Der Hughes

The new Dog!

2012-02-13T18:11:00.000-08:00

Most of you know that I am a little crazy, or at least we can reason that I like to complicate my life. So, with that being said, let me introduce you to our new dog, Sparky.

We were just hanging out in our yard a couple of weeks ago and this miniature doberman pinscher comes over and starts running around with the boys. He is not the first dog that was attracted to our house because of the great fun the boys can provide, so we didn't think anything of it. But, the next morning when we went outside to go to church he came running up to the boys so excited to see them. And when we came home from church, there he was sitting on the front porch. He eventually started coming in the house, and was always on the front porch in the morning. After a couple of days the boys didn't want him to have to sleep outside anymore, so he curled up with them in bed for the night. I checked the paper to see if anyone had listed a lost dog, and I called the animal shelter and reported him, but no one seems to be missing him. I kept saying I was going to make a flyer, but for some reason I was having a hard time getting that done. I think it is because I wanted to put a picture on it and that would require taking a picture, downloading it, printing it and hanging it up. I know, it isn't that big of a deal but it just never got put to the top of my list and it never got done, so now he definitely thinks he is our dog and he adores the boys. I am really actually OK with him being our dog. He doesn't stink like 90% of dogs do, he does have a smell but you can only smell it if he is right on your lap. He is short haired. And I actually like that he is small and hyper. I hate when a dog decides to lay somewhere right in your way and when you try to get him to move he takes his sweet time. Sparky will jump up and get out of the way in a split second. We assume he was trained by someone because he is very friendly and gentle to people, he doesn't get on the table, he listens when we tell him no, he goes to the bathroom outside most of the time (that one still needs a little work), he doesn't chew on things, and he gets outside when we tell him to get out. I guess if we are going to have a dog, this is the one to have.

The littlest turns ONE

2012-02-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

Our littlest one turned ONE last week. I honestly cannot believe it! Has it really been a year? I am a true believer now that the older I get the faster time seems to go.

Anyway, Alexander's birthday brought me a bit of guilt. :-( On his actual birthday Jan. 25th, we were doing a big dinner with the Young Women and many of the Relief Society sisters at church. So, I told the family we were going to ignore Alex's birthday that day and just pretend it was the next day. So...the next morning Alex woke up to streamers on his door which he felt was his responsibility to clean up.

He had a normal day and we looked forward to cake and presents that night. The problem came when we ran out of time. Steve was not able to get home for an early dinner like we had planned. Nathan had a basketball game at 6pm and Alex is completely ready for bed by 6:30 every night. So, when I left to take Nathan we hadn't eaten yet, and Alex was already wanting to go to bed. Steve said he would try to keep him happy, but when I got home at 7pm it was a sad situation. We forced the baby to stay awake so we could sing to him and give him some cake. He lasted for maybe 10 minutes and then was beyond ready, so off to bed he went.

On Friday (1/27/12) he got to go to the Dr. for shots and stats.

Weight: 21lbs.13oz, Height: 30 inches,

He also got to sit in a big boy car seat for the first time! But, he was in a grumpy mood and it didn't hold the excitement that I always expect from this big step in life. :-)

So, on Saturday I was feeling bad and felt like his birthday had not been given the attention it needed. So, I made some lemon cupcakes, and we ate those and opened presents, and then shuffled him off to bed.

The upside is, I was taught growing up that if you get a cake and a present in the month of your birthday than you can consider it a Happy Birthday. Thanks Mom. :-)

Alexander is such a treasure in our lives. The boys have been given a great opportunity to help with a baby which is great for them. Jacob is definitely my biggest helper with Alex. He is so willing to come entertain him whenever I need help. Alex has decided at a young age he is determined not to get left behind. He likes to be were the boys are, and now he can even run around with them. When they are on the trampoline he always heads outside and stands next to the trampoline just to be close to them. We love our baby boy and are so happy he is in our family.

What the boys are up to

2012-01-23T09:06:00.000-08:00

We have had a great week. The weather in Brooklet just doesn't seem to want to get cold, so we are still in the 70's this week. Pretty crazy for the middle of January. But, people around here say it is payoff for dealing with the miserable weather in the summer. And I will take it.

That being said, we did have a day or two that the high was around 50 and the low was below freezing. Well, on that particular weekend, we had two males in our home who decided they wanted to do something different with their hair. Steve was just tired of his hair and couldn't seem to find the time to go and get it cut. So he headed in the bathroom and shaved it off. Then Brandon thought that was such a cool haircut, he begged for the same. So, as I was shaving Steve's neck and Brandon was asking please, please, please, for the hundredth time to get his hair shaved, I reached over and shaved a nice big spot off of his head, and then Steve did some art work with it before he cut it all off.

Steven is at an interesting stage in life. He really wants to find a hobby that he loves and he is having a hard time. He does love baseball when it is the season, but for the rest of the year, he has no interest in sports whatsoever. For a while he was determined to be an actor. He asked me constantly how he can become an actor and be on a show on Nickelodeon. I of course was not interested in this crazy dream and I told him that he needs to think of something else to be. I mean the boy is very uncomfortable being silly or doing anything in front of anybody except his own family. He finally stopped talking about that dream and has now decided that he wants to be an artist. This is a hobby I can support. I think it would be great for him to learn how to draw and be creative. This is his art studio he has made on his desk. Steve bought the drawing you see on the easel from Steven for $3, so he even has a little cash flow from his hobby already. Now to look into some art classes for him.

Speaking of Steven and his talents, he participated in a Technology Fair that our school district had this weekend. He used a program called google sketch up and he created this castle with it. He didn't take a place in the competition, but I am happy he did participate. He learned a lot about the program over the past month while he created and then deleted his pictures as he tried to decide what he wanted to have as his final project. He also got excited to create something even better for next year, as he saw all the projects that were in the competition.

One other cool thing to report this week...Steve has been hard at work in the garage on another wood project. Nathan got a bunny for Christmas from Santa Claus, but the cage he came in was just too small for him. So Steve headed to Lowes and got what he needed to make a castle for the little bunny. Steve got a table saw for his birthday last year and he has really enjoyed it. Here is the bunny cage that will now decorate our back porch. Steve did a great job. He is such a good wood worker.

All about Alex.

2012-01-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

Our baby boy Alexander is turning one this month! Can you believe it? I swear I was in the hospital having him last month. It has gone by super fast. I am sure it is because I have been so busy, but we are so thrilled he is a part of our family.

He started standing on his own earlier than all of the boys. At 10 months he would let go of the couch and just stand there. Then at 10.5 months he courageously took a step or two. Now at 11 months he is taking five or six steps. So, he is walking.....kind of. When the other boys started taking steps, they were committed, but I think since he started so young he is slower in his progress.

The first video was taken last Monday, but then I couldn't figure out how to get it on my blog so that is why you are just getting it now.

This video was taken after church yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen and heard Alex whimpering. When I went to find him, this is where he had put himself. It is Brandon's clothes drawers and he crawled in the bottom one and got stuck. He is stinkin' adorable isn't he?

Sittin' in the stroller

HappY 2012

2012-01-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

Does it seem like New Years Day was just a week ago?? Crazy, and Christmas is only passed by two weeks. It comes in so slowly, but goes so quickly. We had a wonderful New Year. On Dec. 31st we enjoyed the day and then were excited to stay up until midnight. We started a new tradition this year. At 10pm we all went to the table and wrote down our New Years resolution. Then we took the slips of paper and put them into balloons along with a glow up bracelet. Then I filled them up with a little party helium tank I bought and we went outside and let them go. It was a lot of fun thinking about what we wanted to accomplish this year and then sharing our thoughts with whomever may find our balloons.

On New Years Day we went and enjoyed church which started an hour later than normal. Then after our naps and dinner we went to the neighbors house so the boys could play with some sparklers. Our neighbors are also members of the church, and they have one 8 year old boy. They had probably 50 sparklers so the boys had a great time coming back and back for more. Then we went home and had some New Years Day ice cream sundaes. We loaded those sundaes up and they were fantastic. Definitely another tradition we will hang on to.

