Happy 5th Birthday Jordan!!!

well, first of all, i have a few pictures i took of yet another april snow storm that we had on thursday/friday! they are very pretty. i'm sure we will have a few more pictures as we are having another storm tonight!!! will it ever end????

next of course is jordan's b-day! my little man turned 5 today! it doesn't seem possible. it was his first friend party, but we had bad timing and only one friend showed up. i didn't even think about the fact that this monday starts spring vacation, so all of his other friends went away on vacation! we will have to keep that in mind next year. he still had a fun birthday. him and his friend got along well and had fun together. i was more dissapointed in family i guess. it seems that most people think that buying them a present makes up for them not being there. my kids are not like that, although they like the presents, they would not even notice if someone didn't bring one. so, for someone to say "well, i can't come but i'll be sure to bring him a present" just bothers me ALOT!!!! most kids are definitely all about the presents, but we make ours about family and obviously family did not come through this time. the funny thing is that most of them either had no reason or stupid reasons!!! the only family that showed up were my mom, and my cousin sue. that's it. i can't even begin to explain how dissapointed i am. anyway, obviously family does not mean what it used to mean. anyway, here are some pictures. the first two are of when he was born, and then the ones from yesterday at his party!

Jordan arrived on a monday ~ april 15, 2002 @ 10:51 am. he was 2 1/2 weeks early and weighed 7lbs. 14oz. and was 20 3/4 in. long. he was my shortest labor and fastest birth and the biggest of all 4!! here are the two "Birthday" pictures:

right after birth ~ jordan and mommy going home ~ 2 days old

jordan today:
here are some from his party:



money from auntie sarah and uncle john :)
trains of course :)

Last but not least is a thank you from Jordan to auntie sarah and uncle john in north carolina (turn up your volume). p.s. he does say thank you to auntie sarah and uncle john, but i shut off the camera too early....oops :)

i took this picture this morning ~ kelsey (L) and kaylee (R)

Welcome ~ Benjamin James :)

this will be a quick update! we welcomed another baby into the family today!!! my second cousin had her baby boy today! i say second cousin, but we were more like cousins. she is my age and we grew up together! i am sooooo excited for them. he was three weeks early and was not exactly as she expected it to be. she had bad pains in her back during the night last night and then this morning went to the dr.s. they determined she had preeclampsia which very quickly turned into HELLP syndrome. here is a link to a article about preeclampsia and if you scroll down farther you will see the HELLP section: http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/188_1054.asp


because of these complications, she was forced to have a c-section. Jason and Joleene welcomed Benjamin James into the world at 1:57 pm. He weighs 6 lbs. 3 oz. and is 19 3/4 in. long. he sure is a cutie. i have not been down to see him, but his favorite auntie was gracious enough to send me some pictures to put on my blog :). as of now, mom and baby are doing fine!!! i hope to go visit sometime tomorrow morning as we have more SNOW coming in april!!!

Here are some more pictures of the bundle of joy:


Joleene ~ aka Mommy holding her baby :)
Proud grammy holding her first grandbaby :)
been a long day ~ time for a nap :)
proud aunt sue holding her first nephew!!!

i also have to share this. my due date with my son jordan was may 3rd, and joleene's due date with benjamin was may 3rd. jordan was born on the april 15th and benjamin was born today. i thought it was pretty cool. too bad benjamin couldn't wait a couple more days, huh??? anyway, congrats to mom and dad!!!! he is BEAUTIFUL!!!!

i also thought i would clear something up for all. laura asked if the cousins in my daughters school were my cousins, or my daughters. they are in fact my cousins. i am the oldest grandchild on my mom's side and i am 29. my youngest cousin is 3! i had all of my 4 kids before any of them even started having kids. my grandmother had 10 children and my grandfather had 12 kids from a previous marriage, so that made 22 kids for my grandfather, plus he was ALOT older than my grandmother (i want to say about 30 years, i actually think it may have been more, but not sure). he has been gone for 12 years now. i have an uncle that is 6 mo. younger than me :). are you confised yet???? my mom (pregnant with her first (me) ~ oldest of grammy's kids) and my grandmother (pregnant with her last, my uncle) were pregnant at the same time and my mom gave birth first. it is kinda confusing, but cool. i like that our family is different. we are all quit close as well. it's nice to have a big family sometimes.

anyway, now that i have completely confused you all, i hope you have a great week!

