen to live by an awesome-sauce place- Easton. It's has got everything! You want Cheesecake? They've got the Cheesecake Factory- You want to build a bear?  Well, they have Build-a-Bear, You want an awesome burrito?- They've got Chipotle- You want to sniff a candle?- They've even got White Candle Barn, too! Fancy that. ;D
This summer Easton did a really fun thing: Outdoor Movies!

Every Tuesday night in July-August they had a movie.  So every Tuesday night that had semi-appropriate children's movies playing, I took the girls. (we made 5 outta 8 movies)
Willy Wonka (original version)
Despicable Me.
Ghostbusters
Gnomeo and Juliet
and
Wall-E

We bundle up our lawn chairs, bring some snacks (and/or $ for cheesecake), bring some games, and blankets- and away we go!
The movies start at 8:30, but we always got there around 7:45 to get a good spot. The girlies and I had a blast playing everything from Ugly Doll to Toss the Pig.  (I'm sure people questioned our sanity when we would yell "UGLY! UGLY!UGLY!" really loudly when we found a match...... )

 Alli was so goofy when I brought out a few of those 'pop-it-thing-that-throws-out-confetti-type-stuff'.  Good times.

 Maggie looking/acting semi-normal. :)

 Alli threw the contents of all of those 'pop-it-thing-that-throws-out-confetti-type-stuff' onto my head. I was charming, to say the least.

 Ohh- there's the real Maggie. She was showing me how Pop Rocks sounded.

And the movie at last starts.......
........... and goes until about 11pm.

I had so much fun doing this little tradition with the girls this summer! I really hope they do it again. :)


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*if you live in Columbus, the last showing is 8/30- on the lawn in front of the Cheesecake Factory- They are showing Sleepless in Seattle.

Choices....

Tonka Trucks, building blocks, Polly Pockets, Play-doh, My Little Pony...........

There are so many things for a little boy to choose to play with.

Polly Pocket it is.

Miles, in 20 years when you look at these photos, I'm going to guess you'll wish you didn't have to play with your older sister's hand-me-down toys. 

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**in super awesome-sauce news- CHIP FINALLY GOT MY LAPTOP FIXED!!! WOOT!   (only $165 and a whole month later)........  

So this means you'll be treated to more than just lame weekly posts again. :D 

It's okay if you want to do a little bum-bum-wiggle-happy-dance now. I won't tell. 

Sleeping Boy

Surprisingly enough- the boys don't wake up at the same time. Miles is usually a little earlier in rising. Dexter sleeps right through his wails.

As usual, Miles woke up first. He's not a happy boy when he wakes up. When we went into their room to get him, we first saw Miles waiting to be saved from his evil crib, and then we saw Dexter. Naked bum-bum up, thumb in his mouth, and diaper cast to the side- snoozing away.

How could you not take pictures? Seriously. What a cute bum boy.

Hands Full

Going from ZERO children to FOUR children in a matter of minutes after having a week long break from them- I now realize why people say the statement "Wow. You have your hands full!"

Why, yes indeedy I do have my hands full.

The minute the babies walked into the door they ran everywhere, checking out their toys, making sure things were still there, stuffing Finn's tail in their mouths, yelling loudly in a delightful tone.......

The girls had an opposite approach to their homecoming. They just sat on the couch pouting  and proclaiming their boredom. Apparently my house is 3000% more boring than Patsy and Nunnum's is. Good to know.


 
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My trash can is also full to the brim of poopy diapers.

Service Opportunity with Time Out for Women

Let's talk Time out for Women (TOFW). It feels like forever since I mentioned it on my blog.

Not only is TOFW a spiritually uplifting women's conference- it's also a place to do service for other women- specifically women who are in local women's shelters.

