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You can reach me at: bnbharty@gmail.com and I'll try my best to answer. I get a crazy amount of email, so PLEASE don't hate me if you don't hear back from me. Love ya!

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Saturday, May 23, 2009

Childhood Friends

First off, I just wanted to share a few "wet" pictures with you guys. It actually rained yesterday. And it was a BIG storm. Thunder, lightening, drenching rain. The whole works. I felt like I was a back in the midwest again - LOL! Check out how hard it's raining, and how it's puddling all around my yard :)





After 4 months, I was SO excited to see some moisture falling from the sky - ROFL!

Happy Saturday to you all :) Are you all doing something fun for Memorial Day weekend? The kids and I are going to the National Cemetery here at Ft. Bliss to put flags on the graves. It should be a great experience. I'm definitely bring my camera :)

AND, Captain America should be home TODAY!!! Probably late tonight. I'm SO excited! I'll no longer be a single parent :)

Yesterday was a good day. Andrea and I walked again, for about an hour. It was a good walk. Over an hour long. Then, after coming back home, getting a snack, checking emails, and playing a little FarmTown, Andrea and I went to Ross to get a b-day present for Laurie, then on to El Taco Tote for lunch. Mmmmmm, El Taco Tote. I like that place. Granted, it makes my tummy hurt when we're done, but YUMMY it's good :) I'm not used to spicy food. It burn my lips, and burns my tummy - yet I keep going back for more. I'm a glutten for punishment - ROFL!

I got a little nap after lunch while Jimmy watched a movie, and then went to a Speed Scrap. Those are fun. But you know, they stress me out - LOL! I get all anxious, and feel the need to rush. I'm so weird :)

When the kids got home from school, two of my kids went to Andreas house, and one of hers came to my house. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

I chatted with Captain America for about an hour yesterday. He's was in Texas , at least :) Only a matter of hours till he gets back :)

So yesterday I went to another Speed Scrap at Ginger Scraps. I was napping at the time it started, and when I woke up and checked me e-mail, Jen (Graham Like the Cracker) had emailed me and told me it was starting. So, I showed up (45 minutes late) and jumped right in. I made a WordArt to use on my layout, and thought that I'd use it for today's freebee. No point wasting a perfectly good WordArt, right - LOL!

Click on the links below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

Friday, May 22, 2009

Solemn Life

At the last minute, I remember to post my new products for the week!!! Woohoo for me :) 2 weeks in a row - LOL! Click HERE to go to my store. And remember, new WordArt packs are 20% off (or $2.00) for the first week :)
Layout by Jen (Graham Like the Cracker)







Layout by Trina

Layout by Trina (isn't she AWESOME!)

Layout by ME!!! Can you believe it??? I scrapped :) I played last night with the girls over at GingerScraps at a Speed Scrap.


Well, I was informed by my friend that my WordArt for yesterday, while funny, was morbid. LOL! I promise I won't let myself get so sleep deprived that I get morbid - ROFL!

We didn't get to go on our walk yesterday. My friends little boy had an asthma attack, and had to go to the ER. Poor little guy. I know how he felt. My daughter, Emeline, woke up hacking and weezy too. After 2 puffs on the inhaler, she was good to go to school. I think it was partly due to the change of weather. It actually RAINED yesterday. Real rain. Not just a few drops.

Anyway, we didn't go walking, but my other friend and I went to the gym and did Yoga. OMGosh! I'd never done yoga before. Let me tell you. It's not for the faint of heart. The video was and hour and a half long, but we only did the first 30 minutes, plus cool down. Wow. What a workout. We were sweating after the first 7 minutes - LOL! But of the two, I think I'd rather go on an hour long walk - hehehe.

After the gym, I came home and showered (I know, miracles never cease!) and got ready to go to Game Lunch. Every other Thursday, the girls do a lunch, and play games. I'm gald I went, too, because I was the only person who was able to make it. Kaylee had TONS of food, but we had fun. We played Yatzee and she taught me how to play cribbage. My dad always played that game growing up, but I'd never really learned. It was fun!

