Monday, September 29, 2008

down on the potato farm

i know from the pictures it looks more like a "pumpkin" farm but every other season of the year it's a potato farm. the fabulous pto had a family fun day for the entire student body. seriously how cool is that! it's big bucks but this is the second year they have done it. we had such a great night. last year the twins didn't really get to enjoy this year it was completely different...they were walking around and had a great time. makenna and chloe absolutely loved it. this year they thought they were big enough to walk around with their friends. so unfortunately we didn't get quite as many pictures of them. there was so much to do. they had a potato sling shot, water races, corn slide, corn maze, donkeys, bunnies, and goats, and the best homemade french fries...of course, it's a potato farm! So YUMMY!!!


My big girls stopped just long enough to pose for a picture before we headed in.

Riley and Reagan with their best friend Kenzie checking out the bunnies.

Chloe and Kenna racing the rubber duckies. Go Girls Go!!!Chloe with her cousins Darian and Sean!

Reagan not too sure about petting the donkeys

Riley ran and hopped back into the stroller, absolutely no interest in touching the donkey or being anywhere remotely close.

mommy and chloe

Riley and Reagan



Hey, there's are big girls and some of their friends. ;0)

Reagan's new "look" see that face...she does it all the time and will do it on command. Silly girl!

sometimes she has a hard time keeping a serious face...see the smirk!

Rae giving her baby a piggy back ride

Riley was so excited to get on daddy's shoulders.

she's a good mommy, she gave her baby a piggy back too!

Riley took Rae's baby when she wasn't looking. She always has to carry two babies around and she usually also has a blanket for her baby and a purse. My girlie girl! She is singing to them in this picture SO CUTE.

Riley milking the cow

Rae Rae milking the cow
(Rae)
now that's what you call a rocking horse!!!

(Ri)

Riley finishing off mommy's lemonade

THE END!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

don't forget to add yourself

thanks to everyone who has added themselves to our followers...i love it. thank you so much it really means a lot to me. i don't think everyone understood so i'll just say it once more and i'll move it up so that it is easier to find. see to the left it says "follow this blog"...click on that and add yourself. you can even display your picture very cool! if you have a blog yourself add this gadget it's really easy. hope everyone had a great weekend!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

follow along

okay, so it looks like it's possible i have quite a few readers out there. although most of the time the comments are only from those that have become "friends." blogger has a new gadget that allows followers to show themselves. so come on i promised i don't bite...show yourselves. it's nice to see that there are people out there reading and if you leave a comment sometime i will return the favor.

**oh yeah it's on the left in the side bar...so easy to do!

GUILTY!!!

i am so happy to say that. guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty!!! i am so glad that my hubby can put this behind him. the trial was this week and it was a tough one but still i cannot imagine how hard for little manny's mommy. in case you don't remember what i'm referring to here's a refresher.

HERE'S ONE OF THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES:

