My Ducks In A Row

Not Fair!

2011-05-11T10:25:00.001-05:00

Kellen, March 30 ,2011, 2:00 pm

Kellen, March 30 ,2011, 4:00 pm

If my title sounds a bit whiney, it is! As you can see, Kellen passed a big milestone and got his braces off! So excited for him! Apparently the orthodontist has a deal with the dentist, they gave him a big box of candy and popcorn! The reason this is not fair is that I got Invisalign about the same time he got the old-fashioned silver braces since the brochure promised straight teeth in seven months. Ha! Guess who graduated from Invisalign to regular braces after 18 months, and still has them on? Me! The orthodontist told me when he put the silver braces on my bottom teeth that “it kind of defeats the purpose of having the Invisalign”. Really Dr. Obvious. I really like our orthodontist, but I could have done without that comment!

Ok, enough about me. Kellen’s teeth look great. He did a great job of taking care of them and has been diligent with his preliminary retainer. He has always had a great smile, this just adds to his great looks! Good job Kellen! (and Dr. Scott!)

Thankful

2011-05-08T22:31:00.001-05:00

Well, March was one of those months. So extremely sad, but so happy at the same time. March 21, 2011 my Grandma died. I think I’ve mentioned here at least once, if not ten times that she is my favorite person, ever. It’s hard to even know what to write. I would love to go on and on and start from my first memories of her to my last, but I know that is probably not a realistic thing to do! I will try to keep it brief, I just know that whatever I write, it will not do her justice.

I am continually amazed at God’s timing in all things. He put in my hands the book One Thousand Gifts and I had just finished it a few weeks before everything with my Grandma started going south. I am forever grateful because I really think it gave me a much better perspective on the end of her life.

I am so truly thankful for her life and the fact that she was my Grandma. While I am so sad that she is not here, I am so thankful that she lived 92 years and was amazingly healthy during most of that time.

I am so thankful that we moved closer to home. Grandma had pneumonia in November and just never could get back to 100%. While she was fine at home and was able to take pretty good care of herself, her body was just done. Since we were closer I was able to visit her, she was able to visit me, I was able to spend her last Christmas with her, able to see her in the hospital and sit by her bed. I was able to take my kids and brighten her day. I am so thankful.

I am so thankful for Todd. I am thankful for the life he provides for us. He works a lot. Too much I think, but that is the job he has and he is committed and good at it. When we knew we were close to the end of our time with Grandma, I had planned to leave without my kids as soon as he got home and stay his day off and come back home. He called and said he was coming home early. When he got here he said he had taken off Monday too so take the time I needed. I still can’t believe it when I think about Todd’s sacrifice (Mondays are not good days to be off!) and the way God timed this out. I left with no food in the house, no plans for the kids, and Todd just dealt with it. Not that he can’t, but this is usually my “job”. I was able to go three times in March, once without my kids. I am so grateful to Todd for the time, the car, the gas, all the things he provides to make these things happen.

I got to the hospital on Saturday afternoon. Went to my parents house that night to sleep and ended up going back at 2 am because they called and said to come. Well, she was fighter, so this was not her time. But, we had a fabulous day on Sunday. Most of my cousins were there, my brothers, my sister-in-law, aunt, and uncles. Other friends and relatives came in and out throughout the day. Grandma didn’t know, or at least we don’t think she did. But, we had the best day. We sat around and told funny stories, happy memories, laughed, cried. It was perfect. I am so thankful for my family. I am so thankful because our family wouldn’t be what it is without my Grandma’s influence. All of her grandkids think we were her favorite! She had a special gift of making everyone she met feel special, but especially us. She was so funny, so fun, and so interested in us.

That night I finally tore myself away and went to my parents house. Just my mom and my aunt were there when she passed in the middle of the night. I knew this was how it would happen. Grandma didn’t like a fuss over her. She liked seeing all of us and having everyone around, but she liked to just be with us, it was not ever about her. I knew when it was quiet and dark, she would be done, and she was. I am so thankful I was at my parents. When my mom got home, we went to Grandma’s house and started getting things in order and just sat there, soaking up as much of her as we could. Then I came home to Missouri to get my family and go back for the funeral.

The funeral was perfect. The weather was perfect. Beautiful sunny skies with spring in the air. The flowers were perfect. They looked like something she would have picked out of her yard. There were so many beautiful flowers you could smell them when you walked into the funeral home. Two preachers from her church conducted the service and did such a good job. There was congregational singing that she would have loved. One of my favorite memories is sitting with her at church and hearing her sing. She loved to sing and loved good singing. There were so many people there. Even though she wouldn’t have loved the fuss, I know she would have been pleased to know that so many people cared for her and her family. I am so thankful for everyone that cared for us that day!

So now, life goes on. Grandma was very practical and matter-of-fact. Such a strong person. She would just get up the next day and do what needed to be done. I wish I was more like that! Of course I am a crier and cried so much that week that I couldn’t even wear contacts half the time! Of course with four kids, my life goes on whether I want it to or not! My mom and her sister and brother have the task of taking care of all of her “business”. Luckily since she was practical, so everything is in order and taken care of the best it can be.

Everyone seems fine. How could you not be? It is hard not to smile through the tears just knowing Grandma. I know it might not be easy to feel this way if she had not had a fair shot at life. If this was someone young, I might not feel this way. I don’t think I will ever stop missing her, but she lived 92 years and made the most of it. She took care of herself and was able to be independent up until the end.

I am so thankful. So thankful for her life, for her example. I am so thankful for Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. In my eyes she was perfect, but I know she is human. But with God’s grace, I know she is spending eternity with God. Thankfully she doesn’t need much of His mercy and grace because I will need a lot to get there with her someday!

So, thank you God for Grandma. Thank you Grandma for the life you led and loving your family. You made all of us better people.

Birthday Boys

2011-04-12T15:39:00.001-05:00

March 8 is Kellen and Todd’s birthday. Seems like it comes faster and faster every year! As usual, we took the day off school and let the birthday boy pick what he wanted to do. This proved to be a little challenging for a fourteen year old! Gone are the days of Incredible Pizza, or running around the park, etc. We decided we would go clothes shopping. It went better than I expected since we don’t see eye to eye on clothes choices these days! Unfortunately Sam’s doesn’t have the same birthday policy as our school so daddy had to work. But, we met up with him after work and went to eat at Outback. They both love eat there.

The birthday boys with Callie. No, it was not her birthday, but she doesn’t care! We are really trying to convince her she is not the center of the universe, but it is not working so well!

Goofy guys!

Sharing a birthday cake! Usually they each have their own special dessert, but this turned out to be the best this year.

Kellen, Garrett, and Daddy at Outback.

Garrett and Callie

We had a fun day! Kellen had his friend Hunter spend the night a few days later for his “party”. I didn’t think to take any pictures. You can just imagine it though, two teenage boys on blow up mattresses playing video games all night. I think a mental picture is enough!

Happy Birthday Guys!

14 Things I Love About Kellen

2011-04-11T09:20:00.002-05:00

Kellen turned fourteen March 8. Fourteen. I really don’t know how this happened! Thirteen was bad enough, but fourteen, that is two years from driving! I decided to make a list of 14 things about Kellen, instead of rambling on and embarrassing him. Although the list will probably take of that anyway!

1. You are smart. So smart!

2. You love to laugh and even laugh at yourself!

3. You love your family.

4. You love your extended family.

5. You are a leader.
6. You are so helpful.

7. You are good-looking.

8. You are creative. Kellen made this Halloween costume (except the vest), by himself. He had the ideas for it for months, and made sure it happened!
9. You are the best big brother. You always looks out for your brothers and sister.

10. You go with the flow. You have always just gone along for the ride with me, even when it is was crazy things like driving all over the Missouri University campus, twice, looking for this Beetle Bailey statue. You are always up for an adventure!

11. You are a good friend.

12. You are a good finder. You always find the keys, or the shoe, or whatever is lost!

13. You are a gentleman. I know, this is probably not cool! But you are. A very cool gentleman.
14. Most importantly, you love God.

Kansas City Field Trip

2011-03-16T09:45:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago we decided to take a spur of the moment field trip. Todd was in Dallas for a meeting and we had had a long week, so Mama was feeling the need to get out of town, so we did! Kansas city is about three hours from our home so we hit the road.

Our first stop was the World War 1 museum. This is a great museum, very nicely done. It is large, but not too large. (Yes, I am a homeschool mom that does not love museums, unless they are art. But, we go because I think they are important.) The best thing about this trip was that some of our friends just happened to be going to KC the same days we were, so they met us there. It is always more fun with friends!

Garrett and his friend Christian. We met Christian the second time we lived in Springfield. When we moved back they picked up their friendship right where they left off!

Callie designing her own war propaganda poster. Ha!

Kellen reflecting.

The whole gang. Christian, Kellen, Gannon, Callie, Nick, Garrett, and Hannah. They are such a great family. We were blessed to spend the afternoon with them.

From there we had dinner and did a little shopping. I had a few specific things we needed and they of course have many more choices than we have here. I promised the boys we would not shop the whole trip, which is what they thought we were going to do when left home. I can’t imagine why! They did recently open an American Girl doll store at the mall we visited so we took Callie in there for just a few minutes.

These are the best pictures I could get with my phone. She was running too fast! It was the cutest thing to see her running from display to display. (And she needed to go potty. She runs anytime she does because she doesn’t want to stop long enough to go!) Every doll was “the best one”. Of course she loved the strollers and beds the most, which we already have. We didn’t buy a thing if you can believe it. She has some nice dolls, so she doesn’t need one. Plus, I would rather take her someday when she is older to the NY or Chicago store, when she can really make an informed decision. Those stores are huge and have so much more to do than just buy a doll. I am envisioning this mom and daughter weekend trip someday. Something she will probably have no interest in, but I can dream!

The next morning we headed to Moon Marble Company. I had seen an ad for this place years ago and thought someday we would stop in there if we were in town. You may wonder why. Well, here is why. I have grown up playing a game called Wa-hoo.

This is a vintage board displayed to Moon Marble. We are currently using a custom (by Grandpa) OU board. Go figure! Wa-hoo is similar to Sorry, and yes, it can get wild and wooly! My great-grandma loved this game so much there is a still a Wa-hoo tournament at our family reunion every summer. So, my kids are growing up playing it as well. If you are really into it, you have your own special board, marbles, and lucky dice. So, I thought it would be fun to come here and see how a person makes marbles and let the kids pick their own favorite marbles. What I didn’t realize is that this was the weekend of “Marble Crazy”! Crazy is a good word for it! I started getting nervous when we pulled into the little town outside of KC and started seeing signs of where we needed to go park. We parked blocks away and rode a bus to the store. This was a highlight for my kids! It was so funny how excited Gannon and Callie were about the bus ride!

There were marble makers from all over showing their marbles and demonstrating how they make marbles and other glass treasures. It was really fascinating to watch the patience these people have to get things just right. There were some amazing marbles of all sizes and prices! Who knew there was such a marble niche in the world!

I was trying to get a picture of one of the rooms in the place. There were four rooms that we could go in, one with bleachers and the whole nine yards to watch the demonstrations. Then, there were toys galore. If you ever wanted a nice, not Toys R Us toy, this is the place to go. So many quality and unique toys. Again, who knew! I wish we lived closer because this would be the perfect go to place for birthdays and Christmas! Another room had bins and bins of every color of marbles. Every color except pink! I was so disappointed, seriously. I thought it would be fun for Callie and me to have our own pink marbles, but no. I’m sure I could have had someone make me some, for a price! My pictures don’t really do this day justice. There were so, so, so many people there. I don’t know how I got this picture of this room with just a few people. So, I didn’t take very many pictures like I would have had it just been us!

The kids outside waiting outside for the bus. It was freezing! Such a fun little place. You really should look it up if your in Kansas City and have a free couple of hours. And yes, we all got a tube of our very own marbles and a special die for each of us.

So, a great little field trip. We stopped and ate lunch at Noodles, one of our favorites that we don’t have in Springfield, then headed home, just in time to welcome Daddy!

Etsy

2011-02-24T23:27:00.001-06:00

Well, I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and list some things on Etsy. If your not familiar with Etsy, you should be! Etsy is sort of like Ebay for crafters. You can find the most amazing things and they are handmade. If you want anything unique for your home or kids, this is the place to go. I LOVE Etsy!

So, back to me. Ha! I’ve been working on machine embroidery items for several years and finally feel comfortable enough in the quality of my items than I am ready to sell things. And I’ve narrowed down an item I love to start with, then we’ll see what happens! Anyone that knows me knows that the hard part was narrowing down where I wanted to start. The options for machine embroidery are endless!

So here we go. I love making these sibling t-shirts. I think they are fun and I know I would have had my kids wearing these if I would have had my machine then. I have made a bunch for gifts and have had a great response, so I’m this is where I am starting. Hopefully all those people weren’t just being nice!

Here are some of the latest tees I made. I think they turned out so cute and I love the colors. Different on each one, but the coordinate to make some cute pictures. Pardon my horrible pictures by the way. I am working on taking better pictures. I’ve even enrolled in a photography class, but it doesn’t start until may, so you’ll have to suffer with me until then!

So, if you are interested in what I am up to with this, check me out!

My Ducks In A Row Etsy Shop

Thanks!

Happy Heart Day!

2011-02-22T13:46:00.001-06:00

Here are a few snapshots from our Valentine’s Day! We had our annual candlelight dinner as a family on February 14. They were so excited. Callie doesn’t remember her previous Valentine’s days so when she walked in and saw the lights out with the candles lit, she was mesmerized. It was so sweet to see her.

These two were are the table way before anyone else! They were so excited!

All my little Valentines! Todd and I actually went out on a Valentine date the weekend before. The blessing of having an almost fourteen year old that can babysit his siblings!

Hope your day was special!

Batman Ballerina

2011-02-15T09:14:00.001-06:00

First, let me say, if you have told me that I would have bought my daughter a Batman t-shirt, I would have told you you were crazy. But, her brothers picked this out for her and she wasn’t leaving the store without it! Callie is totally into dancing. Especially since we were flipping channels one night during the blizzard and found some show like American Idol, only dancers. She was in awe. She had me rewind over and over to watch her favorites. Since then her dances (I use that term loosely!) have taken on a much more dramatic tone. And, excuse the hair. I am sure some day she will be saying “mother! why didn’t you fix my hair?” Well, missy, let me tell you. It is a long drawn out process at this point that takes much bribing and coercing. So, when there is a blizzard outside and we are not leaving the house, you get one comb through and we are done!

Blizzard, Snowpocalypse, Snowmagedden, etc., etc., etc…whatever you call it, it’s a lot of snow!

2011-02-13T14:58:00.001-06:00

I know we are not the only people to get snow this February. I think most of the country had a little if not a lot of this snow storm and many people had their own names for this crazy weather! I don’t think it is a secret how I feel about snow and cold weather. So, not many pictures or words about the last two week. Let me just say seeing the sun and the running water down the street today is like heaven on earth to me!