She sent home about 1/2 the food with me, for my kids. When we got home from lunch, at about 2:30, I played on facebook for a little while, then took a nap. Since I'd gone to bed at 1am the night before, I sure needed the nap. I slept till the big kids got home from school. Jimmy watched a movie in my room while I slept. I'm sure glad he's old enough to keep out of trouble for an hour :)

The kids LOVED the food. There was yummy sandwiches, watermellon, strawberry jello dessert, cut fruit, veggies, chips and salsa/guacamole, and bread. It was like a little mini buffet for them - hehehe. They ate some much I only had to give them a bowl of cereal for dinner :)

Joe and I worked on his homework for quite some time, and I got to talk to Captain America on the phone for about an hour. He's on his way home!!! Last time I talked to him he was in Mississippi. I don't know how far he was planning on getting. He said that he'd bought a sleeping bag, and was planning on sleeping under the stars. He figured the cost of the sleeping bag would be cheaper than the cost of a few hotel nights. Way to go, hon! Trying to save us money :) What a trooper you are!

So, Suzy of SuzyQ Scraps approached me about doing another WordArt collab, and, of course, I said yes! I just LOVE working with elements. And color. Woohoo!!! And, I was even more excited that it was a Memorial Day kit. Especially now that my hubby is in the army. The holiday takes on a whole new meaning :) Anyway, check out her SUPER cute kit below.


So, here's the 2 WordArts that I made up using her AWESOME kit. Both are Memorial Day themed. This first one I found in Wikipedia under Memorial Day. It was part of the Memorial Day Order, given May 30th, 1868. This sentence just jumped out at me, and said "WordArt me!". Who am I to object??? LOL!

Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the ZIP file, and leave some love if you like my work. And yes, HINDS was supposed to be HANDS. The place I originally got the quote was correct, then when I went looking for it again, the 2nd place I found the quote had it with the typo, so that's what I WordArt-ed. Oops. Sorry girls :) It's all fixed now ;)

4shared
box.net


And then.....


I found this quote, and thought it was PERFECT! How true it is. And, even if you don't give your life in the literal sense, but give your life to a cause, meaning devote yourself, it's still true. You are a hero!


Click HERE to go to Suzy's blog and grab this other WordArt :) And if it's not linked up, I'll be back later to hook it up (I kinda maybe sorta forgot what the web address is, and I'm waiting for her to send me the link - LOL! Don't tell anyone how forgetful I am :)

Thursday, May 21, 2009

I'm Dead

Dang, girls! I need to sleep more - LOL! As I'm pre-publishing this, I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes awake. Who knew that having a "social life" would be this exhausting - ROFL!!! I guess most people don't wait until they're 33 to "get a life" - hehehe.

Before our walk, I took a few minutes and cut the weeds. No, not because I wanted my yard to look nice. I'm saving the yard and grass work for Captain America to "play" with when he gets home. ROFL!!! I'm sure he's gonna just LOVE that :) No, the reason I cut the weeds (and by cut I mean with scissors) is that the sprinkler guys were coming to turn them on today. The weeds were so high that you couldn't even see the sprinklers - LOL! I took a few minutes and cut back the "forest". LOL.

We did our normal walk and got back home around 10am. I took Laurie's little boy, Rowan, home with me, so his mom could go to a meeting. Jim and Rowan play very nicely together. And I actually got a WordArt pack designed. At noon, I went to lunch at a friends house. Can't remember the girls' name, though. It's a friend of Andrea's. Nice lady :) We had fun sitting around and chatting. AND, I had my first Homemade Tortillas. Dang, they were good! And they looked easy to make. I may have to try it sometime. Really tasty food. I'm never gonna get to my goal weight at this rate - LOL! BUT, I'm sure having fun :)

I came back home at 3pm, and designed for a little while longer. I got another WordArt pack done. At 5:00, I started working on a Cub Scout den meeting for the evening. Our church pack is kinda hanging on by a thread. The leaders are all guys, and most are in the army. So, they're frequently gone. Our Cubmaster is doing his best to hold it all together, but we need to get some more leaders. I'm getting a new calling (for church) on Sunday, so I'll see what I can do - hehehe. I'll let you know on Sunday what it is :)

