Where to begin......

O' MY it has been a month or more.. so many activities happening: soccer make-ups, soccer end of the year celebrations, Girl Scouts, end of school year activities... you name it.

It is summer break... I would say we are full swing.. but with all the RAIN how could we be?

What's been happening!:

*Mother's Day

*Ashton's Preschool Graduation

*A trip to the Farm

*Me and my Hubby's 13 yr anniversary

Mother's day was as usual. We made plans to go eat an expensive brunch at Granite City! So delicious and worth it.

The kids also got me two small pallets of flowers to plant in our new flower beds! Yes I had to do the planting.

Lonnie tried over and over to get a good photo of me and the kids... but someone had an issue in every picture! This one was the best out of the five!

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In mid May the girls had the opportunity to get all dressed up and take their dad to Father Daughter Dance. OH what fun they had... they theme was Hollywood Glam. As you can see they are so excited to go.

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Then, later in May I had the chance to take the boys to Deanna's Farm. (yes the girls were soo jealous) We had a great time. It was the most beautiful day. The boys fed the baby goats milk from bottles, rode ride on tractors, fed the ducks, "pretend" milked a cow, touched a cow. See how beautiful it was...

To my surprise, Nathan was NOT afraid of the goats. Even as a baby in the stroller he would totally freak out if he even looked at them! I knew he was growing up when I witnessed him feed one with a bottle.


See! Ashton was a natural... he loved loved loved doing this...Future farmer?? or Vet??

And the most fun of the day goes to............

tractor crashing!

And now... introducing.. my new little "soon to be" Kindergartner

I think I will end with that! Til' next time and another jar of pickles...



Gretch!

It's been the RAIN~

It has been so long.. I always have great blog ideas but never execute them... As any other mom would know.. April and May tend to be very busy months. Here are a few things that we have been up to.

1. This will be our 5th summer living in our house: We finally built up a flower garden around the front of the house. It is so beautiful! I love it.. with all of this RAIN we have been having I have postponed the actual planting of the flowers.. so as of now it is a mulch garden! I promise to post photos as soon as all the flowers are full in bloom!

2. Gabby has been a good adjustment to our family. I thought the potty training would be difficult, but she as proved us wrong. She is a very smart dog.. she picked it up quickly! She already knows the word "outside"!
However, she has done some serious damage around the house...I left my kitchen drawer open and she chewed off part of the corner!
She chewed off our numchuck to our Wii ($20)
She chewed up the hands and feet of Sydney's American Girl Doll Ivy...Ivy had to take a little trip to the doll hospital up by Chicago. (about $40)
and very numerous Starwars toys are missing limbs!
She has also learned out to jump onto the dining table... she jumps on a chair or bench and then to the table.. she just cant help herself.. the smell of food just drives her crazy! This behavior has been hopefully nipped in the bud thanks to a newspaper!
Even with all this... she is a very lovable dog & has a great personality.

3.. We are in full swing soccer mode... Three of our 4 kids are playing with Lonnie coaching one of the teams. It has been a little crazy with all of the RAIN! We have had too many games cancelled and rescheduled and cancelled again! I am just hoping we do not have the entire season in ONE day! ( for all teams)
We teach our children to always put out your best effort. I feel that two of my children mostly do that. But..... Sydney has always said she wanted to play soccer and she has played on a team since prek. I have had trouble believing that she was putting out her best effort. She really struggles with believing in herself and no matter what I say, she has to be the one who believes in herself in order for there to be change. She always complained that she didn't want to be there, she wasn't as good as the rest, she wasn't as fast! I always reassure her that if she really did her best she would get better and better and better.
Brings me to my "brag". On Saturday, she had two games back to back.. in the first game she was her usual self and coach let her play about 2 minutes the entire game.. Then after the game I had a great talk with her as I listen to her complain about how great the other girls were... but then we got to the second game and I assured her again that she was good enough and that you don't have to be the "fastest" player. .. she goes in and the ball keep coming to her over and over.. she can hear me yelling at her "Sydney! You can do it, keep it going!" (seriously i turned around and another mom from the other team had her fingers in her ears!! WHATEVER!! I should have handed her the TAD award!! so annoying!) so anyway back to my story... so coach sees that Syd is really doing well and "trying"(not just looking at her manicure) and she stays in and keeps going and going... she had control of the ball several times.. but then..... she got the ball at half field and keep going.. going... going....BIG KICK and .........












