ba hum bug. THats me.

so I've contemplated deleting this blog all together. As you can see, I don't have the time for keeping up with anything related to sharing my life with others. I do try to keep my family informed on My shutterfly site, which I tend to update after big events, such as holidays. But this blog is a place for me, and a place for me is just so far from my thoughts.

It shouldn't be though. I need an outlet, a place to rant and to call my own. Between keeping up on 3 seperate, hand written journals for my kids and two different blogs, believe it or not, I run out of things to say. Despite that though, My head keeps twirling around. I have so much to talk about, I just don't feel like talking anymore. Lately, I've felt lonely, not to mention a little bit of everything else.

I could blame it on the holidays. I tend to get a bit grinchy at this time of year. I have been like that for a while now. Even though I currently still pull out my collections of santa clause figures and make sure my house is thoroughly decorated for the holidays, I still imagine My self becoming the old witch in the scary house and black dress when I'm an old woman. Thats pretty much the way I feel inside...just a little bit of "blah". Thats a scary thought though, isn't it?

Things have been compiling this month. We got hit with an unexpected $7,500 dr bill that has to be paid within 15 days (hahahaha). Yah, our insurance company has just flat out decided to not cover Annabelles visit to childrens hospital in August. Its been deemed as not Medically necessary. And despite our numerous attempts to appeal the denied claims and the drs attempts to submit forms that prove it was medically necessary, our insurance company is unwavering in their decision. To summarize, The total cost of the procedure turns out to be $13,000 Dollars...yes 13 thousand!! To fill some damn cavities on Baby teeth. Our dental insurance covered $4000 and I had already paid out of pocket $1000. Now, I get $7500 more...due now. Someone please try to argue with me and tell me our medical system in this country is not just plain Crooked!! Robbery is what it is.

There are other things too. Jeremy's job, as well as it pays, is just been aweful for the both of us. We are finally really starting to be drained and feel the burdens of being away from each other so often. Now that he is working 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, He literally misses half the month. The good, fun things we want to participate in ALWAYS happen to fall on his 2 weeks at work. Including EVERY holiday and anything else you could think of. This job has been a blessing, but the joy in it has ran dry and we are just praying for something new and better to come along.

Its hard to not be so bitter, forgive me. At church today, I realized how much I have. But I also realized how much more God wants for us to have. I'm not really talking about fiances. I'm talking about his goodness, grace and Mercy. God is so MUCH more than what we have. The cry of my heart right now is just that I will see it. We need him. I don't think we can get through any of these misfortunes with out him. But like I said, its hard to not be so bitter. I know that is hindering our blessing.... vicious circle it is.

Well, I'm certainly not promising that this blog entry means I'll get back into it. I'll try though. I like writing. I like sharing. In the mean time, be sure to catch our newest pics and entries on Shutterfly at www.thefinchfamily5.shutterfly.com

October

WoW! I didn't realize how long it had been since I last blogged regularly. I've primarily been using our family shutterfly account www.thefinchfamily5.shutterfly.com . There I quickly able to upload lots of pictures at a time and allow for my family to purchase prints. However, it was fully my intention to continue writing in this blog for personal purposes.

Life has moved swiftly and fast paced over the last couple of months. Jeremy and I's schedule is changing again as he will now be on a 14 day on 14 day off work schedule. This changes a few things for us, and although there are many negatives, on a plus side, our months will begin to be more consistent. I'm really struggling with all of the obstacles that can go along with such a rigorous work schedule. But lately, I'm just trying to give it to God. This might sound like its easy for me, but I'm finding that it isn't. Planning and being organized is in my personality, and forcing that part of me aside so I can allow for God to be my planner, is easier said than done. However, I'm working on this and praying that God has something amazing in store for our family, because honestly, I don't know how much longer I can go on with this crazy lifestyle.

