A Crazy Busy Week and a Cute Little Ornament ~

For the past several weeks the kids have been working super hard getting ready for UIL contest. This whole UIL thing was new to me when 6 years ago R tried out and made the Story Telling Team. In 3rd grade he made the Music Memory team. This was our first experience with Music Memory and definitely his first time listening to and having to memorize classical pieces; all this at the ripe old age of 8. Pretty awesome. What is even more awesome is that he won that event two years in a row. This year he competed in Music Memory and Listening Skills. He didn't place in Music Memory, but I told him someday he's going to be able to impress a girl with his knowledge of classical music. This is where I got the eye roll and the "Whatever Mom,"  :) He placed 3rd in listening skills which makes me very happy to know he CAN hear.

K placed 6th in Music Memory and competed in Oral Reading for the third time in four years. She won her kinder year with "Our Mother's At A Meeting," a wonderful poem by Kenn Nesbitt. It was a really long poem for a 5 year old and she did a great job with it. Last year she got 2nd place with "Lemonade Stand" by Dave Crawley and on Thursday she won 1st place with "Princess Polly and the Pea" by Laurie Young. She read the poem in a British accent with several different voices throughout. It amazes me that she can stand in front of judges and do this; not only judges but the entire elementary school. The oral readers have been practicing in front of all the different classes for the last few weeks; needless to say she's sick of this poem. All the grandparents want to hear her read it...I'm thinking there's going to have to be money involved to get her to do it again. :)

So yesterday I attended a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting. Several weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I might be interested in being a mentor mom at their MOPS group. I was very honored to be asked and only for a second allowed this to make me feel old. I remember what it's like to have preschool age children. I remember thinking K would never start school now all of a sudden she's a 3rd grader. It's so hard to realize it when you're in the middle of messes and diapers and nap time, but time does fly by. I hope I can be there for a tired mommy, if just to listen and then pray.

We made a super cute craft yesterday. I'm sure this is one that has been floating around Pinterest for a while but it was totally new to me.

  

The mom in charge of getting all the supplies together for this precious ornament created the buttons, coal eyes and carrot noses out of Sculpey clay ahead of time. How cute is that teeny little carrot nose? You can't see it but the buttons actually have tiny little button holes. So cute! The snow is salt with a little sprinkle of glitter to add just the right amount of sparkle. The scarf is a little strip of felt. I love this and can't wait to get my tree up so I can place this little melted snowman in just the right spot. 

A little funny ~ the night before this meeting K touched my stomach and asked me if I could still have a baby if I wanted to. I told her I guess I could. She said she wanted me to have a baby (this is a recurring conversation btw) and then told me I could still have one because she was only 8 and she was still young enough to have a baby brother or sister. The next morning as I sat across the table from a mommy with a precious 7 week old baby boy. I felt that familiar tug at my heart. If you're a mom you know. That feeling of knowing what it is to hold a new life and also realizing that your turn is over and for a split second wondering if maybe, just maybe it isn't too late...

I Must Be a Little Crazy ~

So I have to tell you about the crazy thing I did on Friday. As I was typing my blog post on Friday, K's teacher sent me and a few other moms pictures of all the girls in class dressed up for 80's day. They all looked so cute and very sassy! :) So, as we're texting back and forth about the girls, one of the moms says, "I think us mothers should show up in 80's style." Then K's teacher said something that really got the ball rolling...she said, "I dare you!!" At first it was just a little joke about how funny it would be and how the girls would die if we showed up at the school looking all 80's. I even joked about how I would do it if my parachute pants still fit (which I do still have, but they do not fit so I was safe, or so I thought.)

Somewhere between thinking it would be funny, being dared to do it and picturing myself in parachute pants, I told them I was in.

I'm not sure if you've ever seen the Disney sitcom Good Luck Charlie, but it's one of my favorite Disney shows. Of course Charlie is precious but it's really the mom who makes the show. I love her and have joked with my kids several times about how she's my role model. :) She's forever embarrassing her kids; so when I started considering this whole 80's thing I actually thought, "What would Amy Duncan do?"

