Tag! I'm it!!!

I read this list on Heather's blog. Try it... it's really fun and won't take a whole lot of time.

8 Things I am Looking Forward to:
1. Garage Saleing with the girls! CAN'T WAIT
2. Seeing Natalie and Noah, and the rest of the Watson family that will be at the shower this weekend.
3. Seeing Wolverine, the next Transformers, and Night at the Museum 2.
4. camping this summer
5. Possibly convincing my mom to go to Mike and Amy's church so that I can sneak a peek at MckMama and Stellan... And I am sure visit a wonderful church!!!
6. Having a night with no kids.
7. Finally being done with the root canal stuff with my tooth. Hopefully tomorrow.
8. A nice day that I can get all my laundry caught up.


8 Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Went to MUMS
2. worked
3. Spent too much time on the computer
4. Called Heidi B. too see how her and Seth were doing during his surgery. (He is feeling ok btw)
5. Talked to my brother about plans for this weekend
6. Started making plans to drive our Jeep to Arizona to trade with John's brother-in-law, Marty. They have a truck that they would like to trade for the Jeep. Then we could pull a camper, get our own pellets in our own truck, pull a boat, Not have to drive two vehicles if something goes wrong with the van....
7. Felt guilty about not posting anything lately.
8. Took my sleeping pills, and still had a hard time falling asleep


8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
1. Take Wyatte to Arizona to show him where he was born.
2. take better pictures
3. get up enough courage to tell Heidi B. that I am ready to sing my special in church. Don't get any ideas anyone, I am not ready yet....
4. Fix up the house
5. let go of some things in my past
6. Finish the quilt I started over 5 years ago
7. Get through a day with out hollering at the kids
8. Keep the house clean for more than a few minutes


8 Shows I Enjoy:
1. NCIS
2. All My Children, not so much any more, but I couldn't think of any other ones...
3. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
4. Jon and Kate +8
5. Ace of Cakes
6. Golf tournaments
7. Wild and Gopher Hockey Games, yes I know they don't play each other, but I love to watch both of them!!!
8. The Backyardigans!!!

This was on MckMama's blog, and I thought I would share it with you. I am sure that some of you are sick of me pushing this family on you. But I also know that some of you have come to love and pray for them as I have.

Just added my cell phone so now i am checking to see how this works. All i do is type a text message and blogger turns it into a post for me. Seems like twitter, you can check out my "tweets" by going to twitter.com and searching for jashoard . You can have my tweets sent to your cell phone too! Mckmama is on twitter too if you want to follow her!!!

You are my Sonshine

Afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's

John's brother Jim is up from the Cities (North Branch...) for a couple of days. Since we haven't done Easter with John's family yet this year we went over to Mom and Dad Hoard's for supper with everyone. John's sister Leanne, 4 of her 5 kids, Jim and one of his girls, Great Grandma Idella, Great Uncle Duane, our whole family, and Linda and Lavern. Here are a few pictures that we took today!Wyatte was riding Leanne's Shetland Pony, Rusty. He got a couple of lead laps around the yard! I think he really had fun. In past years he didn't really like it, but he is getting bigger!!!

The look on his face as he was riding!


iUncle Jimmy leading Sophie and Rusty, Wyatte and Nevaeh were along for the walk.


Nevaeh did get her turn on Rusty. Thanks Uncle Jimmy for walking around with them!


Grandpa having some fun with the girls!


Uncle Jimmy showing Wyatte how to get Noah in a wrestling hold, called the cradle.


Sophie, Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Leanne singing "You are my Sonshine," Great Grandma Idella in the background. I am going to upload a video of them singing too, when I do I will link it to here. It won't be the best quality, but...
I think we were singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," at Nevaeh's request, or "Jesus Love Me."
(Jim, Asher, Leanne, Nevaeh, Noah, and Wyatte)

America's Most Desperate Landscape

Updated: I can not get a link to the video that I uploaded, so you can just scratch this whole post... Unless you want to search all the videos for one called "Waterlogged" it was posted by jashoard...

I uploaded a video of our front yard to America's Most Desperate Landscape. The Today Show and DIY are partnering together to (re)landscape America's worst yard. Go check out my video here, I know not the best quality but it was all I could get on my camera. Vote for it, (give it 5 shovels!!!) and check out some of the other yards that are up for fixing. Upload your own video if you would like! Just make sure it looks better than mine!!! J/K

I just found out that Nevaeh shares a birthday with one of my favorite actors of all time. Mark Sinclair Vincent. Anyone know who that is? No cheating!!!!!!!