On an upper note, The kids are doing fantastic in school. Better than I would ever expect of them. Isaiah recently joined boyscouts and loves it. Annabelle continues in her ballet and tap class and has her first recital in December. Both of them are so social and good at most things they do that, for now anyway, My life as a mom seems simple.

I'm still doing daycare during the days. Now my schedule is a full week every other week. Thats nice because it gives me a chance to have time alone with my own kids but still be able to earn money at home for the month. The kids I watch are really good kids, and though sometimes it can get a little hairy with so many people in the house, over all, I'm really happy to be doing it.

Thats about it on my end. Check out my new page for some great pumpkin patch photos!!
Take care and God bless!

Lots of New.

I have so much to blog about, so I'll just start in order from the beginning.

Last wednesday was Annabelle's dental procedure at childrens hospital. We were initially a little worried about the anastesia, but it went over well. Childrens hospital is amazing. It is so big and beautiful, easy on the eyes...not overly white and steril looking like a regular hospital. We were there for 2 hours before the start of the procedure to get checked in do medical history like 3 times and so fourth. Right before they got started they gave Annabelle some sleepy/funny medicine to help her not remember getting the gas and anastesia. When they were ready for her, I got to carry her back and we got to watch her go to sleep. She hated the gas mask...she just cried and cried. In fact, we actually brought it home as a suviner and she made us throw it away because it scared her so much! One hour later they were done and Annabelle was waking up. She initially started waking up a little too quickly which made her thrash and really whiney and crying. It was sad because she was so horse from having the tube down her throat. But a couple hours later she was ready to go home. All in all, it was a good experience. Mostly, we felt so very lucky to be there for nothing but an extensive amount of dental work and that we have very healthy children. It was unfortunant to see and know there were kids there that are unhealthy and spend a great amount of time at childrens.

on Saturday was Annabelle's princess party. It was just fabulous! There were 7 little girls in total that came and were dressed up in the most beautiful costumes! We started with having a picnic lunch on the living room floor (in which we had to do because it was pooring outside!) When everyone was done eating they played and danced for a while. Shortly after that there was an amazing princess surprise! Princess Maggie showed up with two of her princess friends, sarah and Erin. Because it was raining so hard out side they came bursting through the door...right when all the girls were looking! They quickly hudled all the girls around them and Maggie (in just about the best fake english accent ever!) told an elaborate fairy tale story about how they were so sorry about being late and there fairies whom do their make-up were just taking too much time and then their carriage got stuck in the mud and they had to wait for another carriage to come and get them! The girls were really just amazed!! Next Annabelle opened presents and then the big princesses painted nails and did make-up on the little princesses. Then we ate the prettiest cupcakes ever and winded down to end the party. The princess party was an amazing success...with all the thanks going to my high school friends Maggie, Sarah and Erin. Thank you girls!! Also, a special thanks to Jenn for her cleaverness!


Yesterday (monday) was the first day of school. It also was my first day of doing childcare for three other kids. 2 of the kids are in school full time and the other little one I have at home along with Annabelle and Julian. So far so good. Isaiah is in second grade this year...I just can't believe it! And to make him seem even more grown, he is in the 2nd/3rd combo class, which basically means he is learning 2nd and third grade ciricumlum. A select few bright second graders were chosen for the program. So although I feel honored, I know Isaiah has his work cut out for him this year. Annabelle starts school in 2 weeks, after that point in time I'm really going to be doing a lot of back and forwardth running around!

So these are my weeks updates! Check in again soon!

JennZav

so I pretty much just have to say really quick.....

JENN!! When the heck are we going to start hanging out more!!!!!!!!!! I miss you!

Okay, that just about covers it ;)

~M

summers end

Its been a whirl wind of events as of lately. A couple of weeks ago Jeremy and I took a short 2 day mini family vacation up to Glennwood springs and we had a great time. We stayed at the Hot springs hotel and got to enjoy some good swimming together. We also made a day out of going up to the "fairy caves" and enjoying the caves tour. The kids had a blast riding up to the top of the mountain on a tram and then enjoyed seeing some of the small amusement parks activities. The hour long tour was really exciting...and tiring...for them to go on.

