My week so far......

Haven't been online for a while. I think our internet provider was having trouble since we had all this rain. There were a lot of phone boxes and cable that were under water. I am glad it is all back!!!
We are suppose to get more rain tonight. At least the rain water has gone down quite a bit so hopefully it will not flood again.

Our oldest daughter went to college for the first time yesterday. Sad day for mom. She was fine of course, but went to the wrong class. Ooops:) She doesn't have that class again until Wed. so we'll see if we get it right this next time:P She really seems to like college. I am just getting used to the fact that she is in college.

Hope you all are having a great week.

Flood of 2007

We went to DeKalb last night to see how bad the town was flooded. Oh my it was really bad. Thank the Lord it is nice today and we didn't get the rain we were suppose to get. NIU has a lake on campus and it was flooding the street that we had to go through. It was awful to see people's cars under water. I felt so bad for them. Here is a link to the Dekalb paper.There is a place on that sight that you can see pictures of the flood. I just pray we don't get any more big storms for quite a while b/c we need this water to reside.
Ok for some reason my link didn't go through. You can look up pictures of the flood at daily-chronicle.com.

Computer down

our computer is down right now so am using my daughter's laptop. Not sure what has happened to the computer right now. We are thinking it has something to do with the recent storms we have had b/c it was working yesterday morning and then quit. We had had a LOT of rain lately!!!
As long as my daughter keeps this laptop charged I can still get on and go visit everyone's blogs.Boy I didnt realize how much I missed having the computer around. Guess it is good that I take a break from it for a while but not too long:)Can't stand being without it.

wordless wednesday

This is how I feel some days:)

peach tea

Hey, just wondering.... does anybody know how to make peach tea or know if they sell it in the stores????? I had some really good ice peach tea at Olive Garden yesterday and I really would like to know how to make it the way they do. It is my new favorite drink.

Monday Madness

1. How many desktop computers in your home?
We only have one desktop in the house.

2. How many laptops?
Right now there is one. Our daughter has one she got for graduation so she can use it in college this fall.

3. What kind of internet service do you have? (i.e. phone modem, dsl, etc.)
We have a cable modem.

4. Do you tend to use more than one email account regularly?
I have 2 emails. One I use for regular email and one I use for freecycle.

5. Do you use email as a main source for communicating to your family and friends?
Yes!!! I don't know what we would do without email to keep in touch. I can tell my family things that happened that same day instead of depending on "snail mail" as it is called now.:)

6. What kind of computer monitor do you own (flatscreen, or other)?
Just a regular ol' monitor. Nothing fancy.

Friday Feast #156

Appetizer
Describe your laundry routine. Do you have a certain day when you do it all, or do you just wash whatever you need for the next day?
My routine is whenever the laundry needs to be done it gets done. There are days(if I have time) that i do a lot of laundry and then there are days that I can't get one load done.

Soup
In your opinion, what age will you be when you’ll consider yourself to truly be old?
I think age is just a number and you are only old if you think you are old. You can have fun at any age of life and I think you should enjoy your life b/c you never know what is going to happen.

Salad
What is one of your goals? Is it short-term, long-term, or both?
Right now my goal is to raise my children to be loving,respectful,responsible adults.

Main Course
Name something unbelievable you’ve seen or read lately.
I can't believe the news today. So many things going on from politics to weather,hollywood. There is always something shocking that you hear about in the news.

Dessert
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how happy are you today?
I would say about a 5-6. We have had some pretty bad news this week and I can't seem to get it off my mind.

1st day of school

Today is the first day of high school for my youngest two daughters. We have a freshman and sophomore this year. Am a little nervous for our youngest b/c of this being her first day in a new school. I know she will be ok by it is just the mom in me worrying about her. At least her sister is there to help her and they have lunch together this semester which is really nice.
Our son will start school next Tuesday. He is thrilled(at the moment,give him a week or so and he will want to stay home:) He is in 2nd grade this year and hopefully will pay attention to the teacher better this year :)
Our oldest daughter is in college this year and will be starting on the 27th. She was just soooo excited today when she took her sisters to school and she didn't have to stay there:) I think she is enjoying the college life. Her hours at school are 10-2 MWF and no school on Thursdays at all. As she says it is "sweet" :P
Am off to enjoy the day with my daycare kids and finally get to go to the park and let them run off some of that energy they have had during the rain the last few days:)

Please pray

Just found out that one of our daughter's friends were in a serious accident this afternoon and her mom passed away. Please keep their family in prayer. The daughter was in the car with her mom. The girl is only 15years old. The daughter's name is Katie Beguin.
Don't know much details right now but our middle daughter is very upset right now and we just are in shock.
Thank you in advance for prayers.
**Just found out the daughter was driving and just got her permit so she is REALLY going to need prayers right now. My heart goes out to this family. Please pray for Katie and her family.