Bring donated items (see below) & help assemble “Possibility Packs” during your “Time Out” weekend. The items will be collected Friday night & then assembled during lunch on Saturday.
This opportunity is open to all attendees although not a required part of the event

DONATION NEEDS
In order for us to create complete packs for the shelter, please bring BOTH items listed next to the first letter of your last name:
A-D: Body Spray (2-3 oz) AND Luffa or washcloth (travel size)
E-I: Toothbrush (full size) AND Toothpaste (travel size)
J-M: Deodorant (full-size non-aerosol) AND new Ink Pen (1)
N-R: Shower Gel (travel size) AND Small lined notebook (appr. 7” x 5”)
S-Z: Lip Gloss AND Kleenex packet (travel size)
In order to fit into pack, please bring requested sizes
(If you would like to donate additional items on this list you are welcome to do so)

Remember: Pre-registration ends (better price!) September 15th!! If you are wanting to get the discount, remember you need to purchase 4 tickets together to get the $10 off per ticket discount.

 REGISTER HERE:
http://deseretbook.com/tickets/show/151

Spread the word! Let others know about TOFW!! :)


(If you have any questions about Time Out for Women, just ask :) contact me at breezianne81@hotmail.com, or you can check out there website: http://www.tofw.com/ )

Girls Camp

Back in May I was called into our bishop's office and asked a question- "Sister Kohrman, will you be our ward's girls camp leader?"

  It totally terrified me! I didn't know what I would do with my kids, I didn't know what I would do with 80 or so girls ages 12-17, and I didn't know how I would survive all of the insanity.

So of course I said "Sure!".  

My sweet Mom-in-law took the all the kiddos, I got a 6 pack of 24oz Diet Dr. Pepper, packed my stuff and away I went.

 

As I met the girls at the high school to load up all the cars and get the kids to camp- I think my last words were "Kill me now"......  my car was filled with 4 little 12 year olds, who were all trying to one-up each other. I think my favorite one was "Ohh yeah- well, I speak 7 languages! English, French, German, Roman, ASL, Latin, and um.... um....... um..... Braille!"    I'm so lucky that I actually had someone in my car that spoke braille.  Our stake rents out a girl scout campground for the week of girls camp. It's a little over an hour away. It was quite possibly the longest hour of my life.

 

 I was assigned, along with 3 other leaders to be with the 1st year girls. These girls were by far,the largest in number for all the years. (the 2nd year campers only had 9 girls!)  We had 26- 12 year old, 4 JC's (16 year olds), and 1 stake leader. 

They named themselves the Scarlet Ladybugs. Strength in numbers.....grrrrrrrr.  

 

(this was our campsite...... It was quite a walk downhill to get there..... and quite a hike uphill to get anywhere else. I thought I was going to die....... seriously. It was like 1/4 of a mile straight up hill! I kept telling myself  that by the end of the week I would have gotten used to it, and it wouldn't seem so bad. The lie never worked- it stunk clear up to the end.)

 

In my tent, only Sister Peine and I stayed the whole week. She was super fun! As it turns out- she has twin boys too, only hers are almost 10. She got to tell me about all the fun stuff my boys will start doing together...... I'm scared.  The rest of the leaders could only stay a day or two, and then they were replaced by another lady from their ward. 

 

 

This was our day1 group picture. (I'm the one on the left in the ugly bright yellow shirt.) 

The 1st year girls wore red.

JC's wore green

Adult leaders got yellow.

and Stake leaders got navy blue.

 

On Thursday night was our ward night. We got to eat with our ward girls and our bishop came up for the evening to hang with us. (he brought Tim Horton doughnuts! Yum!) Thursday night was also skit night - I heart skit night. The girls are so creative!

(Since our ward split with the Gahanna ward a year ago, it was decided we'd do our skit together and eat together too! It was so fun to be with everyone.)

Our ward (Gahanna and Big Walnut Creek) had the most 1st years out of every other ward in our stake. This is a picture of all my first year girls that I got to camp with from our ward :)

(this was in the skit)

 There were many delights of camp. We got to sleep on rusty, uncomfortable, pee smelling cots- The spiders in our tent were literally the size of my hand. They were soooo huge.- the girls never went to sleep earlier than 2am.... screaming the whole time (either out of delight with each other, or because of the spiders/raccoons) - AND we had raccoons in our tent almost every night. It was so much fun.

I really really want to like the wilderness. I really do...... but there's just so much...... um.....nature out there that I just don't enjoy. I think it all started way back when I was a kid- at our cabin- my brother told me that Freddy Krueger lives in the woods and he likes to murder people out there- and all sorts of torturers live out in the woods too..... So literally every noise freaks me out a bit.