My New Years Resolutions are....1. lose some weight (of course) 2. get the kitchen clean every night before bed. 3. Do a blog at least twice a month! Can you believe it. I may have to miss out on some great pinterest ideas, but I will put blogging ahead of that on two Sundays a month. Lucky You. :-) Next up....Alexander's new talent.

Our yearly camping trip

2011-10-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

I love, Love, LOVE the school schedule that the boys have here in Georgia. Right when I am starting to feel totally overwhelmed with our schedules, the boys get a week long break and we get to just hang around and do what we want. They are on their fall break this week and it is so nice to just focus on the house and maybe even some organization.

We have gone on a camping trip in Oct. ever year that we have been in GA I think. This past weekend we went camping on a lake in Augusta. We were planning on leaving on Friday when the boys got home from school since they got out at 12:00. The problem was, I had no interest or time to plan the trip before Friday and when you are going camping there is a lot to plan. So on Friday morning, I planned a little and did a lot of hoping and just threw in what I had as I thought of it. We finally left home about 4pm. Luckily Augusta is only 2 hours away, but we still had to do a lot of the tent pitching in the dark. The boys did a great job helping Steve and we eventually did get to bed.

Alex watching the tent crew

The next morning we woke up to this scene taken from our campsite:

It was such a beautiful area! and especially at this time of year when the weather has cooled off a little and a lot of the nasty bugs have started to go away.The lake was huge and just such a beautiful scene. The boys enjoyed playing around the water and the woods.

During the day, Steve took the boys on a canoe ride on the water two at a time

Of course Alex stayed safely on the shore with Mommy.

They also went fishing right by our campsite one day.

And Steve always has to have a little relaxation time with all of the boys scratching his back or rubbing his head. He made up a very entertaining points game this time.

We even got the blessing of a full moon. It was so beautiful!

One night we were able to get Alex to sleep by himself, so we got to sit around the fire and listen to some of Steve's campfire stories. And the boys love his stories!

Speaking of Alex and his sleep, boy is this boy difficult when it comes to that. He cannot sleep if there is any noise around him. He just has to know what is going on and sits up and looks around with any sound. As you can imagine, this made camping a bit difficult with him. He had to wait and go to bed when I was ready to lay down most night. And during his naps, we had to send the boys out into the woods to play so he could sleep. Once or twice he fell asleep in the car and I was able to leave him in there for an hour or so without us having to tiptoe around the camp. Ridiculous. I know.
He did fall asleep in his stroller on the morning we were packing up. I gave him his binky and blanket and ignored him for long enough and he slept for maybe half an hour. A real miracle.

Now I do need to give myself a pat on the back really quick here. As most of you know, I Love to go to garage sales. I love to see what unique things people are getting rid of, or what kind of treasures I can find. I also LOVE getting a good deal. Well, some of those great garage sale purchases were really helpful on this camping trip. I found this collapsible 5 gallon water container for $2 at a garage sale last year. At our campsite there was no running water, so I would go a mile to the RV site in the morning and fill up my water jug and it worked out great. We used it to wash hands, get a drink, brush teeth, etc. It was perfect.

With every seat in the van now full, it is impossible to get us all, plus three days worth of camping supplies in the car. At one point I found this rooftop carrier thingy to carry some of our extra junk. Steve strapped it to the top, and put as much stuff as we could in it and away we went. Well worth the $20 I spent!

I do need to apologize to Alicia for the lack of an eggs-in-a-frame picture, but rest assured we had our fair share. As well as lots of other delicious camp food. I swear 90% of our camping trip is spent, cooking, eating and cleaning up. We love it though.

And we will look forward to our next camping trip.

What I learned this week

2011-10-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been a great week of learning for me, and I love the things I have learned, now I just need to implement them. I have been a little stressed with my Young Women calling lately. I felt like we had everything under control and moving along, and then things started changing, and people were getting moved to other callings and I felt like it was all falling apart. After a lot of thought, prayer, and long talks with people with great ideas, I am so excited about the changes now. I have gained a stronger testimony that the Lord cares very much what happens in the Statesboro Ward Young Womens and if I will just trust Him it will all work out.

I absolutely LOVED Conference this weekend. Especially both sessions on Saturday. I felt the Spirit so strongly and had great ideas come to my mind and many reassuring things said. Of course that is probably because of the above paragraph, but I just really loved it.
Because of this new very addicting website called Pintrest, I planned ahead and made Conference more enjoyable for the boys too. They each got a Conference basket with bingo, candy, hot chocolate, a new pen, a small notebook, and some conference activities in them. They enjoyed them and were able to stay a little quieter during the Sunday morning session. Thank you Pintrest.

Last night, it got down to 41 degrees here! Woohoo, I love the fall weather. I am so thrilled that it is here. Hopefully we won't have anymore hot humid days in 2011. I would Love it. Anyway, Steve decided it was time to do some fun "macho" activity with the boys, so they all slept on the trampoline. It is so funny because Steve goes to great lengths to make sure he is comfortable when he sleeps. So, he proceeded to pull a mattress out to the trampoline to sleep with the boys. Now we all know what happens when you sleep on the trampoline right? Everyone slides to the heaviest point. So, I guess all the boys would just slide to the mattress that Steve was on. Well, around 4am Steve retreated and came to bed with me. I guess it was super cold, the dew was getting everything wet and he was ready for some good sleep. Brandon eventually came in too, but the other boys held out until the morning. And then they proceeded to jump with the mattress and blankets and sleeping bags and pillows all day long. Oh the joys of the trampoline.

We also had our annual fall festival at the school on Friday night. We always go and spend money on junk, but I am happy because it goes back to the school. Here are Alexander and Steve as we were leaving.


And today, while I was taking advantage of having Steve around to help, I got out my sewing machine and I was hemming table clothes for YW that have been on a six month to do list. During that time, Steve was in charge of the baby boy. Can you guess what he did to keep him happy?

Sad Loss

2011-10-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

You see this beautiful red lawn mower that has been put to very good use on our property.

Well, it is no longer running. :-( Steve has been sooooo busy with school lately, and I really enjoy cutting the grass every once in a while. Since this week wasn't too hot and the grass was overgrown, especially in the back, I decided I would do Steve a favor and cut it. As I was working on the backyard just finishing the area that grows the most, the mower just stopped. No sputtering, no signs it just quite. When we looked at it later we discovered that it had no oil, and apparently engines don't like to run without oil. It had been leaking oil pretty bad for a while now and Steve always checks the oil when he mows, but since I was just filling in, I did not think to do that and now we have almost 1 acre of grass and no mower. I will let you know what we decide to do.

This one is just for fun.

Blog update!

2011-09-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

I have been told that it is time for a blog update??

Life in Georgia is GREAT! It is finally cooling down and we are going to really enjoy the fall weather. I have been keeping myself extremely busy, but I am tired of thinking about how busy I am. So, I am reprioritizing and I am going to keep on top of things if it kills me. :-)

The boys have been in school now almost 9 weeks and they are doing great. I love my straight A students. We still walk to school every morning so we are holing up our Brooklet reputation. I have also started a co-op with Brandon this year with 3 women in the ward whom I think are fabulous. He is loving it and I think it is pretty great too. It would be Perfect if it didn't cut into Alexander's nap schedule so badly. Brandon goes every Wed. and Thurs. from 9:30 to 12. We had the kids at our house last week and learned about the ocean one day and heat and fans the second day. I really enjoyed it.

