Rudy Family Rukus~Parenting tips and humor meet in one big "rukus"

This is only a small part of the mess you have started (but the only picture in the past year I have). I have realized again I don't take nearly enough pictures of you. Hope you have a great day. We ALL love you very much and appreciate all you do for us. Thanks for always being a great example and for dropping everything and helping us out like you do! LOVE YOU MOM!

And the winner is.... Lisa E. Please email me so I can get this to you ASAP! Thanks everyone for participating it was so much fun.

Please be patient I don't have the video camera I want yet. But this is what my kids live for after each football game. This video features my kiddos and our neighbors who shall remain nameless here. Visit their family blog here . OH and don't forget to comment on the 200th post to be entered to win I will be closing it at midnight tonight and announcing the winner tomorrow!!

These apples equal 200 calories. But I am offering something that is completely calorie free! "My 200th post giveaway!" So I totally just skipped over my 200th post like it was NOTHING!! Hello! And because I also spaced my 100th post I am going to do a 200th post (okay 201th post give away) I dont' have a picture of it yet but I promise it will include hand made goodies from Close To My Heart (made by ME of course) and I am certain that it will contain some pampering items and a gift card to Target. So to be entered once leave a comment here! For a bonus entry go here and start a discussion you think others might want to comment on! You must live in the continental US because shipping will break me!! Best of luck! This giveaway will be closed on Wednesday September 30th! So comment NOW!!!! These are some of the cards I will be giving away. They come in bunches of 4 or 5 so YOU have more to give away!

I have THIS So I haven't been doing much of THIS But here is a picture of some pretty cute kids. I am really trying to edit my photos more. Let me know what you think. Katie was clearly more interested in pulling grass but the rest of the gang is pretty cute. Of course I am biased!

So I was going to do a fabulous post about something ingenious but I just annoyed my time share company sales rep because I decided I couldn't justify spending $10,000 to up my "plan" and now my mind is blank so I will share a photo with you that might make you laugh or cry or report me! Either way I hope my daughter will forgive me when she is a teenager.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama . You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. I am not known for my domestic skills. I admit it so I certainly did not purchase several pounds of corn on the cob with the intention of freezing for the winter. And I certainly did not have three young children (all of which are mine) help me to husk all of this corn. They certainly did NOT enjoy helping. I did not bottle 6 quarts of tomato juice and 6 quarts of homemade salsa. And of course I did not freeze these 6 bags of corn. That just wouldn't be anything like me!

Today I wanted to highlight one of my bloggy friends. I am actually lucky enough to also be real live friends with this blogger. We even live pretty close hehe. Her name is Ruthanne and you can visit her blog here . I am highlighting her blog today for a few reasons. First I really like her and think she is a great friend and has always been very supportive of my blog, second we were given a BlogFrog Community Leader assignment to highlight a blog that we respect and like to read, and third I have been seeing other bloggers do this and I think it is really COOL! So I asked Ruthanne the author of ***Live, Laugh,Love*** a few questions and here is what she had to say. Why did you start blogging? One of her friends was really after her to get a blog started because that particular friend was going to be moving and wanted a way to keep up with what was going on with her. She started looking into the whole blogging thing and really loved the idea of an online journal to help her

I have a love of chocolate cake. There is nothing like a rich moist piece of chocolate cake to put me in a really great mood. So on Sunday I found a recipe for Sour Cream Chocolate Cake on www.cdkitchen.com . And oh was it yummy you know the kind where it is a must to have a tall glass of milk right there beside you and you aren't even tempted to clean up your kids leftovers because it was just that rich. My kids loved it too. I just couldn't resist getting a shot of them eating the last piece. Guess I will just have to make more!

We were supposed to wake up this morning and go to Hogle Zoo and see all the new little baby animals. It is a perfect day to go to the zoo. It is cool outside and the possibility of rain so we wouldn't have had to stay ALL day. But..... I woke up feeling a little like this. Okay I felt way worse than this. But it was the only headache picture that I found remotely hilarious after the morning I had. I have had bad headaches before with all the migraine symptoms but this one was a doozy. I took the strongest medication I had around...ahem Tylenol and then went back to bed to try and fight off the nausea just long enough for the pills to dissolve. You get the idea. Anyway now I am trying to post something because it has been DAYS and so now you can feel sympathy towards me and offer great headache cure advice!! (Having some technical difficulties with this picture, operator trouble I am sure, click on this silly little guy to get the full effect)

I have seen so many posts about 9/11. How people felt that day. Nearly everyone remembers what they were doing when it happened. I certainly do. It was such a devastating day for our country. I wish I could say I thought we came out for the better. I think that initially we did. Our country become one. We didn't care about the "issues" that burden our society. We cared about humanity, we cared about our brothers and sisters that were suffering injuries and loss, we cared about the public servants that sacrificed their lives for others, we flew our American Flags everyday just because we could. It was terribly humbling that a nation could come together so powerfully. You know what I wish..... I wish we could come together like that for no reason at all. Now that would be POWERFUL. What do you think?

This is what we are making at my scrapbooking club this month. I had so much fun making these pages. I love this last layout. I made it for a school carnival, and I loved it so much I almost just kept it for myself!! Click on the photos to see them better. If you can't live without this click here to order the supplies for yourself. I used the following supplies: My Acrylix Sweet Baby Animal Cookies Level 2 Paper Packet Animal Cookies My stickease Foam Die-Cuts Numbers Clover Meadow, Dutch Blue Tulip and Sunflower Exclusive Inks My Acrylix Headline Alphabet Cherish (idea book) Summer Craft Buttons Embroidery Floss Neutral Assortment

As promised here is my post about the things that matter most. Lucky for me; I spent the past several days in the land of no cell phone, internet, or any other technology. This gave me the clarity I needed to work this post out. If you read this blog at all you must already realize that my kiddos are certainly one of THE most important things to me but it goes beyond that. Family, the unit, the togetherness, the suffering at times, the love and respect, and the eternal aspect of it all. These are the things that matter the very most to me. I know my family loves me and they know that I love them. We stick together through all sorts of joy and pain and sorrow. We must; we know the ultimate reward for doing so and we all want to achieve that greatness. At times we might be a little dysfunctional. (Sorry I stole this from you Brindley) But Grandpa and Grandma (on both sides) have been great examples to me of how to keep a family together. This is only a few of us. We were a littl

College Football season 2009 Pre-game snowee because it was hot and we were ahem an hour early. Gives us a chance to see daddy and socialize a little (makes for a LONG game) Dad hard at work conferring with the Defensive Coordinator Dalton was a little bored with the game at this point and wanted to pose (which he never wants to do). So I took advantage of the great photo op!!! The smell of tailgating and a hint of fall weather welcomed us and the game did not disappoint! I still have a little excitement over it today. We loved all the new stuff that the team has including the sweet new turf. The kids enjoyed running around on it after the game. Here's to a great season! Go UTES! Preview for my next post: The Things That Matter Most (discuss it here then see the post coming soon!)

Put a favorite Disney Movie on the big screen TV Provide a bin filled with puzzles (age appropriate of course) Assure appropriate seating Enjoy the show!

Didn't know what to post about today so I decided to do the MckLinky Blog Hop because; of course my favorite thing to post about is ahem... well my KIDS! So here they are, all small and sweet and innocent. Love that stage. Katie-bug Peyton, she has been posing since a very young age obviously!! Although the pose was not intentional could he be any sweeter?