TEA 4 NINE

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T20:04:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T10:07:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all have a great one. Sometimes we get wrapped up in the gift giving, shopping, and worldly views on Christmas that we forget what it's all about. I encourage you to remember that if it weren't for our Christ, we would have no reason to celebrate. Because without Him there would be no hope. He truly is the reason for the season. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

PS. What are you getting for Jesus this year?

He's here!!

2011-11-12T11:22:00.001-05:00

Zak Grayson Alma made his grand appearance on November 1, 2011 (11/1/11) at 2:02 p.m. He weighed in at 9 pounds 4 1/2 ounces (just like his big brother Blake), and was 22 inches long! He's been a blessing already to the family as I'm enjoying seeing the brothers and sisters dote on him and love on him. He's the sweetest thing!!! We just can't get enough of him.

We went in at 8:00, ahem...8:15 (we were a little late, ha!) to be in induced on that Tuesday morning, and by 9:00 was hooked up to the pictocin. They came in and broke my water about an hour later, and joy of all joys the contractions started.
The nurse checked me and I was only dilated to a 2 which is what I was dialated to for the past couple weeks. (I'm telling you he did not want to come out.) I eventually broke down and got my epidural which makes any labor and delivery so much more pleasant.

It was probably about 1:30 when she checked me again, and I had progressed to a 7. yay!! The nurse, Gayle, left to go call the doctor just to keep him updated. Literally minutes after she left to call the doctor I looked at Eric and asked him, "Should I tell the nurse that I have the incredible urge to push?" "Uhhh...yeah!" was his reply. Gayle came back in, checked me again, and bod-a-bang, bod-a-boo....it was time. She had to run and call the doctor again who was thinking it was gonna be another hour. He made it to the hospital in an 10 minutes. (Thankfully, his office right down the road.)

Everyone started rushing around like crazy getting everything ready, begging me not to push. The doctor gets in, and Zak Grayson arrived to this world minutes afterwards. Talk about CRAZINESS! But oh, it sure does make the story more fun.

We thank God for this new little one. He is so awesome!

Harvest Party

2011-11-04T10:35:00.000-04:00

The kids all dressed up for the Harvest Party at Serenity Baptist - Blake didn't want to go.
During the hayride, they stopped at the little pumpkin patch to get pumpkins.
The Princess Pirate

The cowboy Makenna, Nolan, and Kaleb on the hayride
Bumblebee

School Room

2011-11-03T11:57:00.000-04:00

The game cabinet and some other stuff. It's not completely organized yet nor filled.

Here's where Jakeb does his school work. The desk is in the bottom of the picture.

Here's the view when you first come in the basement door from outside. The kids do their school work on the tables....obviously, right? Ha!

Here's the view from when you come down the stairs

And here's just another view

Yes, it's in the yucky basement with cement floors. One of these days we'll get around to doing something with the floor, but until then, it works and the kids don't complain about it...not the room that is...maybe the school work.

Fairy Sensory BIn

2011-11-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, If I haven't told you all before, sensory bins are great! They're cheap because you use the stuff you have on hand, and the kids love them. I made a fairy one this time to go with our "F" fairy theme. I had
squinkies balls
some links from the $$ store
Tinker Bell Fairies that I bought a long time ago
Flowers in my scrapbooking supplies
bells
pom-poms
rice

Pretty simple right? They played with it forever transferring everything. Yes it gets little messy, but that's what a broom is for.

Even with the girly theme, Kaleb got in on the filling up of the Squinkies balls.
Making bracelets with the links

homeschooling

2011-11-02T09:17:00.001-04:00

Makenna practicing her cutting
Klaire transferring q-tips got the tray at Goodwill along with about 6 other ones. It took me a while to figure out what to use it for, but I'm assuming I saw this idea somewhere and apparently it stuck.

Who would have thought Klaire would have loved this. She spent quite awhile shoving the pom poms down then holes at the top of the bucket.
Our new small dry erase board. I love it!
Makenna practicing writing her letters Klaire enjoying the pompoms again - transferring them with tweezers. I know...it's the little things. She loved it. Who knew?
Playing with Wedgitsgetting bored with the Wedgits and making bracelets instead Big brother Jakeb getting in on some Wedgit time
Got this idea from Here
and even though ours didn't turn out as well, they were still fun to make. I think I just had some junky oil pastels. First day, you make a spiral web out of the glue, and then the second day after it completely dries you color it with the oil pastels. You're supposed to put spiders on it too, but that didn't work for us. I"m thinking of having the kids add some 3D spiders to it instead. That would be fun.
Here's Blake showing how much fun he's having doing the craft. (He sure does love them. Can't you tell?)

Build your own house - art project

2011-11-01T09:17:00.000-04:00

Makenna was focusing on the letter F this week, and so the theme was Fairies, and i thought it would be fun to make a fairy house. Of course, the boys wanted to make a Squinkies house too, so we all got to work with some leftover boxes that we had been hanging on to. We split up into teams and began building and decorating with what we had - sticks, pom-poms, paint, popsicle sticks, ribbon, and a ton of glue. The boys did not share the same joy of deocrating that Makenna and I did. They were ready to paint and that was it. I made them..ahem, I mean I encouraged them to decorate the outside of theirs with more than just paint if they planned on keeping it and playing with them.

makenna did all the painting and helped a lot with the glue

parky's farm

2011-10-31T09:17:00.000-04:00

We took a small field trip this week simply because the kids finished school in record time one day. So, we ventured out to Parky's Barn!

They were taking the horse back to the barn.

Jakeb was cracking up that the horse kept sticking his head through the fence and eating grass on the other side. You know what they always say..."the grass is greener on the other side!"

Blake with his John Deere shirt on

Fall Festival

2011-10-30T22:07:00.001-04:00

We usually all go every year, but this year Blake and his dad didn't want to go, and some other son of ours got in trouble so he couldn't go, so it was just the five of us. Ha! that still sounds like a big number. We didn't make it to the pony rides and petting farm part like previous years, but the kids still had a lot of fun.

VACATION

2011-10-29T14:30:00.000-04:00

We had a blast on vacation! We were able to stay for two weeks in Florida this year, and oh my word, none of us wanted to come home. We.....

Flew high in the sky

visited the big ball
...threw a fit when we saw some Fairies
....saw the big castle
....saw the best princess
.....saw the Mickey's magic hat
....dropped 13 stories
....rode Mt. Everest

....did some river rafting
...went on a Safari Expedition
...rode lots of trams and buses ...visited the Atlantic with sand on our faces

...wrote our names in the sand

..stayed at a great resort with fantastic water slides!

...did a lot of swimming...almost everyday...
....did a little make-believe (Go Chewbacca!)
...flipped on water slides with babies
....competed in who could build the tallest ice cream dish
....won who could build the tallest ice cream dish

....hung out at some great pirate ships
....saw SHAMU!!!!!!
....met some sea lions and walruses

....almost got in a shipwreck
.....made new friends

...and even built new friends. We can't wait to go back and visit them.

This is obviously just a few of the things we did, but we definitely made lasting memories there.

Pumpkin patch

2011-10-29T07:59:00.002-04:00

Enjoyed our annual visit to Shaw farms again. We went with the Hoffer's who were in town visiting!!! (Love those people!)

Look at how much they've grown in a couple of years. Check it out here.

fall pics

2011-10-29T00:00:00.000-04:00

Here's the fall pics I took at Sharonwoods this year. I took some last year too, but I never got around to posting them on the blog. I love taking pictures there in the fall. It's so BEAUTIFUL! And of course, when you have adorable kiddos it makes for AWESOME pictures! I'd love to say that all these pictures were done willingly by the kids but that would be lying! There was much bribing going on! ha!
The girls just climbed on their brothers without being told for this one!
This one of them looking at each other is one of my favorites!

