FYI

Hurray for Nap times!

Don't you just love nap times! I do. It is the time I have to myself to do fun things like blogging or more times then not, do things that I've been "needing to get to".
Yesturday I finally sorted through a bunch of clothes my sister HollyWog picked out for my kids. Up where she lives there was a family called the Chandlers. THey are a big family that is moving so they were giving away a bunch of clothes their kids out grew. So now us La Grandian Chandlers got the Pullman Chandlers clothes.
Thanks Holly for taking the time to grab the good ones for us! Five bins of free clothing is what it came to.

We HAD nice weather

It was so beautiful last week! I packed Jack and Ginger up and went for a walk to the park. (I should have given you a call Becky!)
But now it's cold and rainy. :(

Jack is five months old! I had to switch him to bottle feeding:( He wasn't gaining weight so the doctor asked me to supplement in the evenings. Since I've had to give the bottle to jack three other times, I thought it would be no problem. Wrong! HE was so stubborn. It was the hardest thing to get him to take that bottle. After getting some advice from others, I decided it would be best to completely switch over. After all, I needed to get some sleep. JAck was doing well at night and then he started waking up every two hours starving just like the first months. So now he is taking the bottle well after a week of struggling with it and now I'm getting better sleep. Though, going a week completely engorged is no fun at all!!!

Here's our little Ginger Rose all ready to go shoppin'. Some days she seems like a tom boy but then days like this she is such the girly girl!

I think I like the dog...

For a little history, growing up, my family was never into animals. most of the pets we ever had were in cages. We did have a dog here and there but never for a long time. Our first one was named Happy and it threw up in the car on our way to get rid of it. I was too small to remember Happy. Then, our next dog, Sheba stayed with us for maybe a year. We had to get rid of her because she had back problems going up the steep stairs to our deck. The third and last dog we had was my moms' dog. That dog had the worst breath ever and a finger for a tail. IT was a little schnowzer (don't know how to spell it) and barked at everything so we got it a shock collar. We finally got rid of it because everyone hated it. hahahh (sorry mom). My poor mom was the only one that loved the dog.

So here I am married to a "dog lover". hahhahh Yeah, Kiah was cute, but that's it. She's been so annoying the whole time I've known that dog. WEll, I feel the story is changing now. I never thought I'ld see the day when I would actually like that dog. Kiah is grown up now, and she still stinks if she misses a bath, but I have to admit I think I'm starting to like her. ...maybe because I see how much Ginger likes her.

The End

The Day Has Come

To Break Ground! We're pretty excited to see something happening on our lot. oh the day when we move! We don't expect to move until december since we still need to take on jobs for income. But at least we see the light at the end of the tunnel now!

My new weight loss plan ...

So Glen came home last night and brought me home a treat. It was such a nice surprise. ...Chocolate blossoming right before my eyes...I could take an arm full and make a treat...a chocolate ball that would smell so sweet, :)

This is perfect.
When I'm feeling blue
all I need to do
Is grab a chocolate
from my pocket
then be better soon!

I love Craigs list!

Here is another treasure we found on Craigs list. We had to drive to Boise to get it, but it sure was worth it!
The couple we got this cherry wood (solid wood!) dresser from was very nice. They decided last minute to try and sell it before moving, so we went and got it the day before they left town. The wife had a hard time parting with it so I felt bad to act too happy to have it since she really didn't want to sell it.
It has some scratches here and there but overall it was a super deal! Can you believe we got it for just $150.00! (we laugh at the thought that we paid more for a dresser than we did a two seater bubble tub) It is solid wood and has a built in jewelery box that locks. It also has a special hiding space for the key which is pretty cool!. The mirrors open and have shelves on one side and a space to hang necklaces on the other.

I'm so proud of my husband for finding a way to get the things we really like for the money we have. We don't want to buy brand new furniture now that we know we can get pretty good stuff for a quarter of the price.
Glen searches Craigs list every night and now he's got me doing it too. Last weekend when we got this dresser, we also picked up all the door handles for our next house. We found lever handles for a third of the normal price and they are still in their packaging. A guy on craigs list had a remodel job that fell through and needed to sell the material he got for it. what a deal! Now we have fancy door knobs for the price of normal ones.

A mystery unfolding..The Bennetts

Here is my mom and dad when they were engadged. ...

Here is my dad when he graduated....

Here is my dad's mom ....

And here is my dad's dad...
This is pretty much all that I knew about my dad's side of the family. I never knew my dad's dad or my dad's mom as my grandparents.
They divorced when my dad was little and my dad spent some of his childhood with each of them but also had to spend some time living with other relatives. My dad lost touch with his parents and anyone else on his side of the family.

Now the exciting news.

My dad has been working on his geneology and in just a few weeks time, he was able to get into contact with some other Bennetts who have been filling in the blank spots my dad had in his geneology. As they helped eachother fill in the blanks, my dad received an e-mail from another family member who expressed how the family has often wondered where he was and how they missed him and were so happy to have found him again. Not only was that exciting to him and all of us, but we learned that The Bennetts are a very close knit family that have reunions every two years! In my family growing up, we never had reunions. We know my mom's side of the family but we never really got together that much. The closest thing to a reunion that I've been to was my grandma's 87 birthday. All her brothers and sisters came and some other people that I never remember seeing before.