Since I can't go back three months I will tell you about our weekend. On Friday some ladies from the ward got together for a salad luncheon. We all brought a salad of our choice and the recipe. It was delicious and a lot of fun. I love my Statesboro friends. I was supposed to have a garage sale Saturday morning, but I procrastinated calling the paper until it was too late, so I had to postpone that. So Saturday was spent doing whatever we wanted until 5pm when we had the missionaries over for a wonderful dinner. When they left I went to the General Relief Society Broadcast and loved it. Today (Sunday) was the Primary Program at church and it was so good. They sang "The Family is of God" for their first song and the second verse which is about father's was sung by Steve and our 4 boys that are Primary age. Steve bought them matching ties for the event and they looked adorable. They sang pretty good too. :-) I brought the camera to tape it but Steve brought me to my senses so I didn't record in Sacrament Meeting although I SSOOO wanted to. Tonight Steve made dinner and he made an Indian dish called Tikka Masala. Yum! It was great.

So, the boys have somehow broken my Kodak camera that I got for Christmas, but I have been able to get a couple of pictures from our old camera.

Alexander is 8 months old as of Today! Can you believe it. Here he is in the bath and then playing with Steve. When he is tired he laughs so easily and it is adorable.

Alex is definitely not from the same mold as the other boys. I have said this before and it continues to be true. He is totally crazy! He can't sit still for a single second. Always moving and turning and climbing. Because he is moving so much he is way ahead of where the other boys were at this age. He is already climbing up and holding on to the side of the couch. That is so young. I am curious if he will walk earlier. He is a very pleasant baby that sure loves his sleep. He still can't handle staying awake for longer than two hours which is a problem on busy days, but on stay at home days I love it. ;-)

Hopefully I will be back again shortly. See you then.

A week in the pool and the reception

2011-06-27T19:49:00.001-07:00

After the Petersen's wedding, they headed out for their honeymoon and the rest of us headed to Bakersfield. Most of the men left on Sunday or Monday to get back to work. Steve went on a business trip to Utah while we stayed at my Mom and Dad's house. We had a week ahead of us of relaxing by the pool before we had a reception to give. We were all so excited for this week because we knew we would have this time to spend together. I really love being with my family and just relaxing and enjoying each other. All week, we woke up, went out to swim and then shared dinner together.
My sister Laura's birthday was on Monday and to celebrate all the women went out to dinner. I Loved it! Happy Birthday Laura.

One of the days we went out to a produce farm in Bakersfield where they grow and sell all sorts of delicious food. We started out picking blueberries and they were so perfect right off the plant. Then we moved on to plums and apricots. They were all so good and we didn't even feel guilty about eating so much since it was fruit. We had a great time and I am glad we decided to go.

{fun corn pit found at the farm. did they think about what a group of boys would do in the pit?}
{The blueberries! We ate sooo many of them, and we didn't even make a dent.}
{Most of the group made it in this picture}
{Steven with the apricots and plums}

{rock candy}
{The baby who does not like to sleep on the go. Poor kid. :( }

By Saturday we had enjoyed hours of leisure and we were ready to get this reception together. I am little help when it comes to parties because I have no decorating skill or interest. Pretty much all aspects of the party I am useless with, but I am happy to help where needed if anyone finds a job for me. My sisters and sister-in-law are so good when it comes to these areas though and they got Mom and Dad's backyard looking amazing. I heard that it was just how Tawna envisioned it, so mission accomplished.

{Cleaning up for the reception}

{My older sister Alicia and her husband Scott at the reception}
{The boys put on some aprons and were in charge of picking up trash. They really got into it by the end of the night and were refilling drinks and bringing people cupcakes.}

The reception was a backyard barbecue with pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, rolls, and beans. For dessert they wanted cotton candy and caramel apples. Quite a difference from the typical wedding cake, but it was very good and very unique.

{cotton candy!}
{And one handsome little boy just for your enjoyment. }

The wedding and The birthday

2011-06-26T18:50:00.001-07:00

Oh were do I begin. Last week we got back from one of the most perfect vacations we have had in a long time.
{The preparation. 5 excited boys, 2 suitcases, and one messy room!}We flew to Los Angeles on a Thursday. No delays, no cancellations, no fussy children, just perfect flying and got to our destination by noon. Where we had the privilege of attending the temple that evening with Tawna who was taking out her endowments. I LOVE being in the temple with family. It just feels so right. After the temple we put the kids to bed in the apartments that are right there on the temple grounds and had ourselves a dinner party.
{Favorite in-laws}

{Krista and Emily who did a fine job of keeping the children alive while we enjoyed the temple both days}
{Baja Fresh. Delish!}
The next morning we woke up to streamers to welcome in Steven's tenth birthday! Yes, we now have a child in the double digits. I love it. I love the maturity, the responsibility and the better conversation that comes with having an older child. And what a great way to spend his birthday. With extended family in apartments on every side of you. We took all the kids to Chuck E Cheese for Steven's special day and spent a fortune on pizza since we never seem to have the coupon when we need it. We had a great time though while the kids played and the adults chatted (and played).
{Just chillin at Chuck E Cheese the day before their wedding.}

That night we had a beach barbecue with Tawna and Kory and all of the wedding party that was there at this point. It was a fun little get together. We built a fire and had hot dogs and chips while the boys went swimming in the frigid water. It was windy and chilly though so Alexander didn't last as long as the rest. I ended up in the van with him for the last little bit with the heater blowing. Most of the swimmers ended up in there with us as well. :-)
{Our attempts at keeping Alexander warm were failing. All he had on was a little summer outfit. :(}
{My cute little niece Eva}
{Yeah, it was a little cold. }
{The boys playing with my cousin Lauren whom the boys had the best time with}

Wedding Day. Saturday June 4th. Tawna and Kory were sealed in the Los Angeles temple. Eight of my nine brothers and sisters were there and it felt wonderful. The sealing was amazing with some thoughts and advice that I have recorded to use in my own life. I am so happy for Tawna and this next step she has taken in her life.

{All the siblings except Evan}

{Steven being so helpful. }

{The boys getting staged for the tree shot}

After the wedding we went to the wedding dinner hosted by the Petersen's which was so enjoyable. We left the kids behind again except for the babies and it was so nice just to sit in a nice restaurant and enjoy the day. Practically Perfect!

Jacob's birthday party

2011-05-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Jacob turned 7 on May 20th. He has never had an official birthday party, so we decided this was the year. Sometime at the beginning of May, he was nagging me (which he is super great at) about getting started on planning his party. Well, I like to put things off, so I would always tell him "later". Finally he went and got himself a scrap piece of paper and wrote down what he wanted. I should have taken a picture of it. It was in first grade spelling and handwriting, and he wrote down 1.who was invited, 2.what games he wanted to play, 3.what he wanted in the gift bags, 4.what he wanted for his presents, and 5.what kind of cake he wanted.

So, finally his birthday came around. He had requested breakfast in bed after he saw the joy it brought me on Mother's Day. So, we delivered.

Then he went to school and I brought in peanut butter cookies to share with his class.

After school we went to Applebee's for dinner which was very good!

His birthday party was the next day. My darling loving husband started off the day by cleaning out the garage. Our garage was a disaster! He emptied everything out and swept and rearranged and made it look wonderful. It was such a relief to be getting that garage clean that I didn't even care that things were not getting done for this party that started at 4pm. I think I got in the shower at 3:45!
Well, five of Jacob's friends did show up. We weren't completely done decorating when they got here, so I had them help me blow up balloons and hang the Happy Birthday sign. Steve tells me this would only fly with boys. Girls would expect things to be done and pretty when they arrived.

This turned out to be the absolute BEST and easiest party I have ever done. Remember the list Jacob made? When it came time to plan I just grabbed the list and went shopping and then followed the same list the day of the party.
First we played UNO

Next we had a water fight with water balloons and dollar store water blasters

When they started fighting or crying about the water fight, we had dinner. Steve made hot dogs and sliders that were delicious.

Next we did a pinata which was tons of fun and quite a hit!

Shared pinata candy with a four month old!

Then we opened presents

And had ice cream cake which was halfway melted by the time we ate it.

It was a great birthday party and I am so glad Jacob is a part of our family!

Last Day of School!

2011-05-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

Yea!! The boys are out of school for the summer. I love the school year plan here. They get out the last business day of May, and start the first business day of August. Then we get lots of week long breaks throughout the year.