A few hours later I found myself back in the 80's, music and all. There's nothing like a little 80's music to really put you in the right frame of mind. :) Luckily my mom let me borrow her super heavy duty hairspray for K's hair otherwise I might not have been able to pull it off. (What's funny is aside from the big hair, I really never dressed like this back in the day.)

I wish I had a video of the moment we walked into that classroom. It was hysterical. All the kids were screaming and laughing. K said she actually had tears coming out of her eyes. It was awesome! So worth taking a step outside of myself to have this moment with her; a moment I'm pretty sure she will never forget.

Her Hero ~

We're nearing the end of Spirit Week and today is Hero Day. As I said yesterday, K wanted to dress up like her daddy. It was touch and go there for a minute about 6:50 this morning. I thought I was going to have to come up with another blog post idea because she changed her mind about 5 times whether she was dressing up today. It's really funny how my kids are so different; all I have to do to wake R up in the mornings is turn on the light and sweetly say, "It's time to get up." He literally rolls out of bed no problem; K on the other hand is a little bear. No matter how gently and sweetly I try to rouse her from her slumber, she growls at me. This morning was no different...

She finally managed to get dressed and then complained for 10 minutes because she looked like a boy. "Well," I said, "you're supposed to look like a boy because Daddy is a boy." :) Once we finally got the gin cap on her head and the bandanna in her pocket she was warming up to the look.

We found an empty can of snuff in R's truck this morning, but didn't think that would go over too well. This is totally off the subject (but not really;) several weeks ago K and I were watching Toddlers and Tiaras. We never watch this show. My beauty queen is sassy enough without the help of that show thank you very much. Anyway, I agreed to watch it with her knowing I would turn the channel at the slightest hint of a sassy mouth (from the pageant girls not her.) So the theme was The 50's and one mom was dressing her daughter up like Sandy from Grease; for the finale this four year old comes out in tight leather pants, tight off the shoulder shirt with a fake cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Are you kidding me!?! Not only that, the mom reminded her to smoke before she went out on stage. K was about as shocked as I was and the judges were speechless. To this day K is still talking about that little girl pretending to smoke. So...I'm pretty sure snuff (even an empty can) would NOT have been a good idea.

Back to the Homecoming festivities. Tomorrow is Spirit Day and all we have to do is wear our normal Friday attire; green and black. Oh yea, and we have to fix K's hair like the 80's which me reminds me I need to buy extra stiff hairspray today. I'm looking forward to hanging out with friends at the Jr. Supper and then the football game. I'm excited about the Jr. class silent auction. I donated a few soldered Eagle Football charms and I will also be painting one lucky bidder a pair of Toms. So if you read this and you're in my neck of the woods, go bid high and support our Jr class!

A flashback to the 80's will be in store for tomorrow...see you then.

Homecoming Week and a Little Movie Review ~

So here we are in the middle of homecoming week which always adds a little more stress to my life. Do I encourage my kids to dress up throughout the week or ignore the whole thing? In the past I have been guilty of pretending I had no idea what was going on; then of course I feel guilty when I see all the other kids whose moms cared enough to dress them up. I figured since R is in the 5th grade he would not be interested in any of the days except Friday which is Spirit Day and all you have to do is wear green and black. He surprised me by wanting to wear his pjs for Pajama Day yesterday. Today is "Dress Up Like Your Favorite Animal Day" which, no offense to the person who came up with this one, but really?? Anyway, K along with about 3/4 of the student body is dressed like a cat today. Too bad we're not the "Wildcats." :)

Sorry about the quality of the picture. Someday I will have an iPhone 5, we will be back with Verizon and all will be right with the world.

Tomorrow is "Grandparents Day" The instructions say to dress like your favorite old person. Ought to be interesting...

