Meet the new neighbor

Last weekend I was in the kitchen and happened to look out the window just in time to meet my new neighbor, Mr. Raccoon. He was in front of my garage and seems to really like the area. Since last weekend I have seen his tracks all over the place. He is such a little cutie pie but I must say, I am so glad the garbage cans are in the garage!!! Every time we let Maya outside she starts by smelling the air and then she runs off to smell the ground. I hope Maya and Mr. Raccoon never meet :-O

This picture is blurry but I wanted to throw it in there too :o)

Today I have a ton of people coming over to the house. Dewayne's Mom and brother are coming and they are going to stay the night here and then there is going to be a family reunion with the cousins and their spouses. My house is going to be stuffed full of people and I am getting kinda nervous, I just found out about this today!!!! It is 11 am and I haven't done anything today other than lay in bed and watch TV. Dewayne is now in the city getting his Mom, Brother and Jalen and he should be here in the next few hours. I have got to get off this computer and do something!! What do you have planned for the day??

Five....Five...Five Question Friday (taken from Subways Five dollar footlongs LOL).

It is Friday...again!! I swear to you all, I feel like it was just Friday yesterday! I guess that is how life is when you have no job and your husband has no job :o) Now Friday's are great because of Five Question Friday, a blog carnival created by Mama M over at My Little Life. If you want to play along just click here or you can answer in my comment section if you don't want to play along :o) Also I want to say Hello to all the visitors coming over from Friday Follow...Hi!! :o)

Now on to the questions.....

1. Do you sing karaoke? If so, what is your go to song?

I have only sang Karaoke once and it was to Ushers Nice and Slow. I love that song and during my single days I used to go to a Karaoke bar and there was this fun guy (not someone I was dating, just a friend) and every time I was there the guy would sing the song because he knew I loved it. One night the guy wasn't there and no one else would sing the song so....I SANG IT!!! I do want to say that I had had a few drinks (liquid courage) and I think I did a great job (blushing) :o)

2. What is your favorite coffee drink?

I don't drink coffee. Never have and never will. I love the smell of coffee but I do not like the taste of it. Oh wait!!! There is this coffee at WAWA called English Toffee, I like that one (it is like sugar galore and more like hot chocolate than coffee).

3. If you could choose your own name, what would it be?

I think my Mamma did good choosing my name. Helga is my Grandmothers name and she is named after her mother. So in other words I am named after my Great-Grandmother and Grandmother. There are also like a million Helga's in my family....my Great-Grandmother was a special person :o)

4. Were you ever bullied?

No, I was never bullied but I can tell you that I was the girl that always stood up to the bullies. Still to this day I can not stand when people pick on other people or say nasty things to people. What bothers me most is when people say something to someone that makes them question themselves....what I mean by that is let's just say I am insecure about my weight and someone calls me a fat girl....I am going to dwell on that forever!!! It bothers me when people do that, one little comment can end up torturing someone!!!!

5. How often do you eat fast food?

Too much!!! I try not to eat fast food too often but it happens more than I like. Right now I am obsessed with Harold's Chicken (I have never seen it anywhere other than Illinois). It is soooo yummy!!! I just went grocery shopping and I bought a ton of fruit and vegetables, maybe I can eat super healthy now and loose some weight :o) LOL

Pictures of the New House

Here are some pictures of the new house. I will add more later but for now here are some for you to look at.

This is the front of the house, I took this picture the day we moved in when we pulled up to the house.

Here is a closer look of the house.

This is my living room.

Another shot of the living room.

Kitchen.

Kitchen cabinets, sink and stove.

Kitchen table and the wall that they are on.

Here is a view of the kitchen from the doorway. The door next to the window goes to a little landing where you can either go outside or downstairs to the basement.

One more picture of the kitchen table and cabinets.

I hope you enjoyed this little peak into my home. I know my family was excited to see these pictures. Sharla the first two were just for you :o)

I am going to make some dinner and get the Kobe ready for bed so I can lay in my own bed and watch TV tonight. What do you have planned tonight? Do you have a favorite show coming on tonight? My favorite shows are Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice...I can't wait to get caught up on them :o)

Have a great night and I will see you all tomorrow!!

Moving to Illinois part 2

I have been wanting to finish the story of our move her but life has been kinda hectic since we moved so I haven't had the time to write it. Today I am making the time. You can go back and read part one by clicking here.