The following weekend Jeremy was able to go to one of my dads races and ride with him a couple time, he had a good time. Meanwhile, My mom and the kids and I went to Heaven Fest...a Christian concert in which 15,000 attended. It was soooo HOT, It was unbarable. We stayed for a few hours and didn't get to see many of the bands so we left. Jeremy met me home a short while later and my mom watched the kids so we could go stay a couple more hours at the concert. We had a good time together. Some friends of mine that are in a band were there playing...they pretty much just rock :)

Other than that its pretty much been the usual....Baseball, Ballet, dentist appointments, baby showers, birthday parties and playdates. Those are words that can pretty much sum up my days.

Coming up in the next week and a 1/2 is Annabelle's dental surgery at childrens hospital, Isaiah getting braces on, Annabelle's 4th birthday party and then of course, the first day of school.
This school year I will be doing childcare for 3 other kids...two of them part time and one full time...so My life defiantly isn't going to slow down anytime in the near future!
During the school day I also will finally be taking piano lessons! This is something I've been putting off for a long time...in the mean time my keyboard has been great for collecting dust :(

This is pretty much me for now!! I'm excited to blog about Annabelle's party so I'll be on again soon!

starbucks

I thought I saw a glimmer of hope this morning when I saw on the news that Starbucks was closing 600 stores nations wide. Glimmer of hope for some Local coffee shops that is. But to no avail, starbucks is unfortunately not closing any stores in the state of CO. Although I drink starbucks...regularly...let me tell you why this drives me nuts.

Longmont, CO has a poplation of around 70,000. There are 13 starbucks within city limits. This includes all of the free standing stores as well as the stores located inside each grocery store. Does starbucks really think that there is a need for that many locations here?? They have managed to knock out nearly every enjoyable alternative. Now existing is only 4 other coffee shops (3 local and 1 a chain) and 2 small shops that serve sandwiches and coffee. These are poor statistics if you ask me.

So get this. Firestone, (where I live just adjacent of Longmont) has a population of 9,000. There are 3 starbucks. There is only1 local coffee shop and its only thriving because it is owned and funded by the church its attached to. Sadly enough, there use to be a really yummy local shop and it went under last summer because the starbucks inside of safeway next to it put it out of business!!

I probably sound like a HUGE coffee drinker and advocate. Thats not really the case. I go to starbucks every wed (that I can make it) With my girl Friends. Unfortunately, we only go there because its the only coffee shop near by thats centrally located (and because they are open until 11pm) But I am so sick of seeing new buildings go up and the whole time its being built your sort of like "oh what is it, I wonder what its going to be" and then Bam. Its one of two things. A bank or a starbucks.

In a nutshell? I'm happy Starbucks has lost a lot of money and being forced to close 600 stores. I hope soon they will close some of the stores locally to us. Not because I want there to be loss of jobs for the people working there (but com'on most of the people working there are collage or high school making 7 bucks an hour I don't think they'll have trouble finding somewhere else to work)
But because I think this could open doors for local entrepreneurs who have always dreamed of opening up shop...and thriving! Good riddens to you Starbucks, its nice to see you go.

A little more.

Well, that last blog was lengthy enough with the story of Annabelle, so I thought I'd just jot down a few quick things.

We had a great 4th of July like I previously mentioned. But I wanted to add a few pictures. Julian had such a great reaction. He litterally just "ooooohed" at site of the fireworks. He loved them. Annabelle was still a little scared this year as she has been every year. She doesn't like the loud noise, she ended up falling asleep in the front of car hands over her head. Isaiah had an amazing time with Kemra (kattie and pauls oldest daughter) They have been friends since they were two years old and got along as if they haven't ever been apart. Before the fireworks that night we went to an expensive carnival, that was okay. It was really hot outside and like I said, it was expensive.

