Beach Trip :)

We left our house at 7:30 am headed to Destin, Florida on our first family vacation ever. You can see how excited the kids were. And of course Jarrett couldn't leave without his blanket. (This blanket was used by my brother when he was a baby and Jarrett has become extremely attached to it.)
Here are the kids going into the Mobile Bay tunnell. You can see the terror on Jarrett's face. He didn't like it. Jason and I even turned on the radio so the kids could hear it go away to static.
Here is Jarrett during the tunnel. He covered his head with his security blanket and cried.
The kids loved my mom's van so much. Here is Jarrett in the back. The kids did a good job not fighting over the backseat which was the favored spot.
They did nap part of the way down there.

Beach pictures. :)




Jarrett was afraid of the ocean. He would scream like we were killing him if we took him out into it with us. My neck has the nail marks to prove it. He did love the water though. He loved jumping the waves and falling.

Brooke was a little water horse. She hung out with Ashley the whole time and they traded a boogie board and a pink inner tube.

They didn't play in the sand much, but they did bury Ashley. They liked the water more.

The kids had a blast. So much so that they said they'd rather go to the beach for a week next year than Disney world as planned. Fine with me. I'd rather be in the cool water than the hot theme parks anyday. We even found a crab one day and the kids got to see it close up. Jarrett was so funny he looked at me very seriously and said "Mom they are supposed to be red." He was talking about the crab b/c the crab on sponge bob is red. We got extremely lucky Friday night b/c were we ate we got to watch 2 fireworks shows as we ate and afterwards we sat on the pier behind the restaurant and watched a huge fireworks show in the harbor. The kids loved it.

Our room was the best. It was like a little apartment. It had a full kitchen fully stocked. It also had a washer and dryer & bath n body soap and shampoo. Our complimentary breakfast was like going to Shoney's. We will definitely come back to this place. We had to drive to the beach, but thats ok for me.


It had such a big closet that we turned into Jarrett's room. He sleeps better in a room by himself.

One night we kept them out until midnight playing minature golf, gokarts, got ice cream, etc. This is Jarrett resting on Ashley while I fixed his pallet in his room.

The fun didn't stop there. I'll post more Friday. I don't want to make it to long, but I will leave you with a Jarrett funny.

As I was setting up our umbrellas and chairs I looked up and Jarrett was standing where the waves crash with his pants down peeing infront of a very very very crowded beach. Needless to say my hubby wasn't watching him very closely. This was mortifiying. Needless to say the nextday we went to a public beach that had restrooms.

Talk to you all later,

Brandi

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Girl Scout Sleepover

I forgot to mention the GIRL SCOUT SLEEPOVER in my last post. It will be Friday July 19th 7pm-8:30am. Wear Red. Bring your favorite game and sleeping bag/pillow. Please label your games so I'll know who they go home with. I will keep them in my utility room while we aren't playing them so we won't loose any pieces. I also found an awesome candyland cake recipe I can't wait to use. I will post a picture after I make it for everyone else to try. It looks just like the boardgame and is covered in candy. The girls will love it I know. I also will let the parents pick which movie the girls watch to go to sleep with. We will make a game piece swap for our swap hats I will hunt for. We will have supper then play games. Board games/ dance games/ misc. games. We will then lay down in our sleeping bags in Brooke's room at around 9:30pm to watch a movie. When the movie is off the TV will go off. Ashley will sleep in the room with the girls and alert me if anyone needs anything. We will also have Brooke's star light on as a night light along with a plug in night light. This will be some of the girl's first sleepover so if there are any other situations you need me to help plan for let me know. We will earn a sleepover patch and a game night patch. Yeah!!!!