Monday February 1st we wake up in our new home and Dewayne is knocked out sleeping still and when I tried waking him up he said he was not feeling good and kept sleeping. I didn't think much of it, got out of bed and got the boys something to eat. A few hours after I woke up I went to check on Dewayne, you see Dewayne is always awake well before me so it was really unusual for him to be in bed still. I realize that he has a fever and give him some tylenol. We had to go put the utilities in our name so we had to leave the house to do that and poor Dewayne was not doing too good.

We get all the running around done and go back home, Dewayne got back in the bed and slept the rest of the day away. I took the boys to Walmart to get some meds for Dewayne and buy a new thermometer because ours died when I was trying to take Dewayne's temperature. I was really proud of myself for finding Walmart and finding my way back home....Thank you GPS, I don't know what I would have done without you :o)

Tuesday morning we get up and Dewayne is still sick. We had to try to get the boys enrolled in school so again, Dewayne had to get up and out of the bed. We went to the first school, the one Markus was supposed to go to and they were NASTY to us. I say nasty because they gave us an attitude about everything and made life very difficult for us. We had to have our lease, a state ID with our new address on it, Markus's birth certificate, two utility bills, two personal pieces of mail and something proving that Dewayne is Markus's step Dad!?!?!?!?

I walked out of that school crying and angry. We went to the DMV and got new Illinois drivers licenses...I of course did not have one prior to that because I have never lived in this state before. Dewayne just had his Grandmothers address on his. Do you know that the DMV made me take the written test all over again? No worries though, I passed with flying colors :o)

After we got the new drivers licenses we called the utility companies and asked if they could fax something over and they rudely said NO! I had paper work from the water company that the school was willing to accept but other than that I had no other bill. I had ordered some books online that got here a few days before us so I had personal mail to show the school. Instead of going back to Markus's school we decided to go enroll Tyrique in school first and then go back to Markus's school.

I got into Tyrique's school and showed them all of our paper work, ID's, gave them my blood type and offered a kidney and don't you know the lady was so nice to me and told us not to worry it is not that difficult. We got Tyrique enrolled in school and then asked his school about Markus's school. The ladies at the desk told us that the school we had gone to was the wrong school anyway and the school Markus was supposed to go to was a great school. Needless to say we were super excited about that. By the time we finished enrolling Tyrique in school it was too late to go to Markus's school so we decided that we would do that first thing the next morning.

That night we went to sleep early, about 9 o'clock. We woke up to a phone call at close to 2 AM. Jalen's Mom (Jalen is Dewayne's son and we had not seen him since we got to Illinois but we were supposed to get him on the Friday) was calling Dewayne's cell phone, I told him to answer the phone just in case something happened but by the time he woke up enough to get the phone it had gone to voicemail.

Dewayne called his voicemail only to find out that Jalen's Grandmother had been murdered that night and Jalen's mother was calling Dewayne to ask him to get Jalen for her. Dewayne called back and was told that Jalen's Grandmother had picked up Jalen from school on the Tuesday and dropped him off at home at about 6 pm. On her way back to her house, Grandma and her boyfriend were stopped somewhere when a car pulled up and started shooting. Jalen's Grandmother was shot 11 times and her boyfriend was shot once. They both died that night.

I cried when he told me what happened, all I could think about was if this had happened 30 minutes earlier....Jalen would have been in the car!!!! We could have lost Jalen that night!! Jalen lost his Grandmother at 5 years old!!! Will he ever really remember her?? I felt so bad for Jalen's mother, she is so young and now she has no Mom!

Wednesday morning Dewayne went to get Jalen so Jalen's Mother could start planning her own Mothers funeral. Jalen didn't know what happened and he was just excited about getting to come visit us and see his brothers. He had grown so much since last summer and he knows how to count to 100 and spell several different words.

Wednesday morning Kobe also woke up with a fever. It went up to 104.6 that day and I was able to bring it back down using Tylenol and Motrin. Poor Kobe was really miserable that day. I let him sleep with me that night because of how high his fever had gone on the Wednesday. On Thursday morning at about 6:30 am I woke up and checked Kobe's temperature, it was 103.6 and I gave him some Tylenol. The fever went down and Kobe and I went back to sleep.