He murdered his girlfriend's toddler, according to the nine women and three men who deliberated the fate of an Orrville man who told police the child's fatal injuries likely were the result of two falls.
Following several hours of deliberations, jurors in Wayne County Common Pleas Court found James Vincent Gray, 38, guilty of murder, two counts of endangering children and involuntary manslaughter stemming from the child's Feb. 28 death. The murder charge carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.
A single count of felonious assault was dismissed Tuesday afternoon by Judge Mark K. Wiest.
Kristin E. "Manny" Dixon Jr. died at Akron Children's Hospital, where he was flown on Feb. 25 from Dunlap Community Hospital where his mother, Staci Williams, and Gray took him after Williams arrived home from work to find the toddler lying on the floor with his eyes rolled back into his head.
His death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head and ruled a homicide, according to the Tuesday testimony of a forensic pathologist who examined the child's body the day after his death. The medical examiner denied suggestions the fatal wounds were the result of the child running into a wall or falling onto a hard metal object.
But in closing arguments, Defense Attorney Andy Hyde said the child's injuries could have resulted from a running fall onto a metal vacuum cleaner, an accident Gray reportedly admitted witnessing even before police involvement.
Hyde argued the child had a poor diet, which could have prevented him from healing as would a well-nourished child.
Pointing to cuts and bruises documented in photos of Manny's head, torso and feet, taken both before and after his death, Assistant Prosecutor John Williams argued "this baby was beaten all over his body."
"We don't know what exactly happened between (Gray) and Manny during those four hours they were alone together, but we know a number of things happened that placed these marks all over his body," Williams said, suggesting members of the jury, on closer inspection of the pictures, "may start counting how many (bruises were shown in the photos)."
The verdict, Williams said, was "what I asked for and the evidence supported it."
Hyde disagreed.
"I'm disappointed in the verdict. I think the prosecution threw several charges out to see what would stick and (the charges are) inconsistent with each other. And this jury found him guilty of them all," Hyde said.
He noted the murder conviction indicates Gray killed the child as a result of abuse, while the manslaughter charge indicates Manny's death was the result of excessive discipline.
"It just seemed like emotion took over for logic," Hyde said, who cautioned jurors in closing arguments to set emotion aside and not find him guilty of murder because the child died after being injured while with him.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Help Pass Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act


tonight i was at my sil house and she was telling me about a recent topic on Oprah. my heart sank as she told me what it was about and that she recorded it and saved it for me if I wanted to watch. being a mother of four little girls scares me to death when it comes to the topic of sexual predators. i am truly terrified! they are out there lurking, waiting for the perfect time pretending to be a friend just to get close and gain your trust. i don't know if anyone had a chance to see this episode but to sum up a small part of it they spoke to the center for exploited children and one of the growing trends is video taping and swapping pornographic material over the internet. they actually have cartoons out there the predators are creating to desensitise children to this. there are instructions on how to rape/molest children starting at the age of 0-12months and up!!! i think i had tears running down my face within the first few minutes of the show. the police officer said something so profound on the show. he said it's like being in a life boat with children all around and only being able to save a few. the resources are not there and children are suffering many at the hands of their own family members and so called friends. my heart is aching. they had a map with red dots all over it 15,000 to be exact that was one day worth of tracking...ONE DAY. with the available funds right now only 2% of the predators are being brought to justice. there is a bill in the house please take a few minutes for our children's sake and write your senators. Oprah has a letter you can copy and paste and a link that gives you the email for your state senator. i sent it to both of our state senators it took less than 2 minutes. all i could think about was how this is happening and chances are i know someone or of someone that this is happening to. the technology is out there to track these monsters down. they have it down to longitude and latitude all they need is more man power. they are feeding it live on the internet while they are raping babies. please we need to protect them they can't protect themselves!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

if you could would you please

please, please, please, consider checking out this site and helping this wonderful mama win so that she can help another amazing family who has helped so many people and so that they may continue to do so.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

our little rae rae

loves to wear her daddy's hat!




Wednesday, September 10, 2008

"the big 2" *sniff, sniff*

Happy 2nd Birthday Rae Rae and Ri Ri
you both wanted to keep playing with all of your new toys. you did NOT want to stop so that you could eat your birthday cupcakes that mommy insisted you have because your party is not for another week and she HAD to get a picture on your actual birthday. Rae succumbed after tasting the icing, Riley you... not so much.


Happy Birthday baby girls! We can't believe you are two. You have come into our lives and made such a huge impact. Our lives would not be the same without you. We love you so much!!!! You've completed our family in ways we never imagined! You are such smart little girls and are learning more and more. We have learned not to take our eyes off of you for one second. The things you two get into. How about we just say "everything." ;0) You keep us on our toes but we wouldn't trade one second of it. Your smiles light up our days. We love how you both now say "I two." These years have past in what seems like days.

