A New Man

In the course of a week, Garrett has turned into a new man!  First he got contact lenses, then he got his braces off! 

 

What a handsome guy!  He’s always been a handsome guy, but now he can be handsome without messing with glasses and braces.  Unfortunately he will have braces again some day.  These were phase one for him :(.  But, for now he can enjoy his straight pearly whites!  He’s doing a great job with his contacts and is really, really enjoying being able to play without the glasses being in the way.  And, we can admire his long eyelashes.  ;).  The poor thing, in glasses his lashes were always bent up they were so long.  The contacts have got to be more comfortable!  Your doing great Garrett!

A Sloooow Day

This must have been a slow day for the Springfield news!  We were taking our lunch break from schoolwork when the doorbell rang.  A couple of men asked if they could ask me some questions about having a sprinkler system in my house (which we do not have, btw).  After I answered him he asked if he could interview me, since I am ever so quick I just stood there, thinking, “I think you just did”.  Then I realized he meant for TV.  Ha!  I don’t know what I was thinking.  Why didn’t I just say, “no thanks”.  Instead, I said, “Can I go brush my hair first?”  We were not planning to leave the house except to go swim at a friends house, so I hadn’t done much in the hair and makeup dept. and I had on my uniform of a black tee and jeans.  Lovely.  

Anyway, I ran in, took my hair out of a ponytail an slapped on some mascara and “lips” as Callie calls it.  I came out and they had me sit on my porch.  Yes, I’m just hanging out on my porch, talking about sprinklers.  Very natural.  Then, they asked if they could get some shots of my kids running around in the yard. !Oooookkkkk.  That would also be very natural.  We do a lot of just running amuck in our yard!  After a minute I asked them if they would like me to get a football or something.  So, we have the boys throwing the football around and Callie being shy.  They got a nice shot of me forgetting that I can’t throw a football.  They don’t actually show me, but show the football randomly landing in the middle of the circle and Garrett trying to reach it.  Luckily they also cut out the part of Callie picking her nose! 

For the record, I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other if people get sprinklers in their homes.  I have always been paranoid about my kids not waking up if our house was on fire and the smoke detector didn’t wake them up.  I think I saw a show about that on 20/20 or something.  So, sprinklers would probably wake them or put the fires out before they needed to wake up. That would be a good thing!  I also mentioned to them that if the sprinklers were ugly I would not want them.  I guess they didn’t feel that was newsworthy!  Yes, I really said that.  Luckily, it was  not a piece about “Local SAHM rambles on about random stuff”, I could have helped them out with that too!

Click to see the Foxx Family on the News, ha

Love

Not much going on these past few days.  Thank goodness!  I don’t know when I’ve been able to say that recently!  I’ve had these pictures saved for a while to share because I LOVE them.  

Callie loves her brothers.  She loves to play with them.  She loves to pick on them.  She loves to boss them around.  She just loves them.  I love the expressions on her face in these pictures from Gannon’s birthday! Callie is  watching Gannon open his birthday gifts.  She had no idea what any of the the stuff was, but she knew this was exciting because he was excited!  Of course his expressions are priceless too!  Oh to be young!  Little things can make them so happy!  Callie and Gannon are becoming quite the playmates now that she is playing “with” people more.  She is coming out of that play stage where they just play alongside others.  She pretends all the time and tells long stories that we have no idea what she is talking about!  Of course other than just playing together Gannon and Callie are fighting more too.  I won’t go into that obnoxiousness!  (is that a word?)

                       

Garrett reading to her at bedtime.
  Playing in the fort together.

Kellen sharing his iPod.  Or showing it to her, I’m not sure which one :).

Gannon holding her hand while we go through the carwash.  Todd’s store has a carwash and when we first moved here, she was scared to death to go through it!  So, Gannon started holding her hand.   Now that she is not scared anymore, she still wants to hold his hand. :)

The love is not just Callie to her brothers, I think they love her too!

“We’ll Never See These People Again”

I don’t know about you, but every professional sporting event I have ever been too I have been scared to death I was going to fall on the stairs.  They make them soooo steep and narrow and a jillion people are trying to use them all at once.  But, I have never fallen, until this game.  I have no excuse.  I was not carrying a kid.  I was not even carrying the backpack.  I think in all my freedom I was be-bopping a little too fast down the stairs and just fell. 

We were on our way down the stairs after the game to take some pictures.  Todd was leading the way.  About the second stair from the bottom, I started falling.  I was doing everything in my power to stay up, but it wasn’t going to happen.  In the process I pushed Callie out of the way, so she fell.  Then, for some reason, I decided Gannon could save me, so I put my hand on his shoulder.  He is six.  I am not.  So, all my weight on his shoulder did not work, he went to the ground, squashing Garrett’s foot under him, with me on top of him.  Flat.  Finally, Todd turned around.  I can only imagine what he was thinking.  He just stood there in shock.