We had dinner real fast, and headed out to Scouts. Luckily, the leaders who were supposed to be there were there, and actually had something planned - LOL :) They're getting the hang of it. With a little coaching, they'll be fine. I hung out with the little kids while Tom and Jake went to their meetings. Jimmy had fun chatting with his Sunbeams (4 year old sunday class) teacher, and Joe got to play with Andrea's son, Sam. Joe had the MOST fun with his new buddy :)

We got home at 9pm, and I spent the next few hours designing, and packaging, and uploading to my store. Sigh. What a process, that it :) I've decided that I'm gonna design on Saturday, so my week isn't so crazy. Time management. That's what I need - LOL!

The housing repair guys came by today while I was out. They turned on the sprinklers in the backyard, and glued something in the living room. I am just glad that they were able to come when I wasn't there. Don't you have it when you have to be home for a HUGE block of time, waiting on a repair person. Or cable guy. Or a package. I was SO happy :) OK, this paragraph was TOTALLY random. Can you tell it's late, and I'm tired - hehehe.

Oh yeah, another random thing. I called the ABC local channel, and asked the man why my TV wasn't working. He said that it was just a fluke that it was working before. Nice. I asked why FOX worked, and he said that they had a more powerful broadcaster thingy. I asked if he was gonna get a more powerful one, and he said no. I actually said "Well, I guess I'll just have to start watching FOX shows instead of yours". LOL! I guess the fact that I've spent SO much time trying to fix this problem should be a red flag to myself that I'm watching TV. Sigh :)

OK, enough about me. I'm not quite coherent anyway - LOL! I was looking for a quick freebee for today, and ran across this saying, and thought it was HYSTERICAL!!! Yep, I'd be dead if I was a dog - hehehe. Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work.


Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Forever Begins Today

Only a few more days till my sweetheart is home!!! [jumping up and down, clapping hands] And if I stay as busy as I have been the last few days, it'll be here in no time :) Yesterday, I went walking with the girls again at 8:15, then hurried home at 9:30am to shower and be ready for playgroup at 10am at Laurie's house. I was a bit late (responding to an email took longer than I thought it would), but made it there by 10:30am. It's always fun hanging out with the girls.

I was at playgroup till about 1:30pm, then headed home. Laurie had a physical therapy appointment at 1:45pm, and she dropped her kids off at my house. Her son is 2 1/2 and is a little mini me of Jimmy. TOO funny. From the back, they look EXACTLY the same. Her daughter is a pre-schooler, and is in the Sunday primary class I help out with. She's hysterical. Gotta love 4 year olds - hehehe. She's full of spunk. Spunk is good!

Laurie was back by 2:15, saying that once she got there, they cancelled the appointment. Sigh. Hate it when that happens. She stayed and chatted till about 3:15, when she went to pick up her kids from school. At 3:30, I got a call from Jacob, saying that he wanted to go to Andrea's house and play with her son, Sam. He said that Andrea had picked them ALL up from school. She stopped at my house on the way home, and asked if all of the kids could come over and play. I said that I'd grab my things, and we'd all come over.

We had fun chatting while the kids played. At 4:30, she had to leave to go to a school meeting, and I watched all the kids. Funny, but 7 kids didn't seem like that many. The 3 oldest were in one room, playing a video game. The 2- 5 year old boys played in his room the WHOLE time. Eme was up stairs most of the time too. That just left me downstairs with Jimmy (my 3 year old) and Luke, her 1 year old. Piece of cake - LOL! We spent the time playing in the living room, and cleaning the kitchen. I like to be useful, so we did the dishes, picked up a few toys, and washed the countertops.

Andrea was all excited when she got home that I'd helped out. See, I'm a nice friend - LOL! She was also excited, because they usually have horseback riding lessons on Thursday nights, but it had been changed to Tuesday this week, and it had been a LONG day for her. Well, the lesson was canceled for the evening, so she had a night off :) She invited the kids and I to stay for dinner, and ordered pizza.

