My older daughter and her husband are pregnant......I'M GOING TO BE A GRANDMA!!

She was thinking it would come the middle of May, but they were doing an external exam, they thought she was further along....more like April. She will have a more complete exam in November.

So now I need to figure out what I want to be called. Granny and NaNa are already taken. Someone suggested MeeMaw......any others??

I am so excited....have known for a few weeks, but had been sworn to keep it a secret.

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......just very busy. My husband will know Friday if he gets this one job in San Francisco area. Please Lord, we need a job.......

Update:

It's Tuesday and we never heard from that job. I guess instead they will send a "I'm sorry but you didn't get the job" letter soon. But my husband still manages to see a light at the  end of the tunnel. He said he found some more leads. Will see. For me, the tunnel looks dark and hopeless right now.....

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Yes, I'm kind of up to my ears in wedding decorating. Not only is my own daughter getting married the end of September, but I was asked to do the decorating for another girls wedding from the church. Our families have been close since we moved to this area, our girls are like sisters. Her wedding is next weekend, so I've been kind of concentrating on hers today.

So today I went shopping for the last bit of stuff. For the wedding itself, she just wanted an arch, which were renting, with vines and red carnations. Then she also wanted pew bows, and I had to get the flowergirls baskets and petals.

For the reception, the tables will be set up in threes. In the center will be a bridesmaid boquet, then a few votives off each side, then a bud vase with two carnations, and a few more votives. Also red petals will be sprinkled down the center and there are also bells that I have been putting their name and date on (still working on this). I also have to wrap a box for the cards. Nothing extravagant, just had to do the finishing shopping. The hardest part was finding the right red, not Christmas red, more like a burgandy red.  She's expecting 200 guest.

For my daughters wedding, were only having around 60 guest. Tomorrow the m-i-l and I are putting together  corsages and maybe the bridemaid's flowers. We bought the boutineers already made at Walmart for $2 each, and my mother had made the brides flowers about a month ago and sent them. My daughter has terrible alergies, so there won't be any real flowers, it's also cheeper.

I'm also going to make the bridemaid (sister to girl getting married next week) and flowergirl (my youngest daughter) their dresses. I really need to get started on those next week.

I also need to finish making and sending "shower invitations" out. Got about 35 sent today, have another 35 to do tomorrow.

So this is just one of my many things I'm involved in right now. I happen to be one of those people who have to have my hands in everything. But I'm also a great procratinator, so this can be kind of stressing at times. But things are going well right now. Friday I will for sure be stressing.

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Yes, my husband is still looking for work. He has been out of work since early March. He has been diligently looking ever since. Mostly within a 60 mile radius of our home, but also out of our state too. Yesterday he took a skill test for an apparatus company, wish I knew what that was, not really important. It's an hour away, but in a cute little town. We drove through several neighborhoods, didn't see a junky house. Some may have needed some paint, maintance, but they had clean yards. Wouldn't mind selling and moving there.

He also has a phone interview on Monday with the state college for their power plant. This is about 40 minutes away.

At any rate, we will sell our present home when he finds something. We want to find something much cheeper, maybe even smaller. Come September we will be down to 3 people, so we really don't need 4/5 bedrooms anymore.

So thats where we are at right now.....

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I came home from Bible class last to dd-19 and her boyfriend, who told me they were getting married. Actually dd hemmed and hawed for about 15 minutes till she got it out. Then we went to talk to husband, who just kept talking and making conversation so that fiance couldn't get a word in. (he could actually go on for hours). Finally fiance was ablet to ask. Of course we've known this was going to happen for quite a while.

So....how do you do a cheap wedding??

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Well, it has been about 3 weeks since husband lost his job. Nothing has come his way yet. We were really hoping for a job with the water dept. in a nearby town, but they appearently hired someone else. He will be going to take a civil test on Saturday, hope that will result in something.

I do have to say though, I really have enjoyed having him around. I've always thought that when he retired he would drive me nuts being home all day. I think we get along better than ever. So now I am looking forward to that day down the road when he does retire, we should have a lot of fun.

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......for a good week. We had that upper respiratory stuff. It didn't help that I started with a 2 day migrain and ended with a 2 day migrain. I can still feel it in my chest, but everyone is doing much better.

Saturday was our piano recital, dd-7 went with daddy, while I stayed home with  a migrain. Not only did I miss her playing, but I didn't get to play my recital. I would have been the only adult with 11 other kids. No pressure there. Now I'm trying to get in contact with the teacher and let her know we won't be doing lessons for awhile with my husband out of work. By the time you figure gas and cost of lesson, were talking a good $100 a month. I'll continue praticing and teaching dd-7. Then after he gets a job, well start up again. Luckly she is a very understanding person and does this because she enjoys it, not because she has too.