I woke up at 10 o'clock to Kobe burning up with a fever, I checked his fever and it was at 105.1. Dewayne and I rushed him to the ER and there they gave him Tylenol and Motrin to try to bring the fever down. His fever came down, it sat at 102 for awhile but finally he was fever free. Kobe got 2 bags of IV in him and they took chest X-Rays to find out if there was something there but the X-Rays came out fine and the blood cultures came back with elevated white blood cells. The Doctor couldn't find anything wrong with him and after about 7.5 hours we were sent home with an antibiotic.

Kobe didn't get a fever again after that and by Friday everyone in the house was healthy again. On Saturday Dewayne and I were asked to tell Jalen about his Grandmothers passing and he took it amazingly well. He called his Mom and told her he was okay and that he wasn't sad and told her to not be sad either. Jalen's Grandmothers funeral was held on Tuesday February 9th.

Tyrique started school on the Friday and then Markus was able to start school on the following Tuesday. My Mamma came on the 8th of February and I think you are all pretty much caught up from there. I am going to post some pictures of my new home later on today. I just wanted to get the rest of this on here, I have been meaning to write this for a long time now.

I just realized that I should have put a link to the shooting on here so you can read for yourself if you choose to.

The View in front of my house

Sunday it started to snow and it has been snowing on and off ever since. I am loving the snow, it looks so pretty and it is so calming. It stopped snowing yesterday afternoon and didn't start back up yesterday. Then this morning I wake up and open my blinds and ta da....it's snowing again :o) I love it!!!

This is what is looks like in front of my house.

To the left.

To the right.

While it's snowing outside, this is what is happening inside.

Kobe is dancing and singing Michael Jackson songs.

He thinks he's hot stuff LOL.

What's going on at your house today???

Two things I love...around my home.

Two things I love...around my home is a blog carnival that Kassi (Keely's sister...you know the one who does the Getting to know YOU blog carnival on Sundays) from Backwoods Fern came up with. I think it is a great way to get us to appreciate the things we have. If you want to play along just click here or on Kassi's button above.

I have been waiting for a chance to play along to this blog carnival but do to packing and moving it was really hard. Well, now I am settled in my new home and I can play along. Yippy!!!

The first thing I love is this leaf candle holder that I bought in Iceland when I went there to visit this summer. It is made out of sculpting clay and painted fun colors. My Mamma, my Sister, BIL and myself were at a store and there was a lady that was selling all kinds of homemade things at a table and this leaf was one of them. I couldn't resist :o)

The second thing that I am loving around my home is this doll that I bought in Bahrain when I went there in 2005. I went to a street market and found her and knew she was coming home with me. The weird thing about this doll is that she turns. Let me explain.....She used to sit on top of my TV cabinet and she faced towards the front of the living room. At the end of the night when I would be getting ready to go to bed and I would go to close the TV cabinet she would be turned to the side. I am convinced that she was not happy with where she was located in that house. Right now I have her sitting at my computer desk with a tiger in front of her and she seems very pleased there.

This is what she looks like up close.

Picturiffic post

This weekend the boys decided to go outside to play in the snow. Once they were out there they realized that the snow was perfect for making a snow man. They each got a snow ball and rolled it around until it was big enough to make their snow man. Then they asked for a carrot for the nose...all I had were baby carrots, they didn't seem to mind. Then they asked me and their Amma (Grandma) to come outside to see their snow man. They had made the eyes out of candy and rocks for its mouth. I think the snow man came out great. Kobe and Tyrique were posing in front of their snow man, Kobe had to be posing just like his big brother. Then after all the posing was done, Kobe decided to throw snow balls at his Amma. Tyrique told Kobe he was going to throw the gigantic snow ball at him if he did not stop....it worked :o)

**The pictures are not coming out they way they are supposed to and I can't fix it, I'm done**

Kobe didn't want his Amma to leave so he went and got his Diego pillow and Spiderman blanket and laid on top of Amma's suitcase. He got nice and comfortable on his new comfy spot.

Not Me! Monday. Mamma's Girl

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

My Mamma did not leave today! I am not incredibly sad and I do not want to lay in bed and cry all day. I am not a Mamma's girl and I do not love to have her around and wish she could live next door.

I did not walk in the door after dropping her off at the airport and have to hold back tears because now my home seems so empty without my Mamma here. I walked all around the house and looked for signs of my Mamma and I have to say the best part is that she left her mark all over my house. In every room there is something that she made, left for me or bought me and I love that.