On our drive home from Kansas we ended up driving into a really bad storm. Actually there were flashflood and tornado warnings right where we were. For about 2 hours we drove in extremly heavy rain (the wheat fields next to us were completly washed out with rushing waters) and we litterally saw the clouds starting to form and swirl above us. Luckily that was just before we drove out of it. Once we got out of the storm, the whole west was blue and the east where we had come from was pitch black. But, in the midst of the blackness you could faintly see both ends of a bright rainbow. Ahead of us was a beautiful sunset. Check out the pics....

last minute Stitches.

Well we had quite the mini adventure over the 4th of July. We had plans to see our good friends Kattie and Paul in Fort Riley where we were stationed in the army. They tenitivly are moving soon to Georgia so I wanted to use the oppurtunity at hand to see them before they left. Its been two years since I've seen Kattie, when they last visited us and I've missed her a lot.
The plan was to leave late Thursday afternoon...which did eventually happene...but not before a small mishap.

Thursday Morning Annabelle was all dressed for ballet in her leotard, tights and cute as can be bun. We had about 5 minutes before we had to leave so I thought I'd just quickly check my emails. Now, in our house, if you haven't seen it all the rooms sort of lead into one another making an amusing circle for my kids to run around. So, they were being typical and chasing one another around through each different doorway. Thats when tragedy struck. Annabelle tripped and fell over her shoes and slamed her self face first into the doorframe of the bathroom door. I could tell by the shrill she let out that it was bad and ran and picked her up. All I saw was mass blood and chunks coming out of her mouth. I screamed for Jeremy and he ran to where we were. I was freakin out. I though she knocked her teeth out. Luckily, he pointed out to me that the chunks were cheerios that were in her mouth. But she was bleeding badly and he could see well enough that she had a hole in her lip and we needed to take her to the ER. Jeremy got annabelle to calm down (and me as well) and we quietly made the 25 minute trip to the hospital. When we arrived I was pleased to see that there was no one in the ER and they took us back right of way. By this time Annabelles mouth had quit bleeding and we could better see the wound. Her bottom lip was split about a 1/2 inch downward, the only way I can describe it is it looked like she had a triangle of her lip missing. It looked awful. So here she is, in her ballet attire, covered in blood. But she certainly wasn't missing her smile. We had to wait for the Dr. for an hour before he came in to see her, in the mean time Annabelle was amusing various nurses by showing off her ballet "spins" and "happy feet" (1st position)
After the dr came in he explained our options. Told us though it was just a lip wound it was in a bad place because it crosses the vermilion boarder (the part where your lip transitions from pink to flesh colored) This makes it a little more difficult to ensure the lip is perfectly lined up, so they decided to knock her out with Katamine. They got preped about 10 minutes later. After injecting her with katamine through two shots, within 30 seconds she was out. This is one form of consious sedation. her eyes were open and she can breath on her own but her mind was turned off. She appeared to be zoned out, had no movement and was unresponsive. Honestly, she looked the way people look in movies when they die. Her eyes were opened but they were empty. That part was really hard for me so I left the room while they stitched her up (6 stitches) , which only took about 10 minutes.
When I came back into the room she was still knocked out cold (again she had her eyes open) It took some time, about an hour, but she slowly woke up. Sort of groggy and very disoriented. She thought for quite sometime that "mommy had 4 eyes" Once she woke up, she was happiest to see her bubu and Isaiah, although nervous and full of guilt, was happy to see her as well.
For the rest of the day they got a long great!

Well, that was the start of the day. After 4 hours at the hospital we got home around 12:30. I had to hurry at that point because I still had to finish laundry and pack our bags for our 31/2 day trip...that requires a lot of stuff for an 9 month old. But I finished up and we left the house at around 4:30, only a little bit later than we had originally planned on leaving. It was a long drive with the kids, but we made it. Annabelle remained in a bubble for the entire trip because she had to be extra carefull with her stitches.