Fire Safety MUMS day

This is the picture that I took of my kids to send to the "orange for stellan" post. Some of the MckReaders mentioned that they were going to wear orange MckMama's Stellan's favorite color, in honor of Stellan's surgery today. She said that if anyone wanted to send a picture of themselves wearing orange they had set up and email address to send the pictures to. I picked out a shirt for me (orange) and went through all the kids' clothes and only found one orange shirt. I then decided that I would take MckMama's second favorite color (which is also the color of her blog...) and the girls could wear that. The bottom of the picture says "the girls don't have any orange to {so} they are in teal in support of the rest of the MckFamily still in the frozen tundra today" You can go to this post to see all the other pictures that people sent it to show support for Stellan today. He did have surgery today, and it went ok. This post here gives more details if you want to see.

This morning we got ready to go to the church for our 3rd Tuesday MUMS activity. The scheduled the Fire Dept. to come out and talk about fire safety. We then had a taco lunch afterwards. The kids enjoyed it, it was great for them to hear everything they did, and they also had fun with friends. I got a little time to chat with the moms and so we all won!!!

This is my version of MckMama's Cindy Loo Who's (otherwise known as Small Fry) "Four Ponies" I only got three in this time. And John didn't like it, so I am not sure if I will try again...
Aubrie got up to help Fireman John do his talk about having an escape route to get out of the house in case of a fire.

Fireman John had us all lay down on the floor to pretend that we were sleeping, then we had to...

crawl to the exit pretending that the air was full of smoke and fire. The kids thought it was fun, but I think they learned something too.

Wyatte and Neveah listening to Fireman John talk about the gear that he wears when fighting a fire.

Here he is all in the gear. Only one kid was scared, the rest thought that it was pretty neat.
Here are some of the kids getting an up close look at a "tanker" truck that Fireman John brought with him to show the kids.

Fireman John showing them the "jaws of life" and other equipment that firemen use to fight fires and save lives.
All the kids, minus a couple of babies (Aubrie included...) and Fireman John in front of his truck. They all stood really good for this picture I was surprised!!!
showing off the hats that they got.

Hello everyone. I posted a picture to Stellan's name gallery. You can go check it out. MckMama started it when Stellan was in-utero, someone sent her a picture of Stellan's name in the sand and it reminded her of a picture that she had taken when her and Prince Charming went on their honey moon (I believe that is the story anyways, she has a post all about it...which I can't find right now, but...) Anyways, since they have been back in the hospital people have started sending her pictures of his name again. Hundreds of places around the world. Mine happened last night when the kids and I were playing with playdough. Go check them out and see if you can find it. (I will give you a hint, show you what it is,!!!) I did edit it on picnik.com a little. My cousin Amy and her sister (who is also my cousin!!!), Naomi, have also put pictures up. Naomi's is one infront of the Fargodome, laying in the piles of sandbags there. And I think Amy's was taken at a zoo. I guess I can't remember for sure. She can correct me if I am wrong and point out the right now.

MckMama was looking for ways to make something out of these pictures for Stellan to look back on. She thought maybe to print them all off and put them in frames and make a whole wall of these pics, or put them in a photo book, or wallpaper them directly to the wall. I don't know what she has decided or if she is going to do anything with them at all but it is neat to see all the people that are praying for Stellan.

Indescribable

ADDED: None of you commented on my last post about this song, so I almost didn't put it up, but I really needed to write this down to get it out of my head and onto the paper computer so here it is...

ORIGINAL: I have heard this song many times, and while I listen to the words, I hadn't really heard them. Do you know what I mean? The other day I heard the first for the first time. I don't know if it is because of the flooding that is going on, or the Mckinney Family that is on my heart, or the fact that I realized how many of the people in my graduating class are sooooo far from God it is totally scary, or the fact that my kids are growing up, or that we had a great worship service at church, or the "Believing God" Bible study that we are doing talked about this in a round about way, or and God just doing a work in my heart. It could be all of them, or none of them.

(I am including the lyrics to the song, they are in italics and bold and my thoughts are just normal.)