Monday Madness

Good Monday to you all! We're going to try something a bit different this week. Thank you for playing my meme, and have a great week! =)

Please fill in the following blanks, to make a compound word:

1. GROUND hog
2. FIRE house
3. HOUSE maid
4. OVER easy
5. SUNshine
6. UNDER dog
7. OUTside
8. SOMEone
Not sure if housemaid is a word or not...Anyone have any other words for house???? That's the one that stumped me:P

Nice Matters Award

My friend Carolyn at Talk to Grams gave me this award. She is such a sweet person and I really enjoy visiting her blog.Thanks so much.

More information on this award

"This award is for those bloggers who are nice people; good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you've been awarded please pass it on to others who you feel are deserving of this award."

I pass this award on to

Sandy at Flip Flop Floozie

Jennifer at Happy at Home

Rachel at Heart of Rachel

Doing the happy dance: )

Yeah!!!! We got our new washer yesterday!!!! I am so excited.I am actually looking forward to doing the first load of laundry in my new washer!!!!
It is not a fancy washer,but it will get the job done,and I am sooooo glad we got it b4 the kids went back to school this week b/c that is when my laundry really starts to pile up with school clothes. It's always "Mom, I need this washed b4 tomorrow" and they tell me at 10:00 at night. That ever happened to any of you???? It happens here all the time. The girls usually do their own laundry but I think Mom will be watching closer now to the laundry for a while since this is a brand new washer. :) It's mom's "new toy".
Gotta very busy day today. Have to work and have an interview at 2:00 this afternoon. In August is when it seems we tend to get more calls for people needing daycare. Don't really know why but it has happened like that for the past couple of years. Oh well.
Hope everyone enjoys their Sunday. Stay cool.

The Lord has provided for us again!!!

As you know we have 3 teenage girls one of which of course is driving now and one will be driving by January.Well, we have one car for our oldest but it is in need of being replaced.The other day a guy at my hubby's work said he had a car if we wanted to look at it. It is a 1996 Ford Taurus. My DD went to see it and she paid for it on her own!!!! Even better right? ;) We will pick it up this weekend. Above is a picture of one but not her car.
Then today my hubby told me about another car that someone was selling and it is a 1995 Dodge Stratus for only $300!!!! Wow!!!! It has a few things that need fixed but no major deals so that one will be our middle daughter's,who will be 16 in the fall. She is sooooo excited about it, and we are too b/c we weren't sure how we were going to buy her a car. Thank you Lord!!!!!! We will have this car this weekend too. Just can't believe we will have 4 drivers in this house soon. AGH!!!;) Please pray for us as we train another driver.:)

Friday Feast #155

Appetizer
What is your favorite kind of pie?
I love banana cream pie or coconut cream. Don't like the fruit pies as much.

Soup
Name something that made you smile this week.
My daycare kids. I love to see the babies when they smile and laugh.

Salad
What do you do to cool off when the weather is hot and humid?
Stay inside in the AC as much as possible. :)


Main Course
You receive $1,000 in the mail with a letter that says you can only use the money to redecorate one room in your home. Which room do you pick, and what do you buy to spruce it up?
I would love to fix up my basement for the daycare and have a playroom and kitchen and sleeping room down there so I could have my house to myself upstairs and have daycare in the basement area.