We love you sooo sooo much,

Mommy, Daddy, Kenna, and Chloe

Monday, September 8, 2008

gotta watch those cats


ah, my chloe cracks me up! she is such a funny little girl even when she's not trying. i was sippin on my diet pepsi today and almost started to choke just thinking about the conversation she had with her grama rita yesterday. here it goes:

a little prelude if you will.
we are driving in the van, me, grama rita, chloe and the twins. josh was working and kenna stayed the night at a friends. grama rita had lost her cell phone and was using a replacement one that was quite old and tattered. grama rita was saying how she needed to see if her old cell phone (the one that was previously lost still worked) cuz the replacement one she could hardly hear out of. here's the convo:

chloe: grama you found your cell phone.

grama rita: yeah, Uncle Mike found it.

chloe: where did he find it?

grama rita: it was in their refrigerator in a bag.

chloe: hm, grama does Aunt Pokey and Uncle Mike have a cat?

(me and grama rita look at each other like huh? where'd that come from)

grama rita: no, why?

chloe: cuz you have to be careful cats do things like that. (just as serious as you can be)

grama rita: what put cell phones in refrigerators?

chloe: yep!

grama rita: my cat doesn't do that.

chloe: well cats do things like that. have you ever seen tom and jerry? if jerry can get chicken out of the refrigerator than cats can put cell phones in them.

silly chloe this one i will remember. so, if you have a cat be careful and if you lose your cell phone you may wanna check the refrigerator.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

does this bed make my butt look big???

Silly Ri Ri that's a baby doll bed!



Rae Rae thought it was pretty funny she wanted to give it a try too!


Good thing I have two big girls...we have lots of doubles around here. This is particularly handy when you have almost 2 year old twins who are not real into the whole sharing thing. ;0)

my new favorite picture

this was taken last weekend at my family reunion...i absolutely love it!

Friday, September 5, 2008

a life saving gift

A couple months ago i was reading one of my favorite blogs Quilao Triplets. Casey posted on her blog about how important it is to donate blood. She also mentioned her preemie triplet girls required multiple blood transfusions during their nicu stay. I was so touched by Casey's post that I decided that night I was going to donate. I am terrified of needles, the meer thought makes me want to throw up but how could I not share something that can change possibly save someone's life because I was afraid. Just this week our church hosted a blood drive, the salvation army came to the church gymnasium. The sign said "emergency" you see summer is the slowest time for donations. I knew in my heart this was the time to overcome my fears. Please don't get me wrong I was scared especially since I had never done this before. I dropped my girls off at gymnastics/cheer practice and decided to head on over to our church. I called my sil to ask what the protacol was for donating so I wasn't completely oblivious. When I walked in there were only a few people, I proceeded to sign in. I explained to the lady this was my first time and that I was extremely nervous which in a weird way helped. She gave me a first time donor sticker and off I went. Apparently, there is a quick test they do to make sure you can donate. I almost didn't make it and I was completely devasted I had gotten up the nerve and now could possibly be turned away. My iron level was questionable. They did another quick test and I came back right on the line...38 the absolute lowest you can be to donate. I did get to donate and once the needle was in it was a piece of cake. It didn't take long at all and it was so gratifying. It felt amazing knowing that I could help someone. I will donate again no doubt about it!

Monday, September 1, 2008

race #3

well, i ran my third race today. another 5k ( 3.1 miles ) i can honestly say it is getting much easier. my time was my best yet at 28.57 compared to my last 5k time of 31.54. the race took place along a trail it was so pretty i really tried to enjoy the scenery around me. the weather was great! i think the temp was right around 70 degrees...perfect! my next race is a 4 miler and is in a little less than 2 weeks and then it's on to the big one 13 miles, yikes! i'm excited but nervous 13 miles ain't no joke. no pictures this time we forgot the camera and didn't wanna turn back. hopefully next time although, my photographer will be working ;0) so we'll see. hope you all had a wonderful labor day weekend ours was extremely busy but lots of fun. i'm tired so i'll try to post more about it later.