OK everyone, I have added a new BLOG to my list. She is someone I adore and look up to. She is a godly woman and is awesome to talk to!!! HERE is the link to her blog. I suggest you go NOW!! CHOP CHOP :o)

As usual things are busy as ever. The kids have been in and out of the house like it is Grand Central Station around here. My youngest is potty trained!!! YEAH!!!! He still wears a pull-up at night, but that is cuz he is such a heavy sleeper that he does not wake up to go to the bathroom.
I have talked to Bev several times. They took the balloon out of his heart and they thought that his heart was so weak that he would pass away naturally, well that is not what is happening. He is improving little by little. They are still having to keep him sedated cuz he is getting so agrivated with his ventilator. The owner of my hubbies company was in the hospital the other day too. He had a mild case of pneumonia and his white cell count was way up so they pumped him full of antibiotics to kill off whatever is going on. Hubby and I went up to see him on Wednesday and he got home yesterday but has to take it easy for a few days. I have been to too many hospitals lately. People need to quit getting sick and stay outta the damn places!!!
Tonite I am going out to see Must Love Dogs with a bunch of girlfriends. Gotta love girls night out! There are a few other things going on in our lives, but not going to talk about them here, just excited about what is happening and I hope that it all works out! :o)
I get my cousins baby in a week and half. I am really excited about taking care of her. She is a beautiful baby and I adore her!! My cousin is less excited of course, but knows that her baby is in great hands so it will be easier for her to go off to her training.
We finally changed internet companies and I have to say we are less than pleased with the assholes. They did a shitty job of installing everything, to the point that a supervisor is coming out to assess what happened. Hubby had the worst time getting the damn thing to even connect too. We also changed phone companies. We did not keep our old # and opted for a new one. So if you are someone I missed giving my # to let me know :o) I have emailed most of the change but I am sure that I have missed some here and there. OK, off to get stuff done before going out tonite! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Bev's dad is still improving. Not sure of too much new news on him. Bev has been keeping in touch its just slow progress where he is concerned. Just prayers and a good medical staff seem to be getting him through this.
Life is hectic, but wonderful. Last weekend was a full one. I went to a Pampered Chef party that Deanna had, hubby and I had dinner with some friends of ours that was also a business meeting. It went really well and I have to say I love the people that my hubby works with. They are awesome people and I adore them. I also spent part of my weekend with my grandma. She is ready to go, she misses my grandpa horribly and is extremely lonely. So the family has been trying to spend as much time with her as possible, some, I think, are there too much since grandma tends to get irritated and crabby around them. Her and I had a great time together and she loves seeing Titan (our Great Dane). This week has been a full one. Hubby has been working a lot and I have started helping out with some spread sheet stuff for hubby's work so I have been busy with all of that.
My youngest is doing much better with potty training. He is almost done, still has an accident when he gets too busy doing other things but overall is turning out to not be as big a pain as I originally thought.
This weekend is also a full one. Had scrapbooking last night, a birthday party today, taking the kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Megascreen tonite and another thing tomorrow. Speaking of that... gotta get going to the birthday party....

Things have been fairly good around here. Bev's dad was moved to another hospital as a last resort. He has a doctor that specializes in Heart Failure and has taken his case over. He was moved to the other hospital on Monday and has shown vast improvement. He is responsive, the swelling he had has gone away, his internal bleeding is stopped. The ventilator is not breathing for him, they are talking about taking it out soon, the balloon they still have in his heart is going to be taken out today. All in all he is doing so much better than they thought. There is no talk of when he can come home but its looking much better than the thought of his funeral. I have not been up to see him since they have moved him and need to make a trip soon.
The rest of life is still as busy as ever. I spent some time up at the hospital last weekend with Bev, and we had a lot of other things going on too. I had a pampered chef party with some friends of mine. Then Saturday night we had a business meeting of sorts with the people my hubby works with and a few of the others that work at the company. We had a really enjoyable evening and enjoyed the time away from the kids for a while. U also went to visit my grandma and took our puppy with me. My grandma adores our new puppy and loves any time that she can see him. So I take him with me every time I go over to visit her.
Our youngest is potty training, I have NEVER been through a WORSE experience. He does NOT care, AT ALL!!!! I have tried everything I can, candy, money, stickers, you name it, I have done it!!! He is doing fairly well now, he still has accidents but a lot less of them. He loves his big boy undies but really still is just a boy and DOES NOT CARE!! He only wears Pullups at night when he is in bed so we are hoping that he will be fully trained by the time I get my cousins baby. Which is just a few weeks from now...
My oldest son has been doing "jobs" around the neighborhood with a friend of his. They had a job of washing one of our neighbors cars, which he loved doing, the guy is a cameraman for one of our local TV news stations and my son thought that was the coolest. He also did a few others things and they called to say how good he did. *Proud mommy I am* :o) Just sucks that my sweet little boy is not so little and is doing all these other things. The older 2 have had a very full summer of lots of different things going on. Spending the night, having friends spend the night, going places and just having fun. Speaking of doing things...I am outta here :o)