Let me tell you, I may have found a NEW favorite kind of pizza. BBQ chicken and Bacon Pizza. OMGosh! It was so tasty. With lots of yummy onions. I was LOVIN' it!

We stayed and played and chatted until about 8:30pm. I usually don't stay out that late on a school night, but we were having so much fun :) We came home, and put the kids to bed, and relaxed for the rest of the evening. I tried to watch a bit of TV, but the antenna still isn't working so great.

I think, once I get a chance to stay at home for an afternoon (LOL!), I'm gonna call the networks here in El Paso, and ask them WHAT THE HECK is going on with the signal. I thought that the switch to digital was supposed to make it a BETTER viewing experience. I watched Law & Order last night, and every 2 seconds there was a glitch in the program. Yeah, that was real annoying. At least I was blogging at the time, so I was mostly distracted. The last 30 minutes it got better, but I was afraid to move from my spot on my bed. My son came in the room, opened the door, and I lost the signal (ROFL!). It's gonna be one of those situations, I see. Where I have to have someone stand on their head and hold the antenna at just the right angle to get it to work. hehehe. The lengths I'll go to get something for free is scary - ROFL!

Today should be a good day too :) Walking in the AM, lunch at noon at a friends house, Scouts in the evening. AND, it's my designing day. I usually release 5 new WordArt packs a week, and I only have 1/2 of one done - LOL! It's one all about photography. I'm liking it so far :) I'm sure I'll have time today. At least I can design fast. I can design a WordArt pack, from start to finish, in 30 minutes. I only need 2 1/2 hours to get the job done :) I can do it :)

The repair men are also coming today. They're gonna hook up the sprinkler system, replace the A/C filter, and fix some molding type thing in the living room. Andrea told me that if I called them, and told them that they had permission to come inside without me, that they'd do it, and I could come to lunch. I was thinking I couldn't come, so THANKS Andrea, for showing me the ropes :)

This WordArt request is from Andrea. I thought it was a WONDERFUL idea ;) Great for weddings or births :) Click HERE to go to scraporchard to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work :) Thanks, girls!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I Love You

I had a SUPEr buys day yesterday, but a good one. The girls and I walked for an hour and 15 minutes in the morning, the decided to go to lunch. It was a bit early for lunch, but it worked out fine. I think it was about10am. LOL! We went to Taco Cabana. I'd never been there, and it was pretty good. I had a taco salad. Mmmmmm, taco salad :) It's my favorite thing to get!

After our early lunch, Andrea and I went to the Commissary to go grocery shopping. They were having a case lot sale (a big tent outside where they sell a lot of their items in bulk). We found bottled waters, a 24 case for $1.99. That's a WONDERFUL deal. I got 3 :) I also got about a weeks worth of groceries. It's a lot of fun going grocery shopping with a friend. I'd highly recommend it - hehehe. Much more enjoyable than with 5 children - ROFL!

Next, we went back to our own homes, and put away our groceries. After about a 1/2 hour, I met her back at her house, and we washed/detailed our cars. NOT something that I typically like to do, but it needed done. Captain America is gonna be home on Sunday (woohoo!), and my truck hadn't been washed since before he left. It doesn't rain here, so all the dust is starting to accumulate. It REALLY needed a bath. After washing it, we cleaned out the insdie, vacuumed, washed the windows, and cleaned the inside parts. It looked FABULOUS when it was all done.

We also detailed the inside of Andreas truck (suburban). She said that she was gonna make her hubby go to the automatic car wash and wash the outside part - LOL! Captain America usually washes my rig for me, and does a FABULOUS job. He'd be so proud of me! hehehehe.

We also took our kids to the park this afternoon after school. Another of the girls in the neighborhood just had her hubby deploy, and wanted to give her kids piano lessons on Mondays after school. Andrea volunteered to watch the other kids during that hour. We took her kids, and our kids, to the park to play. I think everyone had a lot of fun :)

Near bedtime, Captain America called, and we had Family Home Evening on the webcam. It was pretty cool. We all sat on the couch, with the laptop (and webcam) on the coffee table. And the cell phone on speaker phone. It was pretty neat to have him "be here". It was short and sweet, but I think the kids appreciated that time with Dad.