Not a complete white-out since you can see the drainage ditch, but you can’t see much past that! This is the only snow picture from the whole two weeks because I went and hid after this started! I really think if I don’t make it to Heaven this will be my hell. Really. This is how much I don’t like this weather!

I had declared the first snow week to be a no-electronics week. Next time I think I’ll pay more attention to the weather before I do this! Not really, they really did great amusing themselves most of the time. Here they are playing Monopoly. For some reason Garrett and Kellen decided they didn’t want their picture taken. Excuse the background mess of laundry and half-made curtains!

Gotcha!

The guys decided to take matters into their own hands and make some brownies and crumb cake. I really can’t stand to bake. I know. I’m like the anti-mom. But, I guess the boys have gotten used to it since they are making their own goodies!

It was finally warm enough to go out and really enjoy the snow. If you like that kind of thing! The boys were having a snow ball fight across the driveway. I think Callie is too worried about the snow on her boots to be much help to Kellen’s team!

Callie realized I was taking pictures so she started posing.

Kellen helping Callie over the snow.

We don’t have snow days at the little Foxx Family School of Learning. (Our official name when we have to have an official name for something). Our superintendent feels we take off more than we need to anyway and since we are stuck in the house, schoolwork is a good activity to pass the time. So, we spent our days doing school work, playing games and eating brownies. Sounds like a pretty good blizzard to me, if you have to have a blizzard.

Here is a sneak peak of how I spent my blizzard break. Yes, finally some color on some walls! Yes, this is many colors, but I did finally narrow it down to one! I’m actually doing my bedroom first. Todd and I realized that we’ve never had a painted bedroom. We have always been last so our bedroom has always been the basic builder beige because we move before we get it painted. Well not anymore! I can’t wait to show my finished product!

January Snapshots

2011-02-11T20:52:00.001-06:00

Here I will continue with a few snapshots from January so I can get caught up to the middle of February! I don’t know how time passes this fast! I don’t have as many pictures from January. We were busy, busy, but I didn’t document much of it. After the Christmas craziness died down Todd was able to take a week off. We spent the week with his parents and grandma helping them move. After forty years in the same house, they decided it was time to move to another part of town. Finally, the one true talent Todd and I both have was put to use! We know how to move! We had a good time and got a lot done. I’m anxious to go back and see them all settled in! Then we came home got back to school and the daily “stuff”. We decided to quit our homeschool co-op. I don’t think I’ve blogged too much about co-op. We started it a year ago and just decided it wasn’t for us. It has been so much more relaxed around here since we quit! We really needed the day at home to get things done. It’s hard to “home” school when your hardly home!

Here Callie is giving herself a manicure. She did a great job and even stopped to blow on each one. Love it!

This is a picture of the January snow. Didn’t amount to much now that we’ve had the February snow, but at the time the kids were excited!

I love this picture. This is the big field behind our house. The kids are heading back to some kind of concrete drainage thing to see if they can sled down it. When it’s warm they skateboard down it, so they thought it would work. What I love most about this picture is Callie. She has no idea where she is going. She has no idea what they are doing. But, she does know that her brothers are going, so she is too. Have you heard the saying “well, if your brother jumped off a bridge, would you jump?”…well, Callie totally would. She trusts her brothers with her little life (if she knew what that meant!). But, she should trust them. They take care of her, dote over her, include her, get down on her level. I can’t tell you how happy this makes my heart. You can see Kellen holding her hand while Garrett and Gannon are carrying makeshift sleds. They played and played then carried Callie all the way back home when she got snow in her boots and started crying. We have had many moments like this, and I think we will have many more. Callie is crazy about her brothers and they are crazy about her. I can’t imagine a better way to go through life than with three brothers looking out for you! She’s got it made!

Snapshots

2011-02-05T10:58:00.001-06:00

Well, I obviously have been busy, very very busy. Not really. But, I’ve not taken the time stop and blog about all that has been going on. So, here are some snapshots of the end of December. We have been blessed since our sicknesses in December to be well. We are blessed to have a warm home and too much food during this week-long snow day! I am excited to see what 2011 is going to bring. We actually didn’t move or have a baby in 2010, so we are starting to see what it means to have a “normal” routine at home. As normal as I can make it anyway since I am not a “routine” kind of gal!

Christmas 2010 at Grandma and Grandpa’s house!

Ryan an Dwan

Clay and Grandpa. For some reason it never gets old to throw the wrapping paper at Grandpa!

Madison, Kellen, and Mason

Gannon and Garrett

Grandma Lanier’s Christmas Party. Everyone of her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids were there this year! Braden, Caitlin, Anna-Marie, Madison, Mallori, Jake, Kellen, Callie, Lauren, Kodi, Grandma, Lizzie, Mason, Gannon, and Garrett. Whew!

Callie got a makeup set. Here Gannon is painting her nails for her.

Terrible picture but here Callie is giving Nanny Edith a Christmas gift. I included the pic anyway since this was the last Foxx Christmas in this house. Todd’s parents moved after living here forty years! More on that later .

Making our annual “Puppy Chow”.

Christmas Eve, getting ready to read “Twas the Night Before Christmas”

Christmas morning!

Missouri’s version of a white Christmas. I’ll take it!

Daddy!

Callie with her James Avery charm bracelet. She has been getting charms since she was born, now she has the bracelet to go along with it!

Sweet Pea Is Three

2011-01-31T09:11:00.000-06:00

Little Callie turned three December 13. I cannot believe that three years has gone by. Really, I know people say that all the time. But, it really does seem like yesterday that we were waiting on her arrival. To say that she is the icing on our little Foxx Family Cake is in understatement. Poor little thing woke up sick on her birthday this year. Everyone had had something since Thanksgiving so I wasn’t really surprised, I just hated that she took her turn on her birthday :(. So, the day of her birthday we just laid low and she slept and slept. After a couple of days she was better enough to get out and daddy was off work, so we took her to lunch and to Build-A-Bear. Lunch was fine. We were all glad to be out of the house! Then we traipsed all of us over to the mall and guess what, she didn’t want a Build-A-Bear. Nope. Could have cared less. I showed her all the choices, all the clothes and shoes. I wasn’t even trying to make her get the ten dollar bear. I said “look, you can pick whatever you want”. She said “no, I don’t want one”. I asked Todd if we should make her get one, he, of course, said, “why would we make her spend $50.00?”. So we left. I was a little disappointed since we’ve never done Build-A-Bear, but really happy that Callie has a mind of her own and doesn’t mind telling you what she thinks. Ok, a few times in the last few weeks she hasn’t been very tactful, we’ll have to work on that. But, how nice that she doesn’t do something just to be nice. I hope she stays like this forever! So, we came home and ate some lame birthday cake. Didn’t seem much like a birthday, but Todd kept saying “she’s three!”. I know he’s right. She isn’t going to remember what we do. I think she will remember though how special she is to all of us and how excited her brothers were to celebrate with her. Those things matter.

Look at these adorable cupcakes! A friend from church brought these to Callie on her birthday. It was such a nice treat! Love the pink and purple polka-dots!

Callie getting ready to enjoy one of the cupcakes. She wanted the one with the “C” for Callie. Look at the poor thing in her pjs :(.

Blowing out her candle!

Two days after her birthday, all dressed up in her mama-made birthday outfit, ready to hit the town!

Yay, she has enough energy to jump!

We decided to let her open her gifts before we left. Here she is asking where the “opening thing” is. Apparently in her mind there was a certain place to begin ripping the paper. She would look at every gift until she found the “opening thing”!

Play-doh! The girl loves Play-doh! This is the ice cream set with sprinkle Play-doh!

Here is her little stuffed pig. She had adamently been saying for weeks that she wanted a pig for her birthday. Not a stuffed pig, but a real pig. In this picture she looks excited about the little stuffed pig, I don’t think she has touched him since!

Getting ready to enjoy her birthday lunch at Red Robin. Her Nana Charlene gave her that little purse that she carried around the entire day!

Back home to eat birthday cake! I had the great idea to put turquoise polka-dots all over. Well, guess what you can’t put sprinkle polka-dots on the sides of a cake. So, this is how it ended up. How cute is that “C” on top?

She was so excited to get to take the candles off. She wanted so much to decorate it herself and I wouldn’t let her. I think it would have turned out better if she would have!

Callie, you are a highlight to every day. You are fun, funny, and oh so busy. You cook, clean, play, dance (your new favorite is to dance in front of the fireplace so you can watch yourself!), wrestle, laugh. We really need to get in better shape to keep up with you! I am amazed daily that God knew what we needed and when we needed it. We are so blessed by Callie. She is the apple of her daddy’s eye. She is my special friend. She is just pure joy to her brothers. I could go on and on. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea. You are the best Callie I know!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T16:53:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends out there in blogland!
Hope your day was very merry!

RIP Hammie

2010-12-12T19:56:00.002-06:00

Garrett had a mechanical hamster named Hammie. This was one of those little hamsters that came with a clear ball that you can buy at Cracker Barrel, like the one below.

In the last four years or so, we’ve made many a stops at Cracker Barrel restaurants. All the driving back and forth to Oklahoma and going on trips made this possible! I like to stop there because you know it is going to be decently clean, if it is a meal time, you can eat decent food, and you can shop (all in the name of stretching your legs!). Well, Garrett had wanted one of these hamsters forever! So, finally, one trip a few years ago, he had enough of his own money with him to buy it himself. Like most toys, he played with it a while, then we wouldn’t see Hammie for a while. BUT, he would always reappear when it was time for a trip. Hammie made the trip to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, minus the big plastic ball, that I think disappeared long ago.

Anyway. Just as we were getting ready to leave Grandma’s and head for home someone hollered “Callie has a hamster in her hair!” I came into the room to see Hammie hanging from Callie’s head by her hair. She had turned it on and gotten the wheels too close to her hair, and yes, the wheels had sucked her hair up onto the axel. The hair was not budging. I really, really did not want to cut it. She has not ever had her hair cut. It is finally coming in thicker, not a lot longer, but it least it is thicker! We finally determined that the only way was to cut it out. I let the hamster dangle to go get scissors and, it fell to the floor. With a huge chunk of Callie’s hair. She didn’t seem the least bit disturbed about it but was excited because now “Hammie looks like a horse! He needs to go in a barn”, and she proceeded to start setting him up in a barn. Yes, Hammie had so much of her hair it looked like a horse’s tail.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Move ahead a few days, we are home. I hear the same call, “Callie has a hamster in her hair”. Seriously people? Again? I would think this would be a lesson learned after one time. No one will fess up to getting the hamster too close to Callie’s head. This time Hammie was in the back of her hair, so I’m not convinced that she didn’t have a little help getting him there! Well, it was twice as much hair this time and still not moving. I wasn’t going to do what I did last time, and I was definitely not going to cut out that much hair! So, Hammie met his demise by way of a screwdriver. I pried his little wheels off and unscrewed his battery pack, and retrieved the hair. Very tangled hair I might add! I feel a little bad about Hammie. He actually survived two moves and many trips without being lost. But, I think it was a good lesson for the boys. When it comes to girls, it’s all about the hair!

Thanksgiving

2010-12-10T23:23:00.005-06:00

First of all, we were thankful to be close enough to travel to Oklahoma this year for all the Turkey Day festivities! We had planned to drive two cars to Tulsa so Todd could spend a Thanksgiving day with extended family for the first time in years, but he was sick. The kids and I had already left by the time he decided that he just couldn’t make it, so I was a little bummed. I felt bad leaving him two years in a row on Thanksgiving. But, we made the best of it and enjoyed Thanksgiving day with the Foxx family in Tulsa. The kids were so excited to see their cousins!

All the Foxx kids at Nana and Poppa’s!

Karlee, Callie, Taryn, Kymree, Kellen, Gannon, Jack and Garrett

Just the girls!

We left Tulsa and went on to Shawnee to spend time with my side of the family. Another fun day with lots of kids! I didn’t take a picture on this day, unless you count the pics Callie took with my phone! I really, really have to get better at this!

Here we are all eating at Hamburger King. A yummy hamburger place that has been there since my grandparents used to go on dates there! Can you tell it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, OU/OSU game day? We were all decked out! Can yo see the boys in the booth behind Grandma and Grandpa? I just have to brag. The waitress said she had never waited on a better table of kids. Warms this mama's heart. I hope I remember to do this for mama's I don't know. It is always nice to feel like something your doing is working! And yes, we left immediately so she didn't get a chance to see their true colors! Not really, but it was tempting!

Since Todd works non-stop this time of year we stayed a couple of days in Shawnee then stopped back in Tulsa for a short visit. So, lots of driving. But, lots of good times with our families. I can’t wait for the day that Todd can be there too!

All the time in the car gave me lots, and lots of time to think about what I am thankful for. My list doesn’t change too much from year to year, but I count that as a good thing! That means all the things that are dearest to me have not changed much. I am so thankful for my little family. I have a great, hard-working husband and four great kids. I am thankful for my extended family. I am thankful for the comforts I have in this life right now. A home, cars, food, cloths. I know I have been blessed and have more of all these things than a person really needs. I am thankful for old friends, I am thankful for new friends. I really think I could go on and on. When a person really stops and thinks about it, even on their worst days, they can find something be thankful about. Sometimes it might be hard to think about that when things are not going our way. But, if you will just let your mind go there, and think of something you are thankful for, I bet your mood will start to change. I can usually come up with something earthly that I am thankful for on whatever day it is. I am most thankful for Jesus that died for my sins. That is something that will never change, no matter what on this earth I have or don’t have. Whatever people are in my life or not in my life. If that is not something to be thankful for, I don’t know what is! So, go, be thankful for all that God has given you, especially His Son! (Yes, I am totally preaching to myself!)

Fall Fashions

2010-12-02T11:05:00.001-06:00

No, I’m not writing about what you should be wearing for fall. I have no clue, except that Todd told me that I’m not allowed to buy any more black. So, I’ve branched out to brown. Of course what he doesn’t realize is that adding a color of top means adding a color of shoes, coats, socks, anything else that may need to go with the new color. He may rethink that decree soon!

Fall fashions is to show you pictures of Callie’s things that I have made for her for fall. Not too much. I’m finally being realistic about how much time I have to sew. Which is not much. :(

How cute is this? It is reversible with a polka-dot print on the other side (of course!) but I can’t find a picture of that side. This was the easiest jumper ever so I’m sure you’ll see many more of these! Love her big girl pose!

This is a terrible picture, but the only one I can find of her in this dress. I didn’t do a very good job of getting pictures this time around, and it is not worth it to dress her up in all this for a picture. Not that she doesn’t cooperate, she just talks and talks and tells me one more thing and has to do one more thing, and on and on! It takes forever to do anything with her! This is her usual little jumper in fun fall tree fabric. So cute on her. My phone cover has stretched or something so I can’t get a picture without the cover coming up in the picture. That is what you see at the bottom, not some strange effect.

Here are couple of little t-shirts I appliquéd for her. I love them both. The orange one is a little owl dressed up like a witch. The brown one is a pink and brown turkey! I don’t think that really does, but I had my heart set on a pink and brown turkey and a brown tee. I didn’t really think about how those wouldn’t really work together until I set down to work. But, I think it turned out ok. She loved it!