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring Two of my person favorite things. To think that He made the leaves to change color, and imagined knew that we would love it! And the fragrance, I had personally never thought that God could smell. The little things that He KNEW we would appreciate.
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name. He know the names of all the stars. Not just the ones that we have seen, not just the ones that are still here, but ALL of them. How many millions upon millions upon millions of names is that? And he knows how many hairs are on each of our heads, how about millions upon millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of hairs have there been in the years since Adam?
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim How many of us are just going to church because it is what we have done, what we do, what other people think we do and not because we are awestruck? One thing that I have brought up with some of the worship leaders at our church is that they ask tell us to sit down part of the way through worship. How about we "fall to our knees" in amazement instead of sitting down.
You are amazing God

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go And rain drop, and snowflake, and hail... the Bible study that I am doing, "Believing God" talked last week about the battle against Gibeon. Where Joshua asked God to stop the sun. (that is a whole nuther post in and of itself, but...) God also sent down hailstones, large hailstones. He sent them down over the whole fight, Gibeonites and Israelites mixed together. NOT ONE OF THE HAILSTONES HIT A MAN IN JOSHUA'S ARMY. How awesome is that!?!?!?!?!? We serve a mighty God. There are tons of commentaries out there about this but I didn't add them in here...
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow How awesome is that that God has STOREHOUSES laden with snow? How cool would that be to see. I think of like Walmart full of snow!!! Or the Fargodome laden as it was with sand. With all the flooding going on out there, and I feel greatly for them, God knew it was going to happen. He knows how high the water is going to get, He knows how many houses are going to be damaged, or ruined, or safe, or close to. God had all that water in a storehouse to send to us.
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night He knows what we need, light in the day and darkness at night. With all the wonderful nuances of creation, who could even imagine that we would could come from a big bang? Oh the craziness.
None can fathom

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
You are amazing God

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
Incomparable, unchangeable
You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same
You are amazing God
You are amazing God

I know that isn't the easiest thing to read, and maybe it doesn't make sense to you. But I had to share some of what was on my chest. I am not the most elequant writer, but hopefully God will pass some of my newfound understanding on to you.

Aubrie in the last couple of days

Aubrie loves this book. I think she got it for her birthday or Christmas, I can't remember. How horrible is that?!?!?! If you ask her where her book is she will look and look for this one. She isn't happy until she gets to read it. "Baby's First Animals" has one animal on each page and part of the animal is fuzzy, or soft, or shiny depending on the animal. She is starting to talk more and more, and when reading this book she will point to the dog and say (d)og (silent d for the most part...), and when you ask her what a kitty says she goes, "eow)! I tried to get a video of it, but she got camera shy! When we got to the fish page tonight I made a fish noise "blub, blub, blub" (that is what the book says!!!) and she goes, "bluuuuub, bluuuub, bluuub" and then laughs! She is growing up sooo fast.
She got this phone in her Easter basket and LOVES it! It plays music when it opens and so she opens and shuts and opens and shuts and opens and shuts and open and shuts... At least it is music I like!!!
She also puts it up to her ear and says "eh" So cute!

We were all playing with Playdough and Aubrie was enjoying our company. I snapped a beautiful picture of her smile (at least I think so!!!) No she didn't get to play with the Playdough, she did get to enjoy some Lucky Charms though! This morning she got to enjoy the tub all by herself. She thought she was pretty hot stuff!

I don't remember what she was doing, but she was laughing! Isn't she beautiful!?!?!?

I think she had peanut butter and jelly on her face, her first pb&j so I had to take a pic. Love those two little teeth!

Not so lost pictures

So I just called Target to see if they had the cd wallet, and THEY DO!!! So I am going into town for a couple of GARAGE SALES (Yeah for that season!!!) and will pick it up then. So look forward to seeing some pictures of the kids!!!

Lost pictures

well, i was getting ready to make an easter post, with pictures of all the fun and festivities, and then i remembered...

today when i was at target, printing off a picture of wyatte with his big crappie (fish, for those of you that don't know) then doing some shopping for random things i had this feeling that i should put the cd wallet that was full of the 9 or 10 cd's that i had burned the other day (and then deleted the pictures off of my sd cards) in my purse. i ingored that feeling and continued shopping. we paid for our stuff and i moved the cd wallet from the bottom of the cart to the seat next to aubrie. as we were walking to our van someone walked up to us and said she had some toys that she wanted to share with us and handed aubrie a new infant toy. i was talking to aubrie and put her in her carseat, then picked up the bags and my purse and put them in the van, pushed the cart to the corral and got in the van and walked away. as i was about 1/2 mile away from the house i got this sickening feeling and realized that i didn't remember putting the cd wallet in the van. i quickly looked around and didn't see it. i then called target (which is in my speed dial on the cell phone...) and asked if someone had turned it in. no one had yet, but they said they sent the cart attendent out to the parking lot to check it out. i forgot to call back to see if someone did find it and turn it in or if aaron (the cart attendent) found it.

