helping the hungry

My sister, Raegen, was interviewed for a local news program. Very excited to see her on the news.

paint that ceiling!

How awesome is this guy?! He did a spectacular job!

i hate popcorn!

Last night, we began the scraping of the popcorn. I had a stubborn, "I want my life pre-accident back" moment and began to scrape the ceiling. Big mistake. I was a mere 25 minutes into the scrape, when somehow, I managed to slice open my middle finger, on my left hand. I am positive that I should've gotten stitches. However, super hero Clyde to the rescue. He got me some liquid stitch, that burns like a sunava, and glued the gash closed. He even bandaged me up and banished me out of the room. Libby had already begun to help me and stayed on to help finish scraping the ceiling. The other wardling took symapthy on their weepy mother and finished cleaning the downstairs for me. I got loads of hugs and kisses.

move over 2009 yellow

So, after a few years, I'm not feeling the yellow in our office (aka the red room). I painted it yellow in 2009...as seen here. Clyde and I and made an agreement to make our lives better organized, with this will come a new red room make-over. stay posted.

holy crow batman, he's 8!

Jacob is 8! For the Wardlings' birthdays we let them choose what they'd like for dinner. Jacob wanted a fish dinner.

 He ordered salmon and ate every scrap. He even finished mine.

 I think that he was excited about his legos.

 He still likes the star wars action figures. Of course Hasbro has a new series of them. Now Jacob wants all of them. This'll be a good start.

 Jacob doesn't like cake. He actually gets angry when mentioning cake. He wanted ice cream, so ice cream it was. Clyde sweet talked the gal at mickey D's to add M&Ms to his sundae.  He was happy!

Happy birthday to our Jacob!

the new blue

Since the accident, our lives have been turned up by 10,000 notches. There have been hundreds of phone calls made, need of a rental car, papers that needed to be signed, notarized, faxed, and mailed. Doctor appointments every.single.day. Oh and somewhere in the mix, we needed to find and buy a new van. Clyde and I looked and test drove alot of vans. We went to several dealerships here in the Emerald City and looked at dozens of dealerships on line. We are still getting hounded by a few dealerships to this day. We went to Kia (twice), Toyota (twice), Pre-Owned Toyota (twice), Honda,  & CarMax (twice). I even drug a friend along with me for the Pre-owned Toyota test drives. In the end our favorites were the kick rear Toyota Siennas. We loved the middle roll-down windows, the heaviness of the van, the window shades, the leather seating, the nifty space saving trunk area, the luggage racks, safety rating and the list goes on and on. However, the brand spankin new Toyotas were a bit out of our financial reach. Clyde and I aren't fussy people with our cars. We have had the base models before and have been very happy. After the accident, I totally reconsidered Kia. It was an awesome van, one that I'd still be driving, had it not been for the accident, but with airbags not deploying & the middle bench seat becoming disengaged, it's safety made it on my poop list. So, when we stumbled across the Chrysler Town and Country, touring edition, we were very happy. It had all the Toyota-ness that we liked plus everything one could imagine in a car...completely loaded!  It had relatively low miles and an awesome warranty. We were thrilled.

I am not happy to have car payments again, but this car makes it well worth the money. It feels sturdy and safe and I like that. The little Wardlings and I are still a bit nervous/ wary of riding in a car. Hopefully with some time and daily Chiropractic care, all wounds will be healed.

our Penny is 6!

On the morning of Penny's 6th birthday, Libby curled her hair.

Penny wanted to ride the bus to school that morning. Josh and Jacob were good sports in giving her this present and riding the bus with her.

 She loves yellow and Belle. Grammy and Papa gave her Belle. Thank you!!

 She wanted a Belle cake. This was my best attempt. Penny loved it!

She has Bieber Fever!

AND, she got these...

Happy birthday our sweet Penny!

