The Vote

Yesterday, I went and voted. On the way out the door there was a lady passing out stickers. This is the sticker she put on my shirt. I am not 100% sure but I think it says "I voted"

Short Stuff vs. The Giant

Today I took Gates back to the Endocrinologist. It was a good visit. For those of you who don't know, Gates is extremely short. I think it runs in my side of the family. If any of you know Betty Perkins and her sister Glenda Tipps (from the A & M church of christ) they can confirm it. They are my grandfathers sisters and short. Very sweet though. Anyway, his pediatrician sent us to a specialist to make sure there was nothing wrong. In fact, after tons of tests, there is nothing wrong he is just short stuff. At our last visit, he was pushing it to be in the 5th percentile. (It looked more like the 3rd percentile to me) This visit, he had jumped to the 10th percentile. YEA!!! Gates!!! He grew. The doctor did some calculations and determined that his growth velocity is in the 75th percentile. Which means he could easily catch up to all the other 4 year olds if he continues to grow at this rate. While we were there, I had the doctor put Beck's measurements in on the chart. He is almost exactly the same height as sweet little Gates. He is in the 95th percentile for height. He is the opposite of Gates and a GIANT. This means that they will be wearing the same clothes for at least another year. People are always asking me if they are twins. I hate to give people too many details but it is hard for people to understand unless I do. Argh....So now you have it. Two brothers+15 months apart+one short and one tall=same size.

Thank you God for good news!

Trunk or Treat

We dressed up the kids for Trunk or Treat at the church. They had loads of fun and got TONS of candy. Elisabeth was Hanna Montana. I totally regret letting her be that but there is no turning back now. The boys were all pirates...they were nice pirates is what I kept telling them. They still wanted to have sword fights and Argh..at each other, though. Sing it GIRL!
Handsome Pirate

Silly Pirate

Cutie Pirate

He posed behind this tree so I had to take his picture.

These pictures loaded out of order so here it is out of order. The kiddies got tons of candy and these two little apples. They made me laugh for some reason.

This is the truck load of candy they got. I put a soccer ball in there so you could see the size of this HUGE basket of candy.

I am going to get rid of three fourth of it while they are sleeping. This could feed a whole country.

This is the sweetest little pirate in the whole world.

...and Beck actually let me take his picture this time. I took a lesson from my sweet friend Amy's (also known as Josh's cousins wife) blog. It must have worked because he smiled and everything.

Sea World in Random Order

Since it was fall break, I decided to take the kids to Sea World on Friday. We went with two other families from school. It was a blast. Josh and I like to get season passes and typically go several times a year. This was the the first time I had taken all the kids by myself. The kids are so familiar with the place that it wasn't a problem. I wish we lived in SA. I would take the kids all the time. Here are the kids after getting soaked by Shamu or "shampoo" as Beck would call him. Sorry for the poor quality of this picture, but I had to include it because of the shear joy on her face. She was so proud of her wet self.

Here are all the kids getting soaked. Those whale tales can really push some water. I have to confess that I usually never let my children get in the splash zone. I am too much of a control freak to let them get wet with all that nasty salt water. I always think they will get sticky with all the salt water. However, I made myself let it go and it was so fun.

Here they are telling the whales to splash.

Getting ready to ride the "shampoo" express.

Little booties checking out the alligators.

These is our friends Hope and Avery with Hogan and Elisabeth. Hope's mommy teaches Gates at school and Avery was in Elisabeth's class last year.

Season passes for all of us: $378.00

Pizza and drinks for lunch: $55.00

Gas to SA and back: $82.00

Seeing your children shriek with pure joy: PRICELESS

The weather was beautiful!!! We all had loads of fun. The animals remind of God's magnificent creations. All is good. If anyone else has a silver pass and wants some company let us know we would love to join you.