Gannon is crying, I am laughing, Todd is trying to unload since he was carrying the backpack and camera and sack of stuff from the gift shop.  I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get up.  Anyone that knows me knows that I laugh when things like this happen, whether it is to me or someone else.  I don’t know why, I just do.  I didn’t even look around.  I didn’t want to see the look on  peoples faces as I lay there laughing as two of my kids are crying and my husband is going into shock.  I managed to get up.  We all examined our scrapes, and went on with our picture.  By the time we got home the next day I found scrapes, bumps, and bruises that I don’t have any idea how I got.  I feel like I’ve been hit by a car! 

The really sad thing is that the Royals stadium is kind of like an oversized minor league field, so the steps  are not that steep and narrow.  Wrigley Field, the old Busch Stadium, I can see falling.  But here, I don’t know what happened.

As I lay there laughing, all  I could think about was my Grandma,  when things like this have happened to her, she always says, “Oh well, we’ll never see these people again!”  Thank goodness!

We managed to recover pretty well and get a family picture.  I’m hoping all those big smiles are not my family laughing on the inside at their clumsy mama!

That Time Of Year

Well, it was time for our summer trip to a baseball game.  It doesn’t seem like it would be summer without heading to a ball field!  Todd had already chosen the Yankees/Royals game in April, when we had no idea what kind of heat we would be having!  Yes, I know it is always hot in the summer, but this is a little much!  We had intended to have a few days to enjoy Kansas City, but that didn’t work out thanks to Sam’s.  I’m really trying to not have a pity party about it, since they are technically the ones paying for the fun.  But, Todd has had to change pretty much every vacation and day off this summer.  It is getting a little old!  Yes, I’m thankful my husband has a job and we can do this, but mama’s organization skills have been extremely challenged this summer with the constant changing!  My little brain can’t take it!!  Ha!  So, it was just an overnight trip to KC, but a fun one!

Yes, it was this hot!  The game had not even started yet, bless her heart!
The guys enduring the sun.  Ok, so mama didn’t do a good job of picking seats.  Oh well!  But, it turned out to be a great game.  A-Rod, who is one of Garrett’s favorites, hit three homeruns.  Yes, three in one game!  There were a lot of homeruns in fact, which makes for a much more exciting game.  By the, oh, sixth or seventh inning, the heat broke a little and the game was quite pleasant!

We were under the seats checking out the concession stands when someone hit a homerun, this is Callie’s reaction!  “Too loud, mama"!”  (Pardon the bad phone picture!)

Our family pic.  Next time I think we will take the picture before the game!  Although I don’t think at this game it would have helped.  This is  what we looked like by the time we walked from the car!

But, this makes it totally worth it.  Garrett’s reaction to A-Rods third homerun.  This was his reaction to pretty much all the home runs, but I know this was the third one because I told Todd to get the camera ready just in case.  I couldn’t believe he actually hit another homerun! Pure excitement from a ten-year-old boy.  I guess mama can sit in the heat for a few hours for this face!

Legos

The kids and I started August off with a road trip to Lego Camp.  More specifically MU Neuro-LEGO Robotics Camp.  I kept calling it Legos camp, then Kellen informed me that people were giving him a hard time about going to Lego Camp.  I think that probably sounded like a they were just going to go and build towers or something.  But, I was trying to keep it light, so they wouldn’t think I signed them up for something where they were going to have to use their brains during summer vacation!  Which is actually what I did! :) 

The camp was at the University of Missouri, about three hours away in Columbia, Missouri.

Finally, something I signed them up for this summer was a huge success!  They all loved it and learned sooo much that we would have had a hard time doing at home, or at least knowing where to start from at home. 

When we were in Iowa Kellen was set to be on a Lego Mindstorms team, where they build robots and take them to competitions, but we had to back out since we were trying to move in the middle of all of this.  I was really disappointed as I knew this was something he would enjoy and would be good for him!  So, I started researching here and found this three-day camp.  

Our hotel was right next to the campus and the football field.  The boys got a kick out of seeing the college guys practicing.  We almost wrecked with one trying to get this picture.  Kellen asked me the other day how I ever got a driver’s license!  I told him you only have to drive good one time!  (No, I was not driving and taking photos, Kellen was taking the pictures!)

  
Garrett on the first day.  Just walking into this computer lab with all the computers and rolly chairs was worth the trip for the boys!


Kellen and Gannon were partners on the first day.  The second and third days they moved the lower grades to another room so they could all learn at their own levels.

Garrett and his partner receiving some instruction.

Kellen and Gannon trying out their robot on the first day.

Gannon and his partner Lexie.  This was their “free-for-all” robot at the end of the third day.  It won all the challenges!  She was the sweetest girl.  God was really looking out for Gannon at this camp.  He is shy and takes a little time to warm up to new things, but he got to be with his brother the first day then with Lexie the second and third days.  It would have been very easy for her to take over the robot and do all the fun computer stuff, but she didn’t.  She made sure he had a part and took turns with him without him having to be demanding (which wouldn’t have happened!).  Such a blessing!

Gannon and Lexie getting their robot ready for a challenge.  The challenge was to try to push the other teams robots over the black like before their robot got pushed out.

Garrett and Kellen trying out their remote control robots.

On the last day the big kids had to give a presentation about their final robots and had a little power-point to go with it.  We haven’t had many opportunities to get up in front of strangers and speak, so this was a bonus!  Here is Garrett giving his presentation.