History Fair!!!! (mostly pictures)

Toya's in the middle ~ i think she liked her job!!! :)

there was a history fair at toya's school today. toya's class did the history of america :) she got to be the statue of liberty!!! i took some pictures, and here are a few! my cousin is also in latoya's class and he was george washington!

my cousin michael (below)

i also have a couple of other cousins that go to the school and here they are with their projects:

this is jacob (cousin) and he is in 6th grade. the 5th and 6th grade did the depression. they made a whole town of cardboard houses, these were very cool and well put together!!!
jordan and jacob roasting a hot dog ~ can you tell jacob didn't want his picture taken!

jordan in one of the houses
the town ~ there are 2 houses you can't see

this is steven (cousin) ~ he is in 8th grade and did london

these next few are just pics of the girls and jordan that i took before the history fair. i am finally able to put all of the girls hair up in one ponytail and they look super cute, so i took pictures. their hair is so thin that it falls out in little time, so i have to either keep putting it up or spray it with hairspray. anyway, here are the pics:

kelsey (L) and kaylee (R) Kaylee, Jordan, and Kelsey
Kaylee (L) and Kelsey (R)

that is all for tonight! have a great week!! i hope you enjoyed the photo's!!!

Easter & Salvation

Latoya, Jordan, Kaylee(L), and Kelsey (R)

well, Easter has come and gone and i still have a few people willing to talk to me! although still no one got convicted and came to church with me. oh well, i tried. we did have some family members that decided to come (ones that don't read the blog). my grandmother came which was a huge blessing. most don't know this, but it wasn't long ago that she was not expected to live. she was facing surgery that we were told she would never survive through, and she did. :) she usually goes to a different church but can no longer do the stairs so she came to ours. she plans on coming faithfully right now, but we will see how her health holds up. i think she was glad to be back in church. my grandmothers sister was there, three of her daughters (one is my mom), and one of her sons. it was great to have so many family members there. i wish more of my family was faithful. here is a picture of my grandmother with my kids:

here are some from their egg hunt:

these next two are the girls playing in a foot bath. kaylee was the first to do it and we found her just sitting in there, very content. we were laughing at her so when she got out, kelsey decided if we thought kaylee was funny for being in there, then she was going to do it too.

Kaylee

Kelsey

now, i want to share something that i haven't shared before. Easter morning i woke up and the first person to pop into my head was my father in law (ted). he passed away a year ago in december. i couldn't help but think about the fact that he was having Easter with Jesus. i've had a few relatives pass away recently, but for some reason, he was the one i thought of. maybe it is because i think if he was here, that he would have come to the Easter service. maybe that is why i thought of him, he was letting me know that even though he wasn't there in person, he was there sitting with me in spirit. now, i am going to share a little about him. obviously there are people that do not know him, but he was a big gruff looking man with the heart of a teddybear. i loved seeing him with my kids! he was one of the most gentle men when it came to his grandkids. i'm so glad he got to see the twins before he passed away. they won't remember him, but i will remember him with them. one of my greatest memories was the day he asked Jesus to save him. he was in the hospital the day before he was to have the first heart surgery. one of the men from our church went to see him in the hospital. we were not there, but we met him in the lobby of the hospital as he was leaving and we were going to visit. when we were told that he had prayed, my hubby and i both cried along with the man that had led him to the Lord. when he passed away a week or so later, we greived right along with everyone else, but we knew that now we would see him again in heaven. we also knew that he was with Jesus and was walking around with no more pain like he always had. through his death we came to find out that one of his daughters was saved and her husband got saved the day of his visiting hours. the same man that led ted to the Lord, also ended up leading my brother in law to the Lord. one of my regrets is that i didn't tell him enough how much i loved him. i hope that he knew that i did. i am not a very touchable person, i don't like to hug or kiss people and i don't tell people i love them (besides my hubby and kids). it's not that i don't want to, but it just feels awkward to me i guess. this is what i get sometimes is regrets because if that. anyway, i just wanted to share that with everyone. ted has weighed heavily on my heart for the past couple of days. i'm not sure why. but i do know this, i can't wait to see him againand thank him for making doug the man he is today. he is so much like his father in regards to work and taking care of his family!!! there are pictures of ted with the twins below, but please read this first. i couldn't let Easter go by without witnessing to a few:

i used to go soulwinning when i was a teenager, but regretfully i must say that i no longer go, but i wish that all of you would read this short description of salvation: http://www.christcenteredmall.com/plan.htm then if you decide that you too would like to be saved and go to Heaven when you die, here is a prayer you can pray:
http://www.christcenteredmall.com/salvationprayer.htm

if you do say the prayer, feel free to let me know, but you don't have to, it is between you and God. if you would like to let me know, my email address is ds4nier@megalink.net.