The boys had their awards ceremonies today and they were lovely. If I just didn't have an infant who seems to only be able to sleep in his quiet bed. He was ready for a nap at 9am and we finally got done at 11:30. Oh the poor life of a fifth child.

Steven with his awesome teacher Ms. Peak. He had a great year with her!

Nathan is in the dark blue. Sorry, I had a fussy baby in my arms so Nathan got gyped. Jacob getting his award in Mrs. Childers class. This is the same teacher Nathan had last year.

So, the thing I am most excited about is the end of the year presents I got for the teachers. I am pretty bad at gift giving. I am not too creative and always have a problem coming up with something. Well, my friend Suzanne blogged about a Great idea that I thought would be really cute to give the teachers. Somehow I found the time and interest in doing a craft and made these great things for four teachers.

We filled them with a Wal-mart gift certificate and lots of candy. I was very happy with how they turned out. The only thing I did differently than Suzanne is I used Mod Podge for the final coat on the cans, so they were glossy.
Now we get started on a fun and wonderful summer! Yea!

2011-05-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

OK, I am bored with those pictures, so you all are getting some new ones. Since it is Mother's Day I am going to start by saying....I LOVE BEING A MOTHER! I think it is the very best, greatest, most wonderful thing that I could be doing at this time in my life. And of course my love for being a Mom comes from the great example of my dear Mom. She was always there for us and loved us so much and I always knew that. What a major difference that knowledge makes in a persons life. Through Moms loving service she made me want to be just like her. So, Thank You Mom for all you have done for me, and Thank You Steve for making it possible for me to be "just a Mom." I love it!

Now for some stories. Most of you know that we had a very unfortunate break down on the freeway a couple weeks ago. We were on our way to go through the open house of the Atlanta temple. We were all very excited for the opportunity to see the temple. But...halfway there, something happened to the van. There was smoke, bad smell, and the heat indicator went up to red. We pulled over and knew there was something very wrong. We hung out there on the side of the freeway with our five kids for over two hours when we finally (all 7 of us) got in to the cab of the tow truck and the guy drove us and our van 100+ miles back to our house. A very frustrating and disappointing day for us. The boys were crying and crying and saying they will never get to go to a temple now. I was very confident when my answer to them was, "Yes, you will go to the temple one day. You will just have to wait ten or so years. But, you WILL get there." Something was wrong with the transmission if you are curious.

The boys playground for that afternoon.

Here is Brandon. Helpful little Brandon. He went to get the mail in the rain, and this is what it looked like when he got to me.
Steve had the task of keeping Alexander happy one afternoon and he came up with this brilliant way to do it. He just bounced slowly with him for a while and Alex loved it. What a good Daddy!
The littlest Hughes boy. It is so strange for me to have a baby that loves to sleep on his back. He gets very angry if I ever try to get him to sleep on his stomach. He is so adorable to look at when he is sleeping.
Speaking of my baby boy! He is an angel. He really has become the best baby. All it took was figuring him out. He takes Zantac faithfully and it has really helped. Also, I have reread my "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book and am now taking the advice of the sleep expert and Alexander LOVES to sleep and is a happier child when he gets his sleep. The only downfall here is that he likes to be in his bed, in a quiet room to sleep. He doesn't want to be floating around town, and I have places to go sometimes. He also doesn't like to be awake for very long. Two hours max. So, if I have somewhere to go I need to be ready the minute he wakes up, and get one errand done at a time, then come home for another nap. Oh well, the newborn stage doesn't last forever right? One more thing about this little character. The other day he was crying in my arms as I was trying to get him to go to sleep. I had something boiling on the stove, so when he still hadn't fallen asleep after about five minutes, I got frustrated and just put him down on the bed to go check on the food. Well, low and behold, he snuggled up with his blanket and went to sleep! So, no more rocking this one to sleep, he just wants to be put down and left alone. He really is a whole new ball game for me. But he is a lovely little boy now.

Showing off his new onesie
Steve got out the Johnny jump up a while back to see if Alex would like it. It is now the spot you will find him most often. The boys love to play with him in it too.

March pictures

2011-04-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of good pictures from the camera that I want to share from the month of March.

I told Nathan that he could not get the trash can from the curb on his bike. After ten minutes of trying to hook it on somehow....

He decided to drag it this way: It just made me laugh. What a boy thing to do.
This is our only St. Patricks Day picture. Steven asked his teacher if he could color on his face with green marker, and she said Yes. I was a little surprised that she gave him permission, because Steven colored all over his face. But in her defense, she probably didn't expect him to go this far. Steven is a very messy person. If he can make a mess of himself or anything else, he will.
Also, a couple of weeks ago, Brooklet had dress up week like they do for Homecoming week in High School. One day they were supposed to dress up in clothes showing a profession they wanted to do when they grow up. What do you think of Steven's idea. :-0
This seems to be Mom's favorite activity whenever she comes to my house. I ALWAYS have unfolded laundry waiting for attention in my laundry room and Mom is just so efficient at getting it folded and even out of the family room. I am always so grateful when she does this service for me. I Love You Mom!
Steve had his spring break the week after I got back from Bakersfield. He wanted to take the family to Stone Mountain for his break. I blogged about this place last year when we went for Jacob's birthday. We really enjoy going there.

Daddy with the babe

Nathan on top of Stone Mtn.
We rode the cable car to get up the mountain, but decided to walk the path to get down. Here are the boys on our hike down.
Steve was practicing with the panoramic feature on our camera.

Baby Alexander

2011-03-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

{This picture was taken at the beginning of March, not recently, but it is so cute and I don't feel like finding the cord to download the recent pictures right now. :-)

As most of you know who read my blog....my sweet baby Alex is not the easiest of the Hughes boys. He was a PERFECT baby for the first two weeks, and then something went wrong! So, we dealt with it and got frustrated but just assumed that it was our turn to have a difficult baby. Well, he got really bad this week and I was so relieved that I had a Dr.'s appt today for his two month check up. After talking to a couple of friends this week I started to wonder if my sweet child may have this acid reflux that seems to be a lot more common in babies now. As I was telling the Dr. that when Alex cries for more than 15 to 20 minutes he spits up a really curdled, slimy spit up, the Dr. told me that if he is crying for that long he has either got acid reflux or colic. So, he gave me Zantac for reflux to see if we can solve the problem. He got his first two doses today and is such a better baby! It is amazing what medicine can do. Why didn't I get this back in February. I just kept thinking about when Laura was pregnant, and sick and they finally gave her medicine that stopped her from throwing up when she was towards the end of her fourth pregnancy. I just hope that this is not a fluke and he doesn't wake up tomorrow crying again. But for now he is a lovable, baby who is sleeping well once again.

At the Dr. today he weighed 11lbs. 10 oz. and was 24.5 inches. And he is as adorable as ever.

Another Great Weekend!

2011-03-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Bakersfield recently for Bryce's wedding. He is the fifth child in our family to be married. I am so happy for he and Serena.

My trip started out similar to all my other flying experiences and my flight was delayed two hours. I really can't win with the airlines. This time it turned out fine though. It was just me and baby Alex flying, which I was worried about because he is such a cry baby. He did really well on the plane though, it wasn't until the two hour drive from the airport to home that we ran into a problem.

The weekend was so enjoyable for me. All of my siblings were there for the wedding and it was wonderful to be with them. And I must say, as much as I LOVE my husband and children, it was kind of nice not to have to chase kids around and get them dressed up and make them food. I just got to hold my little baby and watch my sisters and sister-in-law run after their kids. Steve would have been fun to have around though. :-)

So, I got to Bako on Thursday evening, and Friday was their wedding reception. They decided to do the reception before the actual wedding so they could head out after the wedding was over.
(My niece Brielle with Alexander and I at the reception)
(The food counter. They had ice cream sundaes and a chocolate fountain with lots of fruit. Very Good)

On Saturday morning we drove to the Redlands, CA temple to see their sealing. It was such a nice day to be in the temple with them and so much of my family. Aunts, Uncles, cousins and Grandma came too.
(These are the Allred side grandkids minus my boys.)