Can I just say that the girls cooperated a lot better than the boys did?

I love this one too. We took about 7 jumping pictures, and then I photoshopped the best jumps together!

The dollhouse

2011-10-05T13:32:00.000-04:00

Klaire received some money from her grandparents, and with the money I thought it would be sooooo fun to get her a doll house. Check this baby out!!

Klaire

2011-10-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

How did she get this big already?? Crazy to think in just a few more weeks, she'll be a big sister!

ER Visit

2011-10-04T16:59:00.000-04:00

Well, it happened, finally. We had to take one of hte kids to the ER to get staples. Funny thin is, I always thought it would be a boy that it happened to, but nope, it was Klaire, the little dare-devil herself. I'm telling you she's gonna be the death of me.
We were at Taco Bell, and she decided to climb on a stool like her big sister had. I remember watching her climb up there, and thinking, "This is not a good idea, Klaire." Next thing I know, she was on the ground with the heavy stool on top of her. I picked her up trying to soothe her and then I saw blood everywhere. Ahhhh!!! I'm so not a blood person. So, I rushed home, had Eric look at it, and then took her to the ER. Of course, by the time we got to the ER you wouldn't have known anything was wrong with her at all. She was completely back to her own self. Ha!

She required two staples, and man, are those grossing me out. I want to put a bow on top, so I don't have to see them, but I guess that wouldn't be such a great idea, huh?

Still Missing him!

2011-10-04T06:15:00.002-04:00

This post might be a little old, but it still says everything I feel.

First Day of co-op

2011-09-30T12:12:00.000-04:00

We love co-op . It's kinda like the first day of school for us. For those of you that don't know what a co-op is, it's when a whole bunch of homeschool families get their kids together and offer a whole bunch of classes that they might not get at home or simply just for fun classes. For instance,

Blake is taking: Botany, Science Fun, and Lego Mechanisms. (For those of you who know me, know that I hate science, and Blake loves science. All of these classes are great for him!

Luke is taking: Ohio History, Zoom Science, and Bee Alert. (He is not thrilled about Ohio History, but the kids have to take it. Bee Alert is awesome because every week kids have various topics that they have to answer 100 questions to. On co-op day they go and have a competition on what they've answered. One of the mom's at my co-op developed the whole curriculum. It's fabulous!)

Jakeb is taking: Ohio History, Science Experiments, and Math Games and More. (His favorite is the Math Games!!)

Kaleb is taking: 7 Days of Creation Activities, Gym, and Math Games

Makenna is in the preschool class, and...

Klaire is in the nursery.

The mom's are usually required to help out in two classes each, but some also teach. I have the huge responsiblity of teaching SCRAPBOOKING this year. Whoo! It might be a little hard for me! Ha!

Museum

2011-09-28T12:54:00.000-04:00

This past May when we went, they were showing signs of their new exhibit "Hidden Treasures" or something like that. Anyways, Blake was dying to go to see the tomb and Egyptian stuff. Well it never worked out over the summer, but we were finally able to make the trip to see the exhibit a couple of weeks ago. outside view of the muesum

This statue dude was a puzzle that the kids put together.

Makenna excavating for hidden treasures

Here's Klaire in the Barbie exhibit runway showing off her outfit and her fancy princess twirl

Afterwards we were able to meet up with some friends, the Welch's, and we had such a nice visit. I can't wait to come to Indy again to hang out, Beth! (PS. I'm bummed that I didn't get a picture of you guys to include on here. Next time!)

Homemade Wooden Blocks

2011-09-26T12:25:00.000-04:00

We're going green! Not! I saw this cute idea for the wooden blocks on a blog a good while ago, and I had just been waiting for an oppurtunity to ask Eric to make some. Recently, in the past month or so, we had a storm that knocked down a huge branch, and so while he was taking care of that branch, I finally got my chance. He didn't mind one bit using his chainsaw toy for some of the big pieces. For the smaller ones, he just used his miter saw. Klaire had fun with them today. and shoot, it's a fun toy, and what could be better....it was free!!!

Happy Birthday, Blake!

2011-09-24T12:27:00.001-04:00

He's 11! Can you believe it?? Ahhhhh.... And, he's celebrating his birthday in Florida with us right now. Hope he doesn't mind!

Felt Fish

2011-09-23T12:04:00.002-04:00

Here's some felt fish I made. I got the idea from here. Each fish has some deocrative items on them all the way up to 10. I drew them freehanded on the felt and then cut them out. Then I glued the washer to one side, decorated the other side with objects, and the quickly stitched them together. Don't look too close or you'll see some really horrible stitching. Each fish has a different amount of objects on it, so they'll be great for counting.

We didn't get to use them as much last week as I had planned because of some unplanned doctor's visits and sick kids, and well..if you homeschool, you know how it goes, but I will definitely be using them a lot in the future. They'll be great for counting.

Ocean themed sensory bin and I Spy Jar

2011-09-22T09:58:00.000-04:00

Here's our sensory bin that I put together filled with blue rice, some ocean toys that we had around the house, and some seashells.

I Spy bottle

And I made a quick I spy bottle, and I printed out the bottom picture so the kids will know exactly what to look for.

Glue paint

2011-09-21T11:56:00.001-04:00

We made our very own Glue paint which we did a projects with...the first art project of the year. We just mixed the 1/2 filled glue bottles with some acrylic paint, and voila...makes for some fun crafts.

Basically on these pictures, you simply draw your picture with pencil, trace it with the colored glue, and then wait for it to dry. The next day, you use water colors to color it all in. Fun!!!

Play Doh Mats

2011-09-19T11:51:00.000-04:00

I found these fabulous Playdoh mats from here.And they have a ton more. They have them for everything: numbers, cursive letters, printing letters, addition, subtractions, clocks, and just a bunch of other fun activities like the ocean theme. They're awesome, and they're FREE!

Now let me be clear. I HATE/ABHOR Playdoh. We've had Playdoh in the past and I ended up throwing it all away because it just ended up all over, dried up, or all mixed up. I vowed I would never, never, never buy Playdoh again. So for me to break my vow of never buying Play doh again, well...they must be cool mats. They even have face ones that you can make your own faces on the mats. How fun is that? I'm loving them, so I broke down and bought not just one package of Playdoh, but 3 packages of 4 meaning I'm now the owner of 12 cans of Playdoh. Ahhh!!!! The kids love them though, and so far...it's not too messy.

Homeschooling week 3 - Ocean themed part 2

2011-09-17T11:53:00.000-04:00

Here's a continuation of our homeschool week which, of course, didn't go like I was hoping. They never do, do they? I missed a day of teaching because of three doctor's appointments, I had three days of sick kids (one on each day), and emergency doctor visit including an xray, and I don't think we opened our history books or reading books all week. And of course, we're packing up getting ready for Florida. Oh, and did I mention that I had to have two stress tests on the baby too because of the gestational diabetes? But somehow, God got us through it all, and man, am I looking forward to vacation.

pattern cards for Makenna - another free printable

Jakeb and Klaire enjoying the felt fish that I made. Yes, it even involved some stitching. Gasp!!! I'll talk more about them later.

This was a fun project - Glue art - I got the idea from a blog, but I plan on posting more about that later.

Day 2 of the Glue art project - Painting with watercolors

Kaleb building
Klaire's little lapbook from here
Play dough mats from here

Shadow matching from one of the printable packs I downloaded.
Magnet Worksheets - Some people do these on cookie sheets, but frankly I didn't feel like going up stairs and getting them, so the girls did them on the board. It hink they might have like it more this way anyways.