No, I didn’t make this. But, I couldn’t resist a picture of her after-Halloween batgirl costume. After she realized she couldn’t be War Machine for Halloween, she moved on to Batgirl. I was not about to let her be that either, but I didn’t know they had pink Batgirl! This is like a size 6 or something so it’s huge, but she doesn’t care!

Veteran’s Day

2010-11-21T15:37:00.002-06:00

We had a jam-packed Veteran’s Day this year! Some friends and fellow homeschoolers set up for us to go listen to a man, Mr. Strine, talk about his experiences in WWII and the Korean War where he was a POW for two years. It was so interesting! He was a great story-teller and had saved a bunch of “stuff” from his time in the service. A bonus for the day, his wife made amazing homemade cinnamon rolls for everyone! Here we are checking out all of his war memorabilia.

It was such an honor to be in these peoples home and listen to their stories about war and life in general. They were so excited to share with the kids too!

After the visit we went to a park to play and eat lunch.

We finished up the day by visiting Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. We started out following the trail that the Civil War soldiers would have taken (roughly!), but it was taking forever with seven kids! The park was about to close so we went back and got our cars and drove through the park. The boys favorite was of course Bloody Hill. I think they really thought they were going to see blood! Boys acting silly in the battlefield museum.

Boys sitting outside the Ray House that ended up being used as a hospital after the battle.
We had a great day and all the kids were great listeners and learned a lot. We are so proud to know Mr. Strine and his wife and so proud of all the veterans we know. Thank you!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

2010-11-13T21:58:00.002-06:00

Today is my dad’s birthday. I guess I won’t put how old he is, except that I really don’t think he would care. He is a laid back kind of guy like that!

I wish I had pictures of the things I remember about my dad from when I was at home. But those things are not really things you think to take pictures of. I don’t really know how you would get a picture of someone sitting in the car honking on Sunday morning when a certain someone wasn’t ready for church! I do remember a lot of that. But, I also just remember a lot of calm. I think now that Todd is a daddy, I can put into words what my daddy was and that was calm. I can feel the calm when Todd comes home. Even if things are still spinning out of control when he walks in, I know he is going to be able to get it straightened out.

I don’t remember ever getting in trouble by my daddy. I am sure I did, but I don’t remember it. My brothers may sing a different tune, but not me. :) Of course since he was the daddy, he worked all the time. Now I feel a little sorry for daddies because I see how much they have to miss in their families lives. There is probably a lot they are glad they are missing, but I think there is some more of life they would like to be here for. My dad worked nights a lot of years, so he really missed a lot during the week. But, the one thing he never missed was Sunday morning. He was always the first one up, dressed in a suit and tie (which he still wears!), reading his Bible when everyone else started getting up. Church was his life, and still is. He was always teaching, filling in for preachers and song leaders, what ever the need may be. Now he is an Elder and is well-deserving of that honor.

I also remember when he would come home it would just be calmer. Something was always going on when daddy was not home! Whether it was fights, stuff breaking, whatever! But, when daddy walked in the door, we knew it was going to be taken care of one way or another. He could fix anything. Something I am sure he wishes I would forget since he has fixed many a things on my houses and cars! Several times he has fixed my car over the phone! I call him before I call a repair man!

Daddy was always calm when I was scared of the dark. I can’t tell you how many times he walked around the house so I could go to sleep at night. I just knew someone was out there to get me! He never got mad, he just did it, calmly.

So, thank you daddy for calm. Thank you for making the church the priority in our house. Thank you for walking around the house a million times. Thank you too for the many horsey rides, the songs you sang with your guitar and banjo, the many miles you drove us to go on family vacations, the many hours you worked so we could have more than we needed. Even though you couldn’t be home all the time, we always knew you were coming home and that was the best gift of all!

Have a Happy Happy Birthday!

Daddy reading to me. Lovely pants.

Teaching me to ride my bike!

The family at my college graduation.

My wedding. He is such a smart man, he never asked how much my dress cost, he just said it was worth it!

Grandpa and his train.

Garrett and Grandpa at an OU football game.

Grandpa holding Gannon.

Grandpa and Kellen at the Brewers baseball game.

Grandpa holding Callie.

Grandpa with my kids Thanksgiving 2009. We have many pictures like this. Kids with Grandpa in “his” chair!

Grandpa flying kites!

Ok, I know these are lot of pics with my kids, but even better than calling him daddy is calling him grandpa!

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-06T21:03:00.002-05:00

Ugh. Halloween. I started hearing about Halloween costumes months ago, so by the time Halloween actually got here, I was done. Kellen, bless his heart, is too creative for his own good. He has elaborate plans every year for just the right costume and all the pieces that go with it. Problem is, they are usually more than I want to spend or not even possible to find. This year he had his mind made up to be Joker. Well, Joker wears a lot of clothes! Anything official is way to expensive for a Halloween costume! But, in the end, it turned out great. Even if I was sewing on Halloween afternoon! Yes, I know, he’s known for weeks what he wanted to be. I just kept hoping I would find the right the thing so I wouldn’t have to sew! I like sewing what I want to sew when I am in the mood to sew!

Here is the crew in the garage. We didn’t think to take a picture in the house and it was too dark outside, so you get a nice picture of our garage! Gannon is a Blue Clone Trooper, Kellen is Joker, Garrett is a Henchman (?, I guess he is Joker’s helper. All I know is his costume cost me $3.00 and he painted it himself. Love it!) Callie was a pink polka-dot fairy princess. She decided that in all the pics she needed to turn around so we could see her wings. :) Yes, her costume is totally random! I just used a bunch of pink stuff and painted some sparkly polka-dots on her wings. This was better then her choice which was War Machine. I told her no and she said “but he goes with Ironman!”. No, she has not seen the movie. This is just some of the random information she and I unfortunately glean from living with four guys!

We were able to go trick-or-treating with Kellen’s best buddy Hunter and his family. They came over to eat then we went to the neighborhood across the street since we still don’t have enough neighbors to have a party! Callie wouldn’t stand with the guys in the picture because she is scared of Hunter!

Gannon, Hunter, Garrett, Kellen, and Bryce

Trying to get an indoor picture after the trick-or-treating. Seriously Callie, turn around!

Thank you!

We had a good time. The neighbors all sat out in their driveways and decorated to make it fun for the kids. Of course Kellen and Hunter wanted to go off by themselves, but we didn’t let them. Sorry guys! They all had a good time. Callie had no idea of course. We haven’t trick-or-treated since she was born, not that she would have remembered anyway. But, she had heard so much about it that when we pulled up and started to get out she was beyond excited and said “I am just so excited about the candy!”. It was the cutest thing! She was one determined girl She marched right up to every door, even if it was decorated scary. I wish there would have been a way to get her on film, but it was so dark! So, all’s well that ends well. All the kids were happy with their costumes. They actually trick-or-treated this year. They got just enough candy to make them happy but not make me nuts trying to keep it away from them! Happy Halloween!

Odd And Ends, Take Two!

2010-11-04T09:08:00.001-05:00

October was more of the same. Baseball (they won the championship!), gymnastics, co-op, etc….:)! But, we did have a few highlights!

My birthday is in October and my mom and my grandma came for a visit! We had the best time. Above, Callie is watching out the window for their car.

We talked and talked. Then we went to lunch, then the cupcake place, then the botanical gardens. Then we talked. Then we went to dinner. Then we talked. Are you getting a theme here?

Callie running through the botanical garden. The gardens had done a big redo this summer and my birthday was the big dedication day.

I let the boys take my cameras since the botanical gardens was not something they thought sounded fun! I got lots of pictures like the one above.

And this.

But, I got a lot of pics like this too! It was really beautiful, even though it was fall. I can’t wait to go back in the spring and see it in full bloom! We kept talking about what beautiful mums they had and Callie said “and dads too!” Too cute!

Just us girls before they left for home and we left for co-op. Remember, our photographers range from 6-13! Callie cried and cried when the left :(. At one point in the visit she looked at me and said “Grandma Lanier cracks me up!” I don’t know what Grandma was doing, but Callie loved spending time with her!

Gannon lost a tooth! He has since lost anther one and he is so excited! Apparently there is a new tooth fairy since his brothers lost teeth since he got five dollars and his brothers always got one dollar. I think the female has retired and the male has taken over. I guess the he tooth fairy has a money tree that the she doesn’t know about!

Glenn, Kerry, Taryn and Jack joined us on their fall break. It was a quick little trip but a nice break for us all. Todd had to work most of the time so Glenn offered to stay with the boys while the girls did some running around. Actually, I don’t know if he actually volunteered or if we just kind of suggested it to him. :) Thanks Glenn! We had a great time!

Odds And Ends

2010-11-02T08:49:00.001-05:00

Here is just a sampling of pics from September!

Callie in her OU dress with her umbrella, in case of rain!

Garrett riding a pony at Lambert’s. Ha! he would be my cowboy if we would stay somewhere long enough to find him a place to ride horses!

My parents came for a visit and took this family picture for us. Didn’t get any pictures of them! Oops!

Callie dressed for game day. How cute is this!

We had a bunch of rain, right at the beginning of fall baseball of course! The boys were enjoying singing in the rain!

Garrett doing some kind of bug experiment at homeschool co-op.

On one of daddy’s days off we went downtown Springfield to eat and try out the cupcake place!

Gannon’s yummy choice!

Callie is loving her cupcake!

I took a few days and went to Dallas, BY MYSELF! I made an IKEA run and did some other shopping! A much needed break! Thanks Todd!!

The boys started fall baseball. Yes, we are backwards this year. Spring football and fall baseball. Oh well!

Baseball fans!

The Sam’s stores in Springfield had a combined picnic complete with blow-up activities for the kids. This was some kind of thing where you push the other person off their little perch. I think they were loving it!

Gannon and Callie enjoying the bouncy house.

In Her Element

2010-10-27T10:44:00.001-05:00

Part of our time lately has been spent at gymnastics. I have been counting the days until I thought we could work in gymnastics for Callie. I was so excited when we moved back here to learn that Mrs. Linda was still teaching gymnastics at the Springfield YMCA. Linda has been teaching gymnastics for 31 years! I don’t know how many of those years has been at the Y but she has been there at least since the first time we lived here in 2003. Kellen and Garrett both took from her the other times we lived here and I even worked there! When we lived here in 2005-2006 I helped with the homeschool and gymnastics programs at the Y and loved working with Linda. Linda has three boys so we hit it off and always had a good time visiting.

So, when fall came around I signed Callie up for the mommy and me class. It is so fun and she is totally in her element! Believe it or not she is my only climber and jumper. She has been a flipper since she was in my tummy. They told me when I was pregnant that they would have to watch her up to the last minute because every time we went to the hear the heartbeat she had flipped to a different place! Luckily she flipped to the right place when it came time!

As you can see by the big smile on her face she is loving it. And, she is doing a great job! I can’t tell you how excited this makes me :). Finally a sport that I can relate to! You can see Mrs. Linda in the background of the last picture. She had already started her next class so I didn’t want to bug her to get a picture with Callie. We love Mrs. Linda!

Sorry

2010-10-26T07:15:00.001-05:00

Sorry to leave you hanging with such a fabulous blog about potty training. Lucky for you Callie was the only person left in our house not potty trained, so you don’t have to worry about any more of those!

Unfortunately when we have so many interesting things going on, I don’t have much time to blog! I will try in the next few days to put some pics up just to show some snippets of things going on.

Part of my lull was not a good thing. On September 20, my Aunt Patti passed away. She had been battling cancer for about 18-months. Let’s just say that kind of took the wind out of my sails. As you well know, when something like this happens you realize that most everything you spend your time doing does not really matter. When someone that is only 59 passes away, you realize that the things you do with your time better matter. There is not time in 59 short years to waste.

Even though she had cancer, I just always thought she would get better. She was better for a time. She was at the family Christmas party last year like nothing had happened. Then the cancer came back and there was nothing more to be done.

I spent a lot of time at her and Uncle Jerry’s house when I was in junior high and high school since I babysat my cousins. My cousin Chad was more my brothers age so it was more like going over and playing with a brother! Luckily I had a lot of experience with this! Then they adopted my cousin Lori. I babysat her practically from the time she came home. Needless to say I was in my element! Especially since Patti loved to dress her up, and mostly in pink! I babysat Lori for years. Even after Todd and I got married, Lori would stay with us during the OU/Texas weekend so they Jerry and Patti could go to Texas for the game.

Patti referred me to her friends to babysit for. Thanks to Patti, I had lunch money in high school! I don’t think Patti ever knew how much all this meant to me. Not only did I enjoy the jobs, but it meant something to me that they trusted me with their kids. That she trusted me with her kids and trusted me enough to refer me to people. I was so shy, I would have never gotten out on my own to get these jobs, and for me this was so much better than any other job that Shawnee, Oklahoma had to offer!

I don’t really know why I say all of this. I guess just to remind myself that you never really know how you are influencing someone. You never know what is going to impact a person. It seems like such a simple thing, but it really had an impact on me. What could be better to a young person than to know that you trust them? I’m sure she was just glad to have a babysitter! We were all at the right place at the right time for this to work out. I wish I was better at telling people what they mean to me when there is still time. That is not something I am good at, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. At this point in my life, with as many places as we have lived and as many people as we have come in contact with, it would take years to go back and tell people all the little things that have impacted me. Really, it is more than being at the right place at the right time. People in and out of my life are all just pieces of the puzzle that God has designed for my life, to make me the person that I am now and the person that I am going to be. Little did I know it was a gazillion piece puzzle! Really, God, 500 pieces, 1000 maybe would have been plenty!

So, Patti, thank you. I will try to be there for your family the way you trusted me to be there for them years ago, even if it is just lifting them up in prayer every day. Thank you for making me feel important at I time when I didn’t feel all that with it! I hope I can do that for someone else someday.

Hallelujah

2010-09-27T13:21:00.001-05:00

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! (Imagine a song being sung here!) I am, after eleven years of having a little person in diapers, done! There were some breaks here or there. Our kids are far enough apart that I never had two at a time in diapers, but you get the idea! We have been working on potty training Callie for a few weeks now, we’ve started and stopped a couple of times this summer but I feel safe to say that it is official now. We started co-op a couple of weeks ago and she goes constantly, four times in four hours, for her teacher (including, ahem, no. 2), so I think we are official. I think she is a little obsessed with the miniature potty in her classroom at co-op, but whatever works! Her poor teacher!

I have debated on how many potty training stories to share. I figured moms and ten-year-old boys would not really care. Everyone else would be a little disgusted! It has been quite humorous around here. We normally don’t talk about pp, poop, etc., obviously. This is something you keep to yourself. But, when you are potty training, you don’t have a choice. That, combined with three brothers, you get the idea.

So, consider yourself warned. The following stories will include the words poop, potty, no. 2, you name it. Feel free to click off now!

One day we were grocery shopping. It was just Callie and me and we didn’t need much so I was letting her walk. She was looking at the cans of spaghetti and meatballs and said “That looks disgusting!”. I said “you think that looks yucky?” She said “yes, someone pooped on the spaghetti!”.