here are some pictures of ted with the twins:

Ted with Kaylee the day she was born

Ted holding Kelsey and Sue (doug's mom) holding kaylee (i think they were a month old)

I hope everyone had a great Easter, i know we did!!!

Winter or Spring ~ Pictures Speak for Themselves!

well, a lack of an update means there is really no news to report and surprisingly enough the sickies have stayed away for a little while!!!! of course, that being said, kelsey woke up with croup this morning. we have started breathing treatments three times a day and hope to not have to go to the dr.s office for it. we have enjoyed our time away from them. i love our dr.s office, but when your going everyday, it gets to be a little much!!

i have a question to propose (if your easily offended, please skip this section). i have a myspace account which i use regularly and have met quit a few people in my area. i posted a bulletin inviting all in my area to our church service for easter. i also sent out emails and messages to many that i keep in contact with. no one seems interested. this upsets me a little because i feel that if i had invited them to a bar, most of them would have rearranged there schedules and joined me. we wonder what is wrong with our country when people can't take an hour from their day to go to church to worship the God that has put us on this earth. He's the reason we are here. It's one hour out of 24!!!! Anyway, this has been nagging at me for a while and i had to get it off my chest. Honestly, easter is not about family and friends and easter bunny's, and eggs. it's about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and rising again. have we really lost the whole meaning of easter. that being said, i do do easter egg hunts for my kids, but we take the time to go to church and worship Him! (we go every sunday and wendsday, not just on easter though). anyway, i'm sorry if i step on some toes, but i think this is an issue worth stirring up controversy! Just in case this stires up some emotions and convicts a few, here is the info for our easter service :

Calvary Baptist Church
Main St.
Turner, maine

the church service starts at 11 a.m. and goes till noon or a few minutes after. i hope this gets a few off their butts and where they should be! p.s. this is for people that do not have a church, not just if you are not going to my church!

here is a link to a story i received in my emial concerning easter. please read it: http://www.promiseofgod.com/doyou_believe/



****now, if you chose not to read the above, you can pick it up here! a couple of days ago we had the biggest storm of the season....in SPRING!!!! the calendar says spring, but someone forgot to inform the weather here in maine that it is indeed spring. it took my hubby and i 3 hours to clean out, and that was with a shovel and a snowblower!!!! i think i heard we got somewhere between 14 & 16 in. here are the pictures:

hubby's car

our backyardmy van
hubby's truck
our dog (notice the trampoline ~ we set this up about a week ago when there was no more snow)

today, we went down to our local grocery store where they had a easter egg hunt in the aisles. we have never done this before as it is very early. i thought we would try it and even though we had to get up at 6:00 am on a saturday morning, it was actually not bad and the kids had fun!!! they had 3 different age groups, with the 4 and under group going first at 7:30. it didn't take the girls long to figure out what they were doing, and the eggs were hidden very easily! we also invited caleb to join and he came too. here are some pictures of the three of them:

some up high ~ kaylee

some down low ~ kelsey

caleb ~ he figured out fast what to do :)

kelsey (l) and kaylee (r) ~ checking out their loot

next was the 5-7 yr. olds at 8:00. even though jordan doesn't turn 5 till next sunday, we decided to put him in this group. he didn't do as well as the others as there was way more kids and he was too busy staying in one spot. here are his pictures:

jordan before the hunt jordan doing his easter egg hunt


last was latoyas group. they went at 9:30. she did very good, here is her picture:

i think we will do it again next year as they really did have alot of fun.

fyi: we will be having a b-day party for jordan next saturday at 2:00 pm. it will be at our house. i will try to get a hold of people this week, but this is a heads up just in case i get busy and forget to invite you!!! i can't imagine i would get to busy.....LOL.

anyway, that is all for this post. i might still have a few friends! i hope you atleast enjoyed the pictures.

HAVE A VERY HAPPY EASTER!!!!