Up Up and Away

For the second year in a row at Vacation Bible School we have done a "balloon" sendoff for whatever grade we have been teaching. This year was the 3rd graders turn. We picked red balloons this year so they were easily seen in the sky as they flew away. Attached to each and every balloon was a card with our church's name, phone number and website http://woodlawnbaptist.org plus the ABC's of how to become a Christian. Our hope is that someone would find the card and come to know Jesus as their personal savior. Last year the 2nd graders sent off the balloons and a lady in Georgia actually found one of the cards in her yard and called back to tell us.

After a short prayer, all the kids and teachers let their balloons go and we all watched from the church courtyard as they went "up up and away".

~~~Leslie~~

Where the heck have I been??

I am not really sure myself! Since April our household here has been pretty hectic, and I wonder why my hair is grey (only when I can't find some new hair in a box). We have weathered storms of illness's - first my father ,who can't seem to behave himself, has been in and out of the hospital with cancer/chemo related complications. We found out that his cancer has spread , but with prayer and faith we praise God for everyday.

Then it was my turn to not behave (yes me) because I take after my daddy:). I have been told that I am the most stubborn nurse and my yucky gallbladder full of gallstones finally caught up with me (while we were out of town at a beach wedding). I had been running away from this little problem for about 2 years. Gallbladder problems and fried seafood do not mix I found out the hard way, but ohhhhh was it gooooood!! I ended up with all sorts of problems and surgery in May. Have I mentioned how much I hate being a patient myself??

June seems to be the month for Mr B to take a turn with being very sick, we are just getting over a bowel obstruction. Thank you to his late night "almond" cravings he had to endure 2 ambulance trips, an ER visit and a little vacation in the UNC hospital system. I am amazed by the power of prayer, he was so sick and I was getting worried about the way things were looking, then he turned around for the better. God at work in our lives again!!
In addition to being sick and taking care of my hubby, I have had to endure a major water leak that poured into our basement( 2 days after I was home from surgery)and the install of our new heating and air system. I am so ready to go back to work and get a break. That is where the heck I have been!
~~~Leslie~~
aka: stubborn and stressed in NC

Our Yearbook Picture

Each year our local homeschool support group (ACE) does a yearbook, (yes we are socialized enough to have a yearbook) and each family does a page to show some of our pictures or activities for the year. This is our page for the school year 2008-2009. Just wanted to share. I used Photoshop 7 with some digi-scrap templates and elements to put it together. The flip-flop picture was taken on our recent trip to Topsail island, the other pictures were taken by my wonderful photographer friend Sheri Allison www.sheriallison.com .
~~~Leslie~~~

Mr Nasty...go away!!!

Do you ever wonder where "flu bugs" or

"Mr Nasty comes from?? I want to know

so I can kick his butt like he has kicked our

butt the last week. First was me, I got up last Wednesday

and all of a sudden I was headed to the bathroom. I hate

to puke!! Despise it! I ended up calling in sick to work,

one thing I hardly ever do. I crawled back in the bed

with my trusty bottle of Phenergan and went into a coma.

Got up later that night feeling better. Mr B came down

with it late Thursday after the "cheetah girl's" birthday

party, I put him to bed and prayed he did not mess up

his back surgery site with all the vomiting. I thought we

had it beat until early Saturday morning, I awoke to the

lovely sound of the "lil diva"yelling "MOOOMMY" and

a loud SPLASH of yucky stuff all over her floor.

OH NO "Mr Nasty was back and had taken the littlest

chip off the Block hostage.

In a mad rush to get to a Self Defense Class that morning,

I cleaned her up and got her tucked in my bed with her

"bear-bear"and with Mr B looking at me like "you are

gonna leave me" ?

Yep buddy, she is all yours" :) He does not do well with

vomit. Luckily they slept while I was gone.

She continued to make my day with more sickness and

fun, then her sister says" I don't feel good, my tummy

feels funny".Ahhhhhhhh, Go away Mr Nasty bug!!!

Clorox in hand I cleaned the bathroom to get ready for

more fun. Why am I a nurse at home!! The cheetah

was slowed in her tracks and crawled into bed to

hibernate in her cheetah lair under the loft bed,

for 2 days of Gatorade and Motrin/Tylenol.

She brought me the thermometer at one point and says

"is 103.7 a bad number" "I am a hot potato mommy"

"Is my brain gonna fry"? "Am I gonna get a shot?"

"I think I need to go to the Er now (what am I??

chopped liver ??does she even know how long I have

been an ER nurse?) I laughed and just told her, "no

mommy is gonna take good care of you right here

at home, in our own little hospital." Even though this

mommy wanted to pull all of her hair out by this time.

(funny what kids think about illness)

We made it to Monday and off mommy went to work

in the real "nuthouse" called the ER. I think Mr Nasty

followed me out the door to work and I passed off to

some other poor sucker......Yahoo and good riddens to ya!