I'm getting really frustrated with my TV. I wanted to watch "The Bachelorette" tonight, but my ABC channel is non-existent. It just stopped working on Saturday. Sigh. I'll have to watch it today on the computer. It's just not as convienent. I like to have my shows on in the evenings, when I can watch and design at the same time. If I watch it online, I can't use photoshop at the same time. Hopefully the local stations will figure out the digital signals soon, and I can go back to my regular scheduled viewing - hehehe. (Isn't it sad how ruled by the TV my life seems to be - hehehe)

I think I got sunburned again. I'm gonna have to start putting on a little layer of sunblock under my makeup. My face is a nice pink today. Hopefully it turns to tan. But it if does, I'm gonna have to buy a darker shade of foundation. Do you guys have to do that too? Do you have a summer/winter color for your foundation? Surely I'm not the only one :)

I just LOVED how this WordArt turned out :) So pretty - LOL! Is that wrong of me to think? Am I sounding like I'm bragging? NOT what I meant to do - ROFL!

Click on the link below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work :)



FONT:
AL Afternoon Delight

Monday, May 18, 2009

Happiness

OK, so did anyone else watch the Survivor Season Finale last night??? The kids and I watched it. The person I wanted to win, won, so I was happy :) What about you?

I was a bit upset that my TV isn't working the way it's supposed to. Well, it's not the TV actually. The digital TV signal is almost non-existent. I used to get ABC, CBS, PBS, NBC, and FOX crystal clear. I have a nice antenna, and an converter box. Then, on Saturday. I only got FOX. Jacob moved the antenna around enough to get CBS for me, but I'm wondering why, all of a sudden, I get no channels? Seems a bit odd to me. Friday night it was working just fine. I know that I can watch my shows online, but it's frustrating to have it just randomly stop working. OK, on to other things :)

Church was good yesterday. We had the bishop get up and say that he was gonna talk about reverence. Sigh. I was thinking, Oh no. We're gonna hear about how our kids are SO loud, and how we should take them out to the hall. BUT, to my great delight, he ended up chastising those who were complaining about the noise. Did you know that we have 25 families in our ward with husbands deployed. That's a lot of moms in church with multiple children, with no help. He said that these families are doing the best they can. If you see a mom struggling to keep her kids quiet, rather than sitting there and judging her, GO HELP HER. If you're not feeling spiritually uplifted, then maybe you should look at yourself, rather than the little kid in front of you.

I was so impressed. My kids are mostly quiet, but we've DEFINITLY had our turn at being the noisy family. When Captain America was in the bishopric, I sat with the kids all by myself for a year. It's not an easy thing. When one is super fussy and you have to take them out in the hall, the other kids are left all alone in the chapel. Anyway, it made me happy to hear about the way that the bishop here approached the situation. Good for him :)

The kids and I worked on cleaning ther rooms yesterday. The big kids' room was SO bad, I couldn't even see the floor. Imagine taking every article of clothing owned by 2 boys, and then just throwing it on the floor. Add a few papers, some homework, some shoes, some toys, and a bunch of cups (they take cups of ice into their rooms in the evening). OMGosh! It took about an hour, but they did get it clean. I helped out with the clothes part. I sorted it (I made them do the smell check - that's just NASTY!), and had them put it away. The gathered the trash, dishes, and such, and put those away. After the floor was completely cleared, I vacuumed for them. Then we cleared out the hallway, and the little kids' room. I must say, it looked pretty good when we were done, and I hope they keep it clean until Captain America gets home. WOOHOO!!! Captain America's coming home!!!!! (sorry, I just had to throw that in there:)

You know what's funny. I went out to go to church yesterday, and it actually felt cold. LOL! It was 70. ROFL! I know, Mom, that's not cold :) But, after 90's all last week, 70 felt a little chilly :) It's supposed to be 90 again today :) I'll do better with remembering the sunscreen for myself. My sunburn from Saturday is still a bit crunchy feeling :(