 On the hill that never ends- there was this outhouse that cracked me up. It reminded me of Willie Nelson. Don't ask.

 One of the awesome things about girls camp- was our Stake Camp director was my dear friend Tracie!  The girls were asking me how I knew her and I was like-" well, she's my really good friend." And they were like, "how good?"- It took me a minute and I just said "Well, in a way that you can understand, we're like BFF's. Yeah... we totally have necklaces and everything- I'm the 'Be   Fri" one, and she's the "st    ends" one."  I was telling Tracie about what I said, and we were like- "hehehe, wouldn't it totally be funny to take a picture together like that?" so we did.  Only it was on the last day of camp and we were both super tired and um.... our sign was missing a letter. :) Ohh well. It's still funny.

 On the around the campfire we roasted s'mores, giggled, and sang silly camp songs. A little past midnight- the girls started getting really goofy- I'm just going to put down some of my favorite quotes from that night:



A girl was bearing her testimony and she pointed at the fire pit and said "My testimony isn't as big as this camp fire.......... It's as big as this whole entire forest on fire!"

One of the girls started telling jokes....
What do you call a man who is buried to his neck with a shovel on his head?"  Answer: Doug.
What do you call a man just standing around without a shovel on his head?"  Answer: Douglas.
(I guess this was super funny to me- because my dad's name is Doug.... and I know he wouldn't find it funny.... hahahaha!)

Saturday morning we finally got to go home. I walked into a super quiet house-  (kids are still in PA), and took the longest hottest shower possible.... and then slept for like 4 hours. It was delightful.

When I woke up Chip showed me what he'd been up to since I was gone........

 Any guesses?

It's a homemade bed bug trap. HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!  He did research on it and someone said that bedbugs liked carbon dioxide - so you were supposed to make a ramp out of paper, put a doggy dish upside down and fill it with diotomaceous earth, and put a foam cooler on top of it filled with dry ice- which releases the carbon dioxide and the bed bugs are supposed to be like "Hey! That smells delicious....." and then walk up the ramp and fall into the diotomaceous earth to get shredded to death and finally die. 

Chip finally found dry ice at one of the ice cream stores here..... they told him if he wrapped the dry ice in brown paper bags and put them in the freezer, it would stay for  like 4 days...... ours evaporated in 1 day. So.... Chip had to have a plan B. So he filled balloons up, poked a tiny hole in them to release his carbon dioxide slowly through the night- and it would totally attract bed bugs.

Guess how many bed bugs this contraption caught.

ZERO!

Did I mention that he made TWO traps? One for our room and one for the kid's room.

I think he just chose balloons so the bed bugs would think it was a party- and they'd all want to come and play.

He just forgot to send out the invitations.

.

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Tomorrow I'm going to go get my kiddos :) I'm so excited!!!!

Up to......

 So what have I been up to, you ask?  A little bit of everything. It's been wonderful! I guess without a laptop to distract me, I actually have to pay attention to my kids now (ugggg ;D).

When we went to go get Alli from my grandparents- we stopped and ate at Cracker Barrel. (Yum!). I tried to get a picture of the kiddos sitting on the rocking chairs, and this was the best one I got. Seriously. It's hard trying to take a picture with all 8 eyeballs looking at me.  (Dexter is by Maggie, Miles by Alli)

It's been nice having Alli back home. She is such a joy (well.... 96% of the time. The other 4% she has the attitude of a teenager....), and she's been playing nicely with Maggie- who missed her desperately.

 Poor Dexter got a huge fat lip. He totally bit through the upper one, and knocked his teeth against his lower lip too. I guess that's what happens when a baby climbs on top of a clothes basket that has been turned over. He didn't learn his lesson, as he climbed the basket the next day.