Bev's dad is hanging in there. He was doing better last night but is still bleeding internally. I did not go up there last night to see him since Bev had a lot of her other friends up there with them. A lot of prayers are being said for him.
Other things are going fairly well. The kids rooms are coming along nicely. We have them pretty well fixed up and looking great. Our youngest is doing great in his new bed and loving it. Our new puppy went to the vet today and weighs 43 pounds now and a lot to go. Not bad for a 4 month old puppy. The kids are having a great summer with all their friends. Its like grand central station around here with all the kids in and out all the time. Of course mine are in and out of other houses just as much as they are here.
On another note.... I have started really enjoying wine. We did the winery thing a while ago and hubby and I have really been reading up on wines and all the differences. I am far from an expert but I am loving the trying out of different wines. I have found my favorite type of wines. My absolute favorite are Icewines. But they are very hard to come by and pretty damn expensive since they do not make many of them and some wineries do not even do it. They come in LITTLE bottles too. You get about half of what a regular bottle has. Innisklin is a good icewine. One that I have waiting is Jackson-Triggs Vidal Icewine. I have also had another one from one of the wineries around here that was excellent. They are dessert wines and just incredibly yummy. Another favorite is the Port wines. They are dessert wines also. They are served best cold and with a chocolate rimmed wine glass. I get a shipment of different wines from Blackstone Winery. They have excellent wines and I have really enjoyed them. My hubby, who does not drink, even enjoys a glass of wine with me once in a while. He loves learning about the wine and loves to bring me bottles home. I have over 30 bottles of all different types. Someday we will get around to enjoying them.

Once again life has thrown a monkey wrench into everyday life. One of my best friends dad had quadruple bypass surgery last week. I have known her, her parents, and her siblings all my life, literally. Well, he had the surgery last week and they were pretty positive about the whole thing. I get a call from Bev last night saying that they did not think that he would make it through the night. Which completely shocked me. Bev and I have talked just about every day about her dads progress, and though it was very slow he was slowly progressing, until last night. He has been bleeding internally and the ventilator is breathing for him now. His heart is so weak that he cannot handle breathing on his own or anything at this point. His platelet's (?) count is very low and they have been giving him plasma and blood constantly. He is also on 24 hour dialysis. They have him completely sedated so that he does not get excited in any way and they cannot go in and see how bad he is bleeding internally since his heart cannot handle it. They also have a Venus Doppler on him to see if there is any fear of aneurysm. One way or the other he is not going to survive this. Either the family has to make a decision or Fate will. He is in his early 60s and it is just devastating. I have known this man all my life. He used to tell on me when my parents were not home and I did things I was not supposed to. To know the man all my life and knowing that he is not going to make it is really devastating.
Bev does not handle hospitals well, its a miracle she has even been going up there. She has yet to go in to see him since he has gone downhill. I am hoping that I can convince her to go in tonite. I would hate for something to happen to him and her regreting it for the rest of her life. After she called me last night and told me I went up there to see them and stayed til about 2 a.m. I went in to see him and he does respond. As vague as his nodding and shaking of his head is he is alert and does know that we are there. He gently squeezes your hand if he can. He tries to respond how he can. If you are a praying person, I would greatly appreciate any prayer for the family. If not then I appreciate your well wishes.

Tonight is the Homerun derby and tomorrow night is the All star game. I love both of those and will be excited to see how it goes. The homerun derby is just fun to watch and of course the allstar game is awesome. Its neat to see the teams mingled and working together. There are 6 Cardinals that were voted into the allstar game, though it seems that Rolen has decided not to participate cuz of a shoulder that is giving him trouble. David Eckstein, Jim Edmonds, Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter and Jason Isringhausen are the guys going. Chris Carpenter is the #1 pick as far as the pitchers go, it will be awesome to see the game. And I am pretty sure that Larussa is going to be the coach for this yrs NL. NL is going to stomp the AL into the ground :o) At least that is what I am hoping for!!!
It is FINALLY raining here, which is something that we really need, too bad its the remains of Hurricane Dennis. But I guess we will take it how we can get it. A couple of days of rain will be nice. It will give me a chance to completely clean up my house and get things organized. We have the kids moved around, the new bunk bed up for the boys and things are really coming together wonderfully. My mom is going to help me organize the kids playroom and get rid of a bunch of crap that they dont need. Which will be a huge help since she is really good at organizing things.