Luke and Klaire making a home for a worm that Luke found. Too bad I refused to let them keep it.
a few outside races because it was so nice out

Homeschool Week 3 - Ocean Theme part one

2011-09-15T04:46:00.000-04:00

In celebration of going to Florida next week, I'm doing an ocean theme. (We're planning on going to Sea World and to the beach, so I thought it would be very fun!) I got all of my printable stuff on-line at various sites. I'll try to link them up if I remember.
We made an ocean in a bottle which didn't turn out exactly like I wanted which is very sad considering it said VERY EASY, but apparently I'm just not that smart with stuff like that!! The kids liked it still.

Here's Kaleb acting all shy for the camera. He had just finished his first attempt at a number sequencing puzzle. (extremely easy for him, but well...it was something new!)

Makenna's number sequence puzzle found here
Playdoh sea urchins - She had to find the right number to the right toothpicks urchin. Lauri Pegs
Kaleb and Klaire's creation

Read, build, and Write mats. I just discovered these, and I think they are Fabulouso!! They read the word (which happens to be ocean words for the week), they build them out of letters. I had some letter tiles in my scrapbooking supplies that I had bought forever ago at Michael's that I grabbed for this. And then they write it out at the bottom. It's great!

Klaire's birthday - She's two!!!!

2011-09-14T01:27:00.000-04:00

Seriously, how did this happen? How did time fly so quickly to make my baby girl turn 2? Crazy!

Blowing out the candles Someone who shall remained nameless let her get her chin too close to the candles and she burned her chin. ( I was taking pictures, so......it wasn't me.)

Someone who shall still remain nameless in efforts to take the attention of the burning of the chin thought of the brilliant idea of letting Klaire take a bite out of her cake and then to smash her face into the cake. This was the second cake face smash. She was not impressed.

After she had forgiven the cake face smasher/chin burning person who shall remain nameless

jakeb's b-day

2011-09-13T00:20:00.000-04:00

Jakeb had a low-key birthday this year, but I promise that was his choice. After asking multiple times what he wanted to do, he simply replied......I want to go to Golden Corral.
So...that's what we did....Golden Corral. Of course, we had to wait one extra night to go because kids eat cheaper on Tuesday nights. (His birthday was Monday, so he technically got two celebrations.) The Hoffer's joined us there.
Here's his actual birthDAY at our house the night before:

with the Alma ice cream cake

Webkinz

2011-09-12T13:17:00.000-04:00

hmmm...Do you think they have too many Webkinz?? And these don't even include all of Luke's. (oh, I was just informed that these are not all Webkinz.....but the majority of them are. Thank you Kaleb!) Love me garage sales and thrift stores which is where the majority of these were purchased.

Summer with the Hoffer's

2011-09-11T13:14:00.000-04:00

Man, what a great summer. We spent a good portion of it with the Hoffer's before they decided to get up and move on us. (I'm not bitter about it, really!) We did Chick-fil-A, parks, Touch a Trucks, shopping, and simply each other's houses. Always had fun.

Michigan trip

2011-09-10T12:55:00.000-04:00

In June, the kids and I went to visit the grandparents in Michigan. We did lots of fun stuff while we were there.....fed the elk (a.k.a. melk), went shopping, lots of parks, went to Mackinaw City and Thunder Falls, and celebrated Makenna's birthday there.

Thunder Falls - Man, was it cold that day!

Real guy statue. Crazy, huh?

T-Rex with Makenna opening a present

Klaire completely tuckered out!

waiting for the elk to come

makenna's b-day

2011-09-09T13:00:00.000-04:00

Makenna was one lucky girl this year. She was able to celebrate her birthday three times: once in Michigan on her actual birthday, once when we came home with her dad, and she had a shared birthday party with her sis. Talk about one spoiled little girl. Here's a few pics to highlight all three occasions.

Birthday celebration #1 Grandma made the fabulous cake!

presents

hmmm...what's in the bag from Grandma and T-Rex

Surprise!!!!

Birthday celebration #2 B-day at home with homemade ice cream cake

all the loot at home

Birthday celebration #3

B-day party at Mickey D's

Blog Title change

2011-09-08T15:57:00.003-04:00

Obviously if you've ever read my blog before, you noticed that I changed my blog title. And for those of you who know me...know I'm not really the "tea" type, so you might be wondering why I switched it out. TEA stands for Eric's, my husband, initials. The Nine stands for how many people are in our family. I thought it was cute, so that's it. I would love to have it as a license plate on our big bad van when we get on, but Eric might not go for that. We'll see. So that's why I put it on my blog. Anyways, Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy!

My little princess

2011-09-08T11:13:00.000-04:00

Is she cute or what. Her newest thing is to get one of these dresses on and then just start twirling!!!

Bow board

2011-09-08T11:10:00.005-04:00

Got this idea from here. Loved it!! I think I'm gonna have to make another one cause the girls have more stuff to put on it. It's made out of art canvases. I think I only paid $3 for one. I already had one, and of course, being the scrapbooker that I am....I had all the paint ribbon already. So all in all it was a pretty cheap project.

Here it is filled up. We found about 10 more bows to put on after we took this picture.

Touch a Trucks

2011-09-07T02:18:00.000-04:00

We went to three different touch a trucks. By the time the last one rolled around (which is usually our favorite) the kids were a little burnt out. Ha! Our favorite one was the Mason one this year even though it was extraordinarily hot that day.

Love Makenna's pout!!!

Kaleb in the back seat of a police car
Klaire where she belongs! ha!
The MONSTER truck - Grave Digger

Museum again

2011-09-06T09:23:00.000-04:00

Back in JUNE or maybe it was May, we went to the Indy Children's museum again. Kids loved it just as much this time as they did the last time. We got there when it first opened, and we got smart and started at the top floow and worked our way down while everyone else started on the ground floor level and went up. The boys' favorite part is up there anyways. Diego, Klaire, and Daddy

the blown glass sculpture

Makenna taking pictures on the Barbie runway

Luke at the rock climbing wall

Junior Camp

2011-09-06T09:01:00.000-04:00

We sent three boys to junior camp this year. Three!!! When did three of my boys get old enough to go to junior camp? Ahhhh!!! They each had to help pay for their way becasue well...frankly, we're not made of money, and well, there's three of them. So they helped their dad in the Pyroboom business and used some other money that they had saved. They had a great time. We actually went to see them on Wednesday night for church, and Luke took one look at us and ran away as though he didn't want us there. ha! He's so my kid. I probably would have done the same thing. As you can see by some of the pictures, they had a great time!

In case you missed out

2011-09-05T13:33:00.003-04:00

...on the announcement on facebook...... (This also proves how much of a slackard I've been in the blogging world. I never even posted the sonogram pictures from back in JUNE! How horrible is that?) He's a.k.a. Zak is due November 4th!!!

IT'S A BOY!!!!

His cute profile

One of his tiny feet
Face

another cute profile

The girls' b-day party

2011-09-05T09:01:00.000-04:00

We had a birthday party for the girls' this year at Mickey D's. We had such a great turnout. I was so thankful to everyone who came and made their birthdays memorable.

Fourth of July

2011-09-05T08:56:00.000-04:00

Well, it happened again! Eric outdid himself with his Fourth of July Fireworks Extravaganza this year. It was amazing. We made it safer by having it at a friend's house. They own a lot of farmland which made it much safer with the crazy amount of people we had there. We had well over 100!!!

Sky lanterns just like in Disney's Tangled movie - These were a HUGE hit!

Food time

Cornhole

The Carr's knew the local firefighters, and they came out....just in case.

Getting started

Four Wheelin'

2011-09-04T20:00:00.000-04:00

Went to the Carr's house way back when and had a blast playing on the four wheelers!