My birthday was the day before Penny's. The accident put a wet blanket on my day. I spent the majority of my day in the chiropractor's office and running errands, with my wee pal, M. When Clyde came home from work, he baked me some fabulous brownies and took me out to dinner. He surprised me with a cool musical gift the next day! I.am.in.love! I love you Clyde! Thank You!  My mom came today and gave me a beautiful new white Temple dress that she made and treated me to lunch. Love you Mom and Dad! 

car crash

We were in a car crash on the 3rd of September, old news if you saw pix on FB. I have to say that car crashes are no fun. We were traveling from the Emerald City to the mountains for baby E's blessing. While driving on I-40, through Statesville, Clyde noticed that a white van in front of us had his brake lights on. Clyde began to slow down. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the van wasn't just slowing down, but was completely stopped. Clyde then slammed on the brakes. I really thought that we were going to stop. I thought that it was going to be a close call, but that we were going to stop. Clyde did everything in his power to get the van to stop, but couldn't. Before we hit the van in front of us, he said, "I'm sorry!, I'm Sorry!" to us in the van. He then reached over with his right hand to hold me back. I saw the car and the accident happen. It was so scary! Once we hit, both Clyde and I turned around to check on the 3 youngest Wardlings that we had with us. Once we saw that they were ok, Clyde jumps outta the van and starts in on the man. I have rarely heard such expletives come from my sweetums' mouth. My reaction was to write down the man's tag numbers in fear that he would drive away. I spent the majority of my time on the phone with 911 and with our insurance. Police were on the scene within 15 minutes. Meanwhile more words were exchanged. It is important to note that the man was stopped for no apparent reason. There wasn't a car, a deer, a child in front of him. We think that since he lived in Charlotte that he had missed his exit and thought that he could stop and make his way across the interstate.

The biggest blessing to us was that an older man who witnessed the whole accident, stopped and stayed until police arrived, and gave his statement and is even willing to testify in court, if need be, in our defense. He even risked his life, standing on the freeway under the bridge, to motion others to go around us. (What was so amazing was that we were getting yelled at by cars on the highway and not in a good way.) He was our saving grace! He'll be getting a sweet fruit basket from us.

The police gave the driver of the white van a citation. The man wasn't kind and was quite belligerent. The police told him that if he wasn't going to cooperate that they would arrest him and bring him before the magistrate on Tuesday.

      Here our van is bleeding to death...

This is the other van. Hardly a scratch!

                        These are our skid marks.

This could not have come at the worst time. It was Labor day weekend with all rental car places closed. I had envisioned, a car rental place coming to pick us up and we'd be on our way. Totally wrong. We caught a ride from one of the 3 police officers and the rest of us piled into the back of the tow truck. (The below picture is one that I took while in the back seat of the tow truck.) He dropped us off at a close Wal-Mart, where we emptied out the van and waited, still in shock and misbelief.

So @ this point we were on foot. We were everso grateful for Maylee's Jared for coming to get us, because we looked absolutely pitiful with our belongings in a shopping cart. With all the rental car places closed and after telling our insurance agent to get on the ball, we found a car rental place in Asheville. Jared dropped us off at a hotel, then he and Clyde made the extra hour long journey into the Asheville airport to get a car, so we'd have transportation home. (Thank you Jared and Maylee!)

Thankfully we were all ok. I was able to get the Wardlings in to see their pediatrician, and they all checked out fine. They are still a bit traumatized when getting in a car. They have all had bad dreams about the wreck and Jacob has realized his mortality. A big thing to a 7 year old, or anyone really. Clyde and I have been seeing a chiropractor. My recovery is going to be long process. I have been feeling pain in my lower neck and right shoulder, that is causing tingles down my right arm and into my pinky and ring fingers. My lower back is also being treated for injuries. Clyde is healing up a bit faster, which is awesome!

I must say a huge Thank you to Cheryl for giving me a lift to the rental car place! I really appreciated you coming to my aid! xo!!

E's blessing

Baby E's blessing was Sunday. As with Baby Z, I got to make his blessing clothing. I think it turned out so cute with his bowtie and vest.

Here we are with Jared's family as well as ours. We are missing several people. It would be nice to have everyone together in entirety some day.

Maylee and Jared with their babies.

hello september

After school yesterday, Josh was a bit upset. He said that when the class lined up to go outside to leave for the day, a girl was tugging on his backpack. He turned around and asked her to stop a few times. His teacher then reprimanded Josh for talking. When Josh attempted to tell his teacher why he was talking, she said, "Don't talk back! I'll tell your Mom that you were misbehaving!" This didn't sit well with me. I have no problem with a teacher or church leader telling my children to stop talking, when it is justified. Here Josh was, being bullied of sorts and he gets into trouble for telling the girl to stop? I sent a note to his teacher this morning, which I'm sure will get a response from her this afternoon.