Weekend...in pictures.

This weekend I took the girls to Sannauk Forest Preserve for photos. Jilly wasn't going to do it, so there not as many of her...but I did manage to get a few out of her. We also did pumpkins and leave raking...and well...I took a ton of pics over the weekend. Like over 800... I'd love to show you them ALL, but we'd be here all day LOL....so I put a bunch into collages to show you that way. Enjoy!




























Talk about picture overload...

Toodles!

Friends

Yay for friends! I have some. Not to many, but a few good ones...good ones are the best kind :)

I have my friend Amy from High School, she & I remain friends, we go in spurts of communication though. Sometimes we talk a lot, sometimes its a few years between talking. Now that she is going to be active on facebook maybe we'll get back in the swing of keeping up more. I've mentioned Amy here before, if you remember, I made her wedding cake when I was pregnant with Bree...and the cake collapsed on the way to the wedding...and I cried. I have a picture of it here. Things worked out ok though, we ended up salvaging the cake by just making pieces of it and plating it to serve that way...bad thing was no one got to see the pretty cake before the disaster.

I have Cindy, who I met several years ago through a caring-bridge site that we both visited. She ended up sending me a comment because she realized I lived nearby, and we've been friends since.


I have my close mommy friends on my Dec. 07 mommy group forum too. Two of those moms I am really close to. They are Tammy & Kami. Tammy is in Canada, Kami is in California. We talk daily on skype. We would love to get together some day....if only one of us can win the lottery :)

A while back I met a blogger named Mindi. She is awesome and very sweet. She has a great blog, I can't link you to it though, because it is private. She & I got pretty close, but she has been pretty busy lately so we haven't talked as much, I miss her.

Mindi introduced me to her mom. She'd tell me often that I reminded her of her mom, which I wasn't sure if it was good or bad LOL. Come to find out its good. Her mom & I have become very good friends via the Internet. Dazee (aka Donna), and I first started by following each others blogs. Then we started shooting off an occasional email back and forth. Now we talk on skype daily! Donna is a hoot. She & I are a lot alike in many ways, but we also have differences on things too, which makes a great friendship. We both like McD's coke, and frappes, we both drink coconut creamer in our coffee, we both swear (yeah I know, not very ladylike lol but that is the way we are!), we both have a crazy odd sense of humor,we just hit it off really well. I hope some day we can meet up. Right now we are pretty far apart, me here in IL, she in UT. We will have crazy fun when we finally get together.

I wish I had my friends close-by so we could hang out instead of hanging out talking through a keyboard and computer screen. I am very grateful for my great friends...even if they are far away.

I made this for my friends...Feel free to pass it on if you want. Hugs to my girl friends!

Toodles!

Date-anniversary

October 19th, 4 yrs ago, Bill & I had our first date. We had talked online and on the phone, previously, but on the 19th, we finally got to meet in person.

I had to work that morning, and was anxious to get the heck out of there. Once I did, I ran home to freshen up, and went to our meeting place.

This is where we met. Sannauk Forest Preserve. Its just about a mile from where I was living. Isn't it pretty in the fall? This picture I took over the weekend, since I was there with the girls.

Bill was there waiting for me to arrive. He had this big ass grin on his face when he got out of his truck, I thought it was cute. We greeted each other, and decided to talk a walk around the area.

It was a brisk but sunny day. I just had on a thin sweater, and I was a tad chilly. Bill asked if he could hold my hand as we walked, I said yes. Frequently he asked to switch sides, I asked him why, he said he was trying to make sure both my hands were able to get warm. How sweet :)

After our walk, it was time to leave, I had to get home before the kids arrived. We went to his truck to talk for a few minutes first. When he opened his door, waiting for me in his truck was a dozen pink roses, my favorite! He definitely won me over that day.

That was the beginning of our love. We had a fast courtship, met in Oct. engaged by Dec., married in Feb...we were busy ;) When you know, you just know...

We've been together ever since. We've had good times and bad. He drives me totally insane sometimes, and I do the same to him...but, we remain together :)

Happy Date Anniversary Bill. I love you.

QOTD: Do you remember your first date with your spouse/significant other?

Toodles!