With all that said, we did have a great 4th of July weekend. In Kansas, fireworks aren't illegal like they are here so we had a great time shooting off fireworks almost as big as the display they put on later that night. It was really nice to Kattie, I miss her tons. All in all, it turned out to be just fine of a weekend....even if Annabelle was a little bruised and banged up.

She, by the way, got her stitches removed today. It appears that the scar won't be as bad as I had originally anticipated. She is one brave little girl.

loooong time.

So Holy crap, I pretty much forgot I even had a blog. Seriously. For a while there I just didn't feel like writing any thing...and then I must have seriously forgot because it dawned on me today while browsing through Cat's blog. Geeeze. Where has my mind been anyway. So honestly, I don't know if anyone still reads this but if you do.....SORRY!!

So I won't waste time with boring stories. For now I'll just stick to a quick recap. Summer has been pretty great so far. Lots of sunshine and outdoor activities with the friends. We've manage to stay busy more than a few times every week seeing various friends and doing "summer stuff"

Annabelle started Ballet this past week. I have never seen her enjoy anything so much ever!! She is dancing at the studio called 'Axis of Movement' They offer a ballet summer camp called "princesses and Knights" Twice a week for an hour and a half they act out a fairy tale through dance and also read a story and do a craft. It is so much fun watching her learn her positions and make new friends.

Isaiah is doing well at Baseball again this summer. It has been a bit of a tradition being that for 3 years he played tball in a "just for fun" type of league and now he is playing little league baseball with (most) all the rules and the uniforms of real baseball. Some of it has been tough but I'm proud of him for working through some of his own insecurities. Go Isaiah!

Julian is crawling like Mad! He has been for several weeks now and he is pretty quick...watch out! A couple weeks ago he is learned how to pull himself up to standing position in his crib. Its too amazing how fast they grow up. In just 3.5 months he will be turning ONE!!!

Over the 4th of July we are taking a mini vacation to ft. Riley Kansas where we use to live to see off some friends that are moving to GA. I haven't seen Kattie in a long time, but we talk on the phone daily and boy do I miss her!! Once she moves across country our chances of seeing each other are pretty slim so I have to take this oppurtunity while I can!! I can't wait!

Well... As usual I have waited too long to write and now my mind is full of things to talk about so I am going to cut this short. I will try to make a pact to get on her once a week to tell you what is spinning through my head!!

blogg-less

I've pretty much been MIA lately. Not from anything important, except for my blog. I guess you could say I just haven't been motivated. I've been thoughtless, expressionless, eventless...blogless. Actually, this is only half true. I'm never expressionless....just can't seem to figure out what to put on paper.

For a quick recap, I can accurately testify that I haven't done much of anything lately. Just the usual. You know, sitting around eating bon bons and watching soap operas.... Kidding.
Apparently I haven't done anything recently that is worth recalling in my mind. JuJu did just recently have the stomach flu though. So that was fun. Cleaning up vomit and wiping tush... it pretty much has been awful. I'm happy to say he is feeling much better today.

so anyway, for today I remain mindless and therefor blogless. I think I'm in need of some rejuvenation!!

August Rush

I'm not usually one to write a movie review but tonight I feel differently. I like watching movies, but there are few that I love. Tonight I saw one of those few.
August Rush is hands down the best movie I have ever seen. The story line is compelling, sincere and beautiful. If you love music...and even if you don't...this surely will be a movie you will remember.
Freddie Highmore gives a stunning performance as character August Rush, an orphan who searches for his parents that unknowingly gave him up for adoption. While on his journey he comes alongside a music teacher "wizard", a preacher and his student, and a stay at Juliard. By following his soul and heart for music he'll soon discover what it is he was looking for all along. An amazing story of True love, compassion and art.

JuJu eating babyfood