School's Started

2011-09-04T14:00:00.000-04:00

PS... Long post..and pictures ahead....a whole first week of school in one blog post

School started this last week. AHHHHH!!!! I have a 6th grader, 5th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader, preschooler, and a toddler. (Of course, pretty soonyou can a newborn to the list too.) I'm working hard this year to be organized. I have most of our school plans done until Christmas which it totally unlike me. Hopefully I can stay on schedule. I'm trying to throw some preschool/toddler activities into it all. Not to mention we started a few new curriculums this week like SOS and Math U See. (However, we haven't been able to really do Math-U-See cause it's on back order. Whoops!) And we haven't started real history yet because we still haven't gotten all of our books. I know....I shouldn't have waited till the last minute to order them, but well...that's me. So far, it went smoothly this week, and I think we all enjoyed it. At least this is the first week I enjoyed the first week of school.

The girls working on dotting their I's with our new Do-A-Dot markers. I love those things.

I made my first sensory bin. It was school themed with letters, colors, school supplies, beans, and pom-poms, and some other stuff in it. As you can see Jakeb like it too. What's funny is that I saw even Luke playing with it the other day too, so it's good for all ages if you ask me.

Luke working hard on A Beka language

The boys got a new Science program, Switched-on-Schoolhouse, and I'm sure they like it a lot more than me teaching them science. It took us awhile to figure it out, but we got it going and now they're working hard at it.

Here's Blake typing out his spelling words in Microsoft Word. Afterwards, he was able to go to Spelling City and play some games. The boys are using a Keyboarding program to learn to type, so I thought by typing the words once a week, it would help in both areas. All three older boys made above a 92% on their Spelling Test this week, so see...it did help.

Klaire playing with her Guidecraft stack n sort puzzle

Kaleb working hard on his first grade A Beka Arithmetic. He did at least 1/3 of it last year, so that's why he's already so far in his book. I'm hoping to switch to Math-U-See for him later this year.

Here's our Pop-Beads that the girls were sorting by color. Klaire had A LOT of help with it, but Makenna aced it.

Here's Makenna simply working on her pop bead necklace.

The next day she did it by shape. I think she liked doing that better.

And well, I had to take a couple of pictures of Klaire playing dress up.....with the boys dress up stuff.

And here's how I found Klaire quite a few days...completely tuckered out form all the hard school work she had to do.

Here's she fell asleep while they were watching Leap Frog. How uncomfortable does she look? Crazy!

PS. Just so you know why there's more pics of the girls than boys.....they still let me take pictures of them. The boys fought me when I went to take pictures. That's why there is lovely pictures of the back of their heads. Here's proof of what they do when I take pics.

oh and one last thing. I've got a lot of catching up to do on the blog. I'll get to it eventually. I've got birthdays and lots of summer fun we had! Eventually I'll get around to that.

Memorial Day

2011-09-04T11:41:00.000-04:00

The plan was to hook up the inflatable water slide we have, but after being in the shed all winter long...well...let's just say it had had better days. So we got a new pool. It started out in front yard, moved to the back yard, and then actually got moved one more time. These pictures are my favorite because they're when the kids were BEGGING me to take pictures. Yes, you heard me right....BEGGING me to take pictures of them running and jumping in to the pools. You sould see some of the pictures I have of them. I only posted a few.

It never failed Jakeb always had the best jumps.

Here was Blake most of the time. He didn't want to get in. He says he's not a "pool person."

Later that evening we went to watch Kung Fu Panda 2! Who-hoo! We all thought it was great, and we loved how they left it open at the end to have a third one. I think Blake was the most super excited one about it (which is funny considering he REFUSED to watch the first on for the longest time. In fact when we were once going to the theater to watch a movie as a family with our friend George, we all had to choose between Kung Fu Panda and Wall E, and would you believe that Blake influenced us to watch Wall E. Man, were Eric and George dying in that movie).

Go Blue!!!

2011-06-21T13:49:00.000-04:00

We can't wait!

We're in trouble now

2011-06-06T09:23:00.004-04:00

Look what Klaire figures out how to do. Even when I moved the dresser away from the crib, she could still get out!

Part Girl, Part Monkey

2011-05-31T10:29:00.000-04:00

Seriously....she might have really come from a monkey......I'm just kidding, but man, does she love to climb, hang, and be a little daredevil. It seemed that she would enjoy going to the edge of the playground equipment while she was high up, and just act like she was going to take a step off. I really do think she enjoyed scaring me because right after she would lean out, she would smile and run to the slide. Crazy girl!

This is her favorite. Before she goes down any slide, she has to hang at that bar first and swing. See...why I think monkey??

I passed the test.

2011-05-30T11:30:00.000-04:00

Blake came up to me tonight with tears, and said, "Mom, you passed the test!" Of course I'm wondering what test this was. He looks at me and says, "Well, number one, you took us to Golden Corral. And number 2, you tried to save me." He then went on to pull out one of his most prized possessions from behind his back and gave it to me. It was his Morgan Dollar and certificate.

You might ask what it was that I saved him from, and well, I could try to go into it and explain, but I just don't think it's worth the time time or the effort. Let's just say that I tried to keep him out of trouble with his dad. But apparently to a ten year old boy, it meant the world! I think it might have been the sweetest thing he's ever done!

Veggies

2011-05-29T14:25:00.000-04:00

We went to Golden Corral tonight. The kids LOVE Golden Corral...me, not so much, but because I know how much they love it, I chose it as the place we were gonna go. (Note: Eric told me that I had to decide because he didn't care.) Anyways, after the kids filled their plates with fried chicken, pizza, and a lot of other fried foods, they went after the desserts. After at least 2 desserts each, I thought back and realized that they hadn't had any vegetables on their plates. what kind of mom lets their kids eat only junk food? I told them that they each had to have ONE vegetable. Two of my boys looked at me and said, "Mom, we did. We had macaroni and cheese!"

Since when did that become a vegetable? And what kind of mom does that make me since TWO of my kids thought that! I chuckled pretty hard on that one!

Wacky Day

2011-05-28T22:29:00.006-04:00

I can't believe Makenna let me dress her up wacky. You have to understand this is the girl who gets made when I don't let her pick out her own clothes. If I make a suggestion of shoes or anything, she gets very grumpy and tries to refuse whatever I want her to wear which then always ends badly for her, but one day she'll learn. ANyways, she actually got into the mood to dress wacky and wow, did she look great! She did so good with it, she won!! Who-hoo! that's my girl! Kaleb looked adorable too, by the way, but you have to admit, you can do so much more with girls on wacky day! I mean, the hair alone....wins the prize!

Winners

This is the older Master Club from earlier in the year! Yes, that's me. Go ahead, get a good laugh.

Legos

2011-05-26T08:45:00.001-04:00

This is the story of a little boy who didn't listen to his mommy.

A little boy named Jakeb had a very bad habit. He liked to put little things in his mouth, things like small legos, K-nex, and sometimes coins. Everytime his mom would notice things in his mouth she would tell him to get them out. She would say, "Jakeb, you shouldn't do that because you could swallow and choke on those little pieces."

Well, one day Jakeb ran into the kitchen crying, "Mom, I swallowed a Lego. I swallowed a Lego."

The mom replied, "Well, Jakeb, I told you not to put things in your mouth."

"What should I do, Mom?" asked the concerned little boy.

"Well, you might die," teased the mom knowing perfectly well what happens to small pieces that a little boy swallows.

"Oh NO!" wailed Jakeb. Jakeb then pulled off an amazing feat. A feat that I ever never seen before by a human. He managed to pretend he was a cat (while screaming) and he coughed up that tiny Lego just like it was hairball. The whole process took about 10 seconds and poor Jakeb was as red as a beet, but needless to say, that Lego will never be finding its way into the toilet!