~~~~~~~~Leslie ~~~~~~~

aka : Chief Butt wiper and Imodium AD distributor :)

"what ever you do, don't say you are sick and then bend over

mommy will get you"

Happy St Patty's day!!

What a crazy week!!

What a crazy week here at the ol' Blockhouse!! Even though I have been off work a few days, the craziness seems more that a really busy shift in the ER. We had a birthday girl turn 9 on Tuesday, whoo hoo for the "cheetah -girl" who is sassier that ever. My daddy got to come home from the hospital a little earlier that my mom thought, not sure if that is good or not. His liver cancer is growing now and probably outside his liver, which they are calling "in the nodules". He needs to get stronger before more chemo, but the mention of going to a "rehab facility" or " assisted living" facility seemed to get his attention...."Oh no I'm not". Maybe that will get his butt in gear for healing at home.

And to top the cake my hubby finally got to have his back surgery today, 3 months after his fall at work on an icy December morning. He is recouping well tonight and will hopefully get to go back to work in 6-8 wks or less. My brain is about fried tonight and I am still up, so I am blogging away.

Algebra I has also contributed to the short circuiting of my brain tissue this week. My teenager has some struggles with his math and thought Mom was gonna know how to do those equations. Well after some heavy thinking and figuring we actually got it. A light bulb went off and he and I actually understood all those multi- step equations. Go momma go...... Go K- Dogg go.... now what is next??

To top off the entire week, we had a wonderful winter storm with about 6 inches of snow, IN MARCH!!
Cheetah- girl says that it snowed for her birthday :)

Chow for now!!
~~~~Leslie~~~~
brain fried crispy original recipe :)

iKeepSafe Pretty cool I thought

I came across some websites for Internet safety and wanted to share:

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/

http://internetsafetyeducator.com/

http://www.onguardonline.gov/

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm

http://www.netsmartz.org/index.aspx

there are so many sites that are dedicated to keeping kids

safe online, just do a search yourself. You can never be to

safe with your kids all over the Internet these days.

I have a teen that lives online and the 2 younger ones

want to follow also. Of course "monkey see monkey do"

since Mommy lives here in cyberspace.

Leslie~~~~aka "Monkey do mom" today

"No!! Mommy is not an Octopus!!"

Yes, most days this is me!! Mommy with 8 arms floating
in a big ocean of waves that are about to crash on me.
I feel privileged to have my article posted on
http://themommiesnetwork.blogspot.com/
Please check it out at the link above.
How many other moms feel this way on a a daily basis?
We all try to keep the peace and attempt to make
everyone happy. But sometimes we need to step back
and look at the big picture and take care of ourselves.
Not an easy thing for me to say or do, I seem to go
24/7 like the "Energizer bunny" . Think about what
God really wants you to be doing and ask him for
his guidance each day, I bet he will tell you if you just
ask and then stop to listen. He is always there and loves
those times he has you all to himself for a little "me"
and my "God" time ;)
When I take time for me and ask for guidance my day
goes so much smoother and I am able to then focus
on the tasks at hand and encourage others.

~~~Leslie~~~~

Backpacks for the Homeless project

The month of January 2009 as a homeschool mission project

in conjunction with CentralFoothillsMommies.com,

we collected items to fill up backpacks for the homeless

in Catawba county. Our children and mommies were

able to fill 4 backpacks to the brim with can goods/

water/tarps/socks/gloves/hats/wool blankets/

sweatpants and sweat shirts. I delivered these

backpacks on a cold and wet day to the Catawba

Mental Health partners office. It really gave me

a tiny insight to what it might be like to outside

on such a cold day and carry around a heavy

backpack that might just be the only possessions

a homeless person has to their name. I am

humbled to think that being homeless to any

of us is just a paycheck away at times. On January

28th 2009 the Mental Health Partners along with

other agencies in the county put together 4 different

stations in the county to get an accurate count of just

how many homeless people we have here. They also

offered free health screenings, information and bp

checks for these people in addition to giving them a

backpack for no cost. The estimate was 250 people

that live here in Catawba county that are homeless.

That number is expected to rise due the

unemployment rates and the economy. The kids

learned a valuable lesson about giving back and

what the word "homeless"actually means.