So I find myself with not alot to do this week (which is rarely the case) so yesterday since football practice was cancelled, we went to town to rent a movie. Warning: I am about to go off on a tangent. How many of you actually like the Red Box movie rental thingies? Personally, I hate them. I'm not going to lie. There is nothing more stressful than standing at one of those red boxes trying to decided which movie you want while there are 10 people waiting in line behind you. Oh, wait, yes there is...trying to get the stupid red box to work while 10 people are standing in line behind you. I'm sorry, I just hate it. I also pretty much despise renting movies at Hastings. Unless your movie is a new release, it's impossible to find the one you're looking for and it never fails we get a movie that is scratched; which is what happened to us last night. From now on I will ask them to clean the disk before we leave the store. I may be totally old school but I really miss Blockbuster.

Back to my original story. I rented myself a movie yesterday and actually sat down to watch it this morning. If you haven't seen October Baby I highly recommend it. It is a tear jerker, but it's also a beautiful story about forgiveness. I loved it! Oh, and if you do watch it, be sure and watch all the way past the credits at the end.

Despite my sounding so grumpy today, I really am looking forward to the homecoming festivities. At the pep rally on Friday each class is going to represent a decade. K's class is representing the 80's which will be like totally awesome dude and R's class is representing the 2010's which he thinks is totally lame. I suggested all the kids in his class make iPhones out of cardboard and pretend to be texting during the entire pep rally. Now who doesn't think that is not the best idea EVER!!

I will try to post a picture of K dressed up like an elderly person tomorrow. No one will want to miss that. :)

Muffins, a Bird House and a Few Funny Stories ~

This is a much happier post if you consider the fact that I can't in good conscience make my children muffins with white flour anymore happy. :) So anyway, yesterday after school K wanted to bake something. She got down her Paula Dean Cooking with Kids cookbook and started searching for a recipe. Everything she wanted to make called for yeast. For one thing yeast freaks me out. You bread bakers out there will probably not understand this, but I have always had a fear of cooking with yeast. After nixing several recipes, I suggest we look online and find a muffin recipe made with almond flour. We had such success with these cookies that she was willing to give it a try. I did a search for almond flour muffins and found myself on a website that I'm pretty sure is going to change my gluten free life.

K helped with every step of the muffin making process. Her favorite part is cracking the eggs, but not only that, she likes to use her hands to mix the eggs...the messier the better. I find this just a little crazy that I let her do this; when R was little and wanted to help crack eggs I was like this psycho mom who would freak when he got raw egg on his hands. He would have to wash his hands immediately. I'm pretty sure I scarred him for life and he will never want to be in the kitchen as an adult. I'm pretty sure I just figured out why he's not a fan of eggs for breakfast...hmmm. I apologize in advance to his future wife. Moving on...

Before I show you the picture of "the muffin" I want you to know that almond flour cooks dark. This muffin is not burnt. Not only is it not burnt, it's probably one of the tastiest muffins I've ever eaten. This muffin is perfect, I promise.

Almond Flour Banana Blueberry Muffins

You can find the recipe for this tasty little treat right here. I did a few things different. I added about a teaspoon of heavy cream to the eggs after K had "mixed" them because a good portion of the eggs were stuck to her hands (I know yuck.) I also substituted the agave nectar with Xylitol. We don't use agave in our house. I've done some research and found that agave spikes your blood sugar and raises insulin...no thank you. Oh and I used a whole cup of blueberries instead of half. My philosophy is you can't have too many blueberries.  We had these for breakfast this morning with a little pat of real butter ~ yummy!

Funny story ~ while we were making the muffins I suggested K take a muffin to school to give to her "boyfriend who she is going to marry" because she told him the other day she would bring him a cupcake or cookies. She said, "What if he doesn't like it?" I said, "If he doesn't like it, then he's not the guy for you." She gave me the funniest look. It was hilarious. And no, she didn't take him a muffin.

R started a hot glue/popsicle stick project the other day. My counter has been covered with popsicle sticks and strings of hot glue for days.

It turned into a birdhouse complete with birdie bunk beds and a sky light...

He took his project out to the barn and caulked all the cracks with clear caulk. Pretty cool.
I have to add that his iPod has been lost for several weeks now and no, I didn't hide it; it really is lost this time. Is it coincidence that he is using his imagination now that he is not glued to his iPod? I think not.

