Wordless Wednesday

These pictures won’t be too good after Christmas, so I though I’d just better get motivated to post them.

      

   
And then there is the ONLY picture I can find with all three of the kids in front of the tree(2008). Bad Mommy!

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Would you mind? If I shared the story I’ve written up about everything that happened last week. I have already written it up, but want a way to have it stored for memory purposes. So do you all mind if I post it here? Let me know what you think. It’s just very long, and somewhat detailed, but I want to remember it, so we never forget.

Happy 5 year anniversary

 

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Sorry I’m not going to say much else. We’re facing a tough time right now, and unfortunately it deals with our newest family member. We found out on Tuesday that baby #4 had no heart beat, and we’d lost him/her around 8 weeks. Thank you ahead of time for the thoughts and prayers.

I won’t be posting again before Christmas, and probably won’t be blogging much from now on. At least for a while. If you still want to keep in touch with our family, let me know here, and I will email you my Facebook name/profile/whatever you call it.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you and yours! Hug  your families all you can!!!

The post I leave untitled

More tomorrow……

What I’ve been up to…

….no good of course!

Just kidding.

Actually I’ve been knee deep in fabric. Trying to accomplish a project that seems un-accomplishable.

If you promise not to tell, I’ll tell you.

Promise?

Okay so I trust you all now.

I found this, and wanted to join in!

Here’s a sneak peek of one of the THREE I’m going to TRY to get done before Christmas!

So sorry if I don’t get much blogging done between now and then. But know I’m reading along with your blogs!

I'm Alive, and well

It's true. Sorry just not much in the blogging mood lately. Hopefully soon I'll be back up to blogging. Just wanted to let everyone know we're doing good. Had a good Thanksgiving despite a little bug that managed to make it's way through our house.

And just because. Take the time to listen, really listen.

Have you Thanked a Veteran Today ?

I’m trying to teach my kids that this life hasn’t always been easy. They’ve got it better than a ton of kids in this world. Sometimes it’s easy and other times it’s hard. They don’t understand war, they don’t understand children living without running water and not enough food to eat. We try our hardest but do we ever succeed until we’ve actually lived in someone else’s shoes, not really.

   

Today is a day of remembering our Veteran’s and our soldiers still fighting for our freedom. Today is a day we should Thank a Veteran, but we don’t always think about it. When I had the chance to take the girls to a celebration celebrating Veteran’s, I decided we were going.

Dahrran’s school puts on a nice program and it was good to see all of the Veterans that showed up!

So THANK YOU Veterans, current Soldiers, and Families of our Service Men and Women!!!!!!

My little ghouls and goblins

We weren't sure if we were going to be able to trick or treating.  Dahrran started running a temperature the weekend before, and was still not in school on Thursday. The Kaitlynn started running a temp on Tuesday night. By Thursday morning (her temp spiked Wed evening) we decided to take her in. After holding her down and a swab up the nose she was a confirmed H1N1 case :(. Not that I was surprised, it’s been running ramped like wildfire through Dahrran’s school.

After getting Kaitlynn started on Tami flu we saw an immediate difference in her, and by Friday evening no fever was present! It didn’t show up again on Sat, and so we were free to go Trick or Treating. The kids had so much fun, but I think Kaitlynn had the most!! She didn’t want us to carry her, and even threw a fit when I tried to empty her bucket and make it lighter. Towards the end though “Carry Me” could be heard.

Dahrran the Baseball player, and the girls as Ballerina’s

I had all intentions of the girls being little fairies, wings and all. When MacKenzie saw me making their Tutu's she insisted that she was going to be a ”dancing girl”. Guess who won? I had all hopes of finding Jews that you Iron on that said I (heart) Dance, and putting them on their shirts, but I couldn’t. So instead I got Iron on Glitter letters and planned on putting them on both the girls shirts. After getting home I decided I didn’t like that Idea for MacKenzie’s shirt, and Kaitlynn’s didn’t lay flat! On Kaitlynn’s shirt I just put Dance down one arm, and will probably put “Just” on the other. (someday) With MacKenzie’s, I decided to go a different route. After seeing Crystal’s shirts, I knew I wanted to try this out!! So I did! I love how it turned out!!!