PS. I got peer pressured into riding the Great white roller coaster. Let me just say there was nothing great about it. I am so not a roller coaster person. I am pretty sure the whole park heard my screams. I should have known to bow out when the man made me leave my flip flops with him. The first thing that happens all that ride is the floor drops our from under you. That began the screaming and it did not stop until the roller coaster stopped. That thing turned me every which way. SCARY! I will stick with the shows and the Shamu express next time.

Fall Fun!

I bought a bunch of these beautiful apples at the grocery store. My intension was for the kids to take one to their teachers because they were HUGE and BEAUTIFUL! However, this crazy mom forgot that she had purchased them and we didn't give them to the teachers last week. This week is fall break so we don't have school. I was afraid the apples would go bad so we made an apple pie instead. The kids had a great time using the "apple, peeler corer slicer." I hightly recommend them. Elisabeth is peeling. As she peels she is munching on the extra peel. The little boys weren't much help. They mostly ate the already peeled apples.
See what a fantastic job that gadget does. It works great for potatoes, too.
Hogan is holding a pile of peel. The kids had the best time playing with the peel and eating it. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the finished pies. They were ugly anyway. :) I am not a Martha Stewart. They tasted delicious, though.
Today, we went to the pumpkin patch. It was very picked over but still fun. Sweet kiddies!


Sweet BIG boy.

Only little girl.
Poser!
Then there was Beck. He was not wanting his picture taken. Argh....there is always one.
Have a great day!

Looser

Tonight we had family Wii night. It was lots of fun until.....Elisabeth hit a homerun. She ended up beating Hogan at baseball 5-0. Not good. They had the following conversation:

Hogan: "I am just a looser! (insert stomp, stomp, stomp off towards his room) From now on everyone call me looser!"
Josh: "Looser get in here. What's the matter with you?" (I did get on to him for calling him that. If you don't know Josh he really means no harm. Those of you who know Josh well...nuff said.)
Hogan: "I'm just a looser! Sissy always beats me!" (Which is totally not true. He is actually much better than she is at bowling.)
Elisabeth: "He is just being a B."
Me: "What does that mean?" (What in the world surely she doesn't mean what I think she means)
Elisabeth: "You know.... a baby." (I was muched relieved that she didn't say the word that rymes with itch. Then quickly told her not to say that anymore)

Spirit Day! Go Warriors!

The kids had spirit day today at school. This is the first time the school has done something like this and I think it was a big success. They usually wear strict uniforms that get boring and old. So this was a fun change for all of them. The school did not have spirit shirts so the kids were told they could make them. Well, you know what that means. I love to create...and create I did. Josh thinks I went overboard. I think they are just right. Here they are all spirited up. The front of Elisabeth's shirt says "I heart recess at ACA". The "at" is in BLING. The other letters I made out of fabric and I appliqued them on. (actually the I heart recess was already there I added the at ACA part) I couldn't ressist the the opportunity for her to wear rain boots and polka dot sox. This Mommy is cuckoo for little girl stuff.
The back says "WARRIORS" going down and "Annapolis rocks" in BLING going across.
Hogan's shirt says "annapolis" going down and "warriors" going across. Boy shirts aren't near as fun. They have to be too cool. His shirt was so hard because I didn't want it to be dorky for a boy.
Sweet Gates. Well his was an after thought. Bad 'ol mommy. The pre-K kids don't wear uniforms so he jumped at the opportunity to wear a uniform shirt. He was so happy.

PRAISE

Yesterday was a much better day after the train wreck of a day I had the other day. While I would love for my days to be filled with all the things in the beginning I can usually only get a few of them accomplished in any given day. So yesterday we did take yummy homemade treats to the kids teachers and we did take a homemade dinner to a friend who just had a baby. The kids had guitar lessons and soccer practice then Josh and I had date. It was crazy but lots of fun! During all the fun it was so easy to think of all the ways I am thankful. So I am following along with some of my fellow bloggers and going to blog about all the good in the midst of the economy and the presidentially election that is not looking so good.



