Blog Hop - Happy Birthday to me oh and 3 things you didn't know about me

I am 30 today. 3-0! According to my kids I'm ancient now and can be sold in an antique shop. Don't you just love kids?

I'm actually not home right now, well I am, I'm typing, but I'm not home when you're reading this. I'm out celebrating being old!

Ok this week's blog hop theme is 3 Things You Didn't Know About Me.

Wow this is a tricky one.

When I was 14 I was trapped in an elevator for 8 hours with my sister, my boyfriend, my best friend, and her boyfriend. My brother was in a bowling tournament and we were all walking around exploring the hotel we were in. We were going to the floor with the gym and the elevators opened to reveal a brick wall. And they wouldn't close. 15/16 years later and I'm still not a fan of elevators. I only use them if I absolutely have to.

I'm terrified of snakes. I don't mind lizards, but something about not having legs freaks me out. It also doesn't help that my uncles terrorized me and my cousin when we were younger. We were camping out in my Grandma's back yard. They went out and caught all the snakes they could find (living in a country wooded area by a creek = lots of snakes) and put them in our tent. Knowing we were always scared of stepping on a snake, we would run from the house to the tent and pretty much dive in. Yeah we dove in to a pile of snakes. Ever since then snakes give me the creeps so bad I end up crying.

I'm also terrified of corn fields. This has nothing to do with the Children of the Corn movies, although those are some creepy kids! One of my uncle's lived next to a corn field. We used to play in it during the day, but were always warned to stay out of it at night. Usually we listened. Except one this one night we were being unusually bratty (yes I could be a bratty child) and my cousin, my sister, and I went in after dark. We got lost. We ran in and then zig zagged around so much that when we came out we were almost on the other side of the field. Thinking we could back track through the corn instead of walking down the side of the road, we went back in and zig zagged back through it. Only we never ended up back at the house. The 3rd of 4the time we finally decided that walking through the corn wasn't going to help us so we followed the road to the neighbors house and called for someone to come pick us up. Let me tell you after my mom was done with me, I didn't think I'd ever sit again.

Prayers and thoughts for my kids and ex needed

The kids spent the weekend with Patrick.

Today I got a frantic phone call from Robbie telling me that Patrick collapsed. He told me "its just like the night Papa died!"

He called 911 on Patrick's house phone and me on Patrick's cell. He kept telling me what the 911 operator was telling him, and he kept asking me if his dad was going to die.

I got there not long after the paramedics got there. All 3 of my kids were scared out of their minds. Especially since Patrick looked a lot like my stepdad did the night he died.

D came and got the girls, and Robbie and I went to the hospital. He wouldn't calm down, and figured he could wait in waiting room while I tried to find out how he was doing.

At first I couldn't get any info on him since we aren't married anymore. I mentioned leaving and Robbie freaked out so we hung around the hospital for a while. When Patrick came to he gave them permission to tell me what was going on.

He has congestive heart failure, pneumonia, and a blood clot in his lungs. They life flighted him to Stanford where they are more equipped to deal with him (because of his heart defect) which is 40 miles away.

They let Robbie go in to see him before he left so Robbie could see for himself that his dad hadn't died.

Just keep my kids in your thoughts and prayers. The poor things have witnessed so much more than they ever should have to.

Earn Cash for School with Capri Sun

Living in California and the budget crisis, all schools here are hurting. My kids' school is losing almost $500,000 this coming school year, which isn't as much as some of the other schools are losing.

Its not just in California, schools all over are hurting and every little bit counts.

Terracycle, Capri Sun, and Honest Kids have teamed up to not only help schools, but to also help our environment.

"The TerraCycle Drink Pouch Brigade™ program allows almost any school, non–profit organization or individual to save drink pouches from taking up space in landfills."

Once you sign up for it, they will send you 4 prepaid bags. After the bags are full, seal them up and drop them off at any UPS location. Its that simple.

My kids' school is getting involved for this next year. There's only 200 kids in the school, but I say at least half of them bring some sort of drink pouch to school for lunch. That's 2 cents for Capri Sun and Honest kids and 1 cent for all the others.

It might not seem like a lot, but all of it adds up for your school, church, or whatever you sign up for.

Now you're wondering what they are doing with all those drink pouches. They recycle them into different things.



Head on over and sign up your school or organization and help one drink pouch at a time!

WFMW - Earn gift cards for using search engine

We all find ourselves searching for the web for one thing or another. We've all heard of those search engines that you can"win" money for searching. I, myself, have done it a few times in the past. Until I give up on ever winning. That was until I found Swagbucks. I can't even remember how I came across the site its been that long.

With Swagbucks you earn points for searching, shopping, or you can trade in those old cellphones or video games. You can then redeem the points for gift cards for Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble, Disney.com, Wii Points, and Victoria Secret just to name a few.

I will let you in on a little secret. Swagbucks helped me pay for my daughters' birthday presents, and now I'm working towards my son's birthday and Christmas.

You can download a toolbar, so you can search right from your browser making it much easier and much faster.

Go to Swagbucks today to find out more. Also head over to We are THAT Family for more WFMW posts.

Blog Hop - Favorite Photo

This picture is one of my all time favorites. At the time the picture was taken my Grandma was 100 and my nephew was almost 1. My Grandma just celebrated her 104th birthday.