(I LOVE this picture.)
Sunday was spent at Mom and Dads for a nice family dinner, and then I headed back home Monday. Flight was delayed into Savannah two hours by the way, so I landed at 1am instead of 11pm. I just didn't want you to think that I had smooth sailing on my way home. :-)

Our wonderful weekend

2011-03-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

Alexander is asleep next to me on the bed, and Brandon is playing the DSI in Steven's room. I have to get the house cleaned up for Fran and Lyle to come today and get to Walmart to prepare for scouts tonight. Do I dare take a minute and write about our wonderful weekend. I think I will!

Nathan Roger turned eight last Thursday and had the privilege of being baptized this weekend. In our ward they do family baptisms, so basically we choose the day and time, and it is a baptism just for Nathan. I really enjoy that because it personalizes it, but it also is more work for me. :-) It all came together though and was very nice. Mom spoke on baptism, and Steve spoke on the Holy Ghost.

My Mom and Dad and Fran and Lyle were all able to come for the weekend, and it was such a blessing to me to have them here.

As part of the baptism program, we had the boys sing "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." I loved it.

After the baptism, we headed out to eat at Ryan's which is a southern style food buffet. It was a very nice evening.

Then on Sunday morning, we got our newest little one all in white for him to be blessed. Now, I will tell you something. Alexander is a CRY baby! He is a wonderful sleeper, but when he is awake, he loves to hear himself cry. So, I was concerned about the blessing and trying to keep him quiet. But, for some reason he woke up Sunday morning in such a calm and happy mood. He was smiling at people and happy and quiet. I was amazed.

Steve gave him a wonderful blessing which included protection from his four older brothers. I loved the blessing. Alexander squawked a couple of times during the blessing, but not enough to bother anyone.

Once again, all the grandparents were able to be there for Alexander and it was so wonderful. I bore my testimony on those special experiences we have in our lives that help us feel closer to the Savior. From blessings as a baby, baptisms at eight, and the temple wedding that I will go to for Bryce next weekend. To possibly serving a mission as a couple. All wonderful events that are or may be happening in our family.

What a blessing family is and the gospel. It was a wonderful and memorable weekend.

Alexander Scott Hughes

2011-02-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

Baby Alexander Scott Hughes was born on Jan. 25th 2011 at 5:05pm. He weighed 10lbs 1oz and was 23inches long. He is a beautiful baby boy and we are so happy he is here.

Evan brought the boys to see their new brother at about 6:30pm, so they saw him very soon after he was born. They were all really excited to see him of course and it was all fun and exciting for about 15 minutes. Then they got restless and wild, and having all those people in the delivery room got crazy, so they left and got some Taco Bell for dinner with Evan.

Everyone has said that Alexander looks exactly like Brandon. And I totally agree, but Brandon did not look like him as a baby. What do you think?
{Alexander 1 day old ^}

{Brandon 1 day old ^}
{Brandon 3 weeks old. I think Alexander looks more like Brandon after Brandon got a little older. They do look alike to me in this picture, but not the top one.}

I stayed in the hospital 48 hours this time and in the past I have only stayed 24. I loved being in the hospital. In our small little town with such a quaint little hospital I had visitors all day both days and I thought it was so fun. Alexander would open his eyes for a quick second to see who came in the room and then he went back to sleep so people could hold him. And all of the visitors said, he didn't look nearly as big in person as those pictures made him look. A10lbs person is still a pretty small person.
{My Laurels}

I just went for his 2 week check up and he is now only 9lbs 15oz. He is supposed to be above the birth weight at the two week check up, but he is just not as aggressive of an eater as my other kids have been. He is fine going 4 or sometimes 5 hours without eating. I don't think Any of the other boys did that. I have to take him back next week to check his weight just to make sure he is gaining.

Labor and Delivery

2011-02-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

The end of this pregnancy was so different than the other 4, and I am so happy it all turned out OK. First of all, I have a friend in my ward who was due the same day as me. She is in real pain at the end of her pregnancies, so she decided to get induced on the 13th. Well, without me realizing it, that totally threw me off. On the 13th I started panicking thinking I was going to have this baby Any Day. Even though all nine months I had been telling people "All my pregnancies have been boys, they are all 9.5lbs. and they all come within 3 days of my due date." So, why did I start stressing at 10 days early? I was so anxious to get Evan here so he could take over while I was gone. Well, as you know Evan came, but the baby didn't, so we all kind of sat around and waited.
{This was taken on my due date 1/22. Evan and I took the boys out to a state park to go on a hike.}

I had a sore throat and a cough, so I guess it was better that little Alexander was waiting. Well, of course I went to ward council and church the day after my due date because I had no reason not to and the ward was shocked that I was there. I told everyone, I have an appt. with the Dr. tomorrow morning and I am going to see about being induced since all this baby is doing is gaining weight at this point.
The only other pregnancy that I interfered with the birthdate was Steven. I was two days overdue and I had been dilated to a 4 for like three weeks, so I went in and they broke my water. The rest of the boys came when they were ready, so I was very apprehensive about being induced. At the Dr. appointment she told me I am barely dilated to a 2 and in her opinion it would still be a couple of days, so we made an appt for the next morning to induce me. Well, when I left the Dr. office I started crying. Like full on crying and I wasn't sure why. I called Steve and he said maybe I should come home and take a nap since neither of us could figure out why I was crying about being induced when I was three days overdue. After talking to Steve I decided I needed to call my sisters or Mom and they would help me figure this out. Laura was the one I got a hold of and she did just what she was supposed to. She told me she was induced with Kea and it was her best delivery and it just feels weird to take this decision into your own hands and that was so true.{Taken on the day of the Dr. appt. Wow! I didn't feel as big as I looked. }

So, Steve and I went to the hospital at 6am the next morning leaving Evan to get the kids off to school. They broke my water at 8 and started pitocin shortly after.

Everything was going smoothly, but it was really starting to hurt. I have decided that going through labor while you are walking and standing is so much easier than when you are on your back in a bed. So, after some time I got an epidural. OK, so remember my last three pregnancies, I have gone in to labor on my own and have not used an epidural, so I was going with all the latest technology this time. The epidural was AAmazing! Within a short time it took all the pain away and I was totally comfortable. Right after I got the epidural the nurse told me to roll on to my back so she could check me and as she was doing that, she all of a sudden couldn't find the babies heartbeat. She sounded panicked, but I wasn't sure how serious this was. She got a heart monitor onto the babies head and his heartbeat was back, but it was a stressed heartbeat. It would beat at 60 and then shoot up to 170 then go back down to 80 and then shoot up to 150. The nurses and Dr. didn't like the sound of that at all and told me they were going to prep me for a C-section. Well, I lost it at that point. I Did Not Want a C-section at all. I was so mad at myself for forcing this baby to come and getting all these drugs and now I was going to end up on an operating table. I started bawling in the room with all those people around me. I just couldn't help it. I was so frustrated.
{They put this oxygen mask on me and said it would help Alexander get more oxygen and get his heart beat back to normal. It is funny how putting an oxygen mask on someone makes them immediately look like they are at death's door.}

Luckily the nurse said the baby seemed to be calming down and they were going to give him some time to have a normal heartbeat and then we would proceed as normal. I was shocked to see that it was like 1:00pm at this point. I had planned on having the baby within 4 to 5 hours like I had with the other boys. This was taking forever. So, now I just laid on the bed for a couple of hours while we let little Alexander rest. Finally they turned the pitocin back on and we finished the job. My epidural medicine was just running out when it was time to push, but I still couldn't feel a thing when I was supposed to be pushing. I have decided that if the epidural was a perfect science they would leave you just enough feeling to be able to feel when to push. I think I could have been a lot more effective. As it was I pushed for 45minutes and with the others I swear it was less than 15. The urge is just so strong to get that baby out.
With the pushing though, there is one thing I will never forget. Alexander's head came out and then shoulders and you know how at that point most babies just fall the rest of the way out? Well, not him. He was so fat his stomach was stuck. So I still had to give a couple more hard pushes to get his stomach and the rest of his body out. And I remember sitting up to push and seeing the Dr. just pulling the baby out like he was in a tug of war contest. It was crazy.
I am so grateful that this delivery story turned out the way I wanted. And I also learned a lot from the nurse after he was born. I was telling her I feel like I shouldn't have interfered with the birth date and she totally disagreed. She said a uterus is meant to live 39 to 40 weeks, after that amount of time it starts to break down. So, it is not as strong. And after 40 weeks your chance for meconium to get in the water goes way up which can be dangerous because it can get in the babies lungs. She said she would rather be a part of a 36week delivery than a 41 week. That totally surprised me and made me feel totally better about my decision. She said me being 40 weeks and 3 days was the longest she thinks any Mom should go. Very interesting. By the way....my labor and delivery nurse has a son in my tiger den and I totally loved her. She was the best!