No score.... missed it by about an inch!!! I was soo sad BUT sooooo swelled with PRIDE for my daughter..... she really did well! I was in tears... I just could not get over it.. when you witness a child "get it" and their own pride just shining sooo bright... it is overwhelmingly emotional! I am soo proud of her... I am hoping now that she keeps what she "got" and keeps putting her best effort out!
KUDOS to SYDNEY!!

4. I also have to brag about my new dishwasher.. It is totally awesome!! Love it love it.. my other one was a cheap piece of junk and has never worked appropriately! So we, I mean I had a big enough fit to get a new one... It is a Maytag fully integrated stainless...just totally awesome.
Now, if it would just load and unload itself!

The new Member of our Family

"GABBY"

(Sorry, she would not stay still for a photo)

Gabby is about 3 mos old. My friend is a foster parent for dogs at the shelter. We have been looking for a small dog for the kids, but wanted a puppy. Puppies are had to come by from the shelters. We got "first" dibs on her because of my friend. We immediately fell in love with her. The girls named her Gabby Green eyes. They think she is a Chihuahua mix.. we will see...

She has already been a big SPAZ and all of the kids have cried over her being too "rough"!

So far she has peed in the house 5 times just today... fortunately we got her outside to take care of her other "business" ! yay!

Our Mini Schnauzer is not the happiest about her being her, but she is playing with her outside. She gets really territorial when she is on the main floor of the house!

The kids are so far cleaning up after her. HMM I wonder how long this will last??

I am also thinking " everyone is potty trained, why did I do this?" At least my carpet is already trashed!

I will keep you posted on our new little Energy Ball!

REPEAT OFFENDER

Ashton is officially a repeat offender! By the law! Both of my phones were up on my bed. That is where I tend to carry them. While I was cleaning or attempting to (haven't been back to it since) the kitchen. Ashton picked up one of the phones on my bed and thought.. I will call 911. Apparently it is the ONLY number my 5 year old son knows! He called and hung up. Also, dispatch called back. Ashton answered the phone and said "Don't come!".

I didn't not find any of this out until about 4 minutes later!

Doorbell rings, Sydney looks out the window to see who it is! MOM! its the POLICE!

ME: totally freaking out, wondering what the hell did I do!!

I answer the door, He says to me "ma am, can I talk to you?" Me: "what about?"

then he proceeds to open my door all the way and walk into my house. I am like really scared at this point, thinking I have been wrongly accused of something!

OFFICER: "a child called 911 and hung up and dispatch called back and he answered the phone and hung up again"

Me: "humm, okay! ASHTON!! where are you?"

Ashton standing in the living room literally scared to death!

ME: "Ashton, did you call 911?

Ashton: "NO!"

me: "well Ashton the policeman is here and he knows who called, so you might want to tell me!

Ashton "NO, mom, it wasn't me!"

As he begins to cry uncontrollably and hides behind me. At this point I think he thinks he is going to jail! He was SO upset, but still never admitted to it in front of the officer!

Me and the policeman tried to calm Ashton down, to tell him how important it is to only call 911 when there is an emergency like a fire or someone is hurt really bad, NOT just because your parent would NOT let you have your way!

We thanked the policeman and apologized over and over for WAISTING his time and the city's money!

Needless to say, My son will be punished....for LYING most of all! When you are confronted with it just admit to it. Take responsibility!

and... by the way... Ashton is a repeat offender! He called 911 when he was 16 mos old....two police showed up and didn't even ask to come in!

NEVER A DULL MOMENT AT THE RUDD'S HOUSE!

Updates!

So now that I have a computer again and I do not have to go into the basement knee deep in toy vomit, I can blog!

Here are a few updates.

SYDNEY: Has finally lost a tooth! Just one! It is not the tooth that we thought would come out first. she had another one that was very loose and then the "adult" tooth pushed up and strangely tightened up the loose tooth. I was very nervous about her loosing a tooth because in involves a little blood! Sydney will almost faint at the thought of blood. All went well.

