Thursday, March 25, 2010

Aaron's sleepover


Meemaw just sent me these pics and I thought they were hilarious. Apparently when everyone was watching Facing the Giants the other night Aaron and Bryson thought it would be fun to "suit up" for the occasion. I'm not sure what the padding was but it sure is funny. Aaron had a ball and I'm so glad he got to go and spend some time with his cousin. Wish we lived closer so they could get together all the time! He is still telling us about everything they did... From what I can gather it involved some Wii, some wrestling, "Pendragon" ( a movie he thought was way cool), and a whole bunch of talking. =)
P.S. There were a couple other shots but I can't get them to upload right now.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Not really sure

It's been so long since I posted more than one thing at a time I'm kind of rusty, but here's hoping this won't be totally boring.
I've been trying to update just a bit the past few days and I may even change my background again pretty soon. I get my layouts from Shabbyblogs.com and they are free. I've linked to her in my sidebar if you want to check it out.
I also want to add more pictures. I just found out that I can add pages to my blog so I'm over the moon happy about the possibilities there. One of them I'm thinking will be for the kids to tell about (or me to tell for them... however) their cooking experiences. Another may be for books I plan to read or have read. One is already labeled projects and as I have so many of those on my to do list I'm hoping I can start filling it up.=) I may even post one to record my workouts...when I ever get around to doing them. Maybe that will help motivate me. Or what is that word I'm looking for? I'm plenty motivated...all I have to do is look in the mirror or see an older picture or pull out an outfit I can no longer wear and I'm "there". (You know where "there" is..it's that big red spot that follows you around. Yeah, that one.) Maybe I just need to prioritize my time better. Anyway, you get the point.
I always get inspired to blog when I read other people's. So maybe that's what got me going.
Anyway...that's all my time for now but I'll hopefully be checking back in soon.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

In case you ever wondered...

