locks of love

Samantha (or as we lovingly call her, Dah) cut off 12 inches of her hair today to donate to Locks of Love!!! They make hair pieces for under privileged children with medical hair loss. So far Dah has donated 40 inches of her hair to Locks of Love! She says, "God has blessed me with this beautiful hair so I should give it back to the world." How beautiful is that? You are an inspiration!!

goodbye betsy, hello big red!

Goodbye Betsy!

Hello BIG RED!!!

Ain't she a beauty?

And here's her proud Pappa...

fun times and good finds

Kaiden spent another awesome weekend with his Great Aunt Jane and he just can't stop talking about all the fun they had! They thoroughly explored the Lowry Park Zoo, went to Clearwater Beach where Kaiden got to be part of a show with Dallas the fire breather and he "juggled a plate", they went swimming at his favorite cousin Jevon's house, and SO much more. Thank you Great Aunt Jane for all the memories!!!!

Here are 3 great finds I made this weekend. Our Hancock Fabrics is going out of business and I got a ridiculous amount of beautiful fabric at 80% off! I love the lime green print! Our neighbor works at Hibbs Farm and Garden and got us some gorgeous plants for our soon to be butterfly garden out back. And I got this Curious George book at Brandt's Used bookstore, a run down, dilapidated shack that needs to be condemned. It looks something like this. But I didn't know that I had been charged $10.50 for a book made in the 1950's!!! You could say I was just a tad upset about that (some of Pop's Jewishness rubbing off there). But once Kaiden and I read the book I felt a lot better. The book is so funny and has adorable illustrations. We especially loved the part when the ostrich swallowed the bugle and the circus men were trying to get it out!!! What a funny story this was!

***edit: for some strange reason the internet doesn't want you to see these pics! sorry!***

sweet little baby

This little baby mocking bird fell out of his nest this morning! He looks like he's not doing too well in this picture but let me tell you - this little man has SPUNK! I think he gets it from his momma. We were trying to scoop him up to save him from becoming Rugby's breakfast when the momma starting dive bombing me! She nicked my back with her wings and scared the poo out of me!!!

Of course this rescue was right up Kaiden's alley and he went to work right away!

We read online that if you can't reach the original nest you should make an alternate nest for the baby if he's not hurt. We used a recycled butter tub nailed to the tree with paper towel and twigs inside to cushion him. Momma bird was so incredibly protective of him and kept yelling at us. I made sure I kept a stick waving over our heads the whole time so we wouldn't get attacked again.

Kaiden just had to ask...

"Can we keep him Mom?"

No Kaiden.

5/24 FIRE!

At 6pm on Thursday May 24, I was dispatched to a brush fire in North Port. "They say, its the biggest one we've had in at least 5 years!" It was wickedly intense. My tanker was the third truck on scene. My partner and I tried to hit the fire at its head, but it soon engulfed us. We were surrounded 360 degrees by fire. It was an "OH SH*T" moment. We called for 4 tactical response units, a total 0f 30 trucks and 2 helicopters responded. It took 6 hours to control the fire and all we lost was a boat, trampoline, and a pool cage. It was an aggressive fire with a large fuel load and strong winds which made it difficult to control. Good times. You can find news footage here

mixed emotions

Kaiden was playing photographer this morning...

This is a punky little shirt I made for Kaiden the other night using freezer paper, an iron, and fabric paint! It was so simple to make and since I'm not yet brave enough to take on screen printing this worked out beautifully. You can find the tutorial here. It was super simple and has so many possibilities! Go ahead, give it a try!

Today is a day of mixed emotions for Kaiden and I. It's our last day watching little Lucas, Kaiden's "best buddy". We've been watching Lucas every day for the last 3 years and he has become a big part of our lives. On one hand I am so elated to be moving on but my heart also feels very heavy for Kaiden. The two boys will definitely miss one another...but will I? Nahh.

lazy day on the river

We had such a blast on Saturday hanging out on the Peace River, hunting for fossils, and cooking out. And the best part? We were with the lovely McManus family! Good times, good times...all that was missing was the jug of pineapple juice and rum!

This is one of the screens Randy worked so hard to make(when I say worked hard I mean he spent about 4 hours making 2!) What a clever guy he is to make them out of PVC pipe - they float!

The best part of the river is watching the kids enjoy just being kids. Remember those days? I love that we can come here and make such wonderful memories with our children and great friends!

a personal tour

A couple weekends ago Randy and Kaiden went to G-WIZ, a hands on science museum, to see the new "Ice Age" exhibit. They had a blast seeing the enormous skeletons and creatures from the ice age and had so much to tell me when they got home-like how "huge and freaky" some of the creatures were (like the giant turkey, the mammoth bigger than a t-rex) and they even brought home some awesome drawings of sabor tooth tigers and giant sloths.

O.K. I was jelous I didn't go. So this Saturday Kaiden took me to G-WIZ and gave me my own personal tour of the museum. He was so professional and serious telling me what he knew about each animal, only pausing for 20 seconds for me to admire them and moving on to the next. He guided me through the entire museum in maybe a half an hour but I had such a blast switching places for once and listening to his hillarious commentary! I wish you could have seen him at the end with his fists on his hips give a little huff when the tour was over, like a job well done.

cleaning up the earth one baggie at a time

With a stash of plastic lunch baggies stuffed into the front of his underpants(the only thing he was wearing) Kaiden set off down our street. While tagging along I asked what he was doing and he replied "cleaning up the Earth Mom". He continued to pick up a piece of trash and put it in a baggie, hand it to me, take out the next baggie from his stash, and put another piece of trash in. And so it went until all of his baggies had exactly one piece of trash inside- 10 baggies to be exact. I tried explaining that he could fill up one baggie until it was full so we wouldn't be wasting them and making even more trash but that just wouldn't do!

Now our street is litter free, Mother Earth is beaming, and I'm all out of baggies!

welcome to our blog!

Thanks for visiting everyone!

We have a lot of family and friends that we don't get to see very often and it gets tough trying to keep up with one another over the phone. Luckily when we do get together its like no time has passed at all and we start where we had left off. But we would love for you to have a little insight into what it is we do over here in our crazy house! With this blog we want to stop and think about the everyday magic and mishaps that happen in everyday life and be able to share it with all of you.

We will be posting lots of pictures, funny stories, learning experiences, crazy mishaps and lots lots more. We hope you all enjoy our wild ride through life!