At the kids school, Pastor Livingston has the kids do participatory prayers. He starts a prayer with: "God I praise you for _______." The kids can then individually pipe in and say something that they praise God for. It is really awesome to hear the kids chimming in one at a time with all the great things about God. So I want to use this pattern to praise God for all the GOOD in my life.



God I praise you for a wonderful husband who even watches "What Not to Wear" with me and likes it.

God I praise you for a house full of kids.

God I praise you for a wonderful school for my kids to attend.

God I praise you for sweet friends and family.

God I praise you for a good job, roof over my head and plenty of food to eat.

God I praise you for you grace and mercy.

God I praise you for your unending love.

God I praise you for who you are!

In Jesus name, Amen.

A Perfect Day or Not

I woke up at 6:00 am with out an alarm. I was well rested and ready to go because I had plenty of sleep the night before. I cheerfully place a breakfast quiche in the oven that I had prepared the night before. While the quiche cooked I hopped in the shower. I sat at the kitchen table and read my bible and prayed. Then it was time to wake the kiddies. I woke them cheerfully with singing and we all sang while putting on our freshly ironed clothes that I had so diligently ironed on ironing day a few days before. I remove the quiche from the oven and serve the kiddies breakfast we all eat together and pray for the glorious day God had ready for us. The kids lunches are ready from the night before and we all load up to go to school. I made homemade treats for the kids to sweetly give to their teachers and thank them for all their hard work. Josh takes Beck to my moms so I can stay at the kids school and volunteer for a few hours. At 12:30 I pick up the kiddies and we go home and have a nutritious lunch. The kids play great while I accomplish all of the chores of the house. I begin preparing a lovely dinner and head out at 3:30 to pick up Elisabeth. She runs and greets me with a huge hug and off to the house we go. The kids have a fresh fruit snack and do their homework with out complaining. I use this opportunity to homeschool Beck a little and get him good a prepared for pre-K next year. The kids play out side until dinner is ready with their daddy. Elisabeth comes in early and sets the table and dinner is served. During dinner we talk about the glorious day that God blessed us with. We use the opportunity to thank God once again for blessing us. The meal is delicious and the kids clean their plates with out complaining of one green thing. Off to their baths. Nobody fusses over who gets to sit next to the faucet. Josh cleans the kitchen while I make sure the kiddies get clean and have fresh jammies. For the rest of the evening we play a few games read a few books and then off to bed. Josh goes in and reads the kiddies a Bible story and says their prayers. Once the kiddies are in bed Josh and I relax with a show. Then retreat to the bed room. I'll skip over the bedrooms details. We go to bed and sleep through night with out being disturbed until the next morning. (add record scratching noise) THIS has and will never happen.
My day yesterday went a little more like this....
My alarm went off at 6:30 I pressed snooze three times because I had been awake three times during the night and was so super tired. When I finally did get out of bed, I walked into the bathroom to pee. I got up and looked in the mirror and realized my hair didn't look too bad I could just go lay back down for 30 more minutes and not shower. I rested a little bit longer but never could fall asleep because I was too worried I would sleep too long and be late for school. I finally did get up and went to wake the children. They all cried and no one wanted to get up. I frantically ironed their clothes and fussed at them over and over again until finally yelling to get their clothes on. I spent 10 minutes digging through our sock grave yard for a pair of socks for Hogan. (The sock grave yard is a laundry basket full of clean socks that is always full because I hate to fold socks) I finally get us all ready and we hurry out the door. On the way out the door I realize the children to not have lunches so I quickly throw lunchables in their lunch boxes. I pass out a pop tart to each of the children on the way to school. (It was a whole wheat poptart). As I drive out the drive way Beck is crying because he wants to go with me but Josh needs to take him to my mom because I have to substitute teach for the kindergarten class. I hurry the kids to their teachers and settle in to my temporary teaching position. Oh... I failed to mention it started raining on our way to schools so we were all wet by the time we got inside. Plus that would mean no recess for the day. YIKES! We don't finish all the activities the teacher planned for us. The day is hectic and crazy. We go home at 1:00 and I let the children eat cheese Doritos for lunch and gelo with peaches in it. I was tired from the morning so I sat on the couch for about an hour and watched TV until it was time to be back at the school. I drove the boys to moms and then went up to the school to sell HEB giftcards to all the parents as they picked up their children from school. Let me just say, parents dont want to be bothered at pick up. It is crazy as it is and they just want to retrieve their children and get out of there. They don't want anyone harassing them to purchase a thing. After all nobody has any money because we have all paid an arm and a leg in school tuition. After standing in the super hot humidity for an hour and selling one HEB card I head to pick up the boys and back home. I start the kids on their homework and they all fuss because they just got home and it was the last thing they wanted to do. Josh gets home from work and quickly changes because he has a dinner meeting for work. Off he goes again. I take the children to Target and we eat dinner in the Target snack bar. YUMMY!! and so nutritious! or not. I spent $167 on nothing we needed and I have to hurry home because the children need to be in bed. They all cry when I make them go to bed because Josh isn't home and they want to play their DS games. I say prayers with them and go sit on the couch and watch dancing with the stars because I am too tired to do chores around the house. Josh gets home late and we go to bed with a wreck of a house.
Maybe today will be better. :)