on those cd's that were in the wallet are 2 1/2 cd's of neveah from the last nine months, 2 1/2 cd's of aubrie from the last nine months, 2 1/2 cd's of wyatte from the last nine months and 1 1/2 cd's of general (scenery, none kid pictures, ...) from the last nine months. so need-less-to-say i could be out of 5 GB of pictures from the last nine months. totally sad. getoverable, but sad. so many memories in those months. first steps, first smiles, birthday parties, first time on skates, pics of the house, pics of l&l's house, lots of stuff.

so please pray that someone wonderful found the wallet and turned it in. i am going to have to wait now until tomorrow morning to see if someone found it or not. i will let you all know.

so anyways, i don't have any new pictures of the kids to put up, i was going to put up the best one we took on sunday of the kids in their easter clothes, a few other fun ones, and the whole nine yards, but that is going to have to wait until another day. sorry............................

Link to Good Friday Pictures

Ok, so here are a few pictures that I took today when we colored eggs. I have tried and tried and tried to get them to post on here and no matter what I do they are ALL MIXED UP. So I uploaded them to Facebook again and here is the link to the pictures. I am sorry that I don't have them on here, but it was getting to hard to explain what we were doing when it jumped from this morning to this afternoon to the morning again and so forth and so on.... So while it isn't the most fun way to look at them, please deal with it for this one more post.

Tomorrow we are going to have an Easter egg hunt and lunch and fellowship with my Dad, his wife Karen, my brother Paul and Kirk, Karen's 2 daughters and 1 son, and Karen's 2 grand-daughters. There might be a few more people that I am not aware of, but... So I am sure I will have tons of pictures from that too so we will see how I am able to get the pictures on from that.

Then on Sunday we will be at Marilyn's again for Easter lunch and hopefully some cute pictures with them dressed up. So we will have more pictures from that day too...

Anyways here is the link and again, I am sorry...

Good Friday Pictures

By the way, I am still working on the "Indescribable" post so read the previous post and listen to the song and let me know what you feel or what touches you... about the song. Thanks.

Born 2 Impress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Born 2 Impress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

How totally cute are these clips!!! Great for the little ones in my life!!! Thought I would share it with you so those of you with little girls can look at them. This links you to a post that you can link to if you want a chance to win them.

Indescribable

I am working on a post about this song. I would like you all to listen to the song, let me know what really touches you about it. What makes your heart sing. What really gets to you about this song. Read the lyrics that are on the screen, let them really sink in.

I have heard this song a hundred times, but for some reason the other day when I was listening to it God just imprinted something in my head and on my heart. I am trying to get the right words in the right spot. So that it makes sense to other people. So be patient with me when you are reading it after I get it up, try to understand that this is my wording to something way bigger than my words can explain.

We got to go OUTSIDE!!!

We started the day with a walk/run to Grandma and Grandpa Hoard's house. The kids ran and I walked! That is one nice thing about being a 1/4 mile away from them!!!

Wyatte was racing to catch Nevaeh. He had stopped to pick up some rocks and realized that she was going to beat him there!!! Didn't take him too long to catch up though! Then the water in the driveway distracted him again and she ended up getting to the door first!

Aubrie loved being outside! She didn't even mind being buckled in the stroller. I thought she would throw a fit because of how mobile she is, but she loved being able to watch the kids, and see all the stuff that we haven't seen in FOREVER!!! Things like grass and the dirt and other outdoorsy things!

What a cheesy smile huh!!!

"Helping" Grandpa Tuffy and John!!!

Wyatte was invited to a birthday party a few weeks ago, but he couldn't go because he was sick. The mom was nice enough to save his party favor bag and gave it to me last night when I was at her Pampered Chef party. In in was a kite! It was pretty windy today so we took it out and tried it. Actually I think I had left it in the van and found it while I was cleaning it out today, that is how we ended up playing with it!!! Anyways, it was Wyatte's first time flying a kite and he loved it! "How high can we make it go Mom?" Well, we didn't get all the string let out, but we did get it pretty high!

I had the kite in the picture and the kids were watching it go back and forth. We went across the road to the land that Linda and Lavern own over there to get away from the power lines and trees in our yard. Nevaeh didn't like the tall grass over there, but she learned to deal with it!!!

We walked down to Grandma and Grandpa's house again to show them and Daddy the kite. Nevaeh got a turn because Wyatte wanted to run!!!