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Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. Life has been very busy over here. I am enjoying the Financial Peace University class I go to every Monday night. Also work has been crazy. I am now on night shift and dayshift. My sleep and kid schedule is thrown for a loop when I have to work nights. I physically feel ill hopping back and forth. Hope is on the way b/c we have 2 interviews this week and we just hired 2 new people. We have contract help (who make $68.00 per hour) working our complete night shift and one of them just walked off the job without letting anyone know. Which who do they call. Me. I really need to work on being able to say NO. I just can't say no when I know there is no one else to work it if I don't. No one higher up notices any sacrifices made. They have had a proposal on their desk for raises for about 3 or more months now. They don't see the need. I was the only reason the lab lasted as long as it did without contract help. When I finally said No to working nights they had to hire them. I worked nights for 8 months staright. And for at least 1 of those months I had only 4 days off. Yes my paychecks looked great, but my kids took it hard. Jarrett became very clingy and cried for me every night. That hurt really bad. For those of you that don't know I am a (dayshift) department supervisor. I tried so hard to keep my department in order during this time. I can say that I didn't get any deficiencies during our 2 CAP inspections we went through during that time. When I was given the job the last supervisor had let the department go to pot and had 25 deficiencies that I had to correct. I corrected them all and tried to reorganize the department to make it easier on everyone that works in it. Well enough about work now lets talk about the kids:

I realized today that Brooke has never been to a hotel. She was asking today about if it had beds and a bathroom. She is extremely excited about our beach trip we are leaving for Friday. I haven't had a vavction in 13 years and Brooke has never been on one. Jarrett has but he was about 6 months old so of course he doesn't remember. I can't wait. I am already packed. I haven't packed Brooke or Jarrett yet. I will tomarrow. I had to sleep a little today since I am at this moment working a 12 1/2 hour shift. My plans are to pack them tomarrow and to bake cookies for our snack instead of buying a bunch of junk to take. We never stop at convenient stores except to go to the bathroom b/c with 5 people it would take forever and cost a fortune to pick out a drink and a snack. We always take an ice chest with coke and koolaid along with some snacks. We are going to destin florida. We will return Monday. I know it isn't a long trip, but it is way better than nothing. Jarrett is looking forward to digging a hole, and Brooke I think is looking forward to staying in a hotel the most. At least that is what she talks about the most. HaHa. Ashley doesn't say b/c she is a teenager. She is excited about going though. She probably is dreading the drive in the van with her siblings knowing her. I am trying to fix our DVD players so we'll at least have one to go with. I am going to clean them with a cleaner disk and charge them. I think there probably is with the charging. For some reason these have had issues with that. We will hoepfully take 2 of them and when one runs out of battery we can use the other for the remainder of the trip. We tried to use the car charger last time and it wouldn't work adn that was rough hearing Jarrett cry to watch a movie b/c he didn't understand why they work for 4 hours and then they don't. Well I better go for now. I'll try to post more later.

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PawPaw to the rescue!!!

Jarrett helping. Jarrett holding down the supplies. He did this so weel for several hours.
My little carpenter Ashley, my dad, & my hubby digging to make the ground even which was a royal pain.

Brooke & Jarrett patiently watching them put it together.

Jarrett gave up and decided to rest in the supplies. I took this as a hint and took him in for his nap.

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Today my Dad came to help my hubby put together our swingset from Santa which I had to scramble around town trying to find one last night so the kids wouldn't be disappointed again like Christmas. Santa haad to leave them a note b/c I couldn't find one around Christmas time either. We finally found one at Acadamy which of course was a little higher in price, but worth it. As you all will notice in the pictures they had to dig into the ground just to get the thing level. I love our hilly land, mu hubby doesn't. Jarrett was so good watching and kept out of the way pretty good. I realized they were getting bored so I set up the slip-n-slide so they could have something to do. We had tried to go to the Shake 4 Jake kid thing this morning so I had already had to hear the cries to go bounce in a bouncy thing. (Sorry Mel I read the date wrong and I have to work next weekend so we won't get to go.) I learned a valuable lesson. I won't tell them about something until we drive up and see it in the parking lot. I did fumble upon a scrapbook thing inside the WM Convention Center raising money for breast cancer. And no I couldn't pass by scrapbook stuff without adding to my collection. Yes I have an addiction, but no I won't seek professional help at this time. HaHa. So please noone call crafters anonamous on me. Thanks. Sorry back to the swingset. We didn't get it finished today, but we did get the swings up and Jarrett did get to swing for a little bit before we went to visit with the family. We have to finish the slide and fort tomarrow. My hubby, Dad, & Jarrett will finish it while us girl's are at Lynnsey's wedding shower.

