Events of the day:

This morning was Maddie's LAST denist appt until her next cleaning in October. Wowza, this girl has been a HEADACHE getting her to her appt and getting fillings taken care of. I'm sure the dentist is happy she is done for awhile too!

Last night we had a horrible storm, tornado siren going off at almost midnight and under advisory until 12:30'ish. Of course after the warning was over there was no way I was going to get Maddie to go to her own bed so I let her crash with me. This morning when I went downstairs to get something I noticed a little puddle on the floor. No biggie, UNTIL I walked over to the carpet and it was DRENCHED! Grrrrr. We did get alot of rain in a short time but still. So after the dentist appointment I came home and got the carpet cleaner out to help draw the water up. I guess I could see it as killing 2 birds with one stone, even though its not officially finished down here and the carpet is the old carpet from our bedroom is besides the point, but it did need cleaned and I wasn't stressing over it, now its definetly clean! I will probably have to try again later but for now I just don't want to. LOL!

I've been working on a cute little mini album, taking some favorite pics of Maddie to look at when I don't feel like dragging out a big album. I hope to post pics on here when I am done! Hopefully I will be able to play around later!

Good Read:

The Tenth Circle--Jodi Picoult

Another really good book! I decided this time to include the insert from the flap, if you like what you read from it than go get the book. =0)

"Trixie Stone is fourteen years old and in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father's life--a straight A student; a freshman in high school who is pretty and popular; a girl who's always looked up to Daniel Stone as a hero. Until, that is, her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence...and suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family--and herself--seems to be a lie.

For fifteen years, Daniel Stone has been an even-tempered, mild-mannered man: a stay-at-home dad to Trixie and a husband who has put his own career as a comic book artist behind that of his wife, Laura, who teaches Dante's Inferno at a local college. But year ago, he was completely different: growing up as the only white boy in an Eskimo village, he was teased mercilessly for the color of his skin. He learned to fight back: stealing, drinking, robbing , and cheating his way out of the Alaskan bush. To become part of a family, he reinvented himself, channeling his rage onto the page and burying his past completely...until now. Could the young boy who once mad Trixie's face fill with light when he came to the door have been the one to end her childhood forever? She say that he is, and that is all it take to make Daniel, a man with a history he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back in order to protect his duaghter.

The Tenth Circle looks at that delicate moment when a child learns that her parents don't know all of the answers and when being a good parent means letting go of your child. It asks whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime or if your mistakes are carried forever--if life is--as in any good comic book, a struggle to control good and evil, or if good and evil control you. "

I love this page by my MIL Linda!


I actually did some scrapping the other night too!

Good Read

I just finished reading When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin through a book club at TSR. This is a great book! Very touching and inspiring. Definetly worth checking out!

My whine for the day
Ok, so I know that I'm ONLY 32 years old and I shouldn't be complaing about this but it's all about work. I'm tired of work, burnt out and just don't want to go on a good day. I know, I've got 40 years to look forward to granted God blesses me with that much time on the earth. I find myself giving a day away frequently these days knowing that we can't really afford it but with the way economy and everything else is these days I have a bad attitude of does it really matter? Until school is over for Johnny we are still going to have to be creative paying bills and things like that. I'm really ready for him to be done with school, I don't know who is looking forward to it more, him or me! LOL. We new it was going to be hard when he started but I think I under estimated how hard it would be. I just keep praying that in the end it will all be worth it!

Weather
What's up with the chilly weather? We went from 90's to 60's the last few days. I'm sure I will be wanting this break in a few weeks when its miserably hot again!

Thanks for the hat Nanna and Pappa Richmond!
Maddie loves the hat she got from Alaska!

Happy Father's Day!!! Dad, Bri, Dad Richmond, hope you all had a great day!!!

Book Review:
I just finished reading "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult. I don't want to give anything away but all I can say is what a great read this was! I guess my easiest summary without spoiling anything is that this book is about what could happen when a child is bullied all of his life. That really doesn't even give it justice. If you have the chance to get this book I give it 2 thumbs up!

Poor Reese:
Reese has been in the puppy hospital this week. At the end of last week we noticed with petting her one day that one of her ears was about 5 times too big. At the time we thought that she got bit by something but she was really hurting. Poor pup would walk with her ear towards the ground as if it weighed a ton. If she even shook her head she yelped. So we took her to the vet..could it be as simple as a bug bite? Of course not! She had a hematoma that was the whole size of her ear flap. They said it is caused by ear infections and that if we didn't get it taken care of it would burst and she would bleed everywhere. Ok..so it has to get fixed. So they kept her, had to lance the hematoma, discovered that she had horrible ear infections in both of her ears, in the ear that had the hematoma the ear drum bursted and there is no telling what the long term effects will be, all we know at this point is that the damage is irreversible. She ended up having to stay over a 2nd night because she was in so much pain, coming home with pain meds, antibiotic for the ear infection, cream for the ear infection, you name it. Right now the biggest thing is keeping the dressing on, she was fine with it yesterday but today she has it a little shredded and at one point had the sore ear out of the dressing. Eek! I gave her another pain pill thinking that is why she is messing with it. The problem with Reese is that she doesn't complain, her temperment is so mild you just don't know when something is wrong. Even the vet said with her temperment its hard to pick up on things until they get to the point they did this time. Here's poor Reese:

For those of you that actually look at this blog I know I am behind on posting. Sunday was Maddie's gymnastics recital and she did GREAT!! I have to admit I was a little worried...the recital didn't start until 3, we had to be there at 2:30 and we got there at 2 so we could get our pick of seats. Her class was #24 in the routines which meant a pretty long wait. They had a room in the back that all the little ones were supposed to wait in with activities and things and I figured that would be a challenge considering she still has seperation anxiety moments. I had Daddy drop her off because everyone always tells me that when he drops her off the trauma isn't as bad and doesn't last as long. Come to find out she only cried for a few minutes and than she was fine. Her class did great! They all got out there and did their routine and in my opinion they didn't need as much prompting with their routine than the other little classes like tap and jazz. I thought that when it was over she could come flying off the stage looking for us but she didn't. Daddy went to check on her and give her the necklace they wanted all the kids to wear at the Finale and she didn't want to stay so she got to sit with us for a little bit before her teacher came and got her to get ready for something else. This was a sad recital too because the building that has been the studios home for 13+ years burnt down and alot of the girls and the owner/teacher were very sad. They brought the teacher out for a few of the kids to give her flowers and Maddie was picked as one to give her a carnation. I thought that she would have a hard time giving it up but she did great. We have video, I just have to figure out how to upload it, I was hoping to be able to link it on here for people to look at and make copies for grandparents that couldn't be there. I kinda felt bad because alot of the families got their child a bouqet of flowers to give them after they were done and we didn't but no biggie, Maddie didn't have a clue if she was missing out on something. Afterwards we all went to dinner to celebrate. Even if the studio that she went to this year doesn't find a new building to continue I am going to find somewhere for Maddie to continue with gymnastics and add ballet, she really enjoyed being involved in that!

Goodbye Linda and John! Have a great time in Alaska!!! Can't wait to see all of the awesome pics and footage and hear about all of your adventures!

This weekend is Maddie's recital for gymnastics...my bff Nikki is coming for a visit to watch the recital too which makes this weekend a fun weekend coming up! Let's hope Maddie does everything she needs to do and the kids get through it without anything to major going wrong. Since Maddie's gymnastics place burned down I am trying to keep an eye out for other options in case the owners decide not to continue. She seems to enjoy it too much to not do otherwise.

Yucky rainy day here!

I always enjoy seeing Linda's scrapbook work, here are a few that I really love!