Crazy Love Gamble-Style

Today was hard, to put it mildly. Some days parenting brings me to tears, this was one of  those days.  I don't know what it is.  Ava is the sweetest most loving girl.  She can charm the pants off of just about anyone and has a million perfect little qualities...BUT She is driving me bat-shit crazy lately. She KNOWS she is driving me crazy and it seems to just fuel the fire.   Yes, I know what you are thinking, she needs more  attention.  This girl is demanding attention every. single. second.  With out fail, she is asking for something at  all times.   Usually you can find her on me, physically on me.   She is loud, totally obnoxious, sassy, back-talking, instigator of all kinds of trouble, liar, wild and  constantly disrespectful. I am at my whits end.   I talk to her about all these issues until I am blue in the  face, I explain what s...

These kids are driving me crazy. And it has nothing to do with the fact  that I couldn't ever get them both to look at me at the same time for these photos.  No, I'm talking about stubborn, naughtiness that is just too much.  I tell Ava to do something and she just looks at me and says "No.  I'm NOT doing that."  What?  How is that possibly acceptable??  I don't understand why she is not more scared of me yet?!  I try so hard....: )  But seriously, she is so difficult right now.   You know how I made her those cool school  books that she could use dry erase on, she is  now acting like it's a fate worse then death if  I try to get her to work on them.  I wanted her  to love doing them, she actually did at first.  I have been also working on getting her to do  something, anything, independently.  She is pinned to me ALL. DAY. LONG.  She used to s...

And when you read "fun" think extreme sarcasm. Norah made our super long drive to Spokane a little piece of hell. Just to remain consistent, she ruined the one on the way home too. At least one of our children does awesome in the car.  There. Look at me, finding the bright side amongst all this SCREAMING! We will get home someday right??

This girl brightens our days. Days that have been a little sucky.  Ava has been sick and INTOLERABLE.  Oh and cute, but mostly manipulative, emotional, sad,  miserable, and just generally not herself.   We are over it.   8 days. I promise it's enough.

The tomatoes are finally here! These are by far the best tomatoes John has grown. They are DELICIOUS. Every meal we add some sliced tomatoes with basil & balsamic on the side, it is heavenly. I am gearing up for making some salsa, although a little timid after last years epic fail. If you don't believe me that it sucked I am sure I can muster up a few jars for you to taste, although you would only need the one. The fact that we have some left is a pretty good indication seeing as we are Salsa People, when I go to the grocery store I often come home with 4 or 5 containers of the stuff, I could drink it. I am betting I couldn't make bad salsa with these tomatoes. Scratch that, lets just say I am confident I will try harder then last year and the awesome tomatoes shouldn't hurt things right? The sunflowers are here too, such a happy flower. Do you think Norah knows I am watching her?? She looks sort of guilty... She kept stealing to...