So, I bet you can imagine how exciting this all is to all of us. Hey now our family is like other peoples families that have reunions. My family just doubled in size! I can't wait to meet all these people and learn more about The Bennetts.

This June is the the Bennett reunion and we are going!! We're flying to Oklahoma and meeting my parents and sister there to meet for the first time my dad's side of the family!!!!!!!! (I really wish you could be there Holly and Greg)
I think we will have so much fun meeting people and doing the activities they have planned. They said that they love to have water fights every year and this year we are going kayaking and getting some kayaking lessons. FUn!!

I'm so glad that my dad has been working on his geneology. What a blessing we are all recieving because of his efforts! Thankyou Dad!

Our little Bennett family growing up

I thought it would be fun to post some pics of us growing up..just our little family.

The one above is around 1987.

This one I think is 1989

This one was around 1995

And this is when we went to visit my sister in Colorado. 1998.

Artichoke pizza

The crust is from Winco and is super good. The sauce is a white cheese alfredo sauce and then I added a cheese blend, olives, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, chicken chunks, and artichoke chunks. So good! I was trying to mimic the Pappa Murphy pizza.

THe Brazilian hot dog!

You got to try this. It's so good even though it sounds weird. Take hot dog bun, hot dog or keilbasa, mayo, grilled bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, olives, raisins and french fried onions and cheese! Pile it up high and then devour!

Ginger liked it too. I didn't think I would like the raisins, but to my surprise they made it good!

Just us!

This is the same lake that I posted a few months ago where people go ice fishing. IT was fun to see it all thawed out!
Glen took his boat out for the first time on saturday and it didn't sink! It was such a nice day! He left 6am to go sink worms with a friend. I came out later with the kids and some KFC to meet them there along with my friend and her kids.

This past weekend, we felt like were were on vacation. Scot went out of town and we had the house to ourselves! IT was great and we didn't want the weekend to end!!! Sharing a house is getting very ollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllld! !!! There are alot of other things you have to share when sharing a house and having this weekend to ourselves just made us feel that much more anxious to be in our own place.
I just try to keep in mind that what we are doing is going to help us in the long run and that it is worth it even though it isn't nice or always pleasant. I have alot to be grateful for but sometimes it's hard to remember when you have "one of those days!".

We went for a sunday drive and found a place that made us feel like were among ancient ruins. Glen told me I should post this picture and say that we went to visit the ancient Aztec ruins. hahh

Bath tub Crayons

Ginger loves playing in the bathtub. I found these crayola crayons at walmart and she loved them! I like them too!
They just wash right off with water. She spent a long time in the tub this time just coloring all over the tub.

When I was in texas I got these flannel fairytale characters. I loved the flannel boards when I was a kid. I had Glen cut a board out and I hot glue gunned the flannel to it. IT's great for FHE or just play time/story time. I want to get some letters and numbers so she can practice on the board with them too. Ginger is always singing her ABCs and I've noticed she these past few weeks that she likes to count everything. She usually counts 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 19. That's what she's got down for now. kind of funny.

This is the tub that Glen bought...

off craigs list for a killer deal! He drove to Boise and talked the seller down 250 dollars. We got this jet bubble tub for 117! That is cheaper than a regular bathtub! This retails for around 2,000. It has a small crack in it and will probably cost 100 bucks to fix but there isn't anything my hubby can't fix. There is also a scratch in it that you can barely see. But Glen made a big deal about it and the seller dropped the price.

Here is another great deal we got right here in lagrande. This was also on Craig's list. A solid wood sleigh california king sleigh bed frame.
It is so pretty and just what we've been wanting for a long time. It has a few scratches but nothing we can't cover up. We got this for 100 bucks but it retails for 1000. ! woohoo! Glen again made the seller feel bad for not mentioning that it was missing the middle support bar. So he knocked off 100 bucks. Glen is going to easily replace it!! just a matter of time now.

We love the carvings on it. soo pretty!

good bye ol' hundred year hospital beds, hello sleigh bed!

Visiting Holly and Greg

We went to see Holly and Greg for Easter. It was fun to see where they live and to spend time together.

For easter I hid the Easter basket that Holly had as a kid and then hid an egg carton that I painted and filled with candies for Greg.
Holly got us an aloe vera plant adn some yummy candies. We are so excited to have the plant. We've been wanting one for a long time. Holly is a plant expert. She has lots of nice plants in her home. I'm the opposite. I like plants but I don't know much about them and am bad at remembering to water them. I'll take care of Ally though!

My parents came too to meet us there but we didn't know it. It was such a surprise to see them there! I wasn't sure when I would get to see them next so I was super surprised!

The weekend was short but lots of fun. We went to WinCO. I wish we had one here! I love that store! Glen and I stocked up on candy and got their really good pizza crust. We also got to see bears and go swimming. Holly's birthday is on the 16th so we celebrated that with a delicious cake that Greg made (special family recipe) It was soooooo good!!!!!!!!!!!!