I"m going walking with the girls again today. I really like our morning walks. I feel good when we get done. Yeah for me :) Now if I could just stop eating all the junk food. Ha! I just remembered something :) Last night, the kids and I made a cake for after dinner. I didn't have eggs, but went online, and found a site that showed some alternatives to eggs. This one site recommended this for a replaement for the 3 eggs in the mix:

2 tsp baking soda
2 TBSP water
2 TBSP vinegar

OMGosh - it was the NASTIEST cake I've ever tasted. It was a devils food cake, and SHOULD have been fabulous. How can you ruin chocolate cake. Let me tell you.... DON'T make a cake if you don't have eggs. Seriously. I made all the kids eat their dinner before they could get their cake, and little Jimmy DID NOT want to eat his food. I sat with him for 15 minutes, and he finally finished it all off. He took one bite of the cake, and said "It's yucky, Mommy" and wouldn't eat it. You know it's nasty if the 3 year old won't eat it. Jake and Joe ate it. Jacob thought it was gross, but kept trying bites, thinking it would get better. He finally threw it out. Eme woudln't eat it either. I can't even explain what it tasted like. Gross. Don't try it. Just go and borrow eggs from someone, or better yet, don't make the cake. LOL!

This WordArt request is from Joy Weese Moll. Well, actually, she made this statement in the forum over at Scraporchard, and Bec picked up on it, and told her that she should ask me to do a WordArt of it. So, not only is it a request, it's an original quote :) Anyway, I thought it was WONDERFUL, so decided to make it for a freebee for you all today :)

Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work :)

box.net
4shared - um, you guys must be downloading too many things from SYTYCD, because 4shared isn't letting me upload. Sigh
mediafire
keepandshare



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Happiness - Rebekah's Birthday

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Choose the Right

What a fabulous Saturday it was yesterday :) I just love the feeling of waking up, and knowing that I don't have to jump out of bed and rush around - LOL! Can you tell I'm looking forward to summer??? Sure, there's things I don't enjoy about summer, too, but the lack of rushing is a HUGE plus in my book :)

I downloaded the pics from my camera today, and found a few fun pics on there that I'd forgotten I'd taken. Here's one of Jimmy from a few days ago, zonked out on the couch. For a kid who doesn't nap, he sure falls alseep during the day quite a bit - hehehe.


These pics are from Wednesday. The day I had lunch with my friends. See the chocolate covered bananas. YUMMY! Just looking at them makes me hungry - LOL!



So it was Armed Forces Day yesterday, and they were having a HUGE celebration on post. I told the kids that we were going there today, and they keep talking about the "party". I coudln't convince them that's not what this way. They asked about playing in the kids' backyard, and having cake. No guy, not that kind of party. It took forever to convince them - hehehe.

So, we got there, and walked around a tiny bit, then saw that they were doing an army/police dog demonstration. Pretty impressive. First they showed the dogs that were trained to take down the bad guys. See this picture below? Yep, that's one of my WORST nightmares, right there. Seriously :)

Here's the kids watching the demonstration.


Then they brought in the dog that was trained to find explosives and such. Not to bite. They let the kids pet the "friendly" dogs. Jim still wouldn't get near the dog after seeing the other 3 demonstrations. Kid after my own heart - LOL!


We wandered around a bit more, collecting stuff as we went. There were booths set up EVERYWHERE. We got lunch from Andrea's booth (hot dogs, chips, and a soda for $2.00), and set down to eat. When we were done, we wandered around some more. Jacob was SO ready to go home, but I made him stay - LOL!

These bear statue things were cool. The kids had fun posing infront of them :)



Here's a missle launcher. Um, Patriot? Maybe? I think so. My kids all knew what it was, anyway.

We went to the booth from the Fire Department, and the kids went inside the little fire trailer, and had a little class on fire safety. Then, they got all the fun "loot". They got these AWESOME mugs (plastic) that changed colors with cold temperature. We ended up with 4 of thm. Sweet! Jimmy wanted the hackiesack instead. To each his own, I guess. The also got pencils and coloring books.