Another day she came to me and said “Don’t go in my room, it stinks”. I said “ok”. Then, I thought, “maybe I should go check out why her room stinks”. Oh my. Bless her little heart. She looked at me and with a sweet little voice said “I’m helping you mama, I’m scrubbing it!”. Helping me she was not. Apparently she was on her way to take care of business and decided she needed her flowered underwear. Whatever she was wearing was not making the fashion statement she was looking for while sitting on the pot. Well, she didn’t make it. So, she did her business while standing in front of her chest of drawers. Then she kindly decided to help me by “scrubbing it” into the carpet. Yes, she did. I think she could see the look of horror on my face because she jumped up and said “I’ll just wait in here” and ran and just stood in the bathroom. Lucky for me, I had recently purchased something at Sam’s called “Carpet CPR”. It actually worked. I can’t stand carpet cleaners, they don’t work! I can’t stand carpet! Now you can see why! I never feel like carpet it is clean after about two days of having it put in. But, it is clean. I dare anyone to come and try to find the place this unfortunate even happened!

Hopefully my potty training adventures are over. I’m sure we will have accidents here and there, but she has not had any lately and since she will go for someone else, I feel pretty certain this will stick! She also is so independent that she will go by herself and not tell anyone. It is so cute to here the potty flush and see her running back to whatever she was doing!

Now, to find the poor girl some undies that fit! She was still wearing size three diapers. She has no hiney. Now that she doesn’t have diapers to hold her pants up, she can hardly wear pants! She needs an 18 months in the waist and a three in the length. Lucky for her she is built like Todd’s side of the family. Tall with no hiney is not from my side, I hate to break it to you ladies! I had bought so many little panties from Gymboree because they were so cute. Guess what, they don’t fit! She is narrow, but the panties are even narrower at the bottom, but wide at the top. They end up looking obscene once she has them on. The panties from Old Navy loose all elasticity after one washing! No joke. So, those were thrown away. So, we’ve been making do with something from Wal-mart that don’t exactly fit, but at least stay up. I bought a pattern to make undies. I never in my life thought that was something I would make! I am really not looking forward to trying because the thought of little bits of elastic and such does not sound fun to me. We’ll see. I have been waiting until I was sure they would not get thrown away!

Most things about Callie growing up make me sad since I know she is my last little baby. :( But, this is one area I will not miss! I am sure daddy will not miss it either! I think he was glad he was a little out-of-the-loop on this one! I couldn’t use the boy excuse to get him to share this with me!

So, here’s to one more milestone passed! Sniff, sniff.

100

2010-09-11T10:46:00.002-05:00

Well, from what I’ve seen, it is a blog tradition to type 100 things about yourself when you reach 100 blog posts. So, since I always like to follow the crowd, ha, here I go! These are in no particular order, I am just adding to the list as I think of something since I know if I sat down to type them all at once I would never think of anything to say! It is probably supposed to be things that people don’t know about me, but since I’m pretty sure my readers are all family, you already know all these things! And, I am sure that it is supposed to be 100 quick things. Mine will not be. I am a rambler. Maybe that should be number one! So, get some caffeine to keep yourself awake and read away!

1. I love to blog. I wish I had more time to blog!

2. I don’t watch much TV.

3. When I do watch TV, the volume must be on an even number. I will even have it too loud or too low just to have an even number. Don’t even think about watching with the volume 21, just don’t do it!

4. As of July 6, 2010, Todd and I have been married 19 years.

5. One show I do watch occasionally is Say Yes To The Dress. I love wedding dresses. But, even after nineteen years and many dresses seen since, I still love my wedding dress and would choose it over and over again. I guess that is why it was “the” dress for me.

6. In another life I would love to be a wedding planner or wedding dress designer, or even a wedding dress salesperson. I love everything about weddings.

7. My parents and Todd’s parents were all in school together at Oklahoma Christian at the same time.

8. Oklahoma Christian is where Todd and I met.

9. On our first date, we determined that our mom’s both made spaghetti a lot on Wednesday nights. This was in between him tying and untying his shoes no less that 620 times. I decided then and there that he was the one for me since I could feed him spaghetti and he could teach our kids to tie their shoes. Just kidding.

10. Todd and I dated about six months, then we were engaged, then we married ten months later.

11. I have two brothers, Todd has two brothers. I love having sister-in-laws. No offense guys!

12. Todd and I have moved sixteen times. You read that right. Moved sixteen. Married nineteen. Yes, it is as bad as it sounds.

13. If you count Edmond and Yukon as part of OKC and Nixa as part of Springfield, we’ve only actually live four different places in all those moves. I don’t know what this means, except that I wish some of those moves would have been to some fun, exotic places!

14. I could totally live in downtown Chicago or NYC.

15. I think I have been to eleven major league baseball games. Have I mentioned I don’t care for baseball? Or hot dogs? I do like apple pie though. Why don’t they sell apple pie at baseball games?

16. I love to sew. I love to embroider. I’m so excited I have a daughter to sew for. At least until she tells me to stop, which will probably be pretty soon.

17. Everyone told me that girls are easier to potty train than boys. Guess what, they are NOT!

18. I wish all the time I was ten years younger so I could have more kids. I really would like more kids.

19. I am a terrible decorator. This worked out well when we were renting most places we lived. I had the excuse that we would be moving on soon. When we buy a house, that excuse doesn’t really fly.

20. I wish I had the nerve to have a whimsical, colorful fun home. Right now my whimsicalness sits at two chairs.

21. I have four of the sweetest kids I know. Ok, I’m a little biased. But, I love them!

22. Kellen started Kindergarten in Tulsa and was in school until November of that year, then we moved. We’ve homeschooled ever since.

23. At this point, I can’t imagine not homeschooling. I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve gotten very spoiled having so much time with my kids.

24. You don’t have to read very many of my posts to guess what my grades in English were. But, I continue to write them anyway.

25. I can’t stand to scrapbook. My perfectionism gets me too freaked out about the whole process. So, I blog. I am printing my blog so I can put it up for my kids to have someday. They may not care, but it makes me feel better. At least they’ll have a little notebook to put next to their spouses 65 professionally done scrapbooks of their lives.

26. I have a tendency to be sarcastic.

27. My parents will be married 49 years this year. Todd’s parents have been married 48 years. For these marriages I am so thankful.

28. At our rehearsal dinner, Clay said he knew Todd and I would stay married because we are the two most stubborn people he knows. He was right. Sometimes it takes pure stubbornness to make it work. Or maybe the stubbornness makes the work. I don’t know. But, we’re still here.

29. This may be a list of 29 things. I don’t think I can think of 100 things to write about myself! I will need at least one more, I can’t end on an odd number.

30. Todd and I have only had one pet. Well, we had some fish when we were first married, but then we moved, and well, they didn’t make it. Abby was our one and only. The sweetest little daschund . She was not supposed to be a miniature, but she never got over 9 pounds. We had her sixteen years. She moved and moved with us and never seemed to be bothered by it. She was bothered when we had babies. She was bothered when we tried to get a second dog for her to play with. Needless to say that friendship didn’t last long and we found a good home for the new dog. But, moving didn’t bother her.

31. I would have loved to have named Callie Abby but everyone thought it would be too weird.

32. I am a nervous wreck about having a daughter. I have no idea what I am doing!

33. I love pink.

34. Lucky for Todd we had a girl. This last moved I changed the color of our bedroom from pink and white blue and white.

35. Todd always said he wanted three boys and a girl. That’s what he got. :)

36. The boys were born in Oklahoma City. Callie was born in Iowa.

37. All of our kids names had to have double letters, to go with our last name that has double letters. Daddy’s idea.

38. If you look in the right baby name books, all of our kids names are Irish.

39. Even if we had more kids we could only have about four more since by the time you take out all the baby names that don’t have double letters and are not Irish, you are only left with four.

40. I love to buy shoes. It’s not fun to buy shoes for myself anymore since I have to start with comfortable and work my way down. So, I buy shoes for Callie. :)

41. If I won the lottery the first thing I would do would be hire someone to clean my house, regularly. I am so over cleaning.

42. I love to fly. In airplanes that is.

43. I love to travel. The second thing I would do if I won the lottery is buy a bunch of airline tickets to all kinds of places.

44. I spent six weeks in Europe in between my junior and senior years of college. Loved it! I was part of a mission group with Let’s Start Talking. We spent five weeks working with a church in the Netherlands and a week traveling. One of the best times of my life. I would love to take my kids there.

45. Sam’s will not allow employees to take more than a week of vacation at a time. So, even though Todd has four weeks vacation, it doesn’t do us much good when it comes to traveling great distances. Unless I go by myself, which I have been known to do!

46. Tulips are my favorite flower. I would love to visit the Netherlands when the tulips are in full bloom, except that I am scared it would be too commercialized and then I would be disappointed.

47. I am not a fan of Disney. So, a trip to Disneyworld if about last on my list. That probably makes me un-American. Oh well.

48. The commercialization of things drives me nuts. Why does EVERYTHING have to have a sponsor? I know, because someone has to pay for all the “stuff” that people enjoy, but it is all just too much these days.

49. I have a terrible memory and that makes me sad. I wish I could remember every little detail of my kids lives, but I can’t. Bits and pieces jump out to me every once in a while, but that is about it.

50. I will not ever win the lottery because I don’t buy lottery tickets. But, it’s a nice thing to think about sometimes!

51. I think my second dream job would be to design children’s wear. I don’t know if anyone would buy it, but it would be fun.

52. In sixth grade, we had to make a poster titled something like “About Me”. In the part where we were supposed to draw a picture about what we wanted to be when we grew up I drew me feeding a baby in a high chair. Being a mama is all I ever wanted to do. So, I guess my actual dream job is coming true! Of course now I realize being a mama is way more than one job!

53. In sixth grade I rode a bus to another school to be in a gifted and talented class. We were a mixture of kids from all over town that got to be in the most wonderful class with the most wonderful teacher. I know, how did this happen? What can I say, I can take tests!

54. I pretty much didn’t like school except for sixth grade. I was so very shy that any thing other than sitting at my desk doing schoolwork was torture. I even volunteered to wash dishes in the school cafeteria so that I wouldn’t have to go to recess. Should I even admit that? I guess it doesn’t hurt for people to know I have been weird all my life!

55. I can’t draw to save my life. I wish I could. I wish I was an artist and super-creative. But, I’m not, I’ve learned to deal. I’m glad my kids are creative in spite of me!

56. I was deathly afraid of the dark growing up. I have outgrown it, a little.

57. Easter is my favorite holiday. Three reasons: Jesus, new clothes and the beginning of spring!

58. Fall is my next favorite. The temperatures are just right and even though I would not care if I ever watched another football game on TV, the thought of a high school game with a marching band just makes me happy.

59. Next would be summer. I love the freedom. Don’t love the heat.

60. I really could live someplace that didn’t have a winter. I despise being cold and despise snow. My Iowa friends can attest to this, since I complained the entire time I lived there. Sorry about that!

61. I also love to buy socks. I can’t stand to wear socks, but love to buy them.

62. I once took a sack with 102 pairs of socks to Goodwill. In my defense, there were a lot of little baby socks. My boys never really wore them since they were spring babies, but apparently I couldn’t resist buying them!

63. I was born in October. During the OU/Texas football game. I think that was an omen.

64. We have four OU football season tickets that we never use. Don’t worry, we sell them, but it would be more fun to use them!

65. My parents live in the same house that I grew up in.

66. Todd’s parents live in the same house he grew up in.

67. Our kids don’t know where they live.

68. In the third grade I got chicken pox and glasses all in the same week. Not a good week.

69. I have a college degree in Physical Education. I never wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to work in fitness or physical therapy.

70. My first job was at Presbyterian Hospital in the Oklahoma City Center For Athletes. I know what you are thinking, right up my alley. It was a semi-fun job that only lasted nine months because we moved.

71. My next job was for an eye doctor. I decided then that I wanted to work in the optometric field. That lasted seven months. Then we moved. Can you see a pattern here.

72. I have a terrible time making decisions. Big decisions, little decisions, it doesn’t really matter.

73. We were married six years before we had Kellen. We wanted to be “ready” before we had kids. Of course we soon found out you are never ready.

74. We would have loved to have our kids close together, but God did not have that planned for us. I think I will trust His judgment.

75. I really, really try to trust God and His plan for my life. It is not easy. I’m a tad controlling. I would have never laid my life out like this.

76. I have a pretty good life, so luckily someone else is making the plans!

77. I don’t remember when Clay was born, I was only 22 months old.

78. I remember every detail about the day Ryan was born. I was seven. While I was initially a little sad he was not a sister, I got over it very quickly.

79. I am now very glad he was not a sister. There are some advantages to being the only girl.

80. Ryan had long curly hair as a toddler, so I curled it and fixed it for him. The next best thing to having a sister.

81. People always thought Clay and I were twins. He was tall, I was short, and we were dressed alike a lot.

82. I sort of bossed them around a lot. Sorry about that.

83. Clay and Ryan both work in public education. I do not.

84. Clay and Ryan both live in Oklahoma. I do not.

85. Todd still says we will end up in Oklahoma City some day, for good. I’m beginning to think that is not in the plans.

86. If we could, we would move back to the first little house we bought in the Village. We LOVED that house, still do. Of course, we have added two more kids since then, so it might not really work out. But, that was the best house.

87. The second house we owned was in Iowa. We loved the space. I loved the laundry chute and laundry room.

88. The house in Iowa was supposed to be a work in progress while we lived there. But, we didn’t live there long enough. So, it became a major stress to get it done and sell it.

89. Todd never saw the finished product. I wish he could have. It turned out really cute.

90. Thank the Lord we sold it in three weeks. I couldn’t take that house anymore!

91. The third house we have owned is the house we are in now. It is new. Or was new. We’ve used it now.

92. It is sooo boring. Maybe if we built it ourselves, it would not be boring. But since we just bought it this way, boring. It is boring because I’m afraid to touch anything. Something about having an old house makes me think I can fix that, make it look better. Here, it’s hard to change anything since it is new. I don’t know if I ever want a new house again. But, I’ve learned to never say never.

93. I know I am blessed to have this home, don’t get me wrong. I am thankful for it every day. Just bored with it.

94. Or maybe I’m bored because I’m not pregnant or packing. Or pregnant and packing.

95. I wish I knew the Bible better. You’d think by going to church my whole life and taking Bible classes in college I would know it better. But I am finally realizing that you have to actually study it, not just sit and listen about it.

96. I desperately want my kids to know the Bible. So, we start our homeschool day with Bible and I am learning right along with them. It’s the best part of our day.

97. I love my kids. I can’t even describe how much I love these four people in my life.

98. I love my husband. I am so thankful for him. He has put up with a lot from me and is still here.

99. I love God. I am so thankful to Him for blessing me beyond what I deserve.

100. I love you for actually reading to the end! Ha! Unless your like me and you read the end of the book first to see if you actually want to mess with reading the whole thing. If that is the case, don’t bother going back to read the list. It will be ten minutes of your life you’ll never get back!