I've Been Tagged

Lisa Starr tagged me to post this picture.

The rules were to go into my pictures on my computer and post the sixth picture in the sixth file on my computer....So I did!

This was taken at the Corp Center on the Aggie campus.

All the kiddies are standing on and around a bronze statue of the first Rev.

Josh's pawpaw made it and we have pictures of Elisabeth standing with it when she was a baby. Here it is...the sixth picture from the sixth file.

Now...for the fun part...I tag Stephen Grove (thought it would be fun to get a guy involved), Amy Horton, Corrie Ghaffari, Jill O'Bryant, Tomilyn Myre, and Cara Eckman

Here's to a fantastic week full of BIG fun and FaBulOuS smiles!

Happy Fall!

I love this time of year!

I love that the kids can finally play outside with out getting so hot after only five minutes.

I love the colors and the beauty.

I love cool days and pumpkin patches.

So... today I worked on getting some our fall decorations out.

It made me so happy.

I hung this on the front door. I put these on the coffee table.
I put these on the porch.
...and this on my kitchen table.
This is totally not me.

...But my kids really liked them.

So...yes... I hung pumpkins and ghosts from the trees.

I felt silly while I was out there doing it.

Our street is really busy and lots of cars drove by while we were out there.

I knew they were all making fun of me, the crazy mom with five (we had Harley over) kids, hanging pumpkins in the tree.

Oh well, it is over and the kids thought it was aWesoMe!

It was such a good day! (well, afternoon)

Last week, Elisabeth had a little program during chapel at school.

She played one of the bells.

It was very cool.

Some of the kids played a bell and some of them sang in the choir.

Here she is nervously ready for turn to play.

Her teacher also teaches music.

She is the lady with the red hair and her back turned to us in the left side of the picture.

The kids down low are the singers.

I was so impressed at how good they were.

She looks so grown up.

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a blessed weekend!

Dinner Talk

Tonight at dinner we had the following conversations:

Elisabeth: "I know all the parts of the digestive system. First your food goes in your mouth. You use your tongue to push the food down the right pipe. Then your food goes through your esophagus into your stomach. Next it goes through your intestines and out your rectum."

Hogan: "What is your rectum?"

Elisabeth: "I can't really tell you at the dinner table. It is you know where all the yucky stuff your body doesn't need goes out."

Hogan: "(Pointing to his private front) is it this?"

Elisabeth: "NO"

Hogan: "(Pointing to his private back) is it this?"