Do you ever wish you could go back to the time where you live at home with your parents? I have been living on my own for 11 years now and I think it would be really hard to live with my parents again but I would love to have my Mamma around. It would be so great if I could come home to home cooked meals every day and have my Mamma's homemade cookies and goodies. I wish I could cry on her shoulder when I have a bad day and I wish I could rush home to tell her about something exciting that happens too.

Since I am not going to go back in time and I am not planning on moving to Iceland and into my Mamma's house, I will just have to settle for the internet! I will be happy with just having Skype and being able to see my Mamma and the rest of the family anytime I feel homesick.

Thank you Mamma for coming to see us and helping me make my house a home. I love you and miss you!

Getting to Know YOU 2/21/2010

It's Sunday and so far my day is going better than yesterday. Everything that could have gone wrong yesterday, went wrong!! Today is another day and I am not letting yesterday keep me down.

Now it is on to Sunday Funday otherwise known as Getting to know YOU! Keely over at Mann Land 5 is the creative Genius (yes Keely, I called you a Genius...I love blogging on Sunday's because of you) who came up with this blog carnival. You can join in on the fun by pushing the button above or you can just click right here.

Now on to the fun :o)

1. How often do you wash/change your sheets?

I used to wash my sheets every day. Now I wash them every 2-3 days. I love to sleep with clean sheets on my bed. I have always been really weird when it comes to my bed, I want my bed clean at all times.

2. When is your birthday?

January 19th. I just celebrated my 29th Birthday last month :o)

3. Have you ever met a bloggy friend in real life?

The only Bloggy friends I have ever met are the friends that I knew before we started blogging :o) I really am hoping to meet some of you at some point...that would be so much fun!!!

4. Brad Pitt or George Clooney?

Neither! If I had to choose then I would say George Clooney. Brad Pitt has to many kids to pay child support for and there is too much drama between Brad and Angelina! LOL

5. If you could change one thing about your body what would it be?

My belly! It has stretch marks and too much fat on it! I wish I could have a flatter, prettier stomach!

6. How often do you wash your hair?

Twice a week. I used to wash my hair every day but I have really long, thick hair and it was a lot of work to have to wash it everyday. My hair is so much softer and healthier now after I started washing it twice a week.

7. Do you have pets?

Yes I do. I have a beautiful dog named Maya. She is the only female in the house besides me :o) I love her to pieces.

8. How many social networks do you belong to..if you had to give up one, what would it be?

I have a facebook, twitter and Blogger account. I LOVE my blog and could not give it up. If I had to give one up it would be my twitter account...I don't really use it. Also I don't use my facebook account very much anymore, I like to read everyones status but I could live without it!

Now go play along on your own blog...it's fun!

Bad Day

I've had a kinda icky day today and don't really feel like blogging.

I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!!!

I will be back to my bubbly self tomorrow :o)

Five Question Friday 2/19/2010

It is Friday and I am on my way out the door to go shopping!!! I have done so much shopping with my Mamma here though that I will be okay if I do not go shopping for a long time after she leaves :o) But, before I go I HAVE to do Five Question Friday!!! 5QF is a blog carnival created by Mama M at My Little Life. If you want to play along just click on the button below or click right HERE. Have fun!

1. Have you ever hit an animal with your vehicle?

Yes, I hit a bird driving a rental truck one time with my brother in law. I started freaking out and he laughed at me and said YUM dinner. Uuggghhh gross!

2. When you see a string on your clothes do you pull it off or cut if off?

I pull it off! When I see a string on anyones clothes I want to automatically pull it off :o)

3. Did you have your own room or share a room when you were young?

I had my own room and I had to share. My sister and I are really close though and most of the times we had our own room but slept together.

4. Would you rather wear the same thing for the rest of your life or eat the same thing for the rest of your life?

Wear the same thing for the rest of my life! I can always make it look cute with the right accessories. I love food and would never want to give up my favorites :-P

5. What was your favorite TV show as a child?

Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman!! I loved that show and we never missed it. My Mamma is going to buy the series today. We saw it at Sam's Club the other day and we have been talking about it since.

Picture post

I wanted to show you some of the pictures from Tyrique's birthday yesterday. We didn't do anything big, just bought a cake and ice cream. Tyrique got a whole lotta money for his birthday and we went to spend it after we ate cake and ice cream.

Here is Tyrique with his cake that Kobe ruined :-O Kobe managed to pick up the cake and the frosting on the one side stuck to the plastic top....ooops!