We are Having a Baby!!

2010-11-18T07:31:00.003-08:00

So.... I realized about a month ago that I never let my far away friends know that I was having a baby! And this became even more obvious when I posted a pregnancy picture on my last blog. What I am a little embarrassed about is....what where you thinking of me in the picture at the lake where I was driving the boat. I look totally prego in that picture. I guess you just figured I was gaining some weight. LOL

Anywho....Steve and I had decided that we wanted to try one more time for a girl. In all honesty, I never got to the point that I was really ready for another baby. But, Steve really wanted to try again and I figured I could handle it, so we tried and sure enough after a couple months, I was pregnant. Because I was never sure of the decision, I have had some real issues during this pregnancy. With all the other boys, as soon as the baby was out I knew I would have another, but that wasn't the case with Brandon. And in this world 5 is a LOT of kids. So, with me not being sure I was ready for this and then having to take on the comments I would get for having 5 kids I was very self conscious. Which would probably explain the lack of information on facebook. I didn't wear maternity clothes until about a month ago, and I just never really talked about the pregnancy.

Well, here are the facts. I am due Jan 22nd 2011. I am 7 months pregnant. And I am having a BOY!! Surprise Surprise.

{This was taken before the temple last Saturday morning}

Now that I really can't hide the pregnancy anymore since I am in my 3rd trimester and I have 9lbs boys, I have finally come to terms with a fifth child and am getting excited. The boys are excited too, now that the evidence is more clear that there is a baby in my stomach. I also got an ultrasound DVD that I brought home for them to watch and they thought that was pretty cool. I plan on taking them on a tour of a hospital this Sunday just to let them feel a part of it. I am getting VERY excited to have a baby again. I love, love, love my babies. They are so good and they sleep wonderfully right there in my bed with me, and they eat good and are so adorable. I have always said that kids don't get hard until they learn to talk and give you there opinions. That is when the real challenge comes. Babies are just pure joy.

I am a little concerned with my crazy schedule with another little one, but I will have to make it work. I am currently the Tiger Cub den leader for our community, and we meet every Monday night, and I am the Young Womens President at church and we meet every Wed. night. Steve is also working full time with a one hour commute to and from work and is going full time to Georgia Southern, a university in our area, and he has classes every evening. On top of that, I like the boys to do sports so we had Steven in football for the past couple of months which meets every Tues and Thurs and sometimes on Sat. I am taking the winter off for sports, but they are all asking to play in the spring. I am not sure that is possible to be at baseball for Steven, and two different soccer games for Nathan and Jacob with Brandon and baby in tow and Steve at school. I will have to figure that one out.

K, one more thing about the baby. I have no idea what to name him. I realized recently that I have named my boys in backwards alphabetical order Steven, Nathan, Jacob, and Brandon. Which would mean I should name this baby an "A" name. I just can't decide if I love any of the names we have thought of. My wise friend tells me, don't stress about about the alphabetical thing and name the baby whatever I want. Which, I do love that advice, but there are no names that I love at this point. So, if anyone wants to give me their two cents in that area, I will take it. :-)

Birthday Week

2010-11-14T18:39:00.000-08:00

So, as you all know, I turned 34 last Wednesday. I had a great birthday and it is amazing how much more exciting birthdays are with facebook. Don't you think? Thanks for all of your birthday wishes.
The birthday celebrations started on Saturday when Steve and I were able to get two very good and fun babysitters for the boys and we headed off on our three hour drive to Columbia, SC to go to the temple. I made chicken salad and we had cheetos and grapes and had a nice drive and a nice lunch in the car. We were able to do a session together which doesn't happen as often as I would like it to, and then we headed back home. The babysitters were alive and happy, the boys were alive and happy, and Steve and I were rejuvenated and very grateful for the nice day. Cindy and Carina found the camera while we were gone and here are some of the fun shots they took:
Poor Cindy!

On Wed. Steve decided to work since he got Thursday off for Veterans day. The morning started off pretty rocky, but Steve called and sang Happy Birthday to me at least six times, so that was fun. That night I took the boys to Chick Fil A for dinner so I didn't have to cook and then headed to YW's. My wonderful YW had planned a little surprise party for me with cake and ice cream, ballons and streamers, chips and dip, and so on. It was so nice and it really made my day. So, we partied for half the time and practiced for Young Women in Excellence for the other half. It really was so nice. Then when I got home I had a clean house that Steve and the younger boys had worked on and they even made a chocolate marble cake.
Since Steve had the next day off we went to IHOP in the morning for my annual birthday breakfast. I got the chocolate pancakes and enjoyed them very much. Afterwards I went over to the salon for my friend to do my hair, I got a cut, color and highlights and she decided she wanted to see if she could make it straight. What do you think? I still can't get over Steve's reaction. He really thought he was seeing a whole new woman and was very excited about it. The boys even said when it gets curly again I won't be pretty anymore. How Rude!
{Here is a little pregnancy shot for you}

Well, Steve had class Thursday night so we still didn't go out to dinner and have birthday cake, which brings us to Friday. We made plans to drive to the city Steve works in to have a cheap game of bowling and spend some time together as a family. We haven't bowled since we moved back to the states, and we had a wonderful time! The boys loved it. Steve won of course, but not by much!
{This is Steven's friend Nash helping Jacob. He was with us and spent the night that night. He is such a wonderful boy.}
{Pizza while we bowled}

Then we came home to open gifts. Steve gave me {a sewing machine} which is exactly what I asked for and I love it!! No more sewing boy scout patches on by hand. And I hope to be able to learn a lot more than that on it too. Now just to find a place to put it.

Italicized words were added after Sarah's comment. Thanks Sarah! :-)

This is Halloween!

2010-11-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

We had some great Halloween celebrations last week. Here are some pictures of them:

Last Sunday night we decided to carve our pumpkins. I knew we were taking a risk that they would stay looking nice for one whole week, and they didn't quite make it. It is still warm here, so the pumpkins were rotting and caving by Thursday. Oh well, we still did the tradition, but the pumpkins were in the trash can by Halloween. :-)

On Wed. was the ward trunk or treat. We had a marvelous time like always and Steve made some delicious chili to share with the ward.

{Playing games}

{and eating chili}
Friday was the Brooklet Pumpkin Parade. I love this parade. It is a very small parade where the kids from Brooklet Elementary get to march down main street with their class and they dress up as the characters in whatever book they chose that year. Brandon and I very much enjoyed it.

{Jacob's book was "Harry the Dirty Dog"}

{Nathan's class did "Play ball Amelia Bedelia"}

{This was another 4th grade class, but I love this book and they did a good job. At the beginning of the line some kids hold the poster so you know what book they read. }{Then the students dress like the characters of the book and the class has decorated a pumpkin like someone from the book that they pull along in a wagon}

{Steven's classes book}
{He was dressed as one of the rowdy brothers in the book}

Then Saturday was the big Trick or Treat day. Our community is just christian enough to announce on the news and in the paper, that we will trick or treat on Saturday so that we wouldn't be breaking the Sabbath. We were thrilled. The weather was perfect, and the boys went out for just over an hour with Steve driving them around in the car. I got to stay home alone and pass out candy. It was wonderful. :)

{Steve did this make up for Steven. Pretty cool huh?}
{Nathan the Ninja}
{Jacob}{Brandon the cowboy on his horse}

Now I am ready to get rid of those spiderwebs out front and put up some Thanksgiving decor!