Not to take the spotlight away.....But ASHTON just celebrated his big 5th birthday! We had gift cards to Dave and Busters and decided it was just as good or better than CEC's! It was. It was quite a treat. For any of you who know me, know I do NOT let my children drink soda and I gag, hate ROOT BEER gag gag!! Only on occasion will I let them have soda. They wanted Root Beer! GAG! I really do gag at the smell! I do not like the smell of RB flavored candy! GAG!

anyway... focus..... We headed out on a Saturday afternoon, ate lunch and played games.
Gag! See how excited Raegan was about the Root beer? Gag!

Ashton being the lucky little fellow he is...plays this

do you see the little 1000? you hit the stop button and where ever the light stops that is the number of tickets you win! Guess what? That's right! He wins 1000!

Here is his initial reaction. I think he was trying to count to 1000 on his fingers.!

Wow! Look at all those tickets! (they are worth 2, I guess to save the trees) Over all it was great family time!

I am having a hard time believing that Ashton is 5! It was just yesterday that we moved into the house we are in and he was only 10 mos old! TIME FLIES! He will start Kindergarten this fall! I will not believe it until he is actually there.

Ashton is an extremely bright kid. He also has a lot of energy. It's not like boy "Tigger" energy. it's hard to explain. Basically when he wants something he will do and try anything to get it. Even as a newborn he wanted out of his car seat and would "try" to pull himself out! He looked like one of those toys that when you pull the string it moves the arms and legs up and down. One time I caught him on top of the dining table at like 13 mos old getting ready to pull down the chandelier! (all of my other children didn't walk until 13 mos old) Ashton started walking around the end of 9 mos old. I used to think that was impossible until I had Ashton.

Another time he moved a chair and stacked a bunch of stuff on it to get on top of the counter, then continued to stack stuff on the counter all to get something on top of the refrigerator! All in a matter of seconds! Kids like him move fast!

Just the other day we were at the park and all of a sudden I could not find Ashton anywhere!! I was screaming and screaming for him. I was almost to the point of ...nothing could come out because I was so upset! I even had all the other parents looking a screaming for him. Finally, I here him say "what?" He went to the van to play his Nintendo! I said to him " we could not find you, I was scared that someone had taken you" He says to me: "but mom, no one did, I was just in the van" . He was so matter of fact!

I could go on and on with likable stories of my chronicles of Ashton.

I see as he gets older that he is growing out of this and is able to "think" a little before he does something. HE is a beautiful child, smart, funny, friendly, sensitive, STRONG, determined, a good brother, amazes me everyday (good and bad). I love my little buddy!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I totally promise to back to blogging soon.... now that I have a new laptop! Whaooooooo!!!
Lonnie gives the most practical gifts now that we have been married for almost 13 yrs!
I am a happpy girl!
Hope everyone had a very romantic day!

It's been so long!

I'm quite sorry that it has been so long!  I have been recovering from Christmas and EVERYONE has been sick a time or two!  I think that everyone is hopefully on the mend.

I am very excited for the new year and all the new possibilities.  For me, it is a huge year!  I will turn 35 in a day.  Now, at first I was very upset about it.  I look at my life and thought that certain areas are not where they should be.  There are many things that I wanted to accomplish by age 35.  But then I look at all my sweet beautiful children and know that that it self is a HUGE accomplishment.  One that 15 yrs ago didn't see as a possibility.  

My so sweet young neighbor said to me "Gretchen, you are soo accomplished, I aspire to be like you one day!"  WOW!  That really opened my eyes!  It shaved off a little more depression!  Thanks, Sara Jean!  Then I realized it is the Year of the OX for Chinese New Year!  I am an OX!  YES! another couple of inches shaved off!!

So you see Dears, I have a new outlook on turning 35!  YAY! for me!  I realized I can turn my life in a new direction, well not entirely.  What I'm saying is... there are a lot of things that I want to do, some of them things I used to do and stopped because I viewed my children as a restriction or burden!  (My view was distorted! it's no longer that way).

I am soo blessed!  I have 4 very unique individuals that I cannot wait to see what they do in life and impact this World!

My husband is so very sweet!  HE is such a soldier!  He is the best father to our children and a wonderful provider!  And damn cute!!

So, I look forward to the year to follow!  Exciting things will happen!  Some historical!

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!