First Day of School

2010-09-07T10:54:00.001-05:00

Well, the first day of the Foxx Family School year 2010-2011 has come and gone. We are now well into our seventh day. Ha! It seems like we never stopped. Except that we did. The kids and I were talking about our last few years of school and to say they were crazy is an understatement!

Here they are at the “school table”. We have already rearranged this set-up. Hopefully we’ll be rearranging again if I can talk daddy into a trip to IKEA! We really only sit at the table together for Bible then everyone splits up, but it is getting crowded around here! Callie. She’s technically in preschool, I guess. She goes between playing, writing, and teaching. Whatever she is in the mood for that day!

Gannon. He’s in first grade this year.

Garrett. He’s in fifth grade.

Kellen. He is in 7th grade, which is junior high around here. Here’s hoping I can keep up with that challenge!

Here’s looking at a great school year!

A New Man

2010-08-30T08:51:00.001-05:00

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

2010-08-26T21:24:00.004-05:00

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 s ee the Foxx Family on the News, ha

Love

2010-08-25T09:04:00.002-05:00

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”

2010-08-18T07:44:00.003-05:00

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

2010-08-17T18:25:00.002-05:00

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

2010-08-10T10:38:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-08-04T12:39:00.001-05:00

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!

July, cont.

2010-08-02T22:31:00.001-05:00

Moving right along with July…I have to blog about this stuff because I am in shock that it is already August!! If I don’t go through and look at the pictures, I have no recollection of what we have been doing with our time!

Next on the list was a visit from Todd’s parents. They were able to come to Branson for a couple of days so we went and crashed their party! Actually they invited us, and we had a great time. Well, at least Charlene and I did, we shopped and shopped! The guys were all very patient following along behind us. Actually, Branson had enough to keep them busy so I don’t think it was too bad!

Here are Roy and Charlene with the crew before they had to head home. It was a bright sunshiny day, so it was hard to get a picture without people squinting! I don’t know why we didn’t go inside!

Here is Callie modeling her flip flops that she got in Branson. She has been begging for some all summer and I wouldn’t get them for her. Yes, she is two, and yes, she is already begging for things that I won’t get! But, just my two cents, flip flops are not the greatest shoes for anyone, especially for a little one still running everywhere she goes! But, these were cheap with a big rhinestone on them so I caved. Of course she has only worn them at home and that is fine with her! Don’t you love the watermelon dress! I have to really resist putting it on her everyday!

Random picture of Callie with my “lips” as she calls lipstick or lip-gloss. I have no idea how she got it while strapped in her car seat! But, she was very proud of herself!

The Sunday after Todd’s parent’s left, Kellen and Garrett left for church camp. I took their picture in the car since it was pouring down rain! They were excited to go, maybe a little too excited!

Callie and Gannon had a great time together while the big brothers were gone to camp. It was really fun to watch them play without being bossed around! They really enjoyed each other and having mom and dad to themselves.

Gannon got to choose something to do on Daddy’s day off so he chose Silver Dollar City. Here he is with Daddy on some water shooting ride. Todd is in the ball cap and Gannon is to his left. I forgot my camera so all I had was my phone! Gannon had so much fun getting to be the one to choose what rides we went on. I even rode the log ride with him. I am usually anti-get wet and walk around all day, but I did it and it was a lot of fun!

Here are some of the Union Hill guys, Preston, Abe, Kellen, and Garrett, at the end of the week. They all survived! I don’t think our boys loved it enough to go back next year. That is fine by me! It was a long week!

Callie and her baby. She is a very good little mommy!

July 23, 2010 marked the one-year anniversary of the Sam’s Club that Todd manages. It is a few more weeks before Todd’s actual one-year anniversary here, but the store opened July 23. He has done a great job this year! Todd has been with Sam’s for almost twenty years! Started out part-time in college and has worked up to this. I am so proud of him! He is such a hard worker! I appreciate him so much and am so thankful for what he does for our family. Sam’s has been a good company to be with. They have some warts like any large company (or small for that matter!), but if we look at the big picture of things, we have nothing to complain about!

We joined Todd at the one-year celebration. Callie was the biggest cheerleader, clapping for everything! Sorry Kellen, didn’t mean to cut your head off! You’d think I was using a film camera again!

Here the boys are posing with one of the guest speakers. Grant Winstrom, he played for the St. Louis Rams and won some super bowls and college national championships at Nebraska. He lives in Springfield and is a good customer and has a foundation that Sam’s works with so he came to speak. Gannon wore his Sam Bradford Ram’s jersey in honor of Grant being there. You have never heard so many comments! There are tons of OU fans around here and tons of Rams fans, so Gannon was the star of the show!

Happy One-Year Anniversary!

Independence Day!

2010-07-26T17:58:00.003-05:00

Well, I am hoping to get all of July blogged about before August 1. There is a good chance I am not going to make it, just in case you are on pins and needles to hear about it!

July 4 we started out with company, but sadly they had to head home since they had things to do bright and early Monday morning. Since we hadn’t really checked into what to do in this area for the fourth, we decided we would just stay home and see what we could see. Best decision EVER! Have I mentioned that we live kind of in the middle of no where? Well, that is not exactly true. There are cities and neighborhoods all around us, we just happen to be in a little patch of land with not a whole lot around us. Have I mentioned that we have some new neighbors? Yay! Since the first of the year five houses have been completed and four more are almost done. No one is right by us, which is nice. (Or should I be paranoid? Do all the trashcans and outdoor kids stuff scare people away? I don’t care, I like a little space!) Well, we could seriously have sat on our roof and had a 360 degree fireworks extravaganza. The other nice thing about being out of city limits is that you can pop your own fireworks. At least that was nice for those of us that wanted to just watch our neighbors fireworks! The boys couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t do this! Umm, safety maybe? Thirteen year old that thinks he knows how to do everything and fireworks was not a battle I wanted to face this year! One of our new neighbors had a party and had fireworks galore. We decided to elect him chairman of fireworks for our neighborhood from here on out! It was a fabulous time. Perfect weather, lots of fireworks, our family all together. Loved it!

Gannon, Kellen, Callie, Garrett, and Daddy enjoying the shows.

This girl was the LOVING the fireworks! She clapped and cheered the whole time!

This is just a good picture of her curls. :)

Yay!!

Garrett and Callie deciding to stand and watch. It was better this way since we could turn around in all directions to view the shows!

Just to show how close we were to our neighbors show. Perfect! Just like having your own but we didn’t spend any money on fireworks or ER visits! (They didn’t go to the ER thank goodness, but it just takes on crazy firework you know!)

Family Visit

2010-07-15T08:37:00.001-05:00

The end of July we had a great visit from Todd’s brother Glenn and his family, Kerry, Taryn, and Jack. They came and enjoyed Branson a couple of days as a family then came and joined in our madness!

The first day we got together we met them at Silver Dollar City and had a great time! It’s nice to have cousins all about the same age so they have someone to ride rides with. Aunt Kerry was a good sport about riding stuff with them. I have yet to ride anything at SDC except the bouncy frogs. That was enough for me! I would enjoy the water rides, like the log ride and such, but I do not enjoy walking around wet all day. One of these days I will ride at the end when we are heading straight home!

The next best thing to having cousins your own age is having cousins older than you to take you around and do fun things! Callie was loving having Taryn help her!

I don’t remember the official name of this area, but it is filled with soft balls that you can shoot, pick up, dump, they fall on your head, the possibilities are endless. It is several stories high, fun for all ages!

It is hard to get a picture of someone jumping, at least it is when they don’t jump very far off the ground, but can you see that her feet are leaving the ground? Taryn would fill up the balls for her and she could push the button to shoot them out into the middle. She was soooo excited about this! She would shoot and then just jump up and down, it was so cute!

Here Callie is putting the balls in the vacuum tubes that take balls up to the top of the structure. This was sooo up her alley! She loves to clean and pick up. The girl was seriously determined to clean up all these balls! I wish I would have gotten a picture of the look on her face when they would come dumping from the ceiling. Pure frustration that she would never get this place clean. Welcome to womanhood sister!

Meanwhile, Glenn was our official “stuff” watcher. Thanks Glenn!

Here Jack, Garrett, Callie and Gannon are getting in on the action.

Here is a guy that apparently has a summer job of scooping up foam balls and tormenting children with them. He’s probably a homeschooler :). (I kid, I kid!)

Of course, instead of saying “Hey kids, let’s go over here and play”, I documented the whole thing with my camera. I love the look on Callie’s face as the ball guy is heading for them. Soon after this, she ran to me. I don’t blame her!

Watch out Garrett, he’s going to get you!!!

Glenn finally gets in on the action! He graciously offered to take Gannon on the little roller coaster. Can you spot him? He could not have been comfortable in the that little thing!

Kids still smiling after a long day at Silver Dollar City. We had a GREAT time!

They spent the night with us Friday and Saturday night. It was supposed to rain Saturday so got up early and went to the go-cart track. Taryn volunteered to drive Gannon. Kellen has not ever gotten to drive a single car since Gannon is not tall enough to drive by himself, so Taryn said she would take him. Thanks!

Kellen with Jack right behind him!

The rest of Saturday we just hung around the house. I think the kids got a little bored, but this mama was worn out and the adults were just enjoying having time to visit. We enjoyed some Arris’ pizza for dinner, a family favorite!

The next day we went to church and then made the obligatory visit to Lambert’s. Everyone that comes to this neck of the woods wants to go there. It has been featured on the Food Network as the number one pig out place in the country. Actually, I don’t think Glenn and Kerry really had that on their list of must-sees, but Todd had been wanting to go there for a couple of weeks so this was a good excuse!

Jack, Kellen, and Taryn waiting for their rolls. Yes, they throw their rolls. Lovely. (Except they are really good!)

Garrett waiting for his roll.

Glenn and Kerry enjoying their lunch. Notice there is food everywhere. This is not all theirs :)! They just keep bringing more and more food until there is no where to put it all!

We had a great time! Looking forward to them coming again!

More Summer Fun!

2010-07-13T07:50:00.001-05:00

Gannon and his friend Josiah hanging out in the whale pool! I thought Callie might like this while the boys were sliding. But, the have confiscated it to use at the bottom of the slide since the fall out over the edge half the time!

Garrett going down the water slide. Yes, a water slide in our backyard. Quite possibly the silliest thing I have ever bought :)! But, our yard leaves something to be desired for little boys. No trees. No neighbors. No shade. No nothing. Until now! They have had a lot of fun. Luckily they are the kind of kids that can make anything fun. How many times can you go down a slide and still have fun? So, they have all kinds of games made to keep it fun.

Gannon on the slide.

Kellen sliding.

Callie just watching. She has come around and gone down the slide with a brother from time to time. She likes the slide, just not getting drenched at the bottom of the slide! This day she ended up going in and falling asleep on the couch. Fun times!

Just Hanging Out

2010-07-12T21:43:00.003-05:00

Ok, not really. On paper, our summer looked so easy and carefree. No baseball games, time to hang out at home, hang out with friends and family. Let’s just say there has not been much hanging around doing nothing! We have had a lot of fun though. The boys have tried some new things, we’ve spent time with new friends, and had lots of company, which I love!

After my surgery we went home with my mom. It worked out great since Todd was going to be working in Oklahoma, he could just come pick us up. And, it gave me more time to lay around! Ha! This is what you do at Grandma’s house. Shoot things. She has managed to amass quite a collections of little guns and hats so the kids march around inside and like they are in some sort of battle. Too funny!

The kid on the right is Garrett, I promise. I didn’t want to get to close and embarrass him and I hadn’t updated my phone with the zoom for the camera. This is the first time any of the kids have taken tennis lessons. He loves it!

Gannon pushing Callie on the swing while we wait for tennis to be over. The girl is obsessed with swings!

Garrett and his friend Christian joining in the fun after their lesson. Seeing if they can fly!

Kellen is officially in the youth group at church now. So, we celebrated his first youth outing by eating at his favorite Mexican restaurant without him!

Who knows? But too cute to not include!

All three boys are taking golf lessons. Kellen and Garrett have started playing in some tournaments. This is Gannon’s first time to really play much. I’m not sure he has figured out what all the fuss is about, but he seems to like it ok :).

Callie at the golf store. It was all I could do to not buy the pink clubs. Especially since they also had a pink polka dot bag!
Callie reading the Bible to her baby. Love it!

So this sums up some of our summer! (Lots of sums!) Everyone seems to be enjoying things. Even though it seems like a lot, it is at a slower pace than the school year. We are all loving that! More to come!

Big Decision

2010-06-08T20:22:00.001-05:00

First, the surgery went well. So far, so good. It was only yesterday and I am going nuts to get out of the house! The only pain is the pain from being surgery sore, which is so much less than the gallbladder pain! I will be ready to hit the road tomorrow, somewhere, anywhere!

Ok, this is not really a big decision in the whole scheme of life, but for the Foxx family, it was a big decision! We decided not to sign the boys up for summer baseball this year. We have spent so many hours the last six summers running to ball games. The last three with two boys on teams. We were looking at three boys on teams this year! We just couldn’t do it. The last year has been soooo crazy for our little family, that we just needed some time to hang out. Of course we haven’t been doing much hanging out, but we could if we wanted to! The boys were really ok with the decision. Once we told them and they realized they would be able to do other things with their time, they started to get excited! For example, last year we only went swimming one time! Granted, we lived in Iowa where the swimming season is very short, but the baseball schedule didn’t help either! When we made the decision, the boys were also in the middle of spring flag football, so things were crazy anyway, adding baseball to the mix did not appeal to anyone! I am excited to see what the boys choose to do with their summer. I am personally glad that we are not going to be doing the same thing over and over! Stay tuned!

We Interrupt This Summer

2010-06-06T14:52:00.001-05:00

Well, we are interrupting this summer for me to have gall bladder surgery, or laparoscopic cholecystectomy if you would like to be completely accurate! It’s a long drawn out story that starts last summer and is hopefully ending on June 7th! The thing about gallbladder pain, at least with a lot of people, is that you don’t really know that it is gallbladder pain until you’ve had it a while. Now that I know, I’m ready to feel better! I’m planning on feeling like a new woman on June 8th! So, just pray for a safe surgery and quick, and I mean quick, recovery! I’ve got plans! Hopefully I’ll be back to my ~~strict~~ hit or miss blogging schedule soon and will fill you in on all the gory details! Not really. But, I’ll at least let you know I made it and how much better I feel! Thanks for praying :)!

SIX!

2010-06-04T19:01:00.001-05:00

Well, Gannon has turned six. The dreaded six, for mama anyway. I mentioned before that for me when the boys turn six, they aren’t little boys anymore. Yes, I can think of them that way, but they just aren’t. They are growing up. :(

Gannon was thrilled to finally have his birthday! Having to wait through Kellen’s birthday in March and Garrett’s birthday in April is pure torture for him! Poor guy, his whole life is waiting on time to pass so he can do what they are doing!

