wordless wednesday

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!

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.

our little rae rae

loves to wear her daddy's hat!

"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

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.

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!

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!

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.