Another funny story ~ So, while we were waiting for the muffins to bake, K told me for the millionth time that she wants a baby sister. She said she would take care of the baby, dress her for church, feed her and she could sleep in her bed. She asked me if I wanted another daughter. She said, "I want you to want to have another one because then you will have one." I told her I didn't think Daddy would go for that and she said, "So what, he's not the girl here." Lol!!

I hope this post has made you smile. Try the recipe it's fabulous and what the heck, bust out the glue gun and make something while you're at it. :)

12 Random Things ~

For several months now I've been following this fun blog. She has lots of great ideas for those of us who love digi stuff. :) Right now she's in the middle of her "Summer Tour" where everyday she features a new site that she loves. Her "Tour" posts are not all about digital scrapbooking and I have loved learning about these fun sites. So, on the 12th of every month (but not this one because she's touring) she takes and posts 12 pictures she has taken that day. This challenge started a few years ago (not sure where;) the point is to take 12 photos on the 12th of each month and it just so happens to be 2012...pretty cool. I have not been doing this, but yesterday when I got my email photo prompt from Katrina Kennedy at Capture Your 365 I thought I might as well...12 pics of 12 things I love (not in any particular order.)

The first thing that popped into my head when I grabbed my camera was a dozen eggs. How appropriate ~ 12 eggs on the 12th day of 2012. Seriously, I love eggs! I eat 3 eggs in some way, shape or form every single morning. If I don't, I feel bad and my day is off. If you think this is too much of a good thing, I encourage you to dig in and do a little research on the health benefits of eggs. They are, in mine and many others' opinions, nature's perfect food. 

This picture is a two in one. :) I love my camera! This is my second Canon Rebel. My first was stolen out of my vehicle. It was horrible and I don't want to talk about it. What I will talk about is how much I love my camera and my new haircut. I feel like 10 lbs has been removed from my shoulders; literally. I have really thick hair. I'm really wondering why I ever let it get that long. Oh well, let's move on...

Not a morning goes by that I do not have a cup of this...with a little spoon of Xylitol, a Tbsp of coconut oil and a dash of almond milk. I really love half and half, but I've had to back off the cream because it makes me crave carbs later in the day. Yes, I know my body that well. Don't laugh.

Happiness is a few squares of this chocolate about 3 o'clock in the afternoon...just sayin'

This has been consuming my life for the past week. For the past 8 years I have led music for VBS. It's a lot of work learning the motions, but I love it! The kids and I still sing songs from past VBS's. I can still remember the words and motions to the very first year. It was called "Dig Deep," and I was an idiot because I didn't realize there was motions to the music. Imagine my horror when I got there the first night unprepared. It was horrifying, but I survived and here we are 8 years later, so I guess I survived. :) I pray that the music this year touches little hearts and opens their eyes to the wonders of God's creations!

No, my kids are not glued to this stuff all day, but I am glad that they are learning their way around the web and are able to enjoy the technology that is all around us. 

R has been working on a string art project. I finally remembered to buy him some more nails, so yesterday he sat down and hammered away at it. :) I will post the completed project one of these days. I love that my kids love to create. We haven't crafted this summer nearly as much as we did last year, but it seems we've been busier. R's been helping his daddy more, they've spent way more time with grandparents and add in the camps that K is finally old enough to attend and *poof* the time is gone.

There are few things I love as much as a good love note from my girl. This one about made me cry. It's posted on the fridge for all to be reminded of this simple truth.

I really should have posted this up by the tea pic. Oh well. I consume alot of this stuff. I promise you it's good for you. Again, research it. Not to get too off topic, but all through my twenties and most of my thirties I suffered from adult onset acne; or whatever you want to call it. I called it a major pain in the patootie!! It was only after I cut out grains and added coconut oil to my diet that my face cleared up. My skin has never looked better. Love love love coconut oil!

I love that the cotton is growing. It's crazy how after a good rain you just wake up one morning and the plants have almost doubled in size. The plants are happy, the farmer is happy, which in turns makes the family happy. Rain is a good thing!