You can see here where the frosting came off. It was okay though because the green frosting stained so bad anyway that we wiped it off before giving anyone cake (we learned after everyone's first piece).

Yesterday afternoon Mamma and Maya were having a cuddle moment on the couch and they were so cute that I had to take pictures.

Maya giving her Amma (Grandma) a hug.

This was yesterday morning, Maya went into my room and took a nap under the covers.

Here are my curtains that my Mamma made for me. Aren't they pretty? I love the green color and I love the way they look in my kitchen. They make my kitchen look so great!! Please excuse the junk on the sides, I am trying to find a home for some of these things and I really need to do that now so the kitchen will be complete.

This is the smaller window in the kitchen that looks out into the backyard.

Time is going by way to fast and I only have a few more days left with my Mamma :o( I am trying to learn everything I can from her before she leaves and so far I think I am doing good :o) I will show you girls all the stuff after she is gone and I have more time to write on here.

Have a great night ladies and I will see you tomorrow for Five Question Friday!

Look who's a teenager now!!!

Thirteen years ago I was pregnant and my due date was February 3rd. February 3rd came and went and no baby came. My belly was HUGE and swollen and I was getting really anxious to meet this little man that had been growing in there. A week after my due date I went to the doctors to find out if I was any closer to meeting my baby. I found out that I was not dilated at all and the doctor told me that if I had not delivered the baby by the 16th of February then I was supposed to come to the Labor and Delivery to be induced the following day...my 42nd week.

Needless to say February 16th came and there was no baby yet so I went to L&D at 8pm. I had been having contractions the whole weekend but not enough to go to the hospital. When I arrived at L&D I met my midwife that would be delivering the baby. This same midwife delivered some of my cousins :o) The midwife showed me the L&D area and told me some information and then at about 10 pm she gave me something to help me relax and sleep and sent my Mamma home and told her to be back in the morning. The induction was scheduled for 7 AM on February 17th 1997.

I fell asleep almost immediately after Mamma left but I kept waking up to minor contractions and then I started timing them because they kept on coming. At 11:30 pm I called my Mamma and told her to come back to L&D because my contractions were 3 minutes apart. My sister and Aunt Alma came with my Mamma to help coach. After they arrived I was checked and I found out I was 3 cm dilated. I went and walked up and down the stairs until 2 am and then the midwife checked me again. I was 5 cm dilated and everything was coming along great so the midwife broke my water. I was really excited about the delivery and told the midwife that I would like to continue walking around after my water had been broken. That's before I had my first contraction after the water broke!

My contractions started coming on so much stronger than they did before my water broke and I was having back labor. The baby started pressing against some nerve in my groin that was causing me a lot of pain in my left leg. As I laid on my side my sister pressed against my back as hard as she could to keep my from being in pain and my Aunt and Mamma held a heating pad on my leg to try to make me feel better and a cold wash cloth on my face. At 4 am I found out I was 10 cm dilated and could start pushing!

I was really excited and started pushing right away. I pushed for over two hours and nothing was happening. I was pushing wrong at first and managed to pop some blood vessels in my face and in my eyes (you can imagine how scary I looked after having him LOL). After 6 o'clock the midwife checked my contractions and realized that I had not been having any contractions so she started me on pitocin. The pitocin did it's job and got the contractions started right away and I continued to push. Finally the doctor came in the room and he could see that this baby was not coming out. He cut me sideways instead of doing an episiodomy and then he laid over my stomach and helped me push the baby out.

At 6:51 am on February 17, 1997 my beautiful son Tyrique was born in Keflavik, Iceland. He weighed in at 10 lbs 15 oz and was 22 inches long. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen in my whole life. He had huge hands and wide open eyes. He began his life by pooping all over his Amma (Grandma) and screamed bloody murder until he ate his first meal. Tyrique was so chunky that his arms looked like he had huge muscles :)

Tyrique was the perfect first baby, he slept through the night starting at 6 weeks old. He nursed like a champ from day one and I nursed him until he was 9 and a half months old. He refused to take a bottle so I had to always have him with me but I didn't mind because I always wanted to have him by my side :o) He was always a happy, smiling baby. He was a Mamma's boy and always will be :o)

Happy Birthday to my now teenage son Tyrique! I hope your day is wonderful and you get everything your heart desires. I love you baby boy!

This is out of his baby book, if you click on the image it gets bigger. Sorry I covered some information up that I didn't want the whole world to see.

Here is my big boy years later!!!