We actually took a family picture!

Even though it's not at the quality I would prefer, it was a Mother's Day miracle that they were all looking at the self-timed camera without me having to photoshop their eyes open ;D!

I LOVE my mom

My mom is so good. I was totally going to blog about how awful my life is, how nerdy I am, how depressing it is to be me. . . (don't tell me you haven't felt that way). Anyway, just before I posted about a page and a half of "it's not worth it to get out of bed," "I'm not qualified to be a wife/mother/friend," and "woe is me," my mom called.

As you can see, I did NOT post the first post.

Mom makes me feel so much better. I feel awkward sometimes--like when people find out how old I am. Especially when they know that I have two kids. I was feeling totally inadequate about being a parent (or anything, really)--and SUPER uncomfortable about facing any new social settings where I would feel that way again.

Leave it to mom. Somehow she took me out of a deep funk of self-pity (seriously, there were tears--and I'm not the type that cries easily), and she reminded me that I am a cool person/friend/wife/mother. I make mistakes (and I really totally am a nerd), but when my heart is in the right place--the rest of me will be too.

I LOVE MY MOM

Procrastinating Blogging Anything Useful

I guess I forgot that the holidays get busy. I keep planning on doing all of these fun things (as well as all of the not-so-fun things), but less than half of them seem to get done. One cool thing I've been able to do was "doctor up" (I'm not feeling bitter or anything that Robert is well on his way to getting a D.O. and I don't even have a B.A.) some old family photos. If they ever had copyrights, they expired around 10 to 50 years ago. I wanted to print them out, but Wal-Mart wouldn't let me. THEY AREN'T COPYRIGHTED ANYMORE! (Excuse me... I'm venting.) I wanted to print them out to put up for Halloween--since old picture kind of look creepy. Anyways, our camera broke :P, so these pics will have to work until I can get some more of the kids (at least after I catch up, but I don't wanna do that now). Well... here are the ones I have that Wal-Mart wouldn't print (*Shaking fist and searching for copyright law). And I promise to put up pics of the kids soon... errrmmm... relatively soon.


My Grandma Alice Edna Horrocks. Age 19... Pic taken 1926.

Grandpa Harvey Clark Gardner

Aunts Vontella, Verla, Ilene, Uncles Eldon, Larry (Dad wasn't born yet).

Same people--different picture.

My cute dad. (His picture was ruined, but I fixed his face and the backdrop. Yay for photoshop!)

Grandma and Grandpa Gardner (He died right after my parents married--never met him)

Some people I should know on my Mom's side.


Some more of Mom's fam that I SHOULD know.

One of the boys is Mom's Grandpa.

The cute girl in the middle is my Mom's Mom.

P.S. I'm working on my Mom's side--I WILL know who these people are soon. AND... I'll be taking some of them to the temple with me in November....(*insert utter excitement here!)

Glum, Glum (aka, don't read if you are susceptible to depression)

Okay, lately I've been in some sort of deep funk... I can't seem to do anything (at least not well), or turn my thoughts into more productive ones. Berate, Berate, Berate. (But Hey, at least I'm not interrupting people as much :D). So, I'm way behind on posting. I was going to sit down and throw up a few scrapbook pages, maybe talk about how awesome the plans I have to decorate my house are, ummm... I'm sure there was something else..., but really I don't feel like posting much right now. So here are a few pictures--you can make of them what you will. I might go take a nap.
Robert made good bread--4 loaves
Seth came to visit and interview at LECOM. Keep your fingers crossed.
My fairy prince. Apparently, when he sleeps, his wings come out. (*picture not staged--notice the princess blanket and dragon)
Our new floor.
Asbury park. They have cool puppets.

Fnow! (not a typo, that's how she says it)

Sorry this is so long... Believe it or not, I cut a lot of cute stuff out of it. If you make it to the end, my favorite part is where I tell her she can play in the snow if she can find some and she smiles a little. My hope is that at least the grandmas will watch it... we'll see. I think the end is pretty funny. Joanna was having a bad day. She was incredibly whiny that day (I guess I shouldn't think that's cute, but it is) asking for her "pink coat," not the purple one that we bought last spring. I should've known what was up. As soon as I let her put it on, she wanted snow! It's barely September!! It was too funny, so before I answered her, I took off her coat, grabbed the camera and started over--this is what followed.

Corning Museum of Glass

We were headed to the Stake Temple trip in Palmyra, and decided to leave a day early so we could go camping and see this neat museum that a friend from Robert's class had mentioned. We got to Corning (aka the "crystal city") later than we hoped. So, we stopped by the gift shop and planned to visit the museum later (Of course the gift shop was enough--we spent an hour there). We took a few brochures. It looks like you can blow your own glass--something Robert and I have always wanted to do. We will definitely be coming back!