And here it is ~ the embarrassing picture that my kids will kill me for posting. No, I didn't take this one yesterday, but I had to include this funny little story. Several weeks ago my dad and I were reminiscing about how my sister and I used to lock ourselves in the bathroom and stuff our back end with wash clothes and hand towels whenever Dad was after us with his belt. Gasp!! Yes, we were spanked as children. On this particular day, I had had enough! I marched to the closet to grab a belt and when I returned to the living room both kids were locked in the bathroom. I thought, "Good, as long as they're quiet and not killing each other." So I went about my business with the belt under my arm. The next thing I know they are locked in my bedroom...again, all is quiet all is good. Before long they started running up behind me trying to scare me, I would turn around and chase them with the belt. This went on for a while. I finally decided to hide in K's room and jump out and scare them when they came by. I wish I had thought to grab my video camera. The looks on their faces when they realized I was behind them (with the belt) was priceless. The look of shear terror was hilarious. The picture above shows what they were up to in my bedroom. R is wearing my favorite GAP t-shirt stretched out about 5 sizes with a twin size blanket stuffed in it. They had towel and pillows stuffed everywhere. On this day they learned to work together to avoid the wrath of the belt (which they rarely get btw) and I get a funny story to tell.

I hope you've enjoyed my "12 little pics" project. I encourage you to do it too. It's fun to capture the details of everyday life!

ps ~ thanks to spell check I will never have to learn to spell the words embarrassing and reminiscing. :)

A Life Skill Learned ~

About a week and a half ago my washing machine went kaput. I've had this same machine for 10 years and we've had it repaired about five times, so when I went to put a load of wash in and found the agitator floating in the tub, we decided it was time to upgrade to one of those fancy HE washers. Who knew that purchasing a new washer/dryer set would spark such excitement in our children. The next day R & K did laundry all day. It was like that laundry fairy people are always talking about on FB had shown up and sprinkled magic dust on my kiddos. Of course I supervised, but they did most of the work. It. Was. Awesome!

Fast Forward to the present day...R has finally decided that earning his own spending money might be kinda cool, so after much negotiations we have come to monetary agreements. I won't go into the details, but let's just say among other things, he is my new laundry man. As a mom I've had this worry that my children will grow up and leave home without certain skills; being able to do their own laundry being one of them.

Putting a picture of my laundry room in such a disaster is quite horrifying; however, this picture is important to the story. My type A personality has had to take a backseat to teaching my children this life lesson. Every ounce of my being wants to dive in and sort it all into neat little piles. I've tried to tell R how I do things...he's not interested in hearing it. He wants to do it his way and his way is making me CrAzY. We went to WalMart today and bought one of those hamper dillies that has four separate hampers. I think hope this is going to help.

I bought R a notebook the other day so he could write down all of his chores and what we have agreed to pay. I am the world's worst when it comes to having cash on hand to pay my kids for the work they do around here. What we've decided is his notebook will serve as a kind of bank register. He has down how much money he has and when he buys something (Legos yesterday, sunglasses today,) he writes it down making sure to also write down what he purchased. It seems we've finally found a system that is going to work for us. This makes me very happy!

So today as he was loading the washer with towels I told him it might be a good idea to go check the hampers and gather any towels that might have been used since he sorted the laundry two days ago. He was very disgusted with this idea and said, "If I have to check the hampers every time I start a load, I will never get caught up." I almost fell on the floor laughing...instead (very melodramatically kinda like what you would see in a reenactment of Romeo and Juliet) I said, "Welcome to my world child!"

Another funny thing that happened the other day:  while the kids were doing laundry together, K said, "Mom, why haven't you ever told us doing laundry was so much fun?"

I owe much thanks to Whirlpool for creating such a magnificent machine that has not only made laundry fun for my two little workers, but now I have the peace of mind in knowing that someday they will be able to wash and wear clean clothes. :)

Fort Worth Stock Show ~

We recently returned from the Ft. Worth Stock Show; overall it was a success. R came home with a 5th place ribbon out of 80 ~ we were thrilled. I believe it's best to go into it thinking you're not going to do that great and then when the judge motions you towards the scales the excitement builds.  When you get pinned a second time, you can hardly contain the excitement. :) This may sound like a pretty negative attitude, but I sat by some people in the stands who were very disappointed that their 'person' got 8th place. I just think when you have realistic expectations the victory is that much sweeter.

