Here's a photo dump for you. We've been busy! Good busy though. My parents were here visiting last week. They rented a cabin up in Idyllwild for all of us and we went up there 2 weekends ago. It's so beautiful up there. We did a little exploring, there was a wine and art walk that my parents did a little of, and we just hung out. It was nice and relaxing. But anyways, here are some pictures from the past couple weeks, in no particular order...

So we went on a small hike around a lake up by Idyllwild and I just happened to look down at one point and saw a couple lady bugs...and then I kept seeing them, this was the most lady bugs I had ever seen!!! they were just clumped everywhere, on the fence, on the ground and on plants and bushes. It was really cool!


My little model? and hunter? haha, I dunno...


My little family on top of a mountain


My wonderful parents! Thank y'all for everything mom and dad!!! We love you!!!


Yeah, this was on Monday after my parents left...and pretty much sums up her attitude for the day...she needed her Grammy and Pots back!!

Ben got new LEGO crocs from Grammy and Pots!

Wow, the quality of this is awful! But, it was dark and taken with my phone, but still pretty cute!

One of the projects my dad started for me. My straw bale garden (just do a search on Google or wherever for "straw bale garden") I'm soo excited about this, I hope it's successful. This was taken right after I planted my seeds.

Abby got her ears pierced again! She got them pierced back in February, but I guess one night one earring fell out and we didn't realize it until too late. It had already started to grow in and when I tried to put an earring back in it hurt her, so it wasn't worth it, we just let them grown in. She has been asking for awhile to get them pierced again, but we wanted Grammy to be with her when she did it, so that was one of the first things we did with Grammy.

i'm sooo excited about this. There's an antique shop on Main street that I've been to like once before, but awhile ago. My parent's and I went in and browsed for awhile. They have some great finds, I will definitely be going in there regularly. Anyways, I've been wanting a new side table/console table for by my couch and front door. When I saw this tea table and the price, I knew I had to have it...so I got it! Love it!

Some more gardening. Flowers that Abby picked out and some cilantro and basil! Yumm!!

Yeah...this happened. David parked his car on the street one night (not an unusual occurance on our street) and someone decided to steal the tires and wheels off of just the one side, they must have gotten scared off or something because they left their jacks and the other 2 tires and wheels. Good grief, so ridiculous! And he had just gotten new tires!!!

My boy working hard on homework. I'm sooo proud of him! He's doing so well in school and is starting to read, so fun to see things clicking in that little mind of his!

So, on Saturday evening we went to this Harvest Market (or something, can't remember the name) in Imperial. It was fun, lots of booths and stuff. I got some fresh veggis, the kids got to play on one of those huge blow up slides, live music, food and other booths. Afterwards we decided to drive out to the country a bit and try and see the meteor shower. We got out there and it was windy...and it got chilly...so the kids and I sat in the car and took pictures and watched some of the videos I've taken of them doing stuff that I had on my phone and we laughed, it was sweet.

Kids being kids!

So I'm an awesome blogger, I know, not. I'm actually the kind of blogger that drives me crazy! The kind of blogger that goes like a month between posts! Sorry, I've just been lazy/boring/busy! So anyways...

So I started running this week...I decided to just do it 3 days a week to see how my body handles it (knees, shins) so far so good. I did feel like I was going to puke and or pass out on Monday because I was pushing myself and it was my first run/real exercise in a week or 2, but it felt good when I was done. Today seemed much better, had a little more endurance, didn't feel like I was going to puke or pass out. In other healthiness, I've been making the tastiest smoothies in the mornings and this is about how it goes...1/2 cup or so of plain non-fat greek yogurt, 1/2 C of frozen strawberries or other frozen fruit I might have, 1/2 - 1 fresh banana, squirt of honey, Flax Pack (found these at Marshalls, just individual packs of flax that I'm loving! I used to use chia but I believe I have converted!) and then 1 cup of water. Blend it all up in my Magic Bullet and yumm!!! Sooo good and filling and healthy and all that stuff. I've also been trying to eat several small meals throughout the day instead of stuffing myself at breakfast lunch and dinner. I'm pretty much hating the scales right now too, it's just not showing me the numbers I want to see, BUT...my clothes are fitting good and I have to confess, I bought some jeans the other day without trying them on just because I didn't want to be disapointed when they didn't fit (because I was having a fat day I guess) but was soooo pleasantly surprised when I tried them on at home and they fit like a glove! And, I saw a picture of myself and thought I looked pretty dang good. So, yeah, that's my feelings on all that.

Last weekend I had an Awana conference in San Diego on Saturday so David and I decided to make it a little weekend just for us. I got us a killer deal on Priceline and we stayed right on the harbor in downtown San D. It was very nice except for the people being super loud and slamming doors all night Saturday night, people are soo dumb sometimes, I mean seriously, you're in a hotel!! Where lots of other people are staying and trying to sleep in the middle of the night, geeze louise!! K, end of rant. The conference was ok, not quite what we expected, but it was fun hanging out with fun friends! It was nice getting away with my hubby though.