Celebrate Erie

They closed off a few blocks downtown over the weekend for this giant city party. (Seriously, it was HUGE. And by nightfall the whole place was so packed we had a hard time getting out of there.) "The Foreigner" played (don't ask me, my favorite musical group was probably "Barney and Friends" the same time this band was popular, but a lot of people seemed excited about them). It was a lot of fun (and apparently we missed all the good stuff like the children's museum games because we got there so late, and the fireworks because they were on Sunday). They had a chalk walk all down one block. The pictures were pretty neat--there are some really good artists here. Next year we'll have to do more there.

Presque Isle

Sunday it stormed. We took Michelle to see the beach, but the storm brought in a bunch of garbage. There were dead fish everywhere and a dead bird we figured must have drowned in the storm and then washed up on shore. It was a little creepy.

Palmyra and the Temple

Robert and I haven't been able to go to the temple for a long time. Things got way too busy with school and the kids and then moving. However, since Michelle was here, we were able to take a babysitter with us instead of having to leave the kids for eight hours (six hours driving), which is something difficult for a nursing mother. Before we did a session, Michelle went in and we waited for her by taking a stroll through the sacred grove.

The Spirit is strong here. It feels as if Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ and the Father only a week ago instead of coming on two centuries.

Michelle and Kirtland

Michelle came to visit us before she goes to serve a mission in Brussels, Belgium. Robert had school, so I went and picked her up from the Cleveland airport. (I only got lost once. . . hee, hee) We stopped in Kirtland and took the tour. (Kirtland is a place in Ohio where the early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gathered together). It is so good to be with Michelle.

Mish Dish

We had the missionaries over for dinner (this is actually the 2nd time). We had fun. They are really funny. Early Joanna, Eenie, and I went to the beach with a group of women from church--but I forgot my camera (sad day).

Peanut Pork BBQ with Raisins

Robert wanted BBQ for Sunday Dinner. We didn't have any BBQ sauce. . . so I did the best I could. Usually you use brown sugar, ketchup and mustard for BBQ. I had maple syrup, ketchup and honey mustard. It ended up smelling oriental so I added peanuts and raisins. It was pretty good. Next time I won't put ketchup in it, though.

"Breaking Dawn" at midnight

So we all had fun going to the "Breaking Dawn" party. It's another one of those things I've always wanted to do--go to a midnight premier. I went with Cicely Cain and Emily Hurst, and at the end we met some of the other girls from church. I loved the book. I stayed up late each night so I could read it without the kids needing me. Edward and Bella make me so happy. Their romance is something special and it reminds me how special my own is with Robert. In fact, if Robert were a vampire. . . well, maybe I shouldn't finish that thought.

Lecom Luau

There are so many cool people here. We went to a luau for the LECOM students. Don't Eenie and Daddy look fantastic. The friends in these pictures are also from church. We've felt so welcome here. After the luau some of us went to the beach. Joanna just played on her own in the sand. She loves the beach.

Mommy's Makeover

I was starting to feel like I had lost all things feminine about me. It's been too humid for me to do anything with my long hair and it's been easier to just borrow some of Robert's t-shirts than look through my own closet (a disaster area thus far). I felt more like a crumpled old napkin than a person (of course that could be because things get wiped on me a lot). Then I had an epiphany. Hiedi went shoe shopping with me and I got these drop dead gorgeous heels. When I came home--I chopped off my hair. I always wanted to give myself a haircut. Robert did help a little, though. Actually, that's another part of my makeover. . . I'm going to do one thing each week that I've always wanted to do. So far it's been super simple and I feel so good about life. Everyone should get to live this way!

The Children's Museum

There were a lot of neat things at The Pittsburg Children's Museum. I really liked the gravity room, these neat discs with sand that you spin, and some of the weird instruments. The drum thing Eenie is sitting on has holes in the top where you drop rocks and they hit nails as they tinker down the sides. There's another Children's Museum in Erie. I might get a membership if it's as cool as this one was.

Pittsburg Vacation

We went with Hiedi to see Pittsburg. In the hotel we all had Dead Sea mud facials from the mud Hiedi got on her trip there. The Children's Museum had a Mister Rogers Display. Joanna had fun.

Painting!

Of course Joanna wanted to help us paint. She did a pretty good job. We probably should have moved that pillow before she started, though. Oh well, nothing happened to it. We painted most of the house beige, but there's also some blue and green.