Not Fair!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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!