Gannon. I can’t even think of words to describe him. Isn’t that terrible?! He is just the sweetest thing, which is probably not what he wants me announcing to the world! He is quiet and serious and gives me the biggest hugs out of nowhere. He really loves to draw. I mean really loves it. Anytime there is a free second, he is picking up whatever writing utensil is nearby and drawing. He has such an imagination. Right now most of the drawings are super-heroes, but they are always involved in some sort of story with many, many angles!

Gannon has made several friends since we moved here and I am so glad! We have not known many kids his age for him to hang out with so this is such a joy for him. He loved his co-op class and loves his Bible classes at church where there are so many little boys. (I mean, big boys!)

Gannon just cracks me up on a daily basis. He has become quite the master at making his own meals. He has all of the sudden decided that pretty much anything I make is not something he likes. He has figured out where meat comes from, so he is too grossed out to eat it. He has figured out that ketchup is made from tomatoes, so we can’t even drown stuff in ketchup! I guess at this point I am too tired to fight so he just makes his own sandwich and goes on. I am banking on the fact that his brothers outgrew this stage, so he will too!

The smile. Gannon has always, always, had the most infectious, beautiful smile.

Thank you God for Gannon! Gannon, you have always been such a joy to be around and you just light up a room with your smile. I always knew I would have a bunch of boys and I’m so glad you are one of them! Daddy and I love you!! Your brothers love you and have so much fun with you. Callie, well, she just flat adores you. She is so excited to see you every morning and you are so nice to her! Such a blessing you are to all of us! Thanks for being you! You are the best Gannon I know!!

Vacation!!

2010-06-01T10:36:00.001-05:00

Todd had a week of vacation last week. Woohoo! We had thought we might go to St. Louis and go to a ballgame (of course!) but decided a week or two before we just weren’t up to it. Lucky for us some friends had some time reserved at Big Cedar in Branson and invited us to come along. Oh my. I wish we had done this before, and I hope we can do this again. We were literally forty minutes or so from our house, but felt like we were a million miles away. This place is one of those places where you never have to leave to have fun. We had a blast! We walked, went canoeing, and paddle boating. We fed tons of turtles and fish. We played miniature golf, we swam, and swam and swam. We watched movies since it rained and since we had seven kids that needed to sit in a vegetative state to save their parents sanity! We went to Silver Dollar City (can I just say I love Silver Dollar City?!) Best of all we had a great time with friends that we got to know better! It was such a nice relaxing time. While I love to travel, there is always a certain amount of stress involved being away from home. This was like we weren’t really away from home, so no stress! There was no hurrying to try to fit everything in or deciding what you should do, because it was all right there, so you could do it all! I highly recommend Big Cedar if your ever around this area. I ranks right up there with the Foxx Bed and Breakfast! (Which is where I would rather our friends stay so we can visit with them! And we are free!)

Si, Kellen, Callie and Amy checking out this covered walkway. It was covered with vines, or trees, or something. I’m not really up on all my trees, but it was so nice!

Garrett, Si, Callie and Kellen looking at the fish and turtles.

Garrett taking Callie to check out the water. :)

Inside one of the buildings there was this cool Lincoln Log table. They could have stayed there for hours!

This is in the turret lookout. Callie, Kellen, and Abe.

Garrett, Gannon and Si checking out the exhibits of animals, fish and such. Hey, we’re homeschooling even on vacation!

Si and Gannon. So sweet!

The view from our room! Todd and Callie in the indoor pool. Callie taking a much needed nap. She just crashed! I think trying to hang with six boys wore her out! I stayed with her and everyone else went to play mini golf. Boy it was quiet!

Garrett playing catch the football off the slide. Kellen attempting a catch.

While we were there Gannon turned six! So, we celebrated with a cake from the local grocery store. It was a graduation cake so they gave me a bunch of doo-dads to put on it. Too funny! I love the looks Gannon and Si are giving each other! Garrett and Gideon are wishing we would cut the cake!

Gannon’s smile is just priceless!

Callie not looking too thrilled to be in the stroller at Silver Dollar City. She was so good though to hang out. We never even made it to the “kiddie” section because the big kids were having such a great time riding rides. It was beautiful weather and I think we just missed the crowds because there were rides they just got to stay on and ride since no one was in line! I’m sure that will not be the case for the rest of the summer!

Great times with great friends! Counting our blessings :)!

We Have A Visitor!

2010-05-31T10:43:00.001-05:00

I was so excited a few weeks ago to learn that my friend Tenneil was coming to Springfield to see her sister, that meant she had to come see me too! She is just nice like that! I met Tenneil when we lived in Iowa and we both attended church in Moline. She has a little boy Austin that was Callie’s buddy in Bible class and we became fast friends.

Callie and Austin on their first outing to Whitey’s in Moline, IL. :)

Tenneil (along with a few others) saved my life when we found out we were moving. She just jumped in and painted and cleaned and whatever else was needed so we could get our house sold. She is an awesome decorator and staged my house when we put the sign up. So awesome that the house sold in three weeks! Needless to say I was ecstatic for her to come see this house and tell me what I should do to it!

We had a great time! She was able to stay at our house with Austin for two nights before going to her sisters. We talked and shopped and played and had a great time. I also got a lot of ideas for my house and bought some stuff to make it more our home. I don’t know why it helps to have someone with me to say “yes, buy it!”.

I didn’t take too many pictures, I just don’t think about it. :( I really am trying to get better at that!!

This picture was from one evening when we went to get the family (and us) some Andy’s Custard. We made a pit stop at the go-cart track! We drove past the track and Tenneil commented that she loved go-carts but it always seemed the guys did that while the mama’s sat on the sidelines. So, we made a u-turn and had some fun! One of the workers took this with Tenneil’s phone. Check out the other worker behind my car! Cracks me up!!!

We talked, shopped, talked, and shopped some more. I got to know her sister which was nice. Especially since her sister has lived here longer and knows some of the best places to shop! We all had a great time hitting flea markets and antique stores. We had eight kids between us so my big boys did a great job of babysitting in the car at some stops so we could run in and run out! Such a good time!

Hopefully she’ll be back soon, we had a great time catching up and decorating!

Words That Actually Came Out Of My Mouth This Week!

2010-05-30T21:37:00.001-05:00

“Let’s wait until it get’s a little closer to worry about Halloween costumes.”

Why are my kids so obsessed with costumes?

“When Kellen was in Kindergarten I spent $50.00 on his Halloween costume.”

Maybe that is why they are obsessed with costumes!

“Seriously?”

Who knows why I said that, but I say it all the time so I know it has come out of my mouth this week.

“Wow, look at that fort. I think that is every blanket we own!”

After the boys built a fort in the basement with, literally, every blanket we own and some sheets and sleeping bags thrown in. Impressive, but can you say “laundry”?

Did you know a Krispy Kreme doughnut has seven points?

Yes, I joined Weight Watchers this week. Except for the part where I am starving, it’s going great!!!

“I guess you can sleep in that.”

Telling Callie she can sleep in one of her brothers plain white undershirts. The girl has more cute jammies than any one person needs, but she wants to look like her brothers! The excitement was so great I didn’t have the heart to say no!

Better Than Last Year, I Think…

2010-05-23T21:52:00.003-05:00

Well, Easter has come and way gone this year. It was a crazy time. Easter is my favorite holiday, and it seems to be crazy every year! Not the way I would like to enjoy it. I love Easter because it is spring!!! And because you get to buy pretty new dress clothes! And there are the Easter eggs, the bunnies, the pastel colors everywhere…I could go on and on! Easter 2010 was crazy all because of me. I had too many things planned at once. Not surprising I know!

The week of Easter we had just gotten back from a trip to Tulsa, where I never took a picture! I took my camera, but never took a picture. Trust me when I say we had a great time! While I was there we did some shopping. I decided since I was running out of time to make Callie a dress, I would buy Callie an Easter dress. Between Nana Charlene and I, we managed to pick out three dresses, two purses and a pair of shoes for Callie. Just in case. You never know what mood I would be in! I had also decided to order a pre-made, pre-pleated dress to smock, in case I had time. I really didn’t think it would be here in time to even start, but oh well, we had backups!

The Monday after Easter was the day to take things to our local Just Between Friends sale. This is a huge consignment sale that I have been missing while being in Iowa. I started going to them in Tulsa, and have since sold stuff through them in Norman and OKC as well. So, the week before Easter I had to get all my stuff ready to sell. Never mind that I had known about this for a few months!

And the week of Easter my parents were coming for a visit. This was a good thing as they haven’t had much time to visit us and my dad was coming to help me hang shelves in my John Deere room. Since I would be dragging stuff out of it to sell at the consignment sale, this would be the perfect time to do this.

And there was all the usual stuff: school, co-op, homeschool PE, probably orthodontist appointments since we manage to go at least every other week!

Well the dress I ordered came on the Thursday before Easter. I couldn’t stand it. My parents came on Thursday and I started alternating between pricing and smocking, and trying to be a good hostess, which I am sure I was not! This is why I titled this “Better Than Last Year…” Remember last year when I decided to make an Easter dress in a week? (Last years Easter saga:)) Well, this year I did it in three days. Granted I only smocked it. No sewing involved on this one. But the smocking is what I love to do anyway! So, is this better since I did it in less time? Or worse since I waited until the last minute two years in a row? Oh well, who cares, I love it! I do not have a great picture of it yet. But it is bright pink check with white and green stitching. It is not as long as I like for this type of dress, but cute anyway!

Look at this grin. This is her two-year-old grin. The grin that says “I am so cute, I can do anything I want!” (Can I just say she actually minded me tonight at dinner and even the boys were telling her good job it was such a surprise!) Ornery!

Todd has put his foot down on the matching clothes for the boys. This is the closest I could get without being vetoed!

Callie and Grandma having a conversation at the kitchen table.

Callie and Gannon taking a break from cleaning out the John Deere room. Notice all the tubs in the background? All empty now!! I am so excited. The consignment sale was a huge success! Worth all the madness getting the stuff ready. I would share how much money I made but it is embarrassing to think I had that much stuff to sell! Taking time out from the work to fly kites with Grandpa. One advantage of living in a house with no neighbors, trees, or anything for that matter! There was plenty of room to fly!

Callie and Gannon watching the kite action.

All in all it was a great week and Easter, just tiring! I really am going to start Callie’s Easter dress sooner next year. I know, I could have used one of the dresses we bought, but I love to make her things! I figure I need to get things made now before she refuses to wear what I make. We are already starting to have issues with her picking out her own clothes!

So, moving right along in our little family journal. I recently started printing my blog for 2009. Since I don’t scrapbook, I thought this would be a perfect thing to print and bind for the kids to have someday. They may not ever care, but it will release some of the guilt I have for not scrapbooking! Or even just putting pictures in albums! Anyway, I feel the need to go back and include some of our life when I get behind so we can remember what we do!

I Not Tired

2010-05-03T17:15:00.001-05:00

Let’s just say my kids are not “good sleepers”. Of course, what exactly is a “good sleeper”? What the books say? Since I like to march to the beat of my own drummer, I always question what the books say anyway! When Kellen was a baby and I took him to the pediatrician a few weeks after he was born I was lamenting the fact that Kellen didn’t sleep much. Our first pediatrician (we’ve had eight up to now!) was close to retirement at this time and was full of common sense, not book sense (thank goodness!). He said ”Well do you require a lot of sleep?” I said no, he said , “well, he just takes after you!” A-ha. So, he was right. Kellen has never required much sleep. Even if he stays up late, he still gets up by 7:00 am if not earlier. Garrett and Gannon sleep a little more, but still not what “experts” say they should. Well, Callie is right there with them. I have given up getting a full nights sleep. She is a total night-owl, every few nights she wakes up several times a night. It is either no waking up, or waking up four times! Her naps are hit or miss, which is not totally her fault. She is the youngest of four, so a lot of her naps are in the car!

Well, I say all of this to say that last Saturday we had had a long day. I knew we had a long week, so we were all going to bed early. Early for us is 8:30, so I guess Callie sensed that it was early. She just kept looking at me like “what gives?” Then she said “Why am I going to bed?” I said “Because you are tired.” She responded with “I not tired, I busy!”. Yes, Callie, I know you are not tired, you are busy, but Mama is tired, so just work with me here!

Here she is after conking out one night. Yes, once she finally goes to sleep I can turn the light on and take pictures and she doesn’t even know it, it’s just getting her to that point. One reason she is busy is because she has a lot things to take care of before she can sleep. She has to sleep with oodles of stuff. Drives me nuts! Dolls, books, purses, anything that catches her eye! All of her babies are called “Baby” except that big one with the blue shirt in the above picture and her name is “Dolly”. Every night it is a different group of babies to sleep with and she has to have them just so. Added to the problem is that she is the only one that knows who is sleeping with her and how they are supposed to be. Sometimes they are all on her pillow with her, sometimes the are all the way at the foot of the bed under the covers. Heaven forbid I should help with all this set up because I never get it right! Also notice what else she is sleeping with? Yes, an OU basketball, Grandma is totally getting in her head with all the basketball stuff!

I guess, lucky for me, I don’t require a lot of sleep!

Spring Break, Part 2!

2010-04-30T19:35:00.002-05:00

Continuing with the spring break visit…

On Friday we headed to Branson. It was a perfect day weather-wise. We couldn’t have asked for pretty weather.

Our first stop was the Shepherd of The Hills Fish Hatchery. Hey, it was free! But, really we had a great time, the kids enjoyed seeing all the fish of different sizes. The hatchery produces 1,125,000 trout annually. The fish were everywhere! (OK, ignore the black tees the kids are wearing, it will make more sense later! No, we were not trying to make them look like some kind of school group or daycare or something!)

All the kids and Clay checking out the fish.

After the fish hatchery we ate lunch at our favorite, Danna’s BBQ then we headed to the Hollywood Wax Museum. This is a small wax museum but in Branson it is a good choice for “preteens”.

Madison and Dorothy.

Kellen, Mallori, Garrett, and Madison with people from Star Trek.

Kellen, Mason, Garrett, Mallori, and Madison with Indiana Jones.

Attached to the Wax Museum was a mirror maze and 5-D ride (or movie or something, I really don’t remember what it officially is). Here are Callie and Clay in the mirror maze. The funniest thing about this picture is that up until now, she had been scared to death of Clay. When he pulled up at our house and got our of the car, she ran and hid. She had not gone near him for three days. But, once in the mirror maze with everyone screaming, and really for a minute, thinking we would never see the light of day, she decided Clay was her best option! I don’t know if she was looking for a “daddy”, or if she decided I wasn’t going to be any help since I had brought her here! The maze was really fun. There were mirrors that would light up with characters behind the glass, totally scary! I was really getting claustrophobic thinking we wouldn’t find our way out!

Here are the four big kids in the 5-D movie thing. Apparently there is the movie, the glasses, there are things you feel, things you shoot, and you move. Those are the five “d’s”. (Obviously this is not something I am into, but you get the idea, right?) Clay, Mason, and Gannon were a few rows back. Callie opted not to do this, which was probably a good thing. I am the most scaredy cat of all of them, and the way they talked I would have not made it out!