Love how each one of them has their own smile….

…if you can’t tell it’s Kaitlynn’s new smile!

 

Before heading out we had to dance like a ballerina as well! Thank goodness Aunt Jess was able to show her how!

 

First Snow of the Year

Well, I’m about a month behind in blogging but after a day of just blogging I’m hoping all be all caught up and can get on track soon!!!!

We had our first snow on October 10th. October 10th people!!!!! That is NOT normal for here. In fact we haven’t really had much of a fall at all. A few days here and there when it’s been warm enough for us to play outside comfortably. Other than that it’s been way too cold or rainy to do much of anything outside. 

We’d had plans for the day, with Dahrran and MacKenzie, but Kaitlynn was able to stay home with aunt Jessica and play in the snow. She was able to make a snow man out of the wet yucky snow!!

Always have to eat the first snow of the season!

Just my size Snowman!

Throwing Snowballs at aunt Jessica.

My Favorite Picture from the whole day!

Ending with a look down our street.

Picking Pumpkins

I didn’t take my kids to a Pumpkin Patch this year. Oh, who am I kidding, I haven’t ever taken my kids to a Pumpkin Patch. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to take them, but the cost keeps me away. I’d love to take them, but I know they’d want to pick out a big pumpkin, and I’m sure it would cost an arm and a leg. Not to mention the cost to get in, and the cost to do this and that!

Another factor that keeps us away is the drive. It’d take us an hour or more to get to any Pumpkin Patch around here. So we improvise, we usually just head to our local Landscaping store to pick out a pumpkin or two, or even grow our own. The last few years we’ve been fortunate enough to have grandpa (my dad) grow pumpkins.

This year though, Great Grandpa had some pumpkins. Grandpa didn’t plant a garden, and neither did Great Grandpa. One day when Great Grandpa (my grandpa) was mowing the lawn he came across a pumpkin plant. He went ahead and let it grow and just mowed around it all summer.

When Grandpa called and asked if we wanted to come out and pick them, we agreed! Of course by the time we got there it was almost dark, and I don’t play with my camera enough to figure out how to work it right at dusk. (If you have tips on using a DSLR at dusk please email me!!!!)

 
Dahrran & MacKenzie searching through the weeds to find them!

Grandpa had his lawnmower cart and so he brought it over so we could put all the pumpkins in it.

      The girls showing off their pumpkins. Grandpa was great, picked himself a few out, and then sent the rest home with us!

Kissing the Cat

Kaitlynn is such an animal lover, well wait she’s a lover period. She loves the animals, but will give you a hug and kiss on command as well. She is constantly trying to catch the dog or cat to give them some loving. One night Joel caught her sitting on top of the cat (don’t worry no cat was harmed…he’s a fat cat…I mean it, at 20lbs I finally said enough is enough and cut his cat food down. But we’re not talking about him now are we?).

He couldn’t get the camera fast enough to get a picture of her on top of the cat but, we were able to catch her kissing the cat.  She was sitting on his back pulling his neck up and kissing him. When we caught her she’d just resorted to holding onto his head instead.

I know some day she’ll hate me for posting these, but they’re just precious! She loves that cat, and catches him whenever she can.  And I catch these moments when I can!

Cuddling with Daddy

The kids love to cuddle with Joel, and since the weather has gotten cooler it’s gotten easier. You see I’m a tight butt, and won’t crank the heat. I keep our thermostat set at 60 degrees all winter long. We wear sweat pants, socks, sweatshirts, and just use blankets when we all settle down in the evenings.

They all just hopped up there one night, and so I knew I had to get pictures. Although it lasted about 5 seconds after I got this picture, it still was too cute not to capture! Thank you Joel for being such a great daddy and husband!! I couldn’t do it without you!!!

Our take on Rainbow Cake

After seeing this cake, I thought hey we could do that. Although I had no intentions of doing it right away, I figured we could do it some rainy day. My dad called me one afternoon and asked if I could bake my little sister’s birthday cake. Not a problem….except when you’ve got a little helper that wants to eat said cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.

So here is the story of how this cake

And this sweet little face

Can turn these 1 cup prep bowls

Into this yummy cake!