Kellen giving his presentation.  Love the hands in his pockets.  So much like his daddy!

The end of the camp.  Callie decided to get in on the action.  She was a trooper.  We made lots of trips back and forth and just killing time around town.  We did some back to school shopping, found some huge fabric stores, and just hung out.  I wish it hadn’t been so hot!  I had plans to take her to the park and places that two-year olds enjoy, but it was just way to hot for hanging out outside!  We would pick the boys up at three each day then mess around, eat dinner and swim at the hotel.  By bedtime the boys crashed!  They used a lot of brain power!

The guys with Beetle Bailey.  The creator of the Beetle Bailey  cartoon character was a graduate of the University of Missouri.  They were doing major road construction on the campus so it took us two days to find this little guy!  I was obsessed once I read about it, Beetle Bailey is one of Grandpa’s favorites!

     

Of course one of the fun things about visiting a new town is seeing what you can find to do and places you can eat.  We were so excited to see they had a Noodles!  We miss Noodles from Iowa!  I think we could have eaten every meal there!

All in all this was a huge success!  We are so excited to explore the Lego Robotics and see what else is out there that we can participate in.  Thanks daddy for letting us go and being ok with us traveling by ourselves.  I loved having this little break with just my kiddos.  The kids and I did a lot of traveling when we lived in Iowa and it was always so nice to just concentrate on kids.  I’ve missed that.  Even though I am home with them every day, life happens when we are home.  Things have to be done so I can’t always just concentrate on them like I would like to.  (They are probably glad about this! ha!)  So, having some time to just hang out, listen to our favorite songs, eat at our favorite places, have conversations without being interrupted by things…so much fun!  Life is going by way to fast to not have some of these times to just stop the usual routines and enjoy each other.  I am so blessed and times like this help me realize that.  It’s easy to have pity parties about small stuff when the days are flying by at the speed of light!  Here’s to a successful end of the summer, and successful beginning to the new school year.  Life is good!

And We’re Done!

Well, we are done with July.  Clay and his kids came for a visit to finish off the month.  So, we finished off the month like we started it, with company, and we love it!

It was a busy five days!  Just having seven kids in your house instead of four makes things just seem busy!

The first full day we headed to Silver Dollar City.  We figured a Thursday would be less crowded than a Friday or weekend.  It wasn’t too bad.  The kids had a great time, they seemed oblivious to crowds or heat!

Gannon and Mason on the Teacups.  Gannon was so thrilled to have someone his age to ride with!

Mason and Gannon taking a breather.  I have so many cute pictures of them I could post, it would take their own blog post to get them all in.  They both always just looked so happy!

Mallori, Madison, Garrett, Kellen, Mason, and Gannon taking a break.

A ride all the kids to do together, how fun!

I almost feel a little disrespectful putting this picture out there.  But, it was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time!  It is hard to make out, but the two people in the back are Madison and Kellen.  The woman in the front is no one we know.  By the time they got to the bottom of the log ride, the lady was laying on Madison.  It was the funniest thing.  I was laughing before I saw it was Madison, then when the boat went by and I saw it was her being squashed,  I was in tears!

Callie decided to get in on the action.  She had tried the frog ride the last time we were there and didn’t like it.  So, this time she decided to try the butterflies.

And, she didn’t think much of them either.  She screamed for her daddy the whole ride!  I really did not make her ride, she asked.  I think she is done with rides this year!

Still traumatized from the butterflies!

“Ok, now I’m better!”

Mallori, Garrett, and Kellen decided to brave this flying, spinning thing.  Kellen is already giving it a thumbs down.  They all said the seats were so tight they couldn’t breath!

Teenagers.  :(.

Clay and his kids.

Todd just happened to have a week of vacation this week, so he got to hang out with us too.  That was such a nice treat!

Madison and Mallori were teaching Callie little hand games and songs.  I don’t really know what those are called, but they are those little slap and clap games.  I know, pathetic description, I am sure they have a name!

Mallori and Callie playing in Callie’s room.

We spent Friday hanging out at home for a while then we went to Branson to go back-to-school shopping.  They were having great deals!  Clay picked up lots of stuff for his kids and his work clothes.  I bought my kids some new pjs to hang out in for school.  Just kidding!  Really!  We do get up and get dressed!

Saturday we stayed home and broke out the water slide.  It was a perfect hot day for it!  Here is Mason flying off the end.

Here is Garrett, doing something.  I think they were trying to pose for pics and come down the slide at the same time!

Kellen flying off the end.  The girls were sliding too but I didn’t really get a good picture of them. :(

Gannon and Callie hanging out in her baby pool!

Callie having fun.  Poor thing, I bought here a bigger pool but the big kids confiscated it to land in when they overshoot the waterslide. 

The boys making their monkey faces.  Can’t imagine where they learned that!

All the kiddos dressed up for church.  A nice picture to end on!  They left shortly after lunch to go home.  Callie was so sad.  She said “but they need to stay forever!”.  She loves all the girl attention she gets from her cousins!  Thanks Clay for taking so many pictures!  I never take enough so I downloaded all his before he left!