My parents are coming tomorrow!!! WOO!!! We're all excited! I thing the last time my dad was out here was last October and he was only at our house for a couple days and then we spend the rest of the time at the beach, and then my mom was here for just a couple days over the summer, so we're really looking forward to having them here.

Here are a couple pictures from my phone...

Me and my girl, she's soo funny! She was cracking up at herself after she saw the picture

Abby's self portrait of her foots...

My view Saturday morning after getting my coffee in San Diego

Haha, I don't even remember why she put that on her nose, I guess because she had a boo boo, funny stuff!

So I started a cleanse today (the one I always use from the Hormone Diet). I've just been feeling sooo blah lately and knew I had to do something. I don't have much to share today but wanted to share this recipe with you that I loved! Unfortunately I can't do it with my cleanse, but it is healthy and oh so yummy! I got it off of Pinterest here. It's cauliflower pizza crust. I did change it just a tad. It calls for 1 cup of the cauliflower and 1 cup of cheese and I just couldn't do a whole cup of cheese, so I decided to see how it turned out with 1 1/2 cups of cauliflower and just 1/2 cup of cheese, and it turned out just fine (or at least I think it did, had never tried it the other way.) I topped mine with a little more cheese, organic pasta sauce, turkey bacon, onions, bell pepper and black olives. I ate half of the pizza in one sitting and it filled me up and I didn't feel guilty eating half a pizza! LOVE this!!!

And this was just a cute picture I had to share!

Meh, so sometimes I'm good at blogging and lots of times I'm not, oh well! We've been busy!! School is in full swing, I'm the craft teacher at church on Sundays for this month and I'm the yearbook supervisor at the school and we started meetings this month (well I tried to anyways, 2 of the girls had doctors appointments so I let the other one go home and they hadn't opened it up to the 6th graders yet, so hopefully all this will come together and I will actually have a class this week!) But anyways, I'm just going to share some pictures from our Labor Day camping trip. It was pretty good, the weather was beautiful, the places were beautiful, the kids were kinda annoying....yeah, but here are some pics from our trip...


This is where we hung out most of Sunday and part of Monday. It was in the middle of a trail that cuts through the mountains. It was sooo beautiful up there! The water was pretty cold but the kids didn't care!


We saw lots of animals...one of the good pics of the squirrels


And, my most exciting moment! I saw these guys on the outskirts of our campground and I got to sneak up close enough to them to get these good pics!




My handsome cowboy


We found a pair of pair of great horned owls. They were kinda funny, they kept shaking their heads at us the closer we got and then of course, as soon as we got too close they would fly farther up the mountain


We found this rabbit next and I'm pretty sure he thought we couldn't see him. He did blend in really well and he was being super still, but once again, when David got too close, he ran!


My boys watching the jackrabbit run after chasing it for a bit

I'm feeling encouraged in my own discouraging (does that make sense??) I read a couple different blogs written by other ladies that are on their own weight loss journey, some who have hit their goal weights (and lost over 100 lbs. doing it!) and others who are still working on it. But it seems I'm not the only one that's gotten in a rut. I've read at least 3 of them that are motivated once again to jump back on the wagon and get their rears in gear! So it's encouraging to hear I'm not alone. Anyways, I've been doing ok at the excercise thing but AWFUL at the eating thing. I've been running once a week and mixing up workouts at home with a couple different things I like. But, like I said, have been not eating good (as of last week) I got on the scale on Monday and wanted to cry! It said I had gained 5 lbs! Not cool because that number was just too high and close to where I don't want to be. It was enough of a kick in the butt to get me in gear. I've been eating cleaner and avoiding the snacks and sweets. I tend to get obsessive about getting on the scale when I'm "dieting" and excercising alot and I just get even more discouraged sometimes, but I did weigh myself on Tuesday and I was already down like 2 lbs which just reminded me that my body fluctuates 2 or more lbs easily in a day depending on water retention etc. I do feel better eating cleaner and exercising like my body wants. Just frustrating that I can't just stick to it consistently and get the rest of this baby (does it still count as baby weight 7 and 3 years later??) weight off. I'm not giving up though!

Enough about that though...here are some pictures from my phone, enjoy!


Does she have modeling in her future?? She sure knows how to work it!

So stinkin' cute how she was snoozin' in the car with her legs crossed!

We've had some good rain lately and this is what we found in the desert one day, soo crazy to see all this water where it's usually just sand, so beautiful!

Had to take a picture of the rare rain we get, right after this picture it started pouring sooo hard! Love it!

We've been nail painting fools lately! Abby always wants something different on her nails and toes, I let her pick out her colors which is always more than 2, fun stuff! Now if I could just get her to hold still!

School has begun! Ben was soooo excited for his first day of school...and then he got home. I could tell immediately that something wasn't right. He was grouchy and kinda mean. Turns out his first day of 1st grade wasn't quite as he expected. After some digging I found out he was sad that he didn't have the same teacher from last year and there was just too much work. I guess they jumped right into school work and he is a perfectionist so he took his time making his work look neat and therefore had a little homework (just 3 small pages). But he was bummed. I tried to give him a little pep talk, encouraging him to give it some time, it was just the first day. I'm happy to report that his 2nd day was better and just this morning he was telling me he was bringing stuff for his "boys club" that him and the other 2 boys in his class have made.