My husband is doing a great job looking for work and taking care of things like medical. He's spending 8 hours a day working on this. We found out that all this time we had insurance through the military and didn't even know about it. That we could have used them as a second insurance to cover cost. Bummer. Thats the bad thing about living in an area with no military. In Washington, I would have found out about this just by talking to other retired military wives right away.  I found out that the meds I take for migrain will be $9 for 90 day supply. It has been costing me with insurance $50/month. This is good.

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....or should I say "lack of". Yes, he was officially fired Thursday afternoon. It doesn't look good if you have two accidents in 5 years with the company truck. In a way, he says he's relieved. He said he has hated this job for a long long time. He does get pay till the end of the month, so that is great. I haven't actually sat down and checked the figures yet, but we will be fine for the next 6-8 weeks. Hopefully he will find something by then. Then of course, it depends on whether he makes near the same or not as to if we will need to sell the house and find something smaller. Ladies, that will be fine with me. Our house is way too big with way too much stuff, I would love to downsize. Anyways, things will work out fine, we just have to be patient and pray that we will be able to handle anything thrown our way in the way that God would expect us too.

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I wrote that my husband rear ended someone on Thursday. He went to work Friday,  then called me at 1pm to come pick him up. They have put him on Administration Leave till they can give him more answers concerning his job. There is a good chance that he will be asked to leave/fired.

I feel so sorry for him, he is so dissappointed in himself, told me that he has failed us.  I told him no, that he hasn't failed us, he has always been a good provider, and I KNOW he will continue to do so. I don't think he will have a hard time finding another job. The man has been running plants that produce oxygen for foundries, hospitals, paper factorys for the past 8 years. He retired from the milatary before that. So I know that things will be fine.

We also have enought put away to support us for two months, not counting unemployment. Food: we have a whole freezer full of meat, so we just don't need to spend too much there.

O.K., I know I'm getting alittle ahead of myself. We won't know anything till Monday. But this is when I do my planning. Need to know our options.

Will let you know more on Monday......

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.......he rear ended another vehicle with the company truck, not good. He has been with this company for 8 1/2 years and this is his 3rd accident. Now I have to say that these are the only time in his 35 years of driving.  The other two times...once for going into the ditch so that he wouldn't hit a car , loaded with a bunch of young kids, who cut him off. And then another time, a truck hit him.

He says he thinks he's going to have to start working on his reseme', he's sure he's going to be asked to leave/let go/ fired. He was planning on leaving at 10 years anyways, would have qualified for a partial retirement. Now he won't get that, that might mean I would have to find a part time job. Have to wait and see.

Told him not to worry about it, things will work out. Hey, we have a pop-up tent we can live in once it warms up.......of course we still have two feet of snow on the ground, so it may take awhile. lol....

Things will work out, just need to leave it in Gods hands, he will take care of us.

Might want to keep dd-19 away from him tonight, don't need her smarting off to right now.

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My daughter, who will be 19 on Sunday, has been going around leaping instead of walking. She told me it was leap year and this is how your suppose to get around on leap year.

                                     Happy Leap Year!

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We took her car in on Tuesday I believe to be fixed. It wouldn't start for some reason after sitting in minus degree weather all Saturday night. They called on Wednesday to say it was ready and I went down with her, gave them the $88, there was a bad fuse. Then I left, she was meeting us at the church building to help me clean it. After I got there and started cleaning, about 15 minutes later she walked in. She said that one of the mechanics gave her a ride there, her car wouldn't start. So they worked on it more and on Thursday called to say they wanted to keep it overnight to make sure it started in the morning. Appearently, were the fuse is, there was some moisture in there and it was freezing. So Friday I took her back to pick up her car, no charge this time. Its running fine now.

I'm so glad that I don't have to share my car with her anymore. It's awfull to have to asked your daughter permission to use your own car. She used mine to get to work while hers was in the shop.

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Our was great! Our ds-22 came over Christmas Eve to spend the night. Him and dh went out to do last minute shopping, I completely forgot dd-18 present from Santa. Not a good thing. Then we played cards for a couple hours after dd-6 went to bed. Of course we then had to put everything  under the tree and in the stockings.

Christmas morning I made waffle with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast. We opened all our gifts. What a mess. DD-6 got her doll she wanted and an e-pet. Dh and I got over a $100 worth of gift cards from the kids (including our want to be daughter) for different resturants, Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Famous Daves. They included babysitting with it. Dh and I got ourselves some workshop tools, a scrollsaw (my choice) and a mitersaw (his choice). By the way, we have no clue what we are doing with these, just thought we would start a new hobby. Dd-18 got her guitar stuff, and ds-22 got a gift card to a clothing store he really wanted to go to. Oh, and my mom got me a 2 foot cream winter snowman, I'm going to leave it up for a while, he just looks wintery and we are diffinately haveing winter.