My baby boys birthday was wonderful. Friday we took him to Toys R Us to pick out what he wanted. He is a very hard child to shop for since we seem to have all the toys already. He loves balls, so he got 2 bouncy balls, a tricycle, set of golf clubs, a batman, bat car, rescue hero, batman bedding for his bed, spiderman mask and gloves, and a bunch of other stuff. Then on Saturday we got the rest of his birthday stuff taken care of and had his party at the park. It was a small party, but wonderful for the kids, they played on the play equipment,fed the ducks and had bbq. I will have to upload the pics. There was an error on the card for some reason and hubby spent half the night recovering the pics that I thought we had lost. My older daughter spent the night at our neighbors house, my neighbors hubby was out on a guys weekend so her and I sat around and drank the night away. Today we got the boys new beds, hubby has a meeting and then we are going out to my aunts house. That is the extent of our weekend.

In other news, a baby panda was born at the zoo in DC. You can go watch the cam, but the most special part is that the baby was born on my sons birthday. Which I think is just awesome!! HERE is the link to the webpage and the cam. OK, off to get stuff done!!

Since I will not be able to post this tomorrow I am going to do it today...

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY BOY!!!!!!!!

I cannot believe that my son is going to be 3, my baby boy, 3 years old and growing up so quickly.

Well, hubby and I actually got a way for a few days, just me and him... I never thought it was going to be possible but it finally happened!!! Granted it was not some exotic or fantanstic place and hubby had to work, but we enjoyed it! We left Mid Wednesday and did not come home til Friday night. Hubby had a job to do in Wichita ( I told ya it was not exotic or fantastic) but it was just the 2 of us! We drove there and it was nice QUIET trip. we were not on a time frame on getting there so we took our time getting there and just enjoyed each other. Granted the sights are boring for the most part, but I enjoyed the tranquility of it all. Most ppl find the green grass for miles boring but I enjoyed the quiet country. It really was amazing to see all that land, no people and sooo many cows :o) Hubby had to work on Thursday so I hung out at the hotel, enjoyed a long hot bath with NO kids interupting or joining me, enjoyed my Harlan Coben book, which I managed to finish on the trip. Hubby and I went to lunch at this awesome Bistro in downtown Wichita. Then went to dinner at a sports bar that night, also downtown. Then we wandered around the square downtown (took about 30 minutes, including the shops) and went to see The War of the Worlds, which I surprisingly liked. But, there was something interesting about the theater. You could order food, drinks (including alchy) and they served you. Which I thought was awesome. It was no more expensive for the theater tickets either. That was the extent of our evening. I do have to admit that I really missed our kiddos though. Being that far away and for that long really got to me. The kids have spent the night with my parents before but I have always been close. Never a state away. Then on Friday morning I went with hunny to finish up his job he needed to do. Then we went to the Cosmosphere in Hutch, KS. It was really, really neat. Hubby went there the last time he was there but did not spend all that much time and did not have his camera. I will have to upload the pics we took. They have the Apollo 13 capsule they are getting the Liberty 7 capsule, Lovell's space suit and is just awesome. We spent a few hours there and just browsed around. It is a huge passion of my hubbies since working at NASA and he just LOVES all the space stuff. So it was awesome for just the 2 of us to be there without having to chase the kids around. Though it will be something we take the kids to. They will enjoy it too. Just strange that a lil town in Kansas has this awesome museum.
After the Cosmosphere we had a nice lunch and headed home. We took our time coming home. We had BBQ in a lil town my grandma used to live in, they have the BEST BBQ, I even eat it which does not happen often. We got back to town around 10 that night and got the kiddos. They had a great time with my parents and my brother.
Saturday we just spent the day together as a family. Did not do too much at all. Then on Sunday we went to our friend Robs and grilled, the kids played in the pool and then we met up with Robs family and watched the fireworks in St. Charles. We had a great time. Then on Monday we went to my Aunts house for a little while before going out to Scott and Lynettes. My aunts was nice, my cousins dad, step mom and baby came up from Alabama so we could see the baby. Which was nice of them. Marisa is now 14 mths old and a cutie despite who her mother is. Of course Michelle was there with her baby. Michael is back from Europe and was here with his girlfriend. It was nice to visit with family for a while. Then we went to Scott and Lynettes and grilled with them. Connie was in town from California since she was goin on a trip with Scott this week. We had lots of fireworks and had a wonderful time. Scott and Lynette had their little brother from Big Brothers Big Sisters there and the neighbors have 8 kids and there were lots of those kids back and forth throughout the day. That was the extent of our 4th... I hope that everyone else had a wonderful 4th and remembered those that are giving their time and lives to protect and keep us free...