our trip: a walk, a park, a pond, a hike!

 we headed out for a walk and daddy joined us

(he came back with Annicka when she went to get her butterfly

net) too ...

 Jericho was posing - lol!

these next two pics I just love so much!

it was adorable how he was doing all the exercises!

two years ago ...

I really can't believe it's been two years since Zoey's open heart surgery!

in some ways, it seems not so long ago ...

in other ways, it seems a lifetime away!

to look at her, one might never guess that she was ever in

such a delicate condition as a newborn - fighting to get stable enough

to grow and be ready for such a big surgery!

back then, she was a quiet fighter ...

and after that surgery, she became a bold fighter!

she came home full of sass and hasn't slowed down since.

Zoey has come so far from this day ...

she saw her cardiologist on tuesday and he said everything

is looking great!  it was awesome to hear!

happy "heart day" Zoey - my little princess!

my little scar (a poem)

photo and poem from February 2012

surgery day

*a little shout out for sahm businesses*

some of you may know that I've been giving it a go at getting a "business" going - and though it's a slow process, I'm thinking it's going at the perfect speed!  as a way to get more word out, a friend* and I decided to do a giveaway together!

I know I don't have tons of readers here, but I know that the readers I do have are true supporters of me - so I thought I'd go ahead and share!!!

so click up there on the word "giveaway" to see what's up for grabs - and be sure to enter!!!




*and fellow sahm (that's stay-at-home-mom)/business lady/friend/she can pretty much do everything ... seriously, she's not only an amazing photographer - and I mean AMAZING - she also crochets, home schools her four kids, bakes, the whole nine!!!  brilliant is she!!!

update ...

so, I've tried to create my next post multiple times and every time the photos would not upload ... then I found out why!  apparently my google storage was having some issues and I had to go in and manually pay it, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll be back to blogging WITH pics!

I also wanted to update everyone to let you know that, for now, I've changed my mind about making the blog private.  thanks to those of you who provided your emails, though!  the truth is it makes it difficult for family and those are the people we most want easy access here to our blog!  I wish there was a way for me to keep some posts "private", but for now I'll just keep those (ie: Liam in the bath on our trip - it was so cute how he made the water all white with soap, so I took pics) posts saved as drafts and publish them for a short time in order to print ... whenever I come up with money to have some more blog books printed, that is!

so, the update is:  the blog will remain public and you'll be seeing pics again soon, hopefully!!!

our trip: the Jelly Belly Factory!

 not too many pics here, but I was so excited when I realized that the Jelly Belly Factory was so near to where we were staying - I've wanted to go for a while!

 during the 40 minute tour you're not allowed any cameras - and that was what most of being there was!  it was really fun, too!  my kids surprised me - while waiting in line they were ALL acting up (even Liam, who -until that point- had consistently been given the "good egg award") ... but during the tour they were actually interested and behaved quite nicely!  afterward they went back to being little pills, so the gift shop was cut short!  we got five bags of belly flops (three were for teachers and friends), a bag of black licorice jelly beans for Nana, Liam got some bubbles, and the big kids each got a pen!

then we went back "home".  I was over it - the misbehavior, that is.  I decided they just needed a little play and chill out time!

p.s.  those bags of belly flops, we had two for us, lasted less than two weeks - LOL!!!

our trip: out and about!

 got to go to one of my all time faves!!!

and, just for kicks, a red walmart!

we decided to chill in the van while daddy did a bit

of shopping ... oh the fun this was!!!