On a totally different note, I saw a preview for another "Night at the Museum"!!! I am super excited!!! Go check it out. If you haven't seen the first one, you need to. It was a good family movie (even my dad liked it!!!)

Not Me! Monday...

Normally you could check out MckMama's Blog to see what everyone else is not doing, but since she has been in the hospital with Stellan for 3 weeks, you can check out her blog for updates on Stellan's condition and just enjoy my post. Please keep the MckFamily in your prayers as they embark on yet another leg of this journey.



This week I did not buy a Backyardigan DVD only because I wanted to hear the songs again!!! The DVD is called Flying Adventures, but I didn't only get it for these two songs... I know most of you aren't between the ages of 2 and 5, but neither am I!!!





Please remember to shut off the other music so you can hear the Backyardigan's songs.

I did not buy paper plates and cups this week because I am not sick of washing dishes. Seem like all I do.

I did not pick one of the baby chicks that we bought as my favorite! That would not be a grown-up thing to do!!!

I did not tell John that he couldn't go fishing because I needed him to stay home so I could go to a Pampered Chef party!!!

More changes!!!

Ok, so I changed things up again!!! The header collage was made at picnik.com It is an awesome website that you can add photos to and then edit them online. I paid for the premium membership (one year for 25$) but there is alot that you can do with the basic, free, package. It doesn't cost anything or take a lot of time to sign up. Go check it out if you have some free time and like that kind of stuff!!!

I also found this new website with backgrounds, so look for changes in the background too. The website had a lot of Christian backgrounds, so I am liking that!!! There are a few words up in the top left corner, if you want to check out the website that I got this background from you can click on it and it will either open a new window or take you away from my blog to check hers out! Enjoy looking around there too.

Our chickens!!!

Wyatte and Nevaeh were super excited that we brought them home!

All set up in the box in the basement. We got six laying hens. The paper said they will lay colored eggs: green, blue/grey and shades of brown. I wanted to get a duck too, but that might have to wait! Wyatte says we need a farm for our chickens now! We will see how we do with these six and maybe add more next year, or a little later this year???
This was Wyatte's happy face that he gave us when asked what he thought of having the chicks at home!
Each one is a little different, so should be easy to keep an eye on each one. Wyatte wants to call them all chickie, so I don't know if they will get names or not!
So cute and tiny!!!

Music

Hello! I changed around my playlist a little. Added a few songs, deleted a few songs, and changed the order. I also moved the whole thing to the bottom of the blog. So if you want to shut it off you have to scroll all the way to the bottom.

Our church did a contemporary service a few weeks ago, and I went and LOVED it!!! They sang a couple of songs that I either hadn't heard, or didn't remember hearing. The first one is "Jesus Messiah" by Chris Tomlin. The second one is "You are Holy (Prince of Peace)" by Michael W. Smith. Those are two that I added, and moved to the top!!!

If you have a favorite song that you would like to share with me, please leave a comment on this post. I am going to update my MP3 player too, and need enough music on there to get me through a good work out/walk. So SHARE!!!

April 1st, 2009

Here are a few pictures from when the kids and I went out to play today. They aren't inorder because I can't figure out what order then come up in and no matter what I do they are wrong. Wyatte making a snow angel.

Here is a promised picture of our "barn"

The front

This is a cupboard that I found in the garage. Must have been Jim's!!!

This is part of the roof of the barn.

Piece of old farm equipment.

Farm equipment with the barn in the background.

Story behind this picture and the next one. We were making a snowman and the kids decided that we needed to use rocks for the eyes and nose. I was getting them out of the "lake" that is made by the sump pump pumping water from the basement... So I started digging them out and Nevaeh got to close to the edge and the layer of ice/snow she was standing on broke and she fell done, and started going in the puddle head first. I dove for her and pushed her back. She ended up sitting in the snow, with soaked boots and snowpants and I ended up...


With my foot/boot suck about 4 or 5 inches in water and mud. I had to call John to help me get it out!!!


Wyatte and our finished snowman. He has stink weed hair, stick eye brows, rock eyes (yes I did get them out of the" lake"!!!) Stink weed pcs for teeth, Wyatte did the mouth with the side of his shovel, and he did it all by himself. Mr. Snowman has the disease that most, if not all, snowmen have... One arm is longer than the other!!!



Wyatte getting ready to throw this at me!


He connected!


He was trying to get away from one that I threw at him! I think it landed right by his foot...