And of course what is cake making without the sweet little helper dipping her fingers into said prep bowls. She was such a mess when we got done! And of course she was not happy about it going in the oven!

The cake turned out fairly decent (for not following the directions, and making our own), although the kids wouldn’t eat it! Not sure why. I did make the cake from scratch, and I’ve never done that before. It did taste different from a “mix”, and even Joel commented on that. Who knows. It’s something I would do again. It was fun to see the different colors and to still know it was just a white cake!

Football Season is among us

Rarely do Joel and I get the chance to go out on a “date.” We just don’t make the time. We have the time, but we just don’t say “Hey we should get a babysitter and go out,” we’d rather just spend the time with our kids at home. When we do decide maybe we should take some time and go out it’s usually a big deal!

I’m not sure where you’re all from but where we live, College Football is a big deal. It’s what we live for. As soon as football season is over, all we do is talk about the recruits, and who we’ll have playing for us next year. Spring practice rolls around and we sell out our PRACTICE game! Guess it’s no surprise considering we just celebrated 300 consecutive sell out games!

So unless you’re a season ticket holder or know of someone who is, it’s hard to come by tickets at a decent price. You see I’ve been trying to get us a pair of tickets, at face value, for years now. Just one pair, for one game. When we got offered a pair of tickets, at face value, from a couple in town we couldn’t pass them up! We quickly found a babysitter and made arrangements as far as work was concerned.

Here is Joel and I about 40 minutes before kick off. I know we were early birds!

Sea of Red, and first touch down balloons.

 

Shortly before the game started, love the picture except the guy with the binoculars!

My step sister was able to score tickets for free for the same game. It was great to catch up with them on our way out of the stadium. My step sister, her friend, and me. (we made Joel take the picture)

 

And since we were too cheap to pay for parking, (I’m sorry but $20 bucks is a little nuts if you ask me, and I know that was one of the cheaper places) we had to walk about 25 blocks from the stadium. Needless to say I got my workout for the day. On the way back to the car, Joel decided to run ahead of me some and get the car. While I was standing there I saw this little stamp on the concrete.

State Fair

Every year since Joel and I started dating we’ve went to the state fair, well that is except the year I was in the hospital after giving birth to Kaitlynn. Sometimes Joel has had to work, sometimes we go just for a meeting, and other times we go to have a good time as a family.

This year we were fortunate enough to have my step sister come along with us. It was great for me to have an extra set of hands, and that way we could let Joel watch the cow show and go about our business. We also took Dahrran out of school for a fun “family day.”

Just starting the day out. Let me tell you, if you have kids close in age this stroller is THE BEST! It is SO worth the money. The best part is it grows with you, we’re about out growing it, but it does fit all three kids if need be.

 

Checking out the Longhorns. Dahrran LOVES Longhorn cattle.

Only family picture of the day…

Checking out the Clydesdales

 

We even checked out a few “shows”

 

They got “Pee Wee”, named not because he was small, but because he peed a lot!

The goal was to see who’s frog could jump the farthest. Everyone won a frog “trophy” that consisted of a plastic cup and a squeaker frog hot glued to the top. They got a kick out of it, but Dahrran didn’t want to touch the frog. Considering these are the kids who catch toads all summer long, it was quite the sight to see!

This was a high diving show. If you look closely there is a guy standing at the top. It was a really neat show, and I’m glad we took the time to sit and watch it.

There was a place that you could go “fishing.” It was basically a big pool, and they gave you a stick with fishing line and a hook with a worm. We couldn’t catch anything but one of the guys caught one and Kaitlynn loved it.

 

And then there were the Plasma Cars. I’m telling you, if anyone wants to buy my children these I will not stop you! They are AWESOME!!! Even adults can use them…or college kids! ;)

Tuckered out at the end of the day.

If you noticed she still had her binky in these pictures. We “lost” it for a while, and then mommy caved and gave it back to her because of teething. We have since “lost” it again for good. One day I was tired of trying to understand her through her binky and when she woke up from nap they were all gone. I told her we threw them away. The first week was hard, and it still is hard if she gets hurt. She will sit here and just cry “binky, inky, binky, inky.”

~Amanda~