Dd-18's boyfriend came over also. He got her....well let me explaine it this way. The card said something about how a guy should always get his girl a flower.........in the package was a bag of FLOUR!

Then we went to our friends house, we have been doing this for the past 8 years. We had a great meal, fellowship, dessert, and played games.

Back at home, in bed by 9:00........

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Just wanted to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We had a great snow yesterday, didn't make it to services because of the snow. I was a little worried about there being no snowed because it had rained Saturday. But now we are going to have  a white Chrismas. Yea.

I have to get some stocking stuffer shopping done this morning, but then I am done. Our ds-22 is coming over tonight to spend the night over and wake up with us tomorrow. I think it's more for his little sister than anything. I hoping we will play some card games tonight, I really miss doing that.

Tomorrow dd-18's boyfriend will be coming over. We will have a late breakfast of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon, sausage, eggs, juice.......and will just snack the rest of the morning. Around 12:00 were going to some friends house for dinner. We have been gong there since we first moved here 8 years ago. We just have a lot of fun playing games. It will be nicer for our dd-6 this year, as their granddaughter is closer to two now and will be able to play with more. Sometimes it's not so fun when your the only child with a dozen teens/adults.

Friday dd-6 will be having her sleepover for her 7th birthday. This is the first sleepover ever. Hope it goes well, I think we will only have maybe 3 show up. But this will be fine for us. I bought some of those beads that you place on shapes and then iron them. We'll put string on them so they can hang them up. Of course there is popcorn and a movie, playing out in the snow, dolls, who knows what else.

      Merry Christmas.......

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We took a trip to southern Minnisota this weekend to visit with my husbands sister and family, and his mother. We decided that it was the best time to get together for our family Christmas. I volunteered to bring breakfast for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I made suasage gravy and buscuits, pumpkin pancakes with bacon, and farmers casserole. Everyone really liked it all. I also taught my sil how to make homemade noodles and turkey soup.

My bil had made an ice rink in their back yard, they are intense hockey players, so this is a must. DD-6 had her first try at skating. First she used a folding chair for support, then she was off on her own. Bil said most kids her age take about 20 or more minutes to get the hang of it, she did it in 3. We have a lake out here that they clear every year for skating, I'll have to take her out a few times.

We brought home dh mother for  the week, she actually lives in Mussourri (where is spell check on this thing?), but her daughter picked her up to join everyone. So I will be entertaining her this week, then on Friday we will meet half way for lunch and pass her back to sil.

When we woke up Monday to come home it was so beautiful. All the trees were white. What a site.

I'm planning on getting pictures together for another post. Have to wait till dd-18 gets home. I wish she would write directions down for me. I can get them from computer to blog, just don't know how to get from camara to computer. I know, it's easy, but I really need for her to walk me through it instead of doing it for me.

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It kindof started Thursday, just felt nervous, just kind of fumbling through things. I went to my piano lesson, let her know from the start that I just wasn't myself that morning. I managed to get through the lesson. Luckly we've been going to her for the past 6 years, she is such a dear. By Saturday morning I was a mess. Saturday was the 10th anniversary of our son birth/death. I have never reacted like this since his death. I couldn't stop crying, there was nothing I could do to stop. I called a friend of mine to cancel dinner plan that evening. Mainly because I  called 10 people and couldn't find a babystter, and then I broke down and cried to her. I finally told her that my baby died 10 years ago. And so she talked to me for awhile. It took about another hour to get a hold of myself. (Where was hubby? He was at work) I guess I just needed to verbally express my loss. I was much better the rest of the day, seems that was the end of it. We did go out with all our friends, my one friend insisted on it even if we needed to bring our daughter, which we did.

It's hard. No one in my family says anything, or as far as I know even remembers. I went into labor at 36 weeks, we were actually planning an inducement that morning. He was breeched, but it was an easy delivery. He only lived for one hour. We were somewhat prepared for this. We found out at 16 weeks that he had Potters Syndrone. So we knew he wouldn't live. I still made sure I knew him well during the remander 20 weeks of my pregnancy, I knew that this was the only time I would have with him. We named him early on in the pregnancy, Sammy. Acutually Samuel David. But we always called him Sammy, and when we do refer to him, it's Sammy.

Anyways, I'm much better today. It was just unusual for me to react like that. December is a very stressfull month for me anyways, so that doesn't help.

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Afew weeks ago my daughters Bible class teacher was coming toward me giggling. This usually makes me nervous, who knows what she has done now. They were singing that song, "Be careful little......". When they got to little mouth, she wispered to her teacher that she really needed to work on that one.

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This is a picture of us back in 1993? They would have been 6 and 3.

This is what he looks like now. They sure do grow up... 

 Yes, they are in our ugly basement.

Happy Birthday to my Baby Boy!

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