Here's the kids at the Bradley (tank). They each got a turn to crawl inside of it.




And the gun display. It was a favorite of Jake and Tom. They were surprised how hard the guns were to cock. Boys and their toys :)



At the "Say No To Drugs" booth, the kids scored a TON of fun stuff. Mini stuffed animals, stickers, plastic arm bracelets, rulers, bumper stickers, pencils, pens, lots of cool stuff.

On the way back across the field, we spotted another booth, and they were giving away mini fans, and little notebooks with pens, and slinkies, and key chains. OMGosh, it was SO much fun for the kids. Jacob and Thomas informed me that it was no long borning, and that they had a TON of fun :) See, mom does know best :)

We stopped at Andrea's booth before going home, and asked if Ben and Sam could come home with us to play. Here's a pic of all of us walking home. Me with 7 kids - LOL! One guy actually stopped us on the way and asked if they were all mine. "Only 5 of them" I said. 'That's still a lot" was his reply. Ha!

Aren't these 2 ADORABLE! Joe was SO excited to have a friend his age come over and play.



And, a pic of me. Oh yeah, I got a MASSIVE sunburn today. See how my purse is slung across my chest. Well, that part didn't burn - hehehe. So, one side is really burnt, and there's this WHITE strip across my chest. Nice, eh? Maybe I'll start a new trend :) ROFL!

The kids came come, and played computer, played in bedrooms, and played in the slip and slide. We made pumpkin/oatmeal / raisin cookies with lemon glaze. OMGosh they were yummy :) I'll have to remember to make lemon glaze for those kinds of cookies in the future. Because they were SO good :) Bad for the 'ole diet, but SO good :)

OK, so I have a little tangent story, but it's a good one :) Here goes:

I just had to give a quick "THANK YOU" to my new friend, Andrea. I don't think she reads my blog, but just in case, THANKS! Captain America and I were talking about our finances today, and without going into too much detail, it's gonna be tight this month. The army will "reimburse" him for all of his trave expenses, but that means that he actually has to pay to get home first. Sigh. Hopefully the $$ we have left will be enough to get him home (and live on till the next paycheck comes in). It'll be REAL close.

Anyway, there IS a point to this story - LOL! I had Andrea's 2 oldest boys over today to play with my kids, and kept them while she and her hubby went to a church meeting. When they got back, I'd already fed the kids and sent the left overs home with her for dinner. So she didn't have to cook. 'Cause I'm nice - LOL! Anyway, we made plans to go grocery shopping on Monday together, because neither of us shop on Sunday. She wanted to know if I could survive that long without shopping. I said that I was out of cereal, but that we'd manage until Monday. She said that she had an extra box at home, and would run it by later.

Well, at 9:30, I got a knock on the door, and there was Andrea and her husband, with a few bags of groceries. OMGosh! She had no way of knowing that I was SUPER low on supplies (out of milk and bread as well as cereal) and $$. I was SO grateful for her thoughtfulness. I know that she was inspired to bring those things over. It's amazing how much Heavenly Father watches out for us. And loves us and wants to take care of us. And he uses other people to do that :) So, thanks Andrea, for listening when Heavenly Father whispered that the Harty's needed a little extra help :)

As I was thinking about a "religious" themed Wordart I could make for today, this song kept popping into my head. I sing it to my kids when they do something naughty - LOL! It goes like this:

There's a right way to live and be happy,
it is choosing the right every day
I am learning the teachings of Jesus,
they will help me and show me the way,
Choose the right way and be happy
I will always choose the right.

And you know what? I've found that in my life, when I "choose the right way", I AM more happy :) Some say it's being blessed. Some say it's good karma. Whatever you call it, it's true. Doing good makes you feel good, and then makes you happy :) If you're feeling down or depressed, do something nice for someone else, and you'll be amazed how much better it will make you feel.

Click on the links below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leaves some love if you like my work :)

OOps, good thing i check my email before church :) Just had time to upload one place - I'll be back after church :)

box.net
4shared
mediafire
keepandshare



FONTS:
Choose - Susie's Hand
Right - Perpetua Titling MT