Leslie~~~

Sim racing pics by Kdogg74

This is why we race online ;) that #74 car in the air is
my teenager, who also painted this car himself using
computer graphics in Paintshop Pro 8. "Bad wreck in
practice lap he tells me". I post many pictures of the
2 little sisters and this time I wanted to show how
proud I was of the teen that lives here also, my 9th
grade racer "Kdogg74" The #74 was his old football
jersey number and he had kept with that number
racing online and go-karts in the dirt. Funny how
this little boy of mine once learned all his
colors and numbers before kindergarten by race
cars. He could tell me all the Nascar cars, numbers,
colors and the drivers before he was 5. I never
imagined that teaching him at an early age would
lead to this :) By the way, he is not a "little boy"
anymore, he is taller that me, and I have been
about 5'9" since the 6th grade.


SBS racing online, his 2nd sprint car


After a hard 60 lap race in Nascar 2003season,
Kdogg74finished 3rd. The Hardees car was painted
by driver.

Here is # 74 again, Hardees orange and white painted
by Kdogg74.

This car is my favorite, done in Paintshop pro8. You
can see why I bought him his own laptop with a
higher graphics card. I think we have found our niche
and can lean towards computer careers with our
homeschool high school courses. He actually taught
himself how to do all this with some help of some
great guys online via "teamspeak" at various online
sim racing forums and race1online. He has even
created his own website without my help
"Trial by Fire Racing www.tbfr.webs.com/ .


Leslie~~~
aka: Kdogg74's momma

CFM Winterfest pictures

I just have to add the pictures that I digi-scrapped from our

event a couple of Saturday's ago. Winterfest 2009 for CFM http://www.centralfoothillmommies.com/

Hope you enjoy if you just stopped by to see our pictures.

My new found hobby of digi-scrapping and hybrid

scrapbooking.......ohhhh so addictive. I actually used the

Scrapblog pages on Photobucket to do these, so easy!

Leslie~~~

Kicking some "butt" MMA style

When you take an 8 yr old girl who thinks she is

a "cheetah" and mix it with Mixed Martial Arts;

you get a "cheetahgirl" that is learning how to

literally "kick some butt". After trying the usual

girlie girl stuff like dancing and cheerleading, our

middle DD has found her "niche" per say with the

help of her "Sensai" at Superior Martial Arts , L.

is learning a variety of ju-jitsu moves , boxing

and mixed martial arts techniques. She loves it!

Look out boys for the "Cheetah" so she is called.

~~~Leslie~~~

aka: Cheetahmom

"A Blockhouse" gingerbread house

Just what do you get when you add a gingerbread

house kit, some icing, cookies, candy and 2 little girls??

A Blockhouse gingerbread house, thats what. It was

pretty for only a day until their big brother got hungry.

~~~Leslie~~~

Some Christmas caroling 4-H elfs

The Eagles 4-H group met on Friday at a local assisted

living facility to sing some Christmas carols and hand

out treat bags to the residents that lived there.

The group of kids are all homeschooled children that

range in age from 5-12, there

are 32 kids total in the group, but the picture was taken

right before we left.

My 2 divas are on the front row in the

green shirt "smiling "and in the red shirt "pouting". I

reckon the little pouting diva does not remember the

song about "Santa coming to town"

Better not pout!!! Better not cry!!

I am telling you why,

WHY!!

Because Santa Claus is coming to town

and you are driving your mother crazy!

Leslie (miss pouty's mommy)

I am a "blogging slacker"

"Santa Tom" and a friend



Neil ("Santa's" helper and friend)

Seasons greetings to all, boy have I been a blogging slacker.

I have so many things to post and never the time to do it.

So today I will try to better. First of all my father is back

home after another chemoembolization procedure on

December 10. He did fairly well this time, some minor

complications thatresolved themselves. He is still in a lot

of a pain and battling fevers while at home.

We pray that this treatment will dosomething substantial

to the 3 liver tumors that he has.

This is his favorite time of year, he always loved to dress

up in his Santa suit and spend Christmas eve at the local

children's hospital there in Columbia. His health the last

couple of years has just made it impossible to play

"Santa Tom". I posted a couple of pictures above that

I love, these were actually done by a newsreporter a

couple of years ago. The nurses on the Pediatric cancer

floor had the local paper come and do a story on

"Mr Tom" and his yearly visit on Christmas eve to make

sure all of the kids with cancer get something that night

from him. His helper is a great guy named Neil who

volunteered to dress up in that elf suit yearly and go

with Mr Tom to hand out presents.

Leslie