K and Homer right before he went into the show ring

K loves to get in the pin with the pigs. She sprays them with the mister (which they love) gives them drinks with the mister (more love) and brushes them. Our pigs are super spoiled at the shows and I gave up worrying about her getting pig poop on her a long time ago...

The morning of the show K woke up at 3 in the morning complaining of an earache. I gave her Tylenol and hoped for the best. She fell back asleep at 4 and woke up at 6 crying again. We had planned to be at the show barn about 8, so her crying just put us in high gear to load up and get out of the hotel. Honestly, I'm surprised management didn't come knocking on the door to kick us out she was crying (and screaming) so loud. This was one of those moments when all my patience was tested and I had to remember how painful earaches can be. We were out of there in record time, searching for the nearest Walgreen's on the Garmin and taking really deep breaths. Here's where the story gets good...

1st stop ~ Walgreen's. Closed.
2nd stop ~ Walmart. No ear drops.
3rd stop ~ CVS. No ear drops.
4th stop ~ Another CVS. No ear drops.
5th stop ~ Walgreen's. It's 7:55am and they open at 8. Big R tells me to go ahead and try to go in...I walk up to the door and the lady smiles sweetly through the glass, holds up 5 fingers and mouths the words "5 more minutes." So, I go back to the car...we sit for 5 minutes in complete silence (at this point both kids are asleep.) It was one of those moments where there were no words. I finally go in, buy the ear drops and we head to the show barn. It takes 20 minutes to get to the barn and I kid you not there is a Walgreens and CVS not two blocks from the Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. Again, complete silence in the pick-up.

Here's the kicker...we park, K wakes up and says, "My ear's not even hurting anymore."

There's two reasons why I'm telling this story:

1. There are just some stories in our lives I do not want to forget and
2. I love it when things happen that seem horrible at the time and then a few days later I can look back and laugh. (I'm pretty sure big R's not ready to laugh about it yet.)

R and Homer with a 5th place ribbon

We made it home and are looking forward to the next trip. I'll be sitting down to make a list of all possible ailments and stocking a medicine chest for the road...

A campout for Socks

This was one of those mornings. It started out fine; they always do. I woke up in plenty of time to get ready and I'm usually in a pretty good mood. Then 6:45 rolls around and I have to wake "the bear cub." Some mornings are great, but there are some mornings that I'm convinced aliens descend upon our home in the middle of the night and replace my sweet 6 year old with a grouchy bear. Well, this was one of those mornings. I will spare you the details and just say that I wouldn't have won any "Mother of the Year" awards today. K was banished to her room for most of the short morning before leaving for school, so I could at least fix lunches and feed R breakfast. Before you think I'm too horrible, she did get to eat breakfast; after she shut her brother's head in her bedroom door, which resulted in a much needed spankin'. My blood pressure is rising just typing this...

Anyway, we finally made it out the door (most of the tears had subsided by this time) only to find the Tahoe was locked with the keys inside. After running back in the house to get the spare key, grinching the whole way because someone had locked the car, I hear K say, "Socks is locked in the car." What?!? That cat had spent the entire night in the Tahoe! I was really worried about what I would fine upon opening the door, but luckily he has a big bladder and apparently a taste for beef jerky because he had ripped open an empty package of jerky and licked it clean. There's no telling what goes through that cat's mind, but I wish I knew sometimes.

We finally decided that Socks locked himself in the Tahoe. R had left the door open for a few minutes the night before, that's how he got in in the first place. The way the morning was going, I'm surprised Sam hadn't been in there as well.

Here is Socks trapped in a much smaller box.

I will end this blog post on a much happier and sweeter note. No one wants the images of my horrible morning swirling around in their head all day. So I will leave you with this old journal entry I came across this morning:

Written August 29, 2009

On our way to school to take Socks our cat for R's Show and Tell, he was under the seat meowing (crying.) K said, "Do you think God is in the kitty's heart saying, 'It's o.k. It's o.k.?'"