I have been wanting to update my blog for some time now but I guess I've just been too busy living life to write about it.
What do I do that could keep me that busy you ask? Hmmm, let me see... let's go back to the last week of Feb.
The plans are to leave for TX on Wed (before the wedding on Sat.) so we will have time to visit Aunt Carol first. On Mon. morning I get Janell to come and stay with the kids so I can go work on my dress some more. And I needed to find shoes and various other things for the wedding. So I took a couple hours to do some running, and ,thank the LORD, I was able to get everything taken care of in a short amount of time. (An absolute miracle.) Than I headed to Mom's to try to finish up my dress. ( I had planned to sew at my own house but my machine chose the week before to die on me, so I had to end up doing it all at Mom's. Gotta say I love her serger!) I was there until late again but I got all the machine work done, thanks to Mom's wonderful help. Then I headed home. Tues. I spent all day cleaning and doing laundry. I was going to pack but since all (and I do mean ALL) our clothes were dirty I had to get them clean first. =) Wed. morning finds me exhausted, half-packed and with 2 kids running fever. yay. Ed got home that morning so we decided to just see how the kids did and go ahead and finish the packing. I finally got all the packing done by late afternoon and Lela was the only one still running fever. But we got the van all packed and decided to just load up the kids and take off and pray that Lela's fever would be gone by the time we got to TX. We didn't really have a choice as it's an 8 hour trip and we had to be in Beaumont for Friday morning. The longer you wait once you are packed the more time you give for something else to go wrong...=) So 7:30 pm we head out. We had to make a couple of stops for Ed to nap, but we finally made it in to Aunt Carol's about 5:30 am Thurs morning. ( Oh, and Lela's fever was gone...praise the Lord!) we all crashed for about 3 0r 4 hrs. and then we were up again. We had a great visit, although it was way too short. We spent the day just chatting and the kids played games and watched movies. Then Friday morning we headed to Beaumont. Needless to say everything after that was just a blur...bridesmaids luncheon, rehearsal, misc. running, getting ready, and wedding time. The wedding was gorgeous and it was so much fun getting to meet new people. It was good to head for home though. We packed up Sun. morning hoping to be back for the evening services but after a dozen potty breaks it's safe to say we didn't make it.
Ed had to be right back to work Mon. morning and the kids and I slept in. I took me the next whole week to recoup (i.e. unpack, clean, do laundry, and sleep) and then I had to start in on school of course and getting my consignment stuff ready for the sale. I won't bore you with the details of all that but suffice it to say it takes up waaayyyy more time and space than you would think. I usually spend all my time thinking "is this really worth it?". But when I get the check afterwards it always is.
We finally have our new math curriculum in and the kids ( and myself too) are really liking it. We've done a decent amount of school since we got home so I can't complain too much there. I think we will be working off and on over the summer though. We just lost too much time last year. Oh well...it will keep us in practice at least.
Last Sat. was Peepaw's 86th birthday so we went down to Wiggins with Mom and Daddy for the day. I took a bunch of pictures and a video clip so I will try to post them as well. When we stopped at the Walmart down there we saw bunch of baby bunnies for sale and ended up coming home with one. He was the cutest little thing and Aaron named him Twitch. The kids, of course, loved him to death and surprisingly he wasn't scared of all the commotion. After the first day I let him out around the house a bit. Mon evening Ed set up the tent so the kids could sleep in it and unfortunately one of them thought it would be a good idea to take Bunny outside to sleep too. Problem was they had already been told not to... our puppy ended scared the bunny so much it jumped out of their hands and escaped out the back fence. The kids came running in crying their little hearts out to tell us about it and we looked for him over an hour but never found him. I think I felt as bad as they did about it. I'm hoping we can get another one (or maybe two) really soon. It's a hard way to learn a lesson but maybe it did more good than all the sermons I could preach.
Anyway,...I hope I haven't bored you with too many details...in so many ways my life literally does consist of dishes, laundry, school, diapers, and other mundane things...but on the other hand it's so much more. I'm seeing my children grow and learn and change. I'm still learning how to deal with attitudes and the challenges unique to each child. We've decided that Aaron is too old for spankings so we need to find other ways of disciplining him when necessary...he just got to go on his first sleepover this past weekend with his cousin. Lela swings between being a normal 8 yr old who is a bit bossy..to being an unbelievably mature little girl who can clean the kitchen and get her little brothers in bed when I have a migraine. For Alyssa, the challenge is to see that she faces reality while not smothering her spontaneity and imagination. She has an amazing memory and almost outstrips Aaron and Lela in reading and spelling. She and Lela are both taking quilting lessons from Mom and are learning to use the sewing machine. The love it and are learning fast!
Isaac is so loving and goes around singing most of the time. He charges through life with reckless abandon. It occurred to us the other day that he needs more responsibility now so his chore list has grown. And we have to constantly remind both him and Levi to not be so rough. They go from being best friends to best enemies and back again. It's certainly never quiet when they are around. Levi is our charmer... 150% BOY. He usually has a sparkle in his eyes because he's trying to pull a prank or he thinks someone's corny comments are hysterical. He is a perfectionist and has to have each article of clothing on just so (compared to Isaac who honestly wouldn't care if he didn't have any on =). He's enamoured with "army guys" and keeps saying " I love you, Mama. Know what, I would like a BB gun and a bow and arrow foy my buthday".
Kyla is a little busy body. She thinks she is grown and runs around taking care of whatever "project" she deems important. She loves to help clean, to "mother" Asher to death, and to change her clothes 5 times a day. Don't laugh, but I finally had to find a long ribbon that I tied from her beltloop to mine just so I could keep track of her. Asher is just growing fat and happy. He weighs over 17 lbs now and has found his voice. He squeals, coos, babbles and blows spit bubbles. He does not like being alone at all, but for the most part is a very content little guy.
Ed is as amazing as ever. I think I mentioned that he photographed Lauryn's wedding, and, may I say, they are fantastic pictures. He manages to juggle work, photography, being a daddy/husband, and all the other things people call on him for with seemingly no effort at all.
He keeps me balanced out. =)
Me, well, I'm still trying to get my ducks in a row. haha. Don't think they ever will cooperate but I still try. I'm hoping to start working out any day now and maybe even find a spare minute for scrapbooking.
I do apologize for the book. =) If I haven't totally scared you off by now, I'll see you next time!