In other news, I'm going to be doing the yearbook for the school again this year, I'm excited about that. We're not going to start until after Labor Day, which gives me time to get things organized and figure out exactly what all I'm supposed to do. I also found out that I'm the crafts teacher for the month of September. I'm finding out that I'm gonna have to get my rear in gear, I'm bout to get busy! It's all good, I love that!

My poor Abbers got sick :-( She started out with a runny nose, no fever though and it slowly progressed to some chest congestion, coughing, wheezing and so on. The first 2 days were kinda rough but she's feeling much better today.

That's all I've got for now. I'll leave you with our first day of school pics...

I think I'm finally back on Cali. time! Last week I was a total bum! I was tired and lazy the whole time it seems like.

Ben woke me up crying on Sunday morning. He said his lower back/side was hurting and it hurt when he had to go to the bathroom. I got a little freaked out because of his reflux and kidney issues when he was little, scared that it might be a UTI, which would mean we would need to go to the hospital and then start all over with the urologist and all that fun stuff. He never had a fever but he did start throwing up. After he threw up a couple times he said his back didn't hurt anymore and eventually it didn't hurt to pee. So I don't know. We're thinking that maybe he got a small dose of food poisoning (his daddy gets that easily) or maybe just a 24 hour bug or something. But, he woke up just fine on Monday morning, like nothing had happened. So thankful that it wasn't a UTI! God is good!

After eating like a crazy person while in Texas, I knew I had to get back on track when I got home. I've been eating tons of watermel on (yumm!) and salad. Not too bad really, my body was craving it I think. I decided to try a new workout as well. I found THIS on Pinterest and have been doing the one for the pear shape. I was honestly surprised at how hard it was. Not like super killer, but not easy! I want to try running again, just one day a week and see how my knees hold up, but that's not going to happen until this weather cools off just a bit, maybe possibly when Ben starts school next week, we shall see.

I found these little hot dog muffins on Pinterest and decided to make them for the kids. I tasted one and thought they were actually pretty good! I didn't follow the directions that were given but used the idea. I just bought a box of cornbread mix and some hot dogs, cut the hot dogs in 1/4 and put 2 per muffin tin, topped with cornbread mix and baked. Easy to make, kids and hubby liked them, so it's a winner!

I got new tennies too, I thought they were super cute...(picture by Abby)

Abby wanted "Barbie" makeup...so i gave her a lil makeover on Saturday, girls are soo much fun!

Texas!

You get 2 posts today!! We just got back from Texas last night. The kids and I were there for about 2 weeks and David flew in for a long weekend and to drive home with us. It was a wonderful trip, and instead of trying to remember everything we did, I'm just going to use my pictures to tell the story...

My mom flew into San Diego on a Wednesday so she could drive to Texas with the kids and I on Friday. We went and ate brunch at The Mission at Mission Beach. It was soooo good! I reccomend it to anyone. After we ate we went down to the beach and the kids ended up getting soaked, what kid can resist??

Grammy took the girls to get manicures and pedicures!

Pots read Sammy The Seal to the kids. As soon as he started reading I knew something wasn't right...he was totally making up his own version. It was pretty funny, but I think it was wayyy over the kids heads...they still laughed!

We went out to Nana and Papas house to BBQ and hang out and the kids got to slip n' slide! Soo fun!

We got a nice rain while we were at Nana and Papas and this is what we saw on our way home...

My mom and I took the kids to the Children's Museum. They love that place. They put on a small puppet show for us

and Abby was loving shopping!

We went over to Daniel and Ellen's one night for dinner and let the kids play with the water table, next thing we knew...

Grammy bought the girls new dress up clothes. Little princess'...or gangsters?? Haha!

Climbing trees!

And of course, no trip to Midland in the summer would be complete without going to a Rockhounds game. Ben with Juice the Moose!

We went to Dallas/Fort Worth for a weekend. This was my view out the car window on the way there, SO beautiful!

Kinda a dream come true! We stayed at the Westin at the Galleria in Dallas. They have an American Girl store there. I had a doll when I was a girl and of course thought Abby would love it. Grammy, Annie, Ellen, Abby and I went to the store and the girls got their first dolls. It was soo much fun! Definitely going back!

Abby and I with her new doll Brianna!

They had a small LEGO exhibit at the mall so I took the kids to check it out and this is one of Ben's creations...

My first ever Rangers baseball game! Soo fun!

He just had to have one of those fingers

Precious girls! They are such good friends! Really makes me wish we lived closer!

Me and my girl after the game. It was really hot...that's why I'm glistening...

Got to meet up with my cousin Nicole and her mom and little boy Tucker and her little Julia in her belly! So good to see her!

And no trip to Grammy and Pots would be complete without a big ol' bubble bath!

We had such a wonderful trip! Lot's of fun! Can't wait to see everyone again!