Change of Season Change of Blog

Hello! I'm in a fall mood, so I'm making my blog look a little more fall-ish as well...still doing some tweaking...Hopefully it looks decent when I'm done...

*Update: UGH! Struggling to size the header right. I got it just about the size I needed it but the closer I got to the right size, the more blurry it made my picture. Not sure what the deal is.. I'll have to deal with it more tomorrow I'm beat now and want to go to bed.

*quick question...white background or colored?

Toodles for now...

Show Me Saturday! Fall!

Howdy everyone! It is Saturday...and since its been like forever since I did a Show Me Saturday (SMS) post, I thought I would get on the ball and do one today. HOPEFULLY someone will link up...hopefully a lot of someones lol but that is probably just wishful thinking...

The theme today is FALL. Now you can take the FALL theme and use it how you want, fall to me means the season fall...but well if you have a picture of someone falling that floats your boat that would work too! Whatever you think of for Fall go for it. So, SMS means to show me, so show me your fall pics in your post, and link up.


If you would like to participate please follow these simple rules:

1. Blog about the topic with pics, after all its SHOW ME Saturday.
2. In your blog post, please include my Renee's Ramblings button and link back to me (you can grab my button over on the side, just highlight the code, hit control & C to copy, then paste into your blog post.) Easy.
3. Come back here and add your URL to the linky below.

Last week while sitting at my moms, doing our garage sale that no one came to, I had a lot of free time...So, I took pictures of the leaves, since the leaves are so pretty now at moms. Here are some of my favorites:























I showed you mine, now you show me yours ;) Then LINK UP below!

Happy Saturday!

QOTD: Do you do the raking of the leaves at your house?

Toodles!

Amazing

Today I didn't get anything accomplished.

I spent my day watching CNN Live online.

Never thought I'd spend an entire day watching anything on CNN. I'm not a news junkie like my mom (sorry mom!).

It started last night really.

I got on CNN Live online to watch them make the first rescue of a Chilean miner.

When he came up, and his boy hugged him, I cried like a baby...

I wanted to stay up and watch more, but I was exhausted from crappy sleepless nights lately so I went to bed.

This morning I turned it back on and I've been glued to it most of the day.

I wasn't alone...I was chatting with my friend Dazee on Skype all day and we watched together, and cried together.

It was amazing watching each one head up, and get out, and the reunions with their family.

Some of the miners (well one...) has some controversy to him, apparently he had an affair, and his wife AND mistress met at the rescue site. Talk about awkward!

The reunions with children involved made me cry each and every time today. One especially, a 11 yr old sister to one of the miners...she stood waiting and waiting, trying so hard not to cry before he even got out. You could see her chin quivering. Once she hugged him it all let loose. So sweet.

While my house is a mess, I think it was worth it, to view this. These miners are getting a new lease on life. History was made with their rescues.

I was amazed watching today, that their president was there almost the whole time, greeting the miners as they came out. That makes an awesome president in my book. Other countries presidents should take notice and learn something...be there for your people.

Kudos go out to all the rescuers, who put in so many hours, and risked their lives to make sure these men got to safety to be with their family again. Well done.

I bet it will be kinda freaky for the very last rescuer to come up...being down there totally alone for a bit...make sure you turn off the lights dude :)

QOTD: Did you watch any of the rescues?

Toodles!

Discovery

I made a discovery this last week, and its something I'm not happy about....and its probably TMI... But, I'm going to talk about it anyways.

Ready?

My arm pits stink.

Gross!

Weird thing is, they never have before! I know you are saying "surrrrreeeee, your armpits never stunk, yeah right". I'm totally serious. I've always used deodorant, and never had any problems. In fact, my son for some odd reason smelled them one day and commented that they didn't stink, they smelled kind of sweet like Cookie Crisp cereal (LOL). My pits always smelled kinda sweet and not stinky...until this last week or so.

I'm assuming its my switch in deodorant brands, I opted to get a cheaper one last time, and I'm thinking I made a bad decision! Next time I go shopping I'm getting one of my old kinds, hopefully I'll go back to sweet smelling pits :)

Bree likes to cuddle under my arm, I don't want her smelling like stink pits! Poor kid. I want my sweet pits back :)

Aren't you glad you read this post? Hehe

Toodles!