Our odd family tree!

I wasn't sure if I should post this or not because some people may not look at the whole picture before judging us.

Well I am married to my stepbrother, which some people think is disturbing. Well you see I met him the month after I turned 13 when our parents first started dating. We moved in with his dad a year later and my husband moved out soon after that. At that time he had a girlfriend and I didn't think of him in a relationship kinda way. Well I didn't see much of him after he moved because he lived out of state with his girlfriend. Well I turned 18 and about 5-1/2  months after that he was able to get transfered to California and move back home. It wasn't long after that we realized that we really wanted to be together and after dating less then a month we ran off to Vegas one day when he got off work and here we are 15 years later still happily married to the love of my life.

Now I know some people look at our situation as we are family but we weren't raised together! Some people think we were to young or moved to fast but after being married for 15 years I really don't care what people think.

Now the point of this back story is because I had always wondered if my kids would ever talk about family trees in school, because I remember as a kid having to draw one. Well Alyssa came home the other day and was a bit confused as how to make one. " she doesn't know my husband's mom being she passed away when he was 16 and she never really knew my dad" I think her teacher might of been a bit confused when he was helping her so he had her bring it home for help from us and all i could do was laugh. Well also  told her to make it a crooked tree!

Our Easter

I hope y'all had a wonderful Easter! We spent Easter at our parents house with other family and friends. The weather was perfect, which was a nice change being that since we have lived here it has always been rainy and gloomy outside. We had a barbeque with lots of good food and the kids all had a good time playing outside and looking for eggs. Funny thing is our parents are still finding eggs that the kids didn't find.

Birthdays

As usual I'm a little late on posting these, but I can't forget the special birthdays in February. My father-inlaw birthday was the 10th my very sweet little nephew turned 4 on the 20th which was also my 15 year wedding anniversary and my very handsome, caring, loving and sweet son turned 12 on the 28th.

I love all three of these people very much and want to wish all of them a very Happy and very late Birthday!

                                                   My Father in law

                                                   My nephew Aiden

I can't seem to turn this picture over, but this my sweet son Joe!

Alyssa and Kevin's B-day

 Well I officially have a teenager and it makes me sad knowing as fast as these past 13 years have gone by the next 5 years will go by even faster, then Alyssa will be ready to start her own adult life "hopefully going to college". We have been lucky that she has been such a sweet, caring and loving kid and we just hope these teenage years are just as good as the last 13 years have been. Kevin has always loved the fact that his only girl and him share a birthday. Alyssa and Kevin have such a close relationship which I love but at the same time they are so much alike that they butt heads at times as well.

 Alyssa decided she wanted a party where her and her friends can just hang out talk and play games. I was gonna have it at our house but at the last minute I chickened out and she had it at a frozen yogurt place near us and it went just as she wanted.

 I just want to wish Kevin and Alyssa a very LATE happy Birthday and let them both know that I love them more then they will ever know.

                                                  Alyssa opening up a b-day gift

            Annika and Alyssa ready for Kevin and her b-day dinner with the rest of our family! Alyssa got the hat a b-day gift from Annika.   

Alyssa's Birthday Party Day

Birthdays

My beautiful niece Hailey just turned 10 and my wonderful mom turned 63 just recently. Joseph told my mom that 63 is the new 40! I just wanted them to both know how much I love them and I am so thankful to have them as part of our life. I hope both of you you had great birthdays!

Jennie, my mom and me..

Hailey and Alyssa

"Notice how Hailey and my mom are both red heads"

Halloween

This is my first Halloween only having one kid to take trick-or-treating. Alyssa decided to go watch scary movies with some friends and Ryan stayed home and passed out candy. We did get to go with Aiden and Hailey and Joe brought a friend along. We decided to go trick or-treating around where I live now and I have to say the kids made out really good with 7 full size candy bars a full size box of jr.mints and a 3-pack of full size pop rocks and all the other snack size candy as well. It did make me a little sad that all 3 of them didn't want to go out but I know they are getting older and I just want them to stay my babies. Alyssa and Joseph got to dress up for school so Alyssa was Bat girl and Joe was a hobo clown..

                                                                Hailey and Aiden

Joseph and Alyssa

Multnomah Falls

 We took our kids to Multnomah Falls and let me tell you it is absolutely beautiful and I think the kids really enjoyed it as well. I loved the fact that they had different levels you could walk up to get a better look at the water fall. We also ate lunch at the lodge there which was not very good at all but the gift shop did have a lot of neat things to look at. We of course picked our first wet and cold weekend of the season to go to the water fall, so we did get wet and a little muddy but it was a fun day for all of us.