Elisabeth: "Yes"

She must have learned all that at school. However, I can't believe that they are telling first graders about the rectum. Um gross! I had to stop the conversation. It wasn't the best dinner talk.

Beck did not want his dinner so he started telling me he was full. I know that he was not full because he had not really eaten anything. He insisted. He said: "(pointing to his stomach)this is full, (pointing to his shoulders) this is full, (pointing to his forehead) this is full, (grabbing his arms) and this is full. I all full!"

My other children are much better eaters than Beck. He is a terrible eater. I know it is just a phase but I am ready for it to be over. I hate making him go to bed with an empty stomach all the time. The rule at our house is to eat what everyone else is eating for dinner. If you do not eat your dinner, you get nothing until breakfast the next morning. It's a tough rule but it works. Just not quick enough for this stubborn kid.

Just wanted to make you laugh!

I ran across these pictures and just had to share them. When Beck was 4 1/2 months old we went to look at Christmas lights out on the island. We went in the boat up and down the canals. In the boat it is a law that kids under 14 have to wear a life jacket. So here is Beck in his life jacket. I set him in his car seat a minute to help one of the other kids. He looked like the stay puff marshmellow man. He was so fat and that life jacket was so big. These pictures are hysterical to me. Poor kid. He didn't seem to mind.

Scarred for Life

When I was in 5th grade, something happened to me that has scarred me for life. It was the first day of school, the day was over and we were all lined up at the door waiting for the bell to ring so we could leave. The boy who sat behind me had gone to the nurse because he did not feel well but the nurse could see nothing wrong with him so she sent him back to class. After all, school was almost over and he was going home anyway. While we were waiting in line, I feel something wet and nasty shoot all over my back; all over my new first day of school outfit. Dick Duncan had just barfed all over the place and most of it had landed all over my back. The teacher hurried all of us out the door. She was completely unaware if it drenching the entire back of me. The obedient child that I was did just as I was told and got the heck out of there. I was too shy to tell her that he had barfed all over me. My mom worked so I always rode the bus to and from school. We would wait in lines on the hot playground for them to call us to our bus. Because our school district did not have enough buses to go around, we would have to sometimes wait a while until the bus was finished dropping of kids from other schools to come get us. It seemed like an eternity that day. Once we were on the unairconditioned bus, the smell only got worse. It was hot and we had pizza for lunch that day. The dude was sick and the barf was sour. I am getting nauseous just talking about it. The smell was so bad that, I thought that at any moment I was going to barf, too. The bus trip was so long. I went to the gifted and talented school in Corpus and so it was not anywhere close to my house. Not to mention, the bus had several stops before it got to my street. So...I sat in barf for what seemed like forever. When I got home I ran in and immediately took a LONG shower. I thought I would never get the smell off me. Looking back on it, I think the smell was just stuck in my nose. My mom washed my clothes, but I never wore them ever again. The boy did not come to school the next day but did return the day after that. He sat behind me and I lived in fear that he was going to barf on me again. This event has scarred me for life. I am extremely barfaphobic. If my kids tell me they don't feel good, I immediately say "Are you going to barf? Go to the potty!" My kids probably think I'm crazy. So...yesterday I was cleaning out the kids closets to make room for all the wonderful fall clothes. Gates came walking down the hall fussing and calling my name. When he got in Elisabeth's bed room, he said my name one more time. My immediate reaction was "Gates, what's wrong? Are you going to barf?" He said "no mom I just couldn't find you." I felt so bad. Here my poor child just wanted to find where I was and the first thing I thought was is he going to barf. Then this morning when Beck woke up he came and got in bed with us. He was laying on my pillow with me and I hear him burp. I immediately sit up and pull him up as to run to the bathroom with him and say "Are you going to barf?" He says "No I just burp." Again I feel like such a crazy person. My barfaphobia is out of control! Josh says I need counseling. I say I'm scarred for life!