From the museum we made our way to Branson Landing. I love Branson Landing. Mainly because I love any outdoor shopping on a beautiful day! We had decided to take the guys to Ridemakerzz. It’s like Build-A-Bear only with cars. I mentioned it last summer when we visited one in Chicago. It is a really neat concept and guys (and girls) of all ages love it. The boys and Mallori picked cars and put them together.

From Branson we headed to Lambert’s to meet Todd. He agreed to go stand in line for us while we were driving so we wouldn’t have to wait too long. Friday night of Spring Break, we knew it would be crowded! Above: Garrett and Mallori, Kellen and Madison, Gannon and Mason (they had obviously had enough fun for the day!) then Kellen and Madison, enjoying their rolls. In case you don’t know, Lamberts has been featured on The Travel Channel for the best pig out place, or something to that effect. It is the place where they throw rolls to you. We live just down the road from Lambert’s, but we only visit there when company comes for obvious reasons! We do not need to be frequenting a pig out place! But, it is a lot of fun and the food is good, so it is fun to go occasionally.

On Saturday, the Spring Break blizzard was coming in. In Springfield we were just getting rain, but in Oklahoma it was already ice and snow. So, Clay opted not to leave on Saturday. We were glad to have more time!

The big kids, Callie and I headed to the mall for a little bit. Not much else we could do since it was raining , and the girls and I were disappointed we didn’t have more time to shop in Branson, so we needed to get it out of our system! Kellen and Garrett decided they would come too, a decision I think they regretted after about ten minutes at the mall! It was so fun for me to shop with someone who actually wants to shop! Madison and Mallori looked and shopped and looked and shopped. I even offered to buy them something but they are such good and frugal shoppers they only spent about $10! Claires seemed to be their favorite, we looked at every rack of jewelry and all the other trinkets they had.

We got something to eat then Garrett talked me into trying the hurricane machine. That is what is in the pictures above. After the other kids saw Garrett they decided the needed to try. It was too funny.

Lastly we headed to 1984. Not really back in time, but sort-of. There is a place downtown Springfield called 1984 where you pay five bucks and play all the video games you want. They have all the old games, Donkey Kong, Burgertime, Frogger, Ms. Pac-Man. Yes, they have some guy games too, but these are the games I loved! Lots of fun! Above pic is Clay and Madison playing Asteroids, I think. It was clean and no riff-raff allowed, so we will for sure be back there sometime!

Of course, we woke up Sunday and the blizzard had reached Springfield. So, Clay didn’t get to miss driving in it after all, but that was ok. We were glad we had another day of fun with them.

Again, we are so excited to be close to family. Here’s hoping all of our family can make it here at some point, and all of our friends from North and South! We have a great area to visit and we’re not bad company! So, who’s next?!

Cousins!

2010-04-27T09:13:00.001-05:00

We are so lucky to have bunches of cousins for the kids to play with. We are so glad to be closer to Oklahoma so that we can spend time with all of them. Clay came with his kids during their Spring Break and we had a great time! His kids are twelve, ten, and six, so they have always had so much fun playing together. It is nice that his oldest two are girls because Callie is in love with them, so they were pretty much stuck with her the whole time! I guess nice for me, maybe not so nice for them!

Callie and Gannon watching for them out the back window :).

They hadn’t been here very long before the manicures began. Callie chose lime green sparkles this time.

Madison and Callie sitting at the little table coloring. Callie was in heaven with a girl to play with! Sometime I need to dig out pictures we have of Kellen and Madison sitting at this table when they were two. Amazingly this little table has lasted through all the moves!

The guys assuming their Spring Break position.

Kellen and Mallori checking things out in his room.

Gannon and Mason sharing a MP3 player!

Callie just knew she would be able to sleep with “the girls” downstairs. I think Madison and Mallori wanted her too but they would have been sorry when she woke them up three or four times during the night!

The first night they were here they did a haunted house for us, complete with costumes and all. It was hysterical!

Here they are walking around being scary. I hate to tell them they are all too cute to be scary!

Callie getting in on the action with the night vision goggles.

Whew! And this was just the first day! I’m going to have to turn this into two or three posts we had so much going on. But, they had a great time, snow and all. Yes, we had two gorgeous days, then two days of rain, sleet and snow. Hello mother nature, it’s spring break! Luckily our kids are good at making the best of the situation, so they had so much fun!

Birthday Party

2010-04-24T11:25:00.001-05:00

Backtracking to what we’ve been doing the last few weeks, we will head to Kellen’s birthday party. We decided to invite some of his friends and their families. Since we do things pretty last minute, only one family could come and two friends came without their families. Turned out great! Since this was our first “company” in this house it was good to start small!

Kellen with Abe, Garrett and Christian.

Kellen blowing out his candles. He chose brownies and ice cream, so I was off the hook for making some lame cake! Not that cake is lame, but when I try to decorate one, it comes out lame! Our friends Steve and Amy are looking on. I love how it looks like Steve is blowing out candles too!

We ate pizza and the boys all played hide-and-seek in the dark in the basement. They had a GREAT time while the parents got to sit upstairs and visit. Works for me! After everyone left, Kellen’s friend Hunter spent the night. Kellen and Hunter have become fast friends here in Nixa. This is Hunter’s first year to homeschool, which makes it nice for them. The boys have similar schedules and interests. We are so glad to have found Hunter!

This is Hunter carrying supplies out to the “fort”. We have this little stretch of trees out behind our house. The boys have been spending many hours out there building and arranging and I don’t know what all!

The fort. Love the pizza box in the middle! They are really roughing it! Garrett digging a hole. Kellen, Hunter, and Garrett

A great birthday party with new friends! We have been blessed here to make friends so much faster than we usually do! I don’t know what it is this time around, but it has been fun! The boys are having a great time being outside. Still no neighbors, so they have the run of the place! And this little stretch of trees is as close to nature as I ever plan to live, so they are enjoying it while they can!

Be afraid. Be very afraid!

2010-04-20T09:39:00.002-05:00

Callie has taken to picking on Gannon when she gets the chance. I don’t know why. All of my younger kids have done this. Gannon would bite Garrett for no reason. He never did it to Kellen, just Garrett. Callie will pinch Gannon, not Garrett or Kellen, just Gannon. I think they just know that that is the child closest to their age so maybe, just maybe they can take them. Who knows!

Well, the other day Callie decided to stand on Gannon. He was laying on the floor drawing, she walked over and just stood there on his back. I was at the sink with wet hands so while I finished what I was doing, I was giving her the evil eye. (She, of course, was just giving me the I’ll do whatever I want smile that she has mastered!). After a few seconds, she jumped off Gannon, ran to Kellen for him to hold her and said “I’m scared of those eyes!”.

You better be scared sister!

During a not so scary moment! Callie ready for summer with her pink flower pants, pigtails, and Sonic! The best time of the year!

Double Digits

2010-04-09T10:57:00.001-05:00

I think turning ten ranks up there with the big birthdays like sixteen, or eighteen, or forty! At least it has been that way for my boys. Something about going from one digit to two is a big deal, your not a little kid anymore. Garrett turned ten this week! He was beyond thrilled!

This is Garrett doing his Oscar Winning act after seeing his Nerf Bow and Arrow that he has wanted forever! (He is really not crying!)

Excited about some Yankees World Series figures! (It’s a guy thing!)

Ten!

We spent the day doing our usual birthday activities, starting with no school! We take the day off of school work when it is a child’s birthday, just because we can! We got a double bonus yesterday since it was daddy’s day off. So, Garrett started out the day doing whatever he wanted, which for us usually includes shopping with birthday money and eating. What’s not to love!.

I have a love/hate relationship with my kids birthdays. It is so exciting to see them be so excited. But, it is so sad to see how fast time flies! Ten years is a long time, but I can remember the day Garrett was born like it was yesterday! Again, we decided not find out what we were having, but I just knew it was a boy. I was so excited when he was a boy so that we would have brother’s in our house. I must say I was shocked that he was so different than Kellen. I know, it should have been obvious, but you think, ok a baby, a boy, I can do this. Wrong! He is his own kid and I am so happy about that!

Garrett is such a fun-loving guy.

Garrett at the Hollywood Wax Museum

He is always up for doing something fun, and he would love it if that fun involved a ball of some sort! He has energy that never goes away. Garrett is also sensitive and thoughtful. He is not vocal about it, but you can see in his face that things really bother him. Things like his siblings being disciplined. He can’t stand it! He gets very upset if they are upset! Tenderhearted would be a great word to describe him. He will be a great husband because he is so fun, but so sensitive. And he can fix anything! He loves to work with his hands and will work at it until he gets things done. A quality everyone should have!

Ok, I’ll try to not go on and on, but one more! Garrett is so great with his siblings. He and Kellen can play all day, any number of things. But then Garrett can play with Gannon and be a great playmate. And Callie. It has been such a joy to see the boys with a girl. Garrett especially. I really think he is in awe of her. It is funny to watch her with him. If she needs a drink or some kind of care, she looks for Kellen. But, when she is ready to play, she looks for Garrett. They run, chase, tickle, wrestle. You name it, and she loves it. And so does he! He is a such a good big brother to her.

I am so thankful for God’s blessings in my life. I am so thankful for the blessing of Garrett being our son. We can learn so much from our kids if we take time to know them and I have learned so much from Garrett. I am thankful for this time. Garrett really does make me look better than I am!

Happy Birthday Garrett! Your daddy and I love you more than you know. Your brothers and sister love you and love spending time with you. Thanks for being you and loving God in the process. You are the best Garrett I know!

Behind. Behind. More Behind.

2010-04-08T10:47:00.002-05:00

Are you wondering what I am going to write about? Well, if you know me at all you know it is not what the title could be about. Well, maybe it could be about that. Besides getting more and more behind in just living, I am getting more of a behind in the process! But, I don’t think we want to hear about that.

I haven’t posted much lately, as I am behind in everything. I have moments like this every so often, where there are just more things that need to be done than can get done. I know some of this is because I tend to make things harder than they have to be. But, hey, at least I made it to Easter before I failed my New Year’s resolution! ( New Year's Post here :) )
So, hopefully, I’m back on track and will be catching you up on our lives from the last few weeks. Spring has spring and we are excited! Spring and summer in a new area, so there will be lots of exploring and adventure! I’ll try to keep up with blogging about it, I know all three of you that read are sitting on the edge of your seats!

Budding Artist

2010-03-22T10:54:00.002-05:00

I am not an artist. I wish I was. My mom is an artist. My brothers are both good at drawing and “arty” things. Apparently I missed that gene! I am also not so quick sometimes. Let me explain…

Kellen and Gannon both love to draw and do a great job. Garrett does a great job drawing, but I wouldn’t say he loves to do it! So, being the not–so–quick homeschool teacher that I am, it never occurred to me to push some sort of art besides drawing, painting, etc. Garrett is very much a hands on person. You need a cabinet built, he’s your man. Need your pencil sharpener fixed when your two old tries to sharpen something besides a pencil, again, he’s your man. (This has happened so much at our house I think he could go into business fixing pencil sharpeners!) Need someone to work hard until the job is done, he’s your man.

Luckily, the co-op leaders are smarter than I am! All the art projects they have worked on this semester are hands-on, right up Garrett’s alley. These are the projects he has brought home so far.

Garrett’s planet Saturn.

Garrett’s horse head made out of clay. I am quite impressed, he was really attentive to the details and it actually looks like a horse head! If I tried this, you would not know what it was!

He made this at home with Play-doh a couple of weeks ago. I think this is so cool!

Hopefully we can find a creative niche for him now that I see what he really enjoys and is good at. I remember my brother Ryan sitting for hours making things out of clay. He would have whole dioramas set up, just for the fun of it! Tiny little people and battles and whatever else went with the scene. He really could have gone into business doing that, if there is a business doing that! :)

So, I am just so excited for Garrett! And I am excited for me! It’s good to wake up and figure something out once in a while!

Spring Break!

2010-03-15T07:33:00.002-05:00

Woo-hoo it’s spring break! Ok, technically we can take a break anytime we want to, but I just needed any excuse to share this picture. Is this not the cutest swimsuit and model you’ve ever seen!

Happy Spring!

Whimsical

2010-03-13T09:21:00.004-06:00

Whimsical is my new favorite word. This all started a little while back when I was looking for furniture for our living room. First let me say I stink at decorating. I know what I like, but I can’t get it to come out the way I have in my head to save my life. So, looking for furniture is a weeks, months, years long process. Anyway, I was looking for something else on the internet when these chairs called “Whimsical” popped up.

I instantly loved them, I am always drawn to anything with the word whimsical in the title or description, when I think of that word I think fun. I loved the price of these chairs, loved the free shipping and free returns. What was not to lose? The fact that these do not look like anything else I have is beside the point! I kept showing them to my kids (they could care less). Kellen just couldn’t understand why they were called Whimsical or why I would want chairs called Whimsical. I love to find an opportunity to look up a word in the dictionary, so I told him to look it up! He said “on Google?” I said “No, in a dictionary!” So, he looked it up on an online dictionary :) and this what he found:

whimsical: 1 : full of, actuated by, or exhibiting whims
2 a : resulting from or characterized by whim or caprice; b : subject to erratic behavior or unpredictable change

When you look up whims it says this: 1 : a capricious or eccentric and often sudden idea or turn of the mind

So, can you see why this is my new favorite word? Does this not describe me?! At least the 2b, “subject to erratic behavior or unpredictable change”? Or 1, “exhibiting whims”, which is an “eccentric and often sudden idea or turn of the mind”. I have beat myself up for years, calling myself scatterbrained. Do you know what scatterbrained means?

: a giddy heedless person

Giddy, maybe but heedless I am not. At least not anymore, I have four kids!

Who knew all these years I could have been calling myself whimsical? That sounds much more fun and cute doesn’t it? Now when I drive the wrong way on a one-way street, I can just say I am being whimsical. When I tell my kids we are doing this and this and this today, and we actually do that and that and that, I am not being scatterbrained, I am being whimsical! See what I mean! Sounds so much better than scatterbrain!

I've linked my post to two fun blogs today if you want to go check them out! I love seeing other peoples ideas on things!

Glimpses of Home - Chatting At The Sky

Link Party at Remodeling This Life

Hee Hee

2010-03-11T09:47:00.002-06:00

Last weekend we had company over for Kellen’s birthday. Before they arrived I called the kids to the kitchen and reminded them of their manners. I went on and on (and probably on some more) about being hospitable. Kellen and Garrett were like yeah, yeah, we’ve heard this before. When I was done, I asked if they understood. They said yes. Then Gannon asked “what does spitable mean?” I told him hospitable was all one word. He said “oh, I thought it was something about spit”.

This past Sunday was a beautiful day! Spring is definitely around the corner. I decided to get fancy and pull out a new shirt since I’ve worn basically the same thing to church all winter. Gannon walked in and I said “What do you think? Is this shirt too crazy for mama?” He said “No, I like it. But, I see what you mean about things looking different on the hanger. On the hanger it looks all flat. On, it looks…(pause)…bumpy.” Thanks Gannon, that was the look I was going for.

Just That Kind of Kid

2010-03-09T20:11:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was Kellen’s birthday. Thirteen. Yes, a teenager.