Race Day!!!

Today was a my hubby's and son's favorite day of the year. Jarrett's Uncle Tim got the FedEx race car people (ok people that's about the extent of my race knowledge. I know I said it wrong) to bring the FedEx car to Chase Tuesday day. My hubby went and picked Jarrett up from Daycare and took him to see it. My sister-in-law told them to be looking for a little red headed boy that knows all of the drivers by their cars and numbers. Needless to say they spotted him immediately and was very impressed. Now if he can only memorize his school info we'll see a valadictorian in the future. He also can tell you if a truck or car is a Toyota, Dodge, Chevy, etc. Mrs. Vickie at his daycare has been impressed by this one. She even had Jarrett tell her hubby Mr. Rick what a certain truck was. Jarrett said "Thats a Ford Mr.Rick". Mr. Rick was so impressed that he brought him a truck calendar. That is what a personallize daycare feels like. That is why we haven't moved Jarrett even though it is out of our way to take him there. We love the family atmosphere there.
Of course Jarrett was the only kid to ask to see the motor.
Here's hubby and Jarrett giving a thumbs up sign by the car.
Brooke news: She made straight A's all year at George Welch Elementary school. She got a library certificate and a trophy for straight A's which she is very proud of. She even went home and counted her trophies, Ash's, and Jarrett's (of course he didn't have any). That seems to be a good motivation for her right now so next year I probably will say remember to work towards your trophy.
Here's a picture of Ashley being Ashley. She loves to pose like this. She helped me yesterday with the shower crafts. I will post those after the shower Sunday. She can't wait to go skating tonight. All of the kids are super excited. It is how we got all of them in bed last night.
Well I better go for now. I'll post more later. See all of you guys at the skating tonight!!!!!

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FPU

I have joined Financial Peace University at my new church. I have decided that my blog will be my accountability partner. If I want to purchase a non necessaty(spp?) I have to blog about it first. That will make me think about how badly I need it and how it will affect my savings. I am on baby step #1 $1000 savings in the bank. We have that, but some of that has been allotted for our family vacation that we have scheduled in July. I have not been on a vacation in about 14yrs and decided with the stimulus check that our family needed to head to the beach for some R&R together. Jarrett doesn't even know what the beach is. I have put a ticker on the side and what we don't spend at the beach I will add to this after we get back. I want to get to wear the gas prices won't hurt us like they are now. My husband and I work 30 minutes from our jobs and this is killing us right now. I now am more conscious of how much me and the kids drive around. Hopefully the gas prices will go down soon. I think I heard a few AMEN's in the crowd. I also have my little sisters wedding that 4 of us are in. I have to finish paying for alterations, buy Brooke a dress, rent Jarrett a tux, throw a shower, & purchase a wedding gift. My budget will be tight for a while. I have been following a budget for several years now just not as faithfully as I shoud have been. We will now. Thanks for helping me with this goal.

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JARRETT & HIS FROGS.

Jarrett holding one of his frogs very carefully so it wouldn't hop away. Which it did many many times despite the not so happy garage sale shoppers. Sorry. You have to let boys be boys sometimes. I'm pretty sure I grossed many people out as I caught the escapees over a dozen times and gave them back to him.
This is the frogs little house that I bought at my fav store "Target". You can barely tell, but there are 2 large frogs in there.
I know I know poor frogs. I made him be very easy with them. I think this is a life lesson on how to treat God's creatures. Nice and loving. Play with them and then let them go home to their families. I am trying to get him to kill spiders though. I know I know that is contradicting, but spiders bite ok. Am I off the hook now?
We have a new "So you think you can dance " fan. Jarrett loves to watch it with me. As we took my hubby out to eat for father's day last night Jarrett said "Mom let's dance on that show. ok?" My hubby really quickly replied "Oh no you are not." I couldn't help but giggle. I told him that it is ok to dance and that he needs to practice for his future proms and dances he will invite girls to. That helped satisfy Dad a little.

Happy Father's Day: PaPaw (my granddad), Dad (my dad), Mr. Charles (my father-in-law), & Jason (my hubby)!!!! We love you!!!

Love, Brandi, Ashley, Brooke, & Jarrett

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