I just love that girl (even if she is a bear in the mornings.)

We're a Football Family

R has been saying for two years he wants to play football, but for some reason sign-ups always seem to come and go and we would say, "Maybe next year." Several months back when news of the Pop Warner league coming to our area was all over the place my mom asked if R was going to play. I didn't think much about it; I guess I always figured we would get enough football in a few years. After visiting with some friends and finding out their son was going to play, we decided to look into it. Next thing I know we're signing the papers, paying the fee, getting weighed and being fitted for a helmet (not me, R.) Over the course of several weeks we were inundated with emails from our new coach about all the upcoming practices, game schedule, fund raising, t-shirt purchases, etc...I was starting to wonder what the heck we had signed up for. Then I get the practice schedule ~ three nights a week with games on Saturday. Yikes, I was beginning to think we had signed our lives away for the next 4 months.

Fast forward 4 weeks and here we are the day of the Pop Warner opening ceremony. We have to be there at 7:45am, yes, you read that right, am. The ceremony starts at 9, and our team plays a scrimmage at 12:15. Ok people, that's alot of sitting around and waiting in this heat. We were sweating, the boys were hot and hungry and I was dealing with a 6 year old who wanted to be anywhere but there. She loves her brother but come on this is ridiculous.

The scrimmage finally starts, I video every play (do you know how hard it is for me to video, watch the game and control my screaming? I'm taking the tri-pod next time for sure.) I realize it was only a scrimmage, but the boys played their little hearts out and we got a glimpse of what this season is going to hold. I honestly have never seen Ryan genuinely smile like he smiled coming off of that football field. I think he finally found his sport and so have the rest of us.

This is just the beginning and I'm so excited! These are the "fun years." Watching my kiddos participate in activities, seeing them excel in the things they enjoy, encouraging all they do, at the same time making sure they know this is not what defines them. They are growing, discovering their passions and having fun along the way. I can't wait to see what the future holds ~

* Just a little funny ~ during the ceremony all the little cheer leading squads were sitting on the sideline in front of their respective teams (our team doesn't have cheerleaders this year or we would have been all over that.) K turns to me and asks, "Are the cheerleaders just for decoration or are they going to do some cheers?" It was hilarious!

Cat on a Hot Tahoe Roof

This is Socks. He's had a very full and exciting life. Well, he's provided our family with much love and laughs over the last four years. I'm not sure it's been all fun and games for him, but aside from having worms via the fleas off the birds he kills (did I mention he's a brutal killing machine?) I think he's had it pretty good.

This post is a result of an exciting experience the kids and I had while on our way to R's basketball game the other day. I had packed their bags for a sleepover with Nana and Pappy and as usual K had packed her bag full of stuffed animals. So when I heard a faint meow as I was driving 50 mph down the road, the first thing I thought was she had packed her Furreal kitty. Once the faint meow turned into an all out meow scream I got worried. The first thing I imagined was Socks hanging on for dear life under the Tahoe. I pulled over and R opened the sunroof then K reached up and grabbed Socks off the roof. Poor Socks looked as if all 9 lives had flashed before his eyes. K held her sweet cat just like a baby all the way back to the house. She giggled all the way to the school while R and I reminisced about things that have happened in Socks' short life that has brought us joy. To my complete surprise the kids had no recollection of the most important story of all. I spent the next few minutes telling them the story and a few more making a mental note to blog about it...

One day a couple of years ago Big R called and told me to take the kids and pick out a new kitten. He went on to explain that Socks had been ran over and he had just buried him. When I told the kids, they cried and cried all the way home. Well, we pulled in the drive and were completely shocked when Socks came walking into the carport. We were so surprised and excited ~ we couldn't believe he was alive...we loved on that cat like crazy. He probably wondered what was going on. :) We decided to hide him in K's room and surprise Big R when he came home. The look on his face was priceless when Socks came strolling in the kitchen. He couldn't believe he had buried the wrong cat! It was hilarious ~ it's one of those things that I'll never forget, but the kids had already forgotten. It's stories like these that must be preserved...it's stories like these that make our family ~ our family.