A note from the author: Yes I know that telling my child that he could die was mean. I was hoping that it would encourage him to never put anything in his mouth again. Did it work? Nope, I caught him today with something in his mouth again.

PS. I did tell him afterwards that he wasn't going to die.

PPS. This story reminds me of my childhood when I accidentally dropped a marble in my mouth. Yes, accidentally. I was lying on the floor looking at a marble holding it over my face, and whoops, in and down it went. I was horrified. I was sure I was going to die that day. I remember getting to go to the park that day, and I just sat on the swing thinking, "I'm going to die today. This is my last day to live." Pretty pathetic, huh? Obviously, I made it through that tragedy!

The Floating shoe

2011-05-24T23:52:00.006-04:00

We went to Sharonwoods this past week, and, of course, we had to check out the falls. Because of all the recent rain, the falls were pretty heavy. Normally my kids walk across the creek on the rocks, but not this time. I was relishing the idea of having to jump in and swim after one as they went down the river. (I've already had to jump in once, not doing it again. You can read about that HERE if you missed out on it before!)
Anyways, the kids were allowed to put their hands in the water, and just kinda look at the falls. Unfortunately, it wasn't too exciting for them. Some of them found a spot where they ended up getting covered in mud, so I had to let the rinse off their feet, hands, and shoes in the water. Next thing I know, Jakeb's saying, "Mom, get my shoe, my shoe, my shoe." Well this mom did not "get the shoe," and off it floated down the creek. Poor Jakeb started chasing it but then ran out of rocks to run on. He got to the edge and thought he saw a snake, screamed, and dropped his other shoe.
Poor guy. I felt a little bad for him because the walk back to the SUV was a little muddy, but oh well.. I wasn't jumping in to get no shoe. We were getting ready to leave, and Jakeb asked me to get his other shoe which he had left on a rock after seeing a "snake." Being the nice mother that I am, I went down there to get it. I picked it up, and glanced out to the creek to see it's matching mate floating down the creek. But lo, and behold, the current was making it circle back toward us. There was a chance I could save the shoe! Yay! We got a big stick and tried reaching it, but the place we were standing on was too steep and too muddy to reach it. Then all of sudden it was like God gave it a tiny push, and pushed it right back to where Jakeb had originally dropped his other shoe, and we were able to get it. Yay!!! Jakeb was so excited! Shoot, I was excited. I hated the idea of his Croc going down the creek!
Here's his green Croc floating down the creek. It's smack dagb in the middle of the picture. You can barely make it out!

I scrapbooked!

2011-05-22T23:05:00.003-04:00

Shoot, I scrapbooked a real album for the first time in over a year. At least I think it's been a year. I had the idea of making an album for a friend of mine who is moving to California. I wanted her to have an album of our church family. I thought of this idea very late Wednesday night/Thursday morning, so I started working. I ordered the pictures at Costco, picked them up Friday, and finished the album on Sunday. AHHHH!!!! Her going away get-together was on Sunday night. I made a few blank pages for our church members to sign, and then placed them in the back. I forgot to take a picture of my very favorite page in the back of the book. Oh well. Here's a few of the pages. Maybe I'm getting my mojo back, and I'll finally get caught up on all my scrapbooking. Yeah, right, I'm only about 5 years behind!

More New Additions

2011-05-19T23:19:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I never posted these two bundle of joys when they were first added to the world.

my new nephew: Josiah Peyton Barr born February 10, 2011

My best friend, Niki's baby: Joseph Jeffrey Burchett born February 23, 2011

Remember her wedding?

Just in case..

2011-05-18T11:16:00.000-04:00

you people who read my blog think I'm biased to the girls, let me explain why it seems I have more pictures of the girls than the boys. The girls STILL LET me take pictures of them. The boys run from me now! No lie, I have to pretty much bribe the boys to let me take their pictures. In case you don't believe me, here's some pictures to prove that I usually have to pay them to let me take their pictures. Lovely, huh?

Indian Names

2011-05-17T10:33:00.000-04:00

Tonight, everyone in our family received Indian names. Technically the kids are 1/16 Indians. It all started when Blake was helping Eric work in the garage and a tube flew up and whacked Blake right in the nose. Eric was scared it was broken, but thank the Lord, it was only scraped up and slightly swollen. After the shock of being in pain and bleeding was over, I took to calling him Crooked Nose for the rest of the day. Then after that, we thought it would be fun to give everyone Indian names.

Blake - Crooked Nose

Luke - Blazing Buffalo

Jakeb - Crazy Thunder

Kaleb - Blue Fox - (Note: I wanted to call him Blue Star because of his blue sparkling eyes, but he said it was a no-go.)

Makenna - Screeching Owl - (We eventually had to change her name. She wanted Pink Princess, and everytime we would call her, Screeching Owl she would actually live up to her name, so we took to calling her Pink Screeching Owl. That seemed to satisfy her.)

after changing her name

Klaire - Red Arrow

Marshan - White Feather

Eric - Chief Soaring Eagle ( I wanted to call him Chief Gray Bear, but he didn't like that name. I wonder why??)

The obedient little girl

2011-05-17T10:20:00.001-04:00

(Names have been left out to keep the privacy of the individuals.)

This is the story of a little girl who told her mom that she wanted a hamburger at Burger King. After sitting down and seeing her sister's chicken nuggets, this little girl proceeded to get upset that she didn't get chicken nuggets. "
But, Little Girl, you said you wanted a hamburger, so that's why you got that. You must eat it all or you will be in trouble," said the little girl's mom.
The little girl went on to pout ever so slightly, but then noticed the apples in her bag, and went on to eat those. Then she discovered the caramel dip that went with the apples. "Yum, these are good," she thought, "Mmm...maybe they will even make my hamburger tasted better. My mom said I HAVE to eat it, and well, it's worth a try."

The little girl daringly dipped her hamburger in the caramel sauce. "Well, here goes nothing," she thought.

The little girl's younger sister looked on in disbelief and complete horror. "Something just doesn't seem right about the hamburger in that brown sauce. Ewwwww!" the younger sister thought. The younger sister glanced over at her mom, "Oooooo, she must think so too. Her face has the face that looks like she smelling a dirty diaper."

"Wow, this is pretty good," beamed the little girl who had just finished her first bite of her caramel dipped hamburger.

"Hey, Mom! you gotta try this. It's great! It's a thumbs up meal! Really! What? You don't believe me? I'll let you try some if you want!" the little girl tried to convince her mom.
Umm...no thank you little girl. I'll just, ahem...sit here and watch you eat....(and try not to gag). I"m just glad you're..ahem...obeying and eating your food like a good little girl." said the little girl's mom with a strange look on her face.

"Hmm, I wonder if mom's not feeling well." thought the little girl. "She's looking a little green."

New addition to the family

2011-05-16T11:38:00.000-04:00

The boys bought four hermit crabs when we were in Gatlinburg. However, only one of them is still with us today. The other three are in graves in the back yard. Two of them have been replaced. I'm not too big on this whole hermit crab thing.

We were planning on buying King's Island passes this summer, but then we re-did the kitchen, went on vacation, and then the SUV broke down in Louisville and so there was really no money left for King's Island. I remember Eric came home one day from work, and told the boys that he would make it up to them by buying them something that they had been wanting for months. If only I knew what he was going to say before he said it, I could have kept my house stress-free. The kids looked at their dad with wide-excited eyes. No one knew what he was going to say....."FISH!" I'm thinking, "Fish, seriously?" But the boys whooped and hollered and cheered. Eric was right; it's what they wanted.

