È Finito  

Posted by: Stacy

Brent and I have gotten the long awaited (2 yrs. of waiting) $1900 swing set up for the kids. IT IS A HIT!! Thank you Home Depot! 4 swings, 2 towers, 1 rock wall, 1 bumpy slide, 1 turbo slide, a pirate’s wheel and a periscope is everything they had imagined! All that’s left to finish are the monkey bars. We have both been brainstorming though on making the underneath it all a sort of playhouse for them but that will be a surprise!



I will say, the “Build-In-A-Day” as it states on the DVD that comes with the 7 different books of instructions IS A JOKE! We spent one full day from 8:30 A.M. til after dark (roughly 7:30 P.M.) as well as two ½ days working on it. Build-in-a-day….WHATEVER!

I’m just so glad that it’s done, over with and the kids are in hog heaven! I’ve added a couple little signs to it and am still on the lookout for the Pirate flag to go on top of it. This of course was at the request of the kids.

“Mom. We can’t have a pirate ship without a pirate flag!”

Of course you can’t. How silly of me to think such a thing.

So the oldest 3 refer to it (most of the time) as the “pirate ship.” While the youngest insists that it’s HER “Tasle.” (Translation: ‘Castle.’) Then there are the days when it’s an Art class with Ashlyn as the teacher and Payten as the sole pupil. I can’t leave out when it’s transformed into spy headquarters and packed with all sorts of ‘spy gear’; (working) walkie talkies, binoculars (night vision at that), watches, ropes, alarms that sound should you touch the red beam (thank you Burger King kids meal for those annoying little buggers). Yep, that’s right. I have my very own ‘Spy Kids.’ Who needs the movies when I can just sit outside and watch it live?!

All in all, it was well worth the money and well worth the wait!




Remembering Macy Ann  

Posted by: Stacy

My Macy Ann:

Beautiful. Deep dark red. Faithful. Friendly. Loving. Stubborn. Relentless. Spunky. Playful. Energetic and so much more. We miss you baby girl more than anyone can imagine, more than anyone will ever know. If I could turn back time…

We all still miss you Macy in our own way. It’s hard to believe that you have been gone now for 2 months, but yet it seems longer.

The kids miss you running with them outside, giving you treats and chews because you were always so excited to get one! They miss taking you on car rides because the way you would hang your head out the window reminded them of ‘Wonder Dog.’ Daddy misses you because you were so loyal to him and stayed by his side when he was home. He misses you lying in between his legs at bedtime (even though after he was fast asleep you would come join me in the living room watching t.v.) Chunky misses you in a way that he can not tell us. He mourns you more than anyone I’m sure. He has lost his best friend and his mother. His eyes often stay wet with tears. He doesn’t care to chew his chews or to mess with any toys. He still eats from his bowl the same way he did when the two of you shared it; grabbing a mouthful of kibble and dropping it on the carpet to eat (because you hogged the bowl). Piper now has no one to try to pick a fight with as Chunky’s just too laid back to do that.

I long to see you run to the pile of clothes in the floor freshly warm from the dryer burrowing in them and to hear the squeak of your favorite duck toy that is now safely put away in my dresser drawer. I miss my cuddle buddy at bedtime. It is awfully lonely now as Chunky doesn’t like to lay with anyone. I miss hearing your bark, even though at times I found it annoying. I miss how happy you were to see me when I would come home.

I’m sorry Macy Ann that this happened to you. It wasn’t supposed to be like this and I am so regretful everyday. I blame myself a lot and sometimes I can’t hardly stand it.

I know how you were with critters though. You loved to chase them and were relentless when you found one. Not letting up on leaving it alone. I remember when you found that big toad and tried to play with it in your mouth. I knew you weren’t going to eat it, but it didn’t know that. He gave you a taste of some nasty stuff but you still wouldn’t give up on making him hop as fast as he could go and trying to carry him off. Frothing at the mouth was nothing to you!

Then came the day, August 3rd , that you came across something far more dangerous than a little toad. We have never found the snake that killed you Macy but we do still look for it as Chunky & Piper act funny around the area of the shop, growling and their hair standing up. I can only imagine that you were really letting that thing have it.

I’m so sorry baby girl that I didn’t find you sooner. I’m sorry that the first asshole we took you to turned us away. I believe you would have made it if he had seen you. I’m sorry the second selfish bastard wanted his money before he would help you live. I’m sorry I didn’t grab my wallet or my cell phone when we left to take you to a doctor. All I could think of was saving your life. I’m sorry that he made me leave you there. I’m sorry that I missed his call on my cell even though I TOLD him I didn’t have it and we lived almost an hour away. I’m sorry that Mommy wasn’t there to hold you at the end of your life. This has been the hardest thing for me; knowing that you were in a strange place, in so much pain and I wasn’t there to hold you and talk to you. To hear that we had lost you…..just didn’t seem real. It felt like….I was watching myself go through all this and it just was a dream of some sort.

All we have left of you are the memories; from when you were just a tiny little 5 week old pup to when you were entering your senior years at 7 ½. You were cremated as I couldn’t bear the thought of burying you. It was hard to let them have you knowing that all we would get back was ashes. The girls picked your urn, a pretty little cherry box with paw prints on it. You now sit on the end table in the living room because I know how you loved to be where everyone was. Ashlyn has placed some tiny silk flowers on top and wrote a little book about you. Your collar still sits where it was the last time I took it off of you.

McKinnley believes that you have become a beautiful butterfly as they are always fluttering around the truck when we get ready to go on short rides and are taking Chunky. We like to think that is you telling us that you are here with us.

Until we see each other again my little fat girl, Macy Ann, I love you and miss you terribly.

Rest in Peace baby girl.

The Happenings  

Posted by: Stacy in ,

Well, well, well. It’s been a while since my last blog. Of course I have good reasons as to why I haven’t blogged in a bit. This blog will fill you in on all the changes in mine and my family’s life. So read on!

My blog originally went under construction back in July. It was a mess to say the least! The template I had selected was apparently just a big clusterf@ck and didn’t want to cooperate. Poor Lisa. Try as she might, it just wasn’t going to work! Thanks for trying though Lis! Sharon was nice enough to fix this one up and it looks quite lovely if I do say so myself!! Thank you Sharon! Now if I can just figure out the Photoshop Brent got me for my birthday I’ll be good to go!

We have moved. It seems that this was the longest move in our history of moving and we didn’t go far! Maybe 10 minutes up the road, but it still took us 2 weeks to get completely moved from one house to the other. Ugh. Unpacking boxes sucks as anyone that has moved a time or three can tell ya!

We have lost 2 pets since moving. I will talk about that in another blog because they are more to me than a paragraph in an update. It has been very hard and we are all still very much mourning the losses.

The rugrats have started another year of school. Summer went by way too fast for us all. The boy is in the 4th grade this year and LOVING it! He loves his teacher and is doing fabulous with his grades. The girls are now in the 3rd grade and are also doing brilliant! It makes the school year so much easier when your kids like their teachers and actually enjoy going to school. Knock on wood ;)

With much thought and consideration, I brought a new furball into the clan. More to come on this addition later.

I must close for now as the little princess is acting like a diva!