We have noticed a change in Kellen, the last six weeks especially. Not bad changes, just changes that means he’s growing up. He’s getting more muscular, probably in part to working out at the Y, but part his age. He’s kind of got the Peter Brady thing going on with his voice. He’s spending a little more time alone. I don’t think he’ll ever be in total hibernation like some teenagers, he has too many things he wants to share with the rest of us! But, he is being a loner a little more. Only five more years and he can take off on his own, never to be heard from again!

Luckily, there are things that are not changing, not yet anyway. He is still the kind, thoughtful person he has always been. That’s what I mean when I say he is that kind of kid. I don’t take any credit for this, this was all God’s handiwork. Why God chose to give me a child like this, I don’t know, but I am forever grateful. I tell him all the time that he is going to make a great husband some day, if I don’t use him all up before then! Just a couple of weeks ago we were out somewhere and I was trying to fill something out, holding Callie, juggling things. Kellen came up and said “Come on Callie let’s go over here”. I didn’t ask him, I wasn’t freaking out over my predicament, he just noticed I was struggling and helped.

Kellen is to the point in his schooling where there are some things that I can plan out for the week and he is on his own to get them done. He is an early riser and he’ll start on his schoolwork before everyone else is even up so he can get it done. He knows that he wants to move on to better things, so he knows how to schedule his day and get his stuff done on his own.

We decided very last minute what we wanted to do to celebrate his birthday. We decided we would have a few friends over to play outside and eat pizza, just hanging out kind of stuff. He said “is this one of those kind of parties where people bring you gifts?” I told him it didn’t have to be. “I don’t really need anything, so I would rather people not bring stuff”. On his own. I didn’t have to rant and rave about how he didn’t need anything, he knows he doesn’t. He wanted to invite some kids…and their siblings and parents. Not for any particular reason, he just likes all ages of people and wanted everyone to have someone to play with. I think this is a great quality that will serve him well forever.

Kellen setting the table for his party :)

Now, lest anyone thinks I think he is perfect. Or, in case he reads this and starts getting a big head…let’s just say God is not finished with him yet! He is human, he has struggles just like anyone else. We work on them daily! But, luckily, I think his great qualities outweigh the struggles, so I think we’ll keep him around :).

I am so thankful for Kellen. We didn’t know what we were having when we were pregnant with him, but for some reason I knew it was a boy. I am so blessed by him. I am so blessed to be able to spend so much time with him and try in spite of myself to train and teach him. He makes me look way better than I am! What more could a parent ask for!

Happy Birthday Kellen! Your daddy and I love you more than you know and we are so proud of you. Your brothers and sister love and look up to you. Thanks for loving God and trying your best to do His will. Thanks for being the best Kellen I know!

Our Typical Day

2010-03-05T09:47:00.003-06:00

Ha! I decided to take part in Kelly’s Korner Show Us Your Life/Your Typical Day. I wish we had a typical day, oh how I wish. But, it is not to be. I have four kids and a husband that works retail, so luckily I am flexible! And really, I don’t really know if I want a typical day. I like unpredictable, spur-of-the moment days. A good thing with Todd’s unpredictable hours! The problem with this is that there are things that do have to be done on a typical day: cooking, cleaning, laundry, schoolwork…the list could go on and on. So, we have our set things, then try to just have fun in between.

We go to church Sundays and Wednesdays. We are so happy about our church here. It is a growing church with 350 or so members and lots of kids! And counting us, there are four home school families that I know of. That is such a blessing for the kids. It’s always nice to not be the only ones! And, we have friends with similar schedules, even better!

Since moving to Nixa we have joined a home school co-op. In all our years homeschooling we have not ever joined a co-op. The funny thing is that before we moved to Iowa, we were talking to the leaders about joining this co-op. Then we came back to this area and were still able to to join. It has been such a blessing. The kids loove it! Well, I know Kellen and Garrett do. Gannon does on most days and as long as Callie has Play-Doh time in her class, she is happy! The boys participate in all types of classes from science to art to P.E.. We do this on Tuesday afternoons.

On Thursday afternoons the boys go to home school P.E. at the YMCA. They love that too! Some friends from church and co-op recently joined so I have been walking with their mom while the boys play. So I enjoy getting in shape and chatting!

In between all of this we live our lives. We have our schedule for chores, school etc. If we stick to those, things go pretty good! But, we have been known to drop everything and go play, redecorate a room, visit family, you name it! This is one reason I so love homeschooling. The flexibility was not on our list when we first started this journey. But it so is now! I can’t imagine living by someone else’s calendar. I guess we live a little by Sam’s Club calendar if we want Daddy to join us, but he doesn’t always get to join us, and he’s fine with that. I know this life is not for everyone. I have many friends that would panic if they didn’t have more of a routine, but I panic if I don’t have some time to be flexible!

So, a typical day? We don’t have those, even by my standards! The only typical is that we are flexible and always together. Sounds like the perfect day to me!

You can find other peoples "typical days" here:

http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/2010/03/show-us-your-life-what-is-your-typical.html

It's always fun to see what others are up to!

Teenagers

2010-03-03T16:56:00.002-06:00

Remember when I said I couldn't look at the picture of Kellen and Madison from Christmas? This is why.

They will be teenagers this year. Kellen's birthday is this month, Madison's is in October. I can't stand it. They have always had a special friendship. They used to just play and play and have always gotten along so well together. We haven't gotten to spend as much time with Madison the last few years. Life does that sometimes. When you live in Iowa you can't just say, "hey come over for dinner." Well, you can, but people in Oklahoma can't just run over. Hopefully we'll get to spend more time will all of our family now that we are closer.

Kellen and Madison at her baby shower.

Going to a pumpkin patch with Grandma and Grandpa, 1998

Kellen and Madison at Great-Grandpa McDonald's house for Christmas 1998.

Riding rides at the Oklahoma State Fair. I think this was 1999, I don't see any little siblings there, and the siblings were born in 2000.

At the same fair, getting ready to watch Disney On Ice.

Halloween 2000 at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Grandma and Grandpa's house, 2003

Summer 2007 when Clay and kids visited us in Iowa.

Self-portrait!

Have no idea the date, I am guessing 2007, but this is at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

The Cousin Rockers!

Summer 2009, we were visiting Oklahoma.

Christmas 2009. Can't we go back in time!?

Oil Change, take two

2010-02-23T09:16:00.001-06:00

For the three of you that read my blog, you know that I can't stand to take my car in for oil changes, etc. We did not have a great experience the last time I took it in Iowa. I try my best to schedule oil changes, etc. when Todd is able to do it. But, before Christmas, I knew the oil needed changed before we traveled for the holidays and that Todd would have no time to do that. He barely has a day off and I knew he would not want to spend it at the car place. So, off we went.

Well, this was a little better than our time in Iowa. It is not close to anything we can walk to, so we had to stay put. But, they had a decent waiting area complete with a separate child's area with a slide. So, the kids had a good time. Those places are never clean enough for me, but I just tried not to look. A few germs are good for kids, right?

I'm telling you all this because I've wanted to post this video clip since we were there. We were cracking up! The thing with plastic toys inside with heating is the static electricity. It didn't take long before the kids figured this out and had a great time seeing how much static they could get and shock each other. It, of course, did not phase Callie. She thought it was the funniest thing ever! Of course her ever accommodating brothers let her run into them over and over again. If you turn your sound up really loud, you can hear the shock when she gets close to them.

Callie's Shock

Callie's Shock 2

Little Boys

2010-02-23T08:41:00.007-06:00

I only have a few more months of having a five-year-old little boy. There is nothing cuter than a five-year-old boy. They are smart, usually well-behaved, and always funny. Gannon just says the funniest things. I wish I would stop and write all of them down, but I don't. What makes it even funnier with Gannon is that he is usually pretty quiet. So it is even funnier because he catches you off-guard! My other boys are funny. But, they are older, so it is planned. So, funny in a different way. In May Gannon will be six, then the little boy will start disappearing. (sniff, sniff). I love my big boys, but I will so miss having a little boy around.

So handsome!

A couple of weeks ago he got to spend the weekend with his grandparents, by himself. He has been waiting on this for years! When we moved to Iowa he wasn't really old enough. Kellen and Garrett have both been able to go to Grandma and Grandpa's by themselves, but it has never worked out for Gannon. The way the brothers talked it was like going to Disney World! Well Gannon finally got his chance.

We met in Claremore at the Will Rogers Museum. A nice stop where we could stretch our legs and visit with Grandma and Grandpa before Gannon was off. He of course kept asking if it was time to go, he was ready to be done with us!

He had a great time. He looooves to be "on his own". He is a little more of a loner, he doesn't always have to be in a pack so to speak, so not having two brothers (and a sister) bossing him around was heaven on earth! Grandma asked him before he got there what he liked for breakfast and he did not hesitate telling her he liked Cocoa Puffs, cereal mama won't buy! So, he ate Cocoa Puffs every morning, got to get on her computer whenever he wanted to, eat out. He was loving it.

On Saturday he went with Grandpa to run errands then went to the OU Women's Basketball game with Grandma and Aunt Dwan. His favorite part was the ice cream Aunt Dwan bought him. (Can you tell the boy loves to eat!)

On Sunday he went to church with Grandma and Grandpa then got to go to cousin Mason's birthday party. Mason turned six January 13. It was a skating party and he has never skated before, but I think he did ok. He had a good time, so that is all that mattered!

Mason and Gannon are great buddies!

Here they are ~~hugging the wall~~ skating!

On Monday Grandma brought him home and she spent the night with us. They stopped at the Vinita McDonald's. He got ice cream telling Grandma "it was probably his last chance". She said she felt like she was bringing him back to prison! ha! FYI: We have ice cream occasionally, but not every day like he would like!

Gannon had the best time. He can't wait until his turn to go back. He said on the way home that they saw a hat that said "Spoiled by Grandma". Gannon told me Grandma said "maybe we should get that for you". Then he told me, "I don't know why, I am not spoiled. I get to do whatever I want!" Obviously he doesn't know there is more than one meaning to spoiled!

I wish I could remember the funny things he says and does. Here a few things...

In a conversation in the car after having spent time with our cousins during the holidays:

Garrett: "Did you know that Mallori likes Michael Jackson?"

Mama: "Really."

Gannon: "Is he still disguised as a girl?"

Of course Kellen informed everyone he was dead and all that entailed. Thanks Kellen.

Gannon's Christmas list included a laptop and deodorant. I think this is directly related to being the third of three boys (one of those almost a teenager)!

Gannon told me recently, in all seriousness, that he wasn't going to work. He was going to have a bunch of kids and make them do everything. You don't think that is what he thinks we do around here do you?!

Last week Callie pinched Gannon, something she does on a regular basis. This was right on the cheek, left a big place. He was crying, she was crying. I told her she needed to say she was sorry. Of course, she didn't want to. Just sat there and cried and looked so pitiful that finally Gannon gave her a hug and told her he was sorry. He didn't do anything! He felt so bad for her he couldn't take it anymore. She came around about thirty minutes later and said she was going to say sorry, marched in his room, said she was sorry and hugged him and went on about her business. (She has to have things on her terms. Don't know where she got that!) This is not a funny story, but so sweet. Gannon really is the sweetest, he just doesn't always like people to know it! He is so good to Callie it warms my heart. :)

So, a few more months of innocence. I know it will not magically disappear on May 19, but I know that it will gradually be gone. I always say "this is my favorite age", then my kids will get bigger and that will be my favorite. I guess I like all ages of my kids! But, there is just a sweet innocence that little boys have...sniff, sniff.

Once-A-Month Cooking

2010-02-04T07:18:00.003-06:00

Well, I did it. I've talked about for years. My sister-in-law Kerry and I used to discuss it, but we never got around to making it happen. When I was trying to get our schedule together for the new year, it seemed like meal time was always in the way. Don't get me wrong, I like to cook most of the time. What I don't like is going to the store with four kids. I don't like being busy up to meal time and then trying to get it all together. I bought the Once-A-Month cookbooks a long time ago. I've had them a while, I know I bought them in Iowa at least a year ago. Anyway, while I was organizing my kitchen, I saw them and decided to go for it. So, after much planning and making lists, my fridge went from this:

to this in my freezer:

The grocery shopping was never ending. I hit Wal-mart, Sam's, and Aldi. Once the shopping was done, there was no turning back!

It was the longest day ever! I messed up by not following all the rules. Does that surprise you? The cookbook gave all these helpful hints and one hint was to wear comfortable shoes. I didn't wear shoes at all and I paid for it. My back hurt for days!

I had help, of course. This was our school for the day. Lot's of math!

Callie just stole bites of food. Especially the freshly grated cheese!

Gannon did a lot of supervising and sampling!

I planned to take pictures of things as the day went on, but there wasn't really a stopping point! Once you start, you just have to keep at it. Too much money goes into buying a months worth of food for six people. I wasn't about to waste anything!

We learned a lot that day about what to do differently next time. We have a list of things to try and buy for next time that will make the job easier. A lot of dishes can be frozen in 9x13 dishes. I was going to just buy a few more at Wal-mart, but they are more expensive than I remembered. I don't know if I have ever even bought one. I think the ones I have now were wedding gifts! So, we're going to look for some at garage sales and places.

I have planned (but not cooked) weeks of meals at a time for a while. I have cooked more than one meal sometimes, or cooked and frozen a few things, but never a months worth. I even included some stuff for lunches and breakfasts when we cooked. So, it was a LOT. One reason I had put this off for so long is that I thought it would be a lot of casseroles. It's not. I made very few. So far we have like most of what I made. We mixed some new recipes with some of our tried and true go-to recipes. Now that I have the idea of how this works, it will be simpler to do with almost any recipe.

In the end, it has been soooo worth it. The pluses are having a meal plan, I know what we are having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner up until Valentine's Day. I have most of the food in my freezer and fridge. The only things I don't have are the few fresh items that we pick up each week. Another plus is the amount of time I spend in the kitchen at dinner time. I am still cooking, but it is quick. Think Hamburger Helper, but good and healthy. I am spending more time on side dishes, which we are enjoying. My favorite is that there are very few dishes after dinner! We are able to put what we use on the table in the dishwasher and we can go to bed with a clean kitchen. (I do not hand wash dishes!) I am loving this part of it. I like to be done after dinner. Of course, a mom is not done after dinner, but at least the cooking and cleaning can be done! Also, I tried to make sure and make the recipes so that we would have enough leftovers for Todd to take a lunch, so another bonus!

But, the absolute best...I haven't been to the grocery store with four kids in weeks! I have hardly been to the grocery at all. Woo-hoo! Now that I haven't been, I realize that this is really what has been stressing me out. I love to shop, don't get me wrong, but not for groceries. It is so nice to have all the time that I would have normally been going to the store. I am thinking it is probably saving us money too. I haven't set down to figure that out yet. I need to get through a whole month and see what I spent all together and compare to another month where I didn't do this.

So, we will probably try this again. I already dread the day of cooking! But, this time I know the reward will be worth it. Think there could be a lesson in this?