So the next evening, Eric took the boys to get some fish. They came home with 2 big goldfish and 5 little ones, food, and the aquarium. Too bad that by the next morning two of the small goldfish had been sucked up in to the filter because the filter cap had never been placed on it. (WHoops!)

Then I left to go to the store. No lie I was gone less than 30 minutes, and when I came home, I found the murkiest aquarium I had ever seen. Apparently one of the boys......no names mentioned.....had thought that the fish would enjoy playing with a painted CLAY BALL! Needless to say, you can imagine what clay does in water. Those poor fish. After redoing the tank for round two, the fish were good.

Unfortunately though, unbeknownst to us the filter was broken now. We didn't realize this for quite some time. Eric cleaned out the tank again (third time), and fixed the filter, or so he thought. A couple of days later the water was so murky that you could barely see the fish swimming around in there. Oh,and did I mention that only the two big ones were left now.

Eric decided that it might be time to go buy a new filter, and they re-did the tank AGAIN for now the fourth time in less than a month. We also bought 5 new medium sized goldfish too.

Even though he had just bought the filter, within a week the filter wasn't working AGAIN. Seriously, he was regretting ever buying the aquarium. I decided to go to Petsmart and get a slightly more expensive filter, at least it was going to be better than the Walmart brand.

Blake switched it all out, and the fish are living happily in their tank now. Well, 6 of them are. I still can't believe the large goldfish have survived all the trauma that they have through.

Girl boots

2011-05-14T11:38:00.009-04:00

For those of you who know my family, you know that my boys love boots. It all started back when Blake was little, and he had a pair or yellow rain boots that he called his "santa boots." He eventually called them his "pirate boots." Since then he moved on to many other different boots, and if I would buy him a new pair of rubber boots that fit him, he would wear those too. Jakeb also wears boots, but I think that's simply because they are easy to put on, and no other reason than that. Kaleb, however, loves boots too. He's been known to wear them to bed, outside with shorts, and just about anywhere. I thought that the boot infatuation would stop with the boys. I never thought my girls would like boots this much, but well...it's happened. They've bought into the boot craze too.

and then we have Klaire who insists on wearing boots too. AHHH!!! Hey but at least they're stylin' boots!

The obedient little girl

2011-05-11T14:42:00.001-04:00

"Wow, this is pretty good," beamed the little girl who had just finished her first bite of her caramel dipped hamburger.

"Hmm, I wonder if mom's not feeling well." thought the little girl. "She's looking a little green."

No Training Wheels

2011-05-10T12:07:00.000-04:00

Look who's riding without training wheels. This kid is fabulous. He asked me to take them off, and I did. Then I tried to run after him and make sure he didn't fall. You can just imagine how well that went. He did really good the first time. He didn't quite get it all the way. In fact, his exact words were, "I just don't get it." He couldn't figure out how to steer the handlebars and balance at the same time. He never did fall.

Now fast forward a couple days to when it was finally nice enough outside for him to try again. His dad was there to hold on to him and run after him this time. (Thank goodness!) And he got it! In fact it was almost like he had been doing it all his life. Absolutely amazing if you ask me.

He did far better than I did when I first started learning how to ride a bike. I still remember getting frustrated when I kept trying over and over and just didn't get it. And then the boy next door started riding on his first try. Grr... I remember having to go off by myself and just having to try all alone. Apparently I don't do well being "taught." Go figure! Anyways, I got it pretty quickly after that.

Well, back to Kaleb. He beat his older brothers in being the youngest to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels. Go Kaleb!

Kinect

2011-05-09T11:21:00.000-04:00

Right before Christmas, we got a Kinect. It goes with the Xbox. Think wii, but no controllers. Somehow it reads your movements instead. So much fun for our house. We've had bowling competitions, track & field races, and so much more. And what's fun is that it recognizes you when you get up to play a game. It's absolutely amazing. Even Makenna can play the games!
Most of these pictures are from our bowling tournament where Makenna even beat a big brother or two.

Can you guess which big brother she might have beaten?

Here's a few with the grandparents playing! I'm telling you, it's FUN!

This is, I think, the LONG JUMP in Track and Field.

Greatest toy ever!!!

2011-05-08T09:48:00.000-04:00

I love toys. I think I might even like toys more than my kids do. That being said, we were at Costco where I saw this cool little car-like thing. I made the mistake of getting the display one down, and letting my kids drive it around the store. They were having so much fun, and you should have seen the people's faces that were watching them. The adults were enjoying them riding around the store. No lie. In fact, I think we were the sales reps for these little cars because I'm sure that a few people ended up buying them. Anyways, somehow the Plasma Car, as it is called, made its way into my cart and then out the door into my car.

I gave the kids a choice. We could get this Plasma Car for their end of the school year present or we could go to Kung Fu Panda 2 as a family. It was up to them. I figured it cost about the same. The vote was 4 to 1, not including mine. So, it came home with us, and has since become like a part of the family. The kids take turns riding inside the house and outside. It can hold up to 220 pounds, so everyone gets to ride it.
What's cool about the little car is that it requires no batteries or anything. All you do is grab the steering wheel and move it back and forth causing it to GO! I wouldn't know anything about that because you would never catch me on it, ahem...really...especially NOT after the kids go to bed.

Worth a $100

2011-05-07T10:18:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had one of those days when the kids are just being wild and crazy or even just fighting a lot, so you just want it to be a little calmer around the house? Or you might just want to figure out a way to stop the fighting? You just want to have something organized that they are doing? Does that make sense? To succeed in that, you obviously have to figure out something else for the kids to do. Right? Well, I told the boys that I would give them $100 if they could put their elbow IN their ear, not just touching their ear, but the pointy part of their elbow had to go into the ear canal. (Hey, a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!)

I don't think I really caused them to calm down, but it was hilarious watching them do this, AND they weren't fighting. They tried so hard. (In fact, my pediatrician always says that the only thing you should put in your ear is your elbow.!) You should have seen these kids. They spent the next 30 minutes doing everything they could to succeed. They were on the floor, upside down, jumping, and cracking their skulls with their elbows. It was hilarious. I think I actually raised the booty to $500 at one point, but unfortunately no one was able to do it. (Feel free to take the plunge yourself, but make sure you take pictures and send them to me. I'd love to see you guys try too!)

Finally after getting bored with that. I gave them another proposition. I told them to try to get both of their feet behind their heads and to keep them there. (The boys do swear up and down that I told them I would give them $25 , but I have no recollection of the money part.) Next, thing I know. Blake is putting BOTH of them BEHIND his head. It was crazy.

And...this is Eric while all of this going on. How do men do this? How do they sleep through the noise of it all?

Legos

2011-05-06T11:21:00.000-04:00

The boys love Legos, and were blessed to receive two big sets from their grandparents this year for Christmas.

Here's another creation that Jakeb made. I'd love to say that he thought this up all by himself, but he actually got it from my Lego book that I had as a child.

Christmas 2010

2011-05-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

Yes, I said Christmas. I said I was behind in the blogging world, didn't I? Shoot, I haven't even gotten to fall pictures yet, and if you've read my blog for awhile, you know I love to take fall pictures.
We had a great Christmas.

This was our first year going here. I thought it was amazing, and I'm not a big train lover.

Tangled!

2011-05-04T12:09:00.000-04:00

My husband came home the other day and told the kids that we were gonna have a Family night. The kids were allowed to pick what we were going to do. The list ranged from bowling, Indianapolis, staying home playing video games, and even Gatlinburg. We finally decided on dinner and a movie: Chick-fil-A (Makenna's choice) and a Tangled.

What a fun movie!!!!! Everyone liked it even Eric!

Makenna in her Tangled dress
Since then, we've probably seen it 10-15 times at home. We all loved it.