This is the view from the first level

This is the view from the next level which is where we stopped because I was not wearing the right kind of  shoes for that kind of walking/hiking.

This is lodge/gift shop

                                                      This is why I love Oregon!

Ryan giving out free advice

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the Roloff Farms pumpkin patch again this year and I have to say that they didn't really have much this year. I was very disappointed with it! Now that my kids are old enough to not care we only go to the pumpkin patch for me for them, but we don't buy our pumpkins from there, we go to the store and pay $3 for the same size we would be paying $10 for at the pumpkin patch. 

                                            My twin sis, mom and I..

                                                My Family..

My babies..

Berry Picking

 My daughter, little cousin, nephew and I went to Hoffman farms to pick berries. It was very hot so we didn't last very long but the kids had a blast. If anyone lives in the Portland area you should go there. They are the nicest people and have the best homemade pies. They sell other fruits and vegetables as well, and they have a little play set made out of a John-deer tractor and one of those huge black tube things as a slide for the kids

to play on and an area to have a picnic.

                                          The cute little store

                                         Aiden picking blackberries

Our 4th of July

Our 4th of July was a good one! My sister and her 4 kids and my great niece are here visiting for a couple weeks. This is the first time my sister has came to visit since we moved here 6 years ago this summer, so it has been nice to visit with her and my nieces ages 17, 21 and 1, my 18 year old nephew and my 2 year old great niece. "Lets see if any of you can figure that one out". We also had some family that lives here in Oregon just not near us here also so that was nice as well. We did a few of the fireworks while it was still light out cause it was fun for all the kids to see all the parachutes and flags come down from the sky. I think this is the first year when all the kids enjoyed the fire works and weren't hiding from all the loud bangs. There was 26 people over half of that was kids so it was fun watching how excited they all were.

                                 My 3 nieces and great niece

                                    My nephew

                              Finding ways to have fun and it was a success

Two of my favorite kids!

Cyberbully

My 12 year old wanted to rent this the other day so I did and my 3 kids and I sat down to watch it earlier this evening. I wasn't sure what to expect of the movie or that my kids would think much of it. Well after watching this movie I think this is a movie that schools should show to kids at school. I think this movie taught my two older kids a lot but my 8 year old was not as interested being he is not into the whole facebook thing yet. When I asked what they would do if kids were to write stuff about them online they said to write mean stuff back which is something I would want to do as well, but I did explain to them that would be egging them on and that the other person would have more of a reason to keep on writing stuff but that they should  delete and or block them. Why give them the satisfaction! After we talked about it I do think they understood. I do have to admit if I were to ever find out that anyone was messing with my kids on or offline I would be in big trouble because you can say what you want about me and I don't care but nobody messes with my kids.

Mixer

My mixer which was a very cheap one that we got when we got married 13 years ago finally broke on Thanksgiving when I was using it for mashed potatoes. Being it was a $10 mixer that has been used 1000's of times I was happy it lasted that long. Well back to my point of this post is that my husband wanted to make pumpkin bars on Christmas eve and felt he really needed a mixer so he made his own.

I have to give him credit because it worked very well!

License Plate Art

Fathers day was coming and we were not sure what to get my father in-law. I mean really what do you get a man who has everything ? Well I started  to think of things that he enjoys and his 73 Bronco is his current baby but really he has everything done to it that he wants done as of right now. So that was put on the back burner, so I was in his shop and noticing all his different licence plates. So when I got home I googled licence plate crafts and to my surprise all kinds of stuff came up. I notice a couple things that I thought were neat but the prices were on the high side, but I knew I could make it myself. So the hunt began, we went to garage sales, antique stores, Goodwill's, and craigslist and could not find what we needed. So one week till fathers day and I thought we would just have to find him something that he would never use. Then for some reason I thought look on Etsy and sure enough tons of people had what I was looking for, but there was one sight that had a lot of the work done for me and after emailing her she said she could have what I needed in time for fathers day, and she had them to me 3 days later. I f any of you ever need License Plate stuff go to YesterdayOriginals and she is great to work with.

So this is what we came up with and it has to do with his Bronco and licence plates.

He loved it and posted a picture on his bronco group page and got so many people loving it .