 I took the kiddos to the zoo too. (I still haven't called that guy back, and he never called me either. I'm assuming that he had no solution.) Poor Dexter. I think someone will probably call CPS on me. He had a huge fat lip, and I accidentally got sunscreen in his eye when I applied it- so his eyeball was huge and swollen too. That poor child looked so abused! (Dex in front- Miles dozing in back)

 I've taken the kiddos to the bunny park to play in the water.  The boys charged right in! Luckily a new friend and her two girlies came with us- so there was another adult to help corral the babies. They were always running in two different directions. It was pretty exhausting.
(Dex with arms up- Miles with arms down)

 The kiddos loved every minute of the splash park. Miles and Dexter, of course, found stuff to climb on. Why can they never find soft squishy stuff to climb on? Only hard-I'm-going-to-break-my-head-open-if-I-fall-off- surfaces. (Miles looking at the camera)

 This is how Miles gives kisses. He holds his pudgy little hands around your head, opens his mouth wide, sticks his tongue out, and plants a solid one on ya. It's the most slobbery kisses I've ever had the pleasure of receiving. (and in case you are wondering, he hasn't been taking lessons from Chip.)

 The girls and their new friends. :)

 On Sunday Chip's family had a reunion in Pennsylvania. It was Chip's grandpa's (Who he was named after. Chip's the III..... his grandpa was the Sr. ) siblings.  Chip's grandpa died when Alli was 9 months old. His grandpa was one of 11 children- 3 kids are still alive, but only 2 were able, due to health reasons, to attend the reunion. We packed the kids up and drove the 4 hours to meet some relatives.  Along the way, we stopped at a truck stop and this sign was posted next to the phones. It cracked me up. I'm totally pressing *12 next time I go.


So the reunion was in a po-dunk little town population of -23, no gas stations, no grocery stores, no nothing....... BUT- they had this little gem in the middle of no where, that we happened to be meeting in the park beside it:

 That's right! A super fun pool!! I'm a little sad that I didn't bring a bathing suit. How weird is it, that they put a tricked-out pool in the middle of farm fields?!  Chip's great-aunt Virginia said she used to life gaurd at that same pool when she was a teenager. She also said it's been remodeled since she was a kid.

 They had a table filled with old pictures to browse through. They even had lots of cool immigration paperwork sitting around in a zip lock bag- the dates were 1889 on some of them!
(L to R: Chip's dad, Pat, a random related dude, Pat's brother Jeff, and in the back is Chip's great-uncle Dick. I have no idea who the little boy is)

Harry Francis Kohrman and Mary Theresa Sherlock are the two that started it all.  They are the ones sitting down in this wedding picture. The gentleman standing behind Chip's great-grandmother is one of Harry's brothers- who never wed. The other lady was a bridesmaid, no relation.

 This was Harry's army picture. He served in WWI.

 And this was sweet Mary's baby picture :)

 I loved this post card. Harry wrote it to someone after returning home from the war.

 This picture were Chip's Great Uncle Junior and Great Aunt Betty on their communion day. (His grandpa's brother and sister)  When Junior was 10 years old, he was killed when a woman driver drove over him as he was sledding down a hill in winter. The woman drove off and was never identified. It was a terrible tragedy to the family, and Chip's great uncle Dick got a little choked up when he was talking about it.

The reunion as a whole was really fun! I got to meet lots of new relatives, and hear stories of Chip hanging out naked at people's houses when he was little. (for some reason, people only remembered Chip naked.....  interesting.....maybe he wanted to be a stripper as a young boy? I'll have to ask.)

 Of course I had to get a picture of the famous Pickled Eggs. At every family gathering in there is a multitude of this nasty stuff. Hard boiled eggs. Pickled with onions and beets. Eww

 Some fun family L to R: Haven Kohrman, Megan Von Fricken, Josh Von Fricken, Ruthie Kohrman, Haven's fiance Ty, and Ian Kohrman.

 Zaikea got in with the babies in their little gated community.  I'm sooooo glad that Pat and Nomi brought this little thing- it was a life savor!