Little Princesses

2011-05-03T12:26:00.003-04:00

Check out these princesses. They are so much fun and so stinkin' cute! They love to get dressed up. Klaire's biggest thing right now is SHOES. She loves them! She's a true girl at heart!
And just so you realize that this is really how it is most of the time. Here's one where it looks like Makenna's punching her sister although really she's just showing off her pretty pink ring. But check out her sticking her tongue out at Klaire as if to say, "Ha! I got the ring, and you don't!"

Mini-Trip

2011-05-03T10:07:00.002-04:00

For those of you who don't know, Eric has a side business called Pyroboom. He found a new place in Indianapolis to buy the tubes, and so we made a day trip of it, and went to the Children's Museum. It was a complete surprise for the kids. For some reason they love to go with their dad when he goes to buy tubes. I personally think that like it because, one...they get to watch movies in the car, and two... they get to go out to eat with their dad. So when he said we were all going this time, they really didn't think too much of it. Then we pulled into the parking lot, and boy, were they excited. They had a blast. Their favorite part was the science area on the fourth floor. They could have stayed there all day.

Gatlinburg 2011

2011-05-01T22:56:00.005-04:00

We took a vacation this year to Gatlinburg. WE get a great deal because we go in the off season. It was crazy because we ended up getting this FABULOUS chalet up in the mountains where it was supposed to be cold, but it was warm all week. We never even wore our jackets. It was fantastic. We did lots of fun things like go up in the space needle (Jakeb hated that!), did a lot of hiking (two trips), mining, the Aquarium, and playing games back at the chalet; but the favorite of all was go-carting! Oh, and maybe the addition of the 4 hermit crabs to our family might have been at the top of the list too. AHHH!! It was probably our best family vacation yet. Can't wait for the next one which will probably be in like 2020!! ha!!!

Kitchen remodeling

2011-05-01T22:40:00.004-04:00

Well, after 10 years of nagging, ahem... I mean asking, Eric for a new kitchen. It took a little over a month of living without a kitchen, but I finally got one, and it's FABULOUSO!!! I went from rags to riches on this one. It's awesome! Words can't even describe how awesome it is. Best of all, I got rid of the scratched-up, stained floor and the blue metal cabinets! There's a little more to finish like the trim and some touch up on the paint, but it's awesome.
Here's the closest thing to a before picture. We had already taken out a couple of bottom cabinets, and the floor, but you get the picture! It was HORRIBLE!

Found out that the floor underneath the dishwasher had almost given out, so it had to be replaced.
Our kitchen stuff in our very small dining room.

New, much smaller window. We moved the sink to this wall.

New nice TILE floor

Left side of the coolest kitchen ever

and the right side of the coolest kitchen ever

And my hubby did it all!!!! HE's the man.

CURLS

2011-05-01T00:38:00.006-04:00

Check out Klaire's curls!! And they're red! I always wanted a curly red-headed daughter! A dream come true for me.

And I think I might know who she got them from.... The first is a picture of my dad as a baby, and the second is me at two years old.

Catch Up on Birthdays!!

2011-04-29T15:04:00.004-04:00

Luke's birthday
The Big 9 - He chose this year to go to Golden Corral. I mean, who doesn't want all you can eat desserts on their birthday? His birthday, I think was on a Wednesday this year, so we went to Golden Corral the night before cause kids are only $1.99, and then we had his cake on Wednesday, so he still got to blow out his candles!

Luke's games and Webkinz - his two favorite things!

Marshan's Birthday

Eric took me out overnight to Indy to a fabulous place. It was all a complete surprise where we were going. When we pulled in, I wasn't too impressed. Then we stepped inside, and this is only one of the FABULOUS things that I saw IN OUR ROOM. He also took me out to dinner at St. Elmo's. Yum.

Kaleb's b-day - 6
He chose to do Papa John's for his b-day dinner. That kid loves that place.

His Cake

Kaleb and his presents - Imaginext Toy Story stuff, some 90% off Halloween costumes, and a puzzle!

After his birthday, Kaleb had a small party.

His party cake

The guests at the party

Eric's B-day the big 40!!!

His mom sent this cake topper. It as supposed to light up, bloom, spin, and play music. The only thing it actually did was make a flame that was almost touching the ceiling and start melting the plastic! I started to freak out, and blew it out before he got a chance. Poor guy. After we blew it out it then started to bloom and do all the stuff I mentioned. Who knew it was a fire hazard? Crazy!

Can you guess what this it?

The kids and I made the banner for him!

Motivation

2011-04-28T23:44:00.003-04:00

What's wrong with me. I haven't blogged in months. It's not that I don't have the time, I just don't feel like it. There's always something crazy going on, so I have plenty of stuff to write about. I just don't. I even have about 10 blog posts saved waiting to be published. Maybe if I start small...I'll get back into the mode. I thought about a good subject to write about today....."Getting Flushed." Great title, huh? I wonder what's going through your heads right now.
Oh, and pictures? I'm not even going to tell you that I've barely taken any photographs of anyone since we got home from Gatlinburg. Shoot, I just glanced and the March and April folders...they are very, very sad. There has to be something wrong with me.

Argh... I've always heard that you just need to jump back into the saddle and do it. So that's what I'm going to be doing. I'm jumping in. Hopefully the saddle I'm jumping into is secure....(I've had an experience when it wasn't too secure, and let's say that wasn't too pleasant.), and that the horse isn't a bucking bronco. I'm going to go back and post all the old posts along with posting some new ones. Let the fun begin!
Here's the most recent of the fam that I have. Okay, I'm not in it, but I chose this on because the other isn't that pleasant. Hey, it's my blog, I can do that!

Our visit to the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg back in February.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!!

2010-12-24T14:21:00.004-05:00

Have a great year!! I didn't get around to sending cards out this year, so this will have to suffice! We're staying home this year. Eric's parents are coming Monday. Fun times all the way around! Who-hoo!

I know, I know

2010-11-20T23:58:00.006-05:00

it's been forever since I posted anything. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don't. Lots has happened in past couple of months. Lots I don 't want to talk about, but lots that I do want to share. As most of you know, we found out we were pregnant a could of months ago,but then lost the baby at about 10 weeks. I wanted to be angry at God. I mean, really angry. How could He take my baby? But then, I thought about how blessed I am. I have 6 fabulous kids and a husband who loves me. I have a house over my head, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to homeschool. God has blessed me in so many ways that I often take it them all for granted.
My kids fill me with such joy. I am extremely blessed. Thank you, Lord, for your blessings.

Did my heart good

2010-11-20T23:56:00.002-05:00

to see the girls playing together. I never had a sister to play with. Oh what I wouldn't have given for one! I hope and pray that they grow up close. I want them to not just be sisters but best friends!

Blake's b-day 10

2010-09-27T07:31:00.005-04:00

He's 10! Can you believe it? My firstborn is 10! Crazy. He had a good birthday. We went to Subway for lunch, Chilis for dinner, and then had presents at home
Have you ever seen anyone get so excited about a pillowcase ? He got a body pilow w/ pillowcase, blanket, shelves, and some airbender toys from us, and he got some $$ and a Legogame from his grandparents.
He loves his new pillow. He's been wanting one for awhile.

my phone girl

2010-09-22T08:50:00.000-04:00

This girl loves to be on the phone. She so stinkin' cute!!

Why do they make me choose?

2010-09-22T07:23:00.001-04:00

Finally got around to getting Klaire's 1 year pictures today. (I normally call them 12 month, but that is sooooo not true in this case. She's almost 14 months. I'm a little behind.) Anyways, the lady did fantastice and made it almost next to impossible to choose. Oh, and in case you forgot, every child has done the biker dude picture at 12 month.

Who's Who?