Dessert
Fill in the blank: My _________ says __________, but I __________.
My body says stay in bed longer
but I have to get up and go to work:P

Summer dessert

I found this dessert in my Kraft food and family magazine that I get in the mail. You can get this magazine for free. Just go to Kraft's website. I love their recipes. They are usually very easy to make and not expensive. What i love about this recipe is that you don't have to heat up the kitchen with the oven since it has been soooooo humid and hot lately.
Banana Split Cake
1 1/2 cups of Graham Cracker Crumbs
1 1/4 cups sugar,divided
1/2 cup stick butter,melted
2 pkg(8oz) Cream Cheese,softened
1 can(20 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
6 medium bananas, divided
2 cups cold milk
2 pkg.(4serving size each) Jell-O vanilla flavored pudding-instant
2cups thawed Cool Whip topping divided
1 cup chopped pecans or whatever kind of nut you like

Mix crumbs, 1/4cup of sugar and butter, press onto bottom of foil-lined 9x13 pan. Freeze 10 min.
Beat cream cheese and remaining 1 cup sugar in bowl with electric mixer until well blended. Carefully spread cream cheese mixture over crust, top with pineapple. Slice 4 of the bananas, arrange over pineapple.
Pour milk into large bowl Add dry pudding mixed.
Beat with wire whisk 2 min. or until well blended. Stir in 1 cup whipped topping, spread over banana layer in pan.Top with remaining whipped topping,sprinkle with nuts. Refrigerate 5 hours,just before serving slice remaining 2 bananas, arrange over dessert.
Makes 24 servings.
We made this last night and everyone likes it. It is a nice dessert for a hot summer day. Not so great on the calorie end probably but it was yummy:)

Putting in Doors

Sunday we went to Bloomington to put in our niece's new doors. Well, the first door went in fine,but the back door,well, it had a few problems. The floor and subfloor were rotten so while my hubby was putting in the doors,I was staying with my sister in law at her house.
We went to lunch at the Flattop Grill.It was really a nice place to eat,and boy do you get full. You put all the veggies and rice you want in a bowl, put some sauce on it, add your meat in a seperate bowl and then they grill it for you. Yum!!!!We had a good time there.
After lunch we went back to the house and the guys back to work. It was VERY humid outside that day and the poor guys had to work w/o air b/c of the door way being opened. After finding out the floor was bad they found out the door was about 5 in. too small for the opening. Long story short they did get the door in finally but we didn't get home til 11:30 that evening. UGH!!!! Just glad we got the doors in for them b4 it rained,and they do look very nice.

Monday Madness

1. What ONE thing would you like to accomplish before the end of the day?
Getting all the laundry done.:)

2. What one goal would you like to attain before the end of the month?
Getting the whole house painted

3. Are you a "to-do list" writer? If so, do you stick to your list and cross things off as you complete them?
Usually no but I will write a list every once in a while.

4. In general, how organized do you feel you are?
Somewhat organized. I think if there were more hours in the day i could get a lot more organized and definitely more things done:)

5. How many piles of papers/junk mail/etc. do you have laying around your house
Only one. Just cleaned out my "junk" pile the other day

6. Which ONE surface in your home do you have trouble keeping clean?
No surface but the basement is the hardest to keep clean b/c I don't get down there often enough to do anything except laundry.

Happy 89th Birthday Grandpa!!!!!!!

Today is my grandpa's 89th birthday. Just wanted to say Happy happy birthday Grandpa. Hope you have a wonderful birthday. Just wanted to share a few pictures of him and my kids. These pictures are a few years old but the first one is of the girls and gma and gpa. The next one is of our middle daughter and gpa and the last one is of gpa and Ricky not too long after we adopted our son.

******OOPS: I thought today was your bday Gpa. I guess I was jumping the gun. August 7th right???? Anyways, have a happy birthday on Tuesday. Just getting in my happy birthdays early i guess:)**********

Broken

Our washing machine has given up. Guess I would too if I had to do laundry almost every day for 6 people.:) Not sure exactly what is going on with it but I do know I don't like going to the laundry mat!! The only good thing about going there is that I can get a LOT of laundry done at once. We went last night and just washed clothes and brought them home to dry since i still have a dryer. Thank the Lord!!!! When we actually have a weekend to stay home my hubby will look at the washer and see if he can fix it. Can't do much this weekend b/c we are suppose to go to my sister-in-laws to put in a door for them. AGGGHHH!! We haven't had a full weekend home in about 4 weeks. I actually can't wait for school to start b/c I think things will slow down,and school is usually busy around here. That is pretty sad,huh??
Well, gotta get back to the laundry situation. Hope you all are staying cool. I know it is in the 90's again here today.