Camping in the blue ridge "mountains"

2010-10-25T06:05:00.000-07:00

We went camping as a family last weekend and had such a wonderful time. The boys and Steve took Friday off and we headed up past Atlanta to spend the weekend in the "mountains". The bumps that we saw once we got there, were far from mountains, but I guess to Georgians it is nice just to see the slight change in elevation. We got there Friday night and set up the tent just as the sun was going down, so that was a fun experience. We had grilled hamburgers for dinner at about 9:00pm and then we all cozied up in our huge three room tent that we bought last year. It is very nice having the whole family in one tent and still having plenty of room. As most of you know, Steve likes to camp in luxury, so both of us were on our own double thickness air mattress, and I slept very comfortably. The nights got just cold enough that you were cuddled in your sleeping bag and the days had beautiful weather.

On Saturday morning we woke up and made us some eggs in a frame. Then we headed to an apple orchard. There were lots of fun things for the kids to do, and then we picked some delicious apples off the trees on our way out.

{We went out to collect firewood first thing in the morning. Our fingers were really cold}

{success}
{On the jumping pillow}
{Steve and Steven decided to have a turkey leg for lunch}{Next, on to the petting zoo}

{Looking for the right apples}
{These are our apple treats. An apple fritter and apple pocket pie. Delish! This was right before Jacob got stung by a bee.}
{He got stung right there. The bee didn't leave his stinger in though, so he recovered quickly. }{Lastly a wagon ride through the orchard before we headed back to camp}

On Sunday morning we woke up and made more eggs in a frame. (of course) Then we did scripture study and a song with the boys. And then we headed out fishing. Our campsite was right next to Carter's Lake. Steve decided he wanted to rent a boat to fish from, so we were able to drive around the lake and play for four hours. Not much fishing went on. There seemed to be one problem after another, but we all had a wonderful time.
{Thank goodness for little boys}

Monday morning we packed up and headed home. Steve had a 5:00 class he had to be to.

School's OUT!

2010-06-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

K, I am not going to write this blog tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But I decided to title it tonight so you can see the Jacob's birthday one that I started five days ago and just finished. So enjoy that one for now. I will be back tomorrow. or the next day. or the next day. whatever.

Jacob turns 6 (but doesn't look a day over 5)

2010-05-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

Little Jacobie just had his 6th birthday! He does not seem or look six years old to me, but sure enough he is. :-) Fran and Lyle were able to stay for his birthday too which was wonderful!

For his birthday I went to the school and had lunch with him in the cafeteria. Brandon stayed home with Nana and Papa, so it was awesome to be just me and him (well, and the rest of the lunch room).

After lunch I headed home to get the brownies that he passed out to his class.

Then I picked all the boys up about 20 minutes early from school and we headed to the movie theater. We saw "How to train your Dragon."

Then we meet up with Steve at "Ryan's" which is a southern food buffet restaurant here.

Cake and ice cream was next

and then the presents.

From Steve and I, Jacob got a new lightsaber that makes noise and lights up. From Nana and Papa he got some money, and a tatoo maker thing. And then he got all sorts of birthday money in the mail. Aunt Kristin and Uncle John, Grandma Great, and Grandma and Grandpa Allred. Thank you all for thinking of Jacob. I am going to take him on Saturday to spend all that money.

And then to finish the evening off we got a sweet phone call from the Skinner family. They called and asked Steve to put them on speaker phone and then with everyone gathered around in clear and beautiful voices they sang Happy Birthday to BRANDON!. Hahaha it was hilarious. Steve corrected Laura and she couldn't believe she got the wrong nephew. I told Jacob that they were just joking with him and wasn't that a good joke. He honestly wasn't paying much attention anyway, so it wasn't like he was offended. But it was very thoughtful of them to call. We love you Skinners.

Now for those 6 wonderful things about Jacobis:

1. Jacob has a love relationship with his Crocs that I have only heard of girls having with shoes. He asked me every morning, including in the winter what day it was to find out if he could wear crocs, cause he is not allowed to on PE days. It just made his day when he could wear them to school. Often times I also need to tell him to take his shoes off when he is getting in to bed. He is not allowed to wear them to bed!
2. Jacob has these adorable little things on his face called freckles. And he seems to just get more and more. When he was smaller Steve would ask him what is all over your face, and Jacob would respond, "polka dots" except he had a lisp when he said his "s" so it sounded adorable. Because of that, whenever Steve would come home from work, he would ask Jacob if he could have a "polka dot hug". That was a special kind of hug that only Jacob could give. So, Jacob would hug his Dad and Steve would say that he got one of his polka dots. Steve still asks Jacob to give him polka dot hugs and Jacob is always more than willing to share those polka dots.
3. Jacob has been a star student in kindergarten this year. Once again I am amazed that a kid who went to school not recognizing all the letters of the alphabet can come out of Kindergarten ten months later and can Read! He read "Green eggs and Ham" to me the other day and did 95% of it by himself. Amazing. And he is well behaved at school too which is a big relief for me.
4. He played his first year of sports this year and choose soccer. He did AWESOME! And I was really surprised. He had no idea how to play when he started, but by the end of the season was kicking the ball the right direction, stealing it from the other team and making goals. He did great.
5. Jacob likes to tell every detail of a situation. Especially if he thinks he was wronged. If someone bothers him or hurts him, he will come and tell me every little thing. His story will go on for fifteen minutes. Now if you know me, you know that I don't let it go on for very long before I ask him to be quiet and deal with the situation, but I still laugh sometimes at him going on and on and on.
6. I posted this long enough after his birthday that I can tell you, he lost two teeth since his birthday. Birthday was on Thursday, he lost one at school on Monday and one at school on Tuesday. I have never known anyone to loose two teeth that close together, but he did and everything seems to be fine. His teeth are tiny though! Oh and the tooth fairy took four days to come to him! She must be getting old and very forgetful. We have come up with some valid reasons for her tardiness though. I am sure she didn't expect him to be loosing teeth this close to his sixth birthday, so she wasn't checking in on him yet. :-)

Stone Mountain

2010-05-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

In the middle of May my in-laws Fran and Lyle came for a visit. We started their stay off with a trip to Stone Mountain. It is a small amusement park near Atlanta that Steve and I had heard was lots of fun. We drove up Friday after school and stayed in a very nice $80 hotel. Saturday morning we headed over to the park. I thought it was such a cool park. Not nearly as expensive or crowded as Sea World or Disney, but we all still had a great time. The boys Favorite stop is this place called the "Big Red Barn" and I really don't even know how to describe it. There are about 2000 soft squishy balls all over the place and then four stories of machines that suck and blow these balls all over the place. You can put them in guns and shoot them, or throw them at whomever is in your way. There was a huge machine that went up the middle and about every 15 minutes a siren would go off and it would spit out tons of balls all over the place. The boys loved it and it was great fun to watch them play.

{Jacob is collecting balls in his bag so he can go feed them to the machines.}
{This was one of Brandon's favorites. You just put four balls in this thing, turn the wheel and the balls drop off at the end and fall to the first floor from the second floor. }
{Steve was entertaining Brandon most of the time we were here, and whenever Steve needed a rest he would sit on a bench and have Brandon fill up like four bags of balls. It was so funny cause Brandon was trying to put so many in his arms and he kept losing one at the top every time he added on at the bottom. We were enjoying watching him. }
Another thing we went on was the cable car that took us up to top of stone mountain. Once we got to the top there was a huge area of rock that you could go out and explore on. And you could look down over the Atlanta area. It was beautiful.

