Goodbye Briggs:(

So even after potting training, behavior training, having chewed up everything from shoes to couches none of that would have made us get rid of Briggs. It came down to the nipping at the kids and drawing blood on three of them that made us finally realize that we had to say goodbye to our family dog Briggs, or Briggers as we loved calling him! We took him back to the humane society today and cried pretty much the rest of the day on and off. Out of all the family it was Kenzie and I who had the hardest time, I think partly because he would sleep with me when Jason was gone during the week and Kenzie always played and loved on him the most. I had no idea how hard it would be.....I bawled like a baby. We are all praying that some hunter or family without small children will come and fall in love with him because for the most part he is an awesome dog! We went through all the hard stuff with him and still fell absolutely in love with him. He became part of our family. I must say though that I love my kids more than the dog and that is what it came down to....keeping them safe. He was getting way to aggressive and very territorial. As for getting another dog....I doubt that will happen any time soon, but atleast I know now that I am a dog person and I love them! They really do complete a family....he will surely be missed:(

We're alive!!

Okay so I know that it has been forever so I just wanted to give anyone out there still reading our blog a quick update: Jason started a new job 3 hours from here May 7th, in the mean time I have stayed back with the kids and tryed selling our home, which in this sucky economy isn't working:( He is currently living with my older sister and hubby and 3 girls and comes home to us every weekend. We prayed about this decision before we made it and he got the job he has wanted amazing quick so we jumped on it. As most of you know we live an hour from church and have been commuting for almost 2 years now back and forth every sunday.....well it was really wearing on us and so we thought about it and decided to pray about new employment where our church would be closer, it was either that or forget going and we thought our first thought was the better decision:) My sister lives in Gresham, WI which is 15 minutes from Shawano, WI where Jason is currently employed. We are in the process of trying to buy another home and crossing our fingers that we can!, if that falls through we will end up renting for a while because I am sure we will have to walk from this home:( I don't like the idea of it but in reality living with my husband and having our family back together is way more important than credit! I will say absence does make the heart grow fonder.....any of you our there a little sick of your hubby, take a little break from him and you will realize what it is like to be alone....not fun. I love Jason so much and the kids, well to put it lightly LOVE their dad and put up with their mom so it is extremely hard for them to be without the other "kid" in the family the "rough houser", their "playmate"! We will know soon whether or not we will be buying another home or renting in Gresham, WI which is the same city my older sister lives in and one hour from my mother, sister Liz and Matt and their adorable new little girl Kahlyn, and soon to be also my baby sister Trish and her fiance Gary! It will be even better living that much closer to family! And to add icing on the cake, church is right around the corner and it is an amazing ward! Since the gospel is such a huge part of our lives we knew we needed to make this move and even though it has been rough and tough we know in the end it will be well worth it!!

On an exciting note we are going to Arizona and Mexico from August 12th-23rd for our family vacation and get to go stay in my inlaws condo in Mexico for 4 days of it! I can't wait to kick back and relax a little and let the stress melt away! We are flying with the whole fam so we won't be stuck in a car for 28 hours!! Thanks to Jason's wonderful grandma and mom and dad! We feel so blessed to be able to go on this trip!!

Well that's all for now....I will try and post pics later but lets be honest it probably won't happen with everything going on! :)

been a while.....

So I know that it has been a while since I last blogged but truth is I post all my pics on facebook and I am just on there more so I sometimes forget about my blog:) I don't have time to recap everything that has been going on so I hope you'll forgive me:) I do keep up on all your blogs and love reading them when I have time. I will try to keep up on ours more often!

our sweet Landon!

Since we are always in the bathroom doing the girls hair and Weston combs his hair too, Landon has caught on to it and wants his hair done too. I took these pics before I cut his hair for the first time....he is such a ham! We love him soo much!

The Girls new room!

Jason and I decided that it was time to build on a room downstairs in the basement. Alyssa and Meckenzie loved the idea and this is the finished product! Thanks to my awesome friend Jen, the girls have adorable comforters to match and cute loopty loos on their wall:) My sister is making a curtain for the window and I have the girls names in vinyl I still have to put up.....so it will look even better later! The girls love having their privacy away from Olivia(she would get into all of their stuff) and now can stay up a little later reading etc. We feel very blessed to have been able to afford to do this and also so quickly! The contractors we found gave us an incredible rate that we couldn't pass up. Their room has its own heater so it stays really toasty down there even though it is really cold in the basement:) On the other side of the room on the outside is a closet to hang up winter stuff etc and has a door that goes up to the garage. That is why the room is shaped kind of funny. But the girls don't complain, they LOVE IT!

not so uplifting.....

So blogs are suppose to be a place where you can vent, express, or just plain write about anything and everything right?!? So I am writing mainly for myself, but also for others if they care to listen. I don't think anyone really looks at my blog too often anyways so this is safe:) So here goes: I am so very discouraged at this moment with myself. I was going along so well back in July when I was losing weight, feeling great and was able to run a 5k. Now I sit here having put on 15-20(I haven't weighed myself in a week) of the hard pds I lost and continue to feel so defeated I cannot seem to get back on track. It is frustrating to no end to continue on like this. The worst part is is that when I go to see friends or family that haven't seen me in awhile I feel like I don't want to go because of this suddon weight gain. It makes me feel trapped and mad at myself for letting myself slip back into my old habits when I was doing so great! I was so determined to be on the cover of people 1/2 their size, but I guess I didn't want it bad enough! Even after so many of you gave me great encouragement and pushed me along I still failed. So that's that......I just needed to vent, I know that I need to get over being mad and just get back on track and just say ENOUGH! Hopefully that will come sooner than later.

Halloween

This year Alyssa was the nerdiest nerd, Meckenzie a devilish devil, Weston was big bad Megatron, Olivia was the prettiest tinkerbell, and Landon the cutest spidey! We had alot of fun carving pumpkins going trick-or-treating with the kids! Jason stayed back for half of it passing out candy and he said he saw 100+ trick or treaters! We ran out of candy and had to go buy more! Anyway we can't believe that we have lived here for over a year! We love it so far and have made some wonderful friends!

Not private any longer

So facebook has been where I have been posting most of my pics and updates because it uploads faster.....I got lucky today and these pics actually uploaded yeah! So for all of you who wander why we don't update our blog it is because we update on facebook, but I am trying to do both:) I love coming here and reading everybody elses happenings so keep them coming:) Oh and we are not private anylonger.....I figured if I took out all of the personal info we would be safe:)

Our new puppy!

So we finally caved and got a puppy! We went to the Humaine Society and found our little guy Briggs! He is such a fun and exhausting addition to our family! I always have to watch him to make sure he doesn't chew on certain things and make sure he makes it outside to pee! It is just like having a newborn baby:) But we love him and are glad that we got him! They think he is a cross between a beagle and lab so he will get to be a good size but for now he is still small! He has the beagle floppy ears for sure and the tail, more of a lab nose and body! Our kids adore him, lets just hope it stays that way I am sure it will wear off:)

Alyssa'a first cross country meet!

Alyssa decided that she wanted to do Cross-country this year and they let 5th graders so we said give it a try! She loves running and really enjoys being part of the team! She ran her first meet in 17 minutes and some seconds....I can't remember exactly but it was around a mile and a 1/2 she actually ended up puking as she passed the finish line because she said she was so hot and really pushed herself! We were so proud of her! She is such an awesome kid!