 This is Mama. (or as my kids call her "Mama at the Farm")  She is Chip's grandma. Don't let this cute little country farm wife face give you any wrong impressions..... she is a feisty one! She acts all sweet and charming- which she totally is..... but from talking with her after everyone else has gone to bed, she is a knee-slapper! So darn funny.  I love Mama as much as I love all of my grandma's. She really adopted me in the family from day one.
You should taste her homemade jelly. It's the BOMB! She also makes amazing quilts and braided rugs. Chip and I stole one of the rugs years ago...... after we told her about it she started laughing and said that we stole the wrong one- as she had made us a brand new one that she had upstairs in the sewing room. The one that we stole was sitting in front of the wood burning fire place and had burn holes in it. Chip said he liked the one we had better- as he had such fond memories of laying on it as a child.
(In the picture above, I told Mama to say "Cheeseburger!" I guess I snapped the picture as she was saying the 'bur' part. hahaha!)

 This is Alli's little "I know your lying, so stop teasing me" face.

 Molly (Chip's sis) thought Maggie was sweet enough to eat. So she ate her.

 Molly Belle holding Mr. Dexter.

 It sprinkled like one drop while we were there, so Maggie had to get out the umbrella, for fear of melting.

 This was a picture of Chip's grandparent's line of the Kohrman clan. LtoR: Pat (Chip's dad), Chip (holding Miles), Me (Holding a screaming Dexter), Ian (Uncle Jeff's son), Maggie, Molly (Chip's sister) Aunt Colleen (holding Christopher- who you can barely see), Mama, Uncle Tom (Colleen's husband) Haven (Uncle Jeff's daughter), Megan (Colleen's daughter), Alli, Nomi (Chip's mom), Josh (Colleen's son), Zaikea (Jeff's wife), Matthew (Colleen's son), Ruthie (Chip's sister), Jeff (Chip's brother), Uncle Jeff (holding Kyler).  We were missing a bunch of people too! I love this Kohrman Family that I married into! We all pretty much rock. :D

 This is Ian with twins. He said he wanted children, but I don't think this is what he meant. ;D (Miles in blue, Dexter in grey)

After the reunion we had a little twist. Chip and I came home with ZERO kids. That's right. We have no children in this house right now. (unless you include Finn the cat- but he tends to take care of himself.)
You see..... back in May, I got asked by my bishop if I would attend girls camp as the ward representative. Basically- he wanted to know if I'd go as a chaperone to 80 giggling girls ages 12-17. I said "what the heck! Why not!" so we asked Nomi if she would be willing to watch the kiddos while I went. She said 'um heck yes!"..... and that was that. Pat and Nomi took our van to their home filled with our four kiddos for a week- while Chip and I took their Civic to our home and have been enjoying blissful silence for the past two days.

So what have Chip and I been doing since we've been kid-less for the first time in 8.5 years? We've gone on two dates :D  Monday night we went to a fancy French restaurant that we'd never bring the kids within a mile of, and then we walked around and talked, held hands..... and gazed into each others eyes. ;D hahaha.... Tonight we went to Long horn steak house (yum!) and then to Home Depot. Nothing says love like lumber, lighting, and paint samples.


During the day while Chip has been working and I've been by myself has been really weird for me. I've sang "I just don't know what to do with myself" like Cameron Diaz in 'My Best Friend's Wedding' a lot. I've also quilted, sewn 6 pillow cases for my girls at camp, and listened to books on tape un-interrupted.

 Pillow cases (The theme of camp is Survivor... like the TV show.... so I picked the most tropical fabric JoAnn's had. It's lame, I know..... but at least it's colorful!)

 .... I finished all my blocks for the Christmas quilt my mom gave to me and 5 other family members for Christmas 2009.......

.... and I finished the back side of the quilt I made for Brian and Sarah's wedding gift. (Remember... they got married in FEBRUARY and I'm just now finishing the back. I finished the front a long time ago (January) and I didn't want to waste money buying 10 yards of fabric for the back ($$$), so I just used fabric that I had left over from the front of the quilt.... which basically meant, that I had to make a whole new quilt just for the back. I didn't have a pattern, I just did what I could with what I had. I think it turned out okay. I hope they will like it. :)

 

This is the front of the quilt. Tomorrow I'm shipping it off to my mom who will use her long arm quilting machine to quilt it together beautifully and add binding on it. :) Yay! 

Tomorrow I also leave for girls camp. 

I better pack. 

Until next time..........