2010-09-21T07:36:00.003-04:00

anyone want to try guessing? These are the kids' 1 yr. pictures and 6 month pictures.

D.C.

2010-09-17T16:50:00.000-04:00

The kids and I took Baba (my mom) to Virginia to see my brother. While we were there, we were able to take a small trip to DC! Love that place. I could stay there for a week, and never get tired.....DC that is...not my brother's! Ha!!!
Up at the top of the Reagan building

Dorothy's Ruby Red slippers

the First Washington Monument (before they built the other one)

The Washington Monument

the older cousins
WWII memorial
Washington Monument - We actually were able to go up in the monument this time. The elevator took 70 seconds to ride up. I think we went up 490 feet.
House where Lincoln died (across the street from Ford's Theater)
Ford's Theater

Bass Pro SHop

2010-09-17T12:06:00.000-04:00

Bass Pro Shop was doing a kid day or something where they were letting the kids come and use a bow, paintball gun, and air rifles. THis was totally cool fun for the Alma's!

Jungle Jim's

2010-09-16T12:06:00.001-04:00

Jungle Jim's is a grocery store that has stuff from all over the world. It's pretty cool. Unfortunately we never get to go there. We hadn't been since Blake was a baby. It's just not close to us at all. However, this day, we were over in the area, so we stopped by. I really wanted the kids to see all the stuff, and the bathrooms just make you smile! Yes, I said, SMILE! the $5,000 bottle of hot sauce
Seriously, how many kinds of honey could there be?
Blake and his dark chocolate
Luke and his hot sauce. There were two full aisles of it!
And the famous bathrooms - ewwwww - port-a-potties! Sike! Those are just the doors to them. They're really nice inside. It was not easy to get the boys to go in though. The doors definitely fooled them.

IKEA

2010-09-15T12:06:00.000-04:00

This was a while ago, but I had to post it still. During the first couple weeks of August, IKEA was having free kid's meals. Now, believe me, I'm always on the lookout for free stuff and cheap meals, so I was willing to give IKEA a chance. It was awesome because most places, it's only one meal per adult or maybe 2 per adult. But at IKEA there was no limit, and the adult didn't even have to purchase anything! Who-hoo!! Jackpot! I think we ate there 5 times that week. Some friends from church met up there a couple of time!

First Dentist Visit

2010-09-15T12:05:00.000-04:00

No cavities!!!!! yay!!!

Kaylee's b-day

2010-09-14T16:50:00.008-04:00

My niece is officially 12!!! How did this happen? Happy Birthday, Kaylee!!!!

Spaghetti Face

2010-09-14T12:05:00.000-04:00

This girl makes me smile!

Touch- A- Truck

2010-09-14T12:03:00.000-04:00

It was great this year. They moved it to a new location, and for those people who don't pay attention to stuff like that...well, let's just say Gorman Park is NOT Gower Park. Needless to say, we finally made it. patrol boat

This was their favorite because it was air conditioned! (I'm serious, they would have stayed in the stretch Hummer all day!)

Here's the yearly picture. They didn't have a big bulldozer like normal, so we had to settle for the small one.

He looks way too natural in the back seat of the police cruiser!

Pool time again

2010-09-13T12:00:00.002-04:00

When the grandparents brought Jakeb and Kaleb back, they stayed at a different hotel. I had bought the boys some new water guns as a coming home present. We were shooting everyone (including T-Rex...shh...don't tell him I was the one getting him wet. He wasn't very impressed with that. In fact for awhile he was hiding out in the lobby. ha!)

First Real Haircut

2010-09-12T12:00:00.002-04:00

Makenna got her first haircut this past summer. What's funny is that mommy had a hard time making up her mind about it. Let's see, the lady cut Makenna's hair, and I told her I wanted more off. She cut again. Makenna got out of her chair, and then mommy decided that she wanted more cut off. Third time's the charm, right? What's sad is all I have is the before and middle pics, so check out future posts to see the end product!

Deal

2010-09-09T12:07:00.000-04:00

Look what I got for $5. So, it's a little faded. It would get faded anyway at my house. They have one in the nursery, and Klaire LOVES it, so well, couldn't pass it up for $5!

and the Luvs $10 diaper box for a box of 180 diapers!! !!! WHo-hooo! (no picture of that one)

Look who's walking!

2010-09-03T17:05:00.000-04:00

She took her first steps on July 15th. The only reason I remember that is because it was her Grandma Alma's and Great Grandma's birthday. (I know four people who have a birthday on that day. Crazy!) Anyways, it took her a month to get it completely down pat, and now she's walking everywhere.

Jr. Camp

2010-09-02T11:59:00.000-04:00

We got back from Michigan, and the very next morning the older boys left for camp. They enjoyed themselves a lot and made lots of memories.
Here's Blake pretending that he's Mr. Monk. Apparently he did this all week long with that hankerchief.

Jakeb and Kaleb's visit

2010-09-01T09:37:00.001-04:00

We all have different notions on how the younger boys would do. Some of us (me) thought they would be really homesick. Others thought that they would be too hyper and overwhelming for the grandparents. But, believe it or not, they were just perfect. This was their first time away from home besides overnights when the girls were born. And they were gone for 5 whole days. I heard that Jakeb got a little homesick for his momma (smile), but otherwise both of them did great.

fish hatchery

petting zoo - the "melk"

Grandma and T-Rex's jacuzzi

All of us in Michigan

2010-08-31T08:38:00.000-04:00

When the 2 1/2 weeks were up, we went to get our boys. It was actually a three purpose visit. One, to get the boys, Two, to drop off the younger boys, and three to go to the annual Ayers Family reunion (Eric's mom's side).

We went to this awesome water park on Friday called Thunder Falls, and boy did the kids have a blast...okay, and the adults.

Saturday was the reunion,

We also did a little four wheelin' in the SUV while we were there. The kids were taking turns sticking their heads through the sunroof. There were some major puddles, and we were splashing our way through them. A couple of times the kids got sprayed with mud. Talk about fun!

Gymnastics

2010-08-30T12:06:00.010-04:00

A.k.a. WIPEOUT

I realize that it's bad for children to jump on furniture. Yes, I realize that kids should not do this. Yes, I know that it makes leather furniture get saggy when kids jump on it.
But.....they were having so much fun. Who would have thought that running toward the couch, jumping on the ottoman, and flipping on the couch could be so fun?

Michigan w/ the older boys

2010-08-30T08:19:00.005-04:00

Allrighty, everyone. I'm trying to get caught up on the past month 1/2, and here goes nothing:

Eric's parents came down on Fourth of July weekend. One, they wanted to see the awesome fireworks! Two, they wanted to steal my boys. They stole the older boys and kept them for about 2 1/2 weeks. After the first week of adjusting, the boys had a blast. They went to a fish hatchery, some water parks, Call of the Wild, and a whole slew of other things. My awesome Mother-in-law took pictures of all the stuff for me because she knows I'm a picture fiend. They had a blast, and of course, didn't want to come home. OH, and you have to know that they became fans of the TV show MONK while they were there. Big FANS! That's all I heard about while I was on the phone with them. Shoot, they're still talking about it!

The sand dunes
Mackinac Bridge

The mirrow house

Thunder Falls

Fish Hatchery

Happy Birthday, Klaire

2010-08-29T21:28:00.005-04:00

Better late, then never, right? It's sad, but I'm finally getting around to posting Klaire's b-day pictures along with her 12 month picture by the doll! Her birthday was the 31st. Remember she was a booger and couldn't wait till August like her momma wanted. Anyways, Grandma Alma and T-rex were here for her birthday. Here's us celebrating at IHOP. Then in the evening we had her cake and presents!

Here's the big girl at 12 months! (really, about 12 1/2 months, but who's counting?)