{You see us down by the chain link fence}
{Fran and Lyle in front of stone mountain. There is a carving of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis on the front.}

They also had a "4D" movie that was about 20 minutes that was lots of fun. You wore your 3D glasses, but it also spit water at you and your seat moved with the earthquake, and occasionally we would feel big gusts of wind on the back of our neck.

Then that evening we waited until dark for the laser show to start. They put pictures up on stone mountain made from lasers. The theme was southern music and so a lot of the songs were about Georgia and Alabama. It was really neat to see.

Because of the laser show we got out of there way late. We left Atlanta about 11 and had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. Steve once again got us safely home at 2am where he crashed in bed for a couple hours before heading to church the next morning.

New York For Jessica's Birthday!

2010-05-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

NYC blog minus pictures. I will be getting pictures next week and will add them.

On April 22nd I flew to NYC and had the first of a long list of vacations over the next couple of months. Jessica Sue was having her 30th birthday on the 24th and my sisters Alicia and Laura and my Mom and I decided that that was a number that should get some special recognition. So...we all flew to her house in NYC where she is working as a teacher at an inner city school(her spanish really comes in handy for this job) and where she just graduated with a Masters in Education. She is one amazing women who has so many things going on. She always seems to be doing something to help someone else. She is awesome!

Anywho... so I got to NYC on Thursday night and we immediately hit the town. Jessica and I meet up with Alicia, Laura and Mom who had been touring all day in the city, and we went for a walk along the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a very cool walk especially at night, and a great opportunity for me to catch up with my family that I haven't seen in a while. Jessica gave us some pretty interesting facts about how the bridge was built and some of the tragedies that came from the building of it. After our walk we went out to dinner. I think it was about 10pm at this point. Only when I am on a childless vacation can I go out to dinner at 10pm. We went to a popular pizza place and had some of the best pizza any of us had ever tasted. MMmmm MMmmm! What a way to start the trip.

The next day we started out with a stroll through Columbia University campus. I loved the older feel of this school. You could tell the buildings were much older with a lot of history.
Then we walked through Central Park. This is one of the places that I didn't make it to last time I was in NYC when I turned 30. It was such an amazing park. Right there in the middle of the city of skyscraper after skyscraper you have this huge area where you get to enjoy nature. It was a brilliant plan from the city planners.
For dinner we went to Chinatown to one of Jessica's favorite restaurants and had real Chinese food. It was actually very good. I loved it and was happy we went. For dessert we went to a place called Rice to Riches. It was just like an ice cream shop but it had a bunch of flavors of rice pudding instead of ice cream. It was interesting. I didn't love the taste of it, but it seemed to be a very popular place. I shared a rocky road rice pudding with Jessica and just kept thinking that if I am going to eat this it might as well be ice cream. :-)

Saturday morning was Jess's birthday! And we started it off perfectly at the temple. She works at the temple every Saturday morning and decided to go even on her birthday. She left about 6am and we caught up with her for a 9am session. I love going to the temple, and loved being there with my sisters and Mom. It was wonderful. After that we headed to an Owl City concert that Jessica's good friend Christy had gotten her tickets for. Christy coming to town was a surprise for Jessica and I am so happy she decided to come for Jessica's birthday. The concert was strange, but it went by quickly. I just cleaned out my pictures on my camera while I waited for them to be done. And then for one of the highlights of the trip. We got to go see "Lion King" on Broadway! I love seeing shows on Broadway and this one was amazing. The scenery and costumes were awesome. I loved it and was so happy to be there. After the show we went out for dessert to Chocolate By the Bald Man. Wow! this was definitely my kind of restaurant. They had so many chocolate choices it was amazing. And I was hungry for real food so I got tacos, but my sisters let me have a bite of their chocolate. So I got the best of both worlds. I will definitely be repeating that experience next time I get the chance.

Sunday was our last day in NYC. We of course started it at church. It was fun to be in a singles ward for the day. Even if Jessica couldn't be with us. She had Stake assignments and had to go to the spanish ward that day. On our way home from church we got to ride in a yellow cab. Yahoo! and then went home for a short nap before we all went our separate ways to catch our flights back home. What an amazingly awesome trip that I can't wait to do again.

On my way home I missed my connecting flight from Atlanta to Augusta cause the plane from NYC took off late. So, I got one more day of vacation and spent the night in a hotel in Atlanta by myself. Then flew into Augusta wide awake instead of late at night and had to hit Target before heading back to Brooklet. :) Perfect ending.

Easter and Spring!

2010-04-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

So after our camping trip we were so looking forward to a quiet weekend at home watching conference. That is just what we did and it was wonderful.

On Saturday morning Brandon woke up in our bed and said "I need to go pee." Which was strange since I hadn't talked to him about peeing in the toilet for a couple of weeks. Then he jumps up and runs in the bathroom and takes his diaper off. At that point I figured I better go make sure everything was done correctly. And it was! He had just decided to be potty trained. He did awesome that day. Since then we have had a minor incident or two. For some reason he doesn't tell me when he has to poop. He has done that in his underwear a couple of times. But if I see him trying to hide somewhere or looking like he has to go and I ask him, he says he has to go and does great. I don't know why he hasn't figured that one out yet. Also, he thinks the bubbles that are in the toilet after he pees are cool, so there have been a couple of times that he comes out with wet hands and he has stuck his hand in the toilet. Nasty! I hate that. But for the most part he is done and we are all thrilled.

Saturday morning was spent planting the garden. We had an awesome garden last year, and are so excited to see what we can create this year. Steve even bought some topsy turvy things to see how well they work. They are looking good so far.

{strawberry and tomato topsy turvy hanging from a For Sale sign post. Steve is so smart! }

Then we enjoyed conference for the rest of our Saturday.

Sunday morning after Easter Bunny excitement, Steven gave us a Family Home Evening Lesson on the story of Christ's death and resurrection. He did a very good job and it was great to spend that time talking about Christ. Then Steve and I helped each boy bear his testimony about Christ and we each took a turn too. It wasn't necessarily spiritual, but it was a great starter to get them comfortable with it.

{Jacob with some of his Easter loot. The Easter Bunny brought these slingshot airplanes that were super cheap, and they are very cool. You can shoot them so far. Jacob took his for share day this week.}
{Easter Bingo we played after our lesson. Bad idea to use jelly beans when playing on the couch. They wouldn't stay put.}

We again watched Conference all day Sunday and then for dinner we had pulled pork which is called a "Boston Butt" here in Georgia. It was great!

{The boys had the opportunity of watching the first session of conference with us, and this is how Jacob, Nathan and Brandon enjoyed the session. Brandon got sent to his room and is asleep under Jacob's bed. }

This week has been so nice to have the boys back in school. We went to the 911 center on Monday night with the tiger cub scouts to see how they communicate with and help the community. Brandon and I went to playgroup on Tuesday with the church group and it was SOO HOT at 10:00am that we didn't last nearly as long as we usually do. Wednesday I did an activity for the YW of making care packages for the missionaries. Thursday was going to be a crazy afternoon with 3 different ball games in two places at the same time, but as we were walking out the door to go we got a call that everything was canceled. We were under a tornado watch. We got some awesome thunder and lightning and a decent amount of rain but no tornado thank heavens. Friday morning I went on a field trip with Jacob's class to Georgia Southern University. We went to the wildlife center where they did a bird show and then took us on a walk to see some of the animals in the wetlands. It was a great field trip and I enjoyed spending time with Jacob. Brandon was at my friends house. The afternoon was relaxing, especially since Steven went to a friends house for a couple hours after school. It always surprises me how much easier things are even with one child missing. Now today we did sports in the morning, set up the pool and now Steve has taken all the boys fishing and I am here alone again. Yahoo! He must have taken my hint in my last post. :-)

{Here is a video of the Easter Egg hunt. This is one of the MANY reasons I LOVE Steve. He sang this song for a good twenty minutes as each boy took a turn finding an egg. I think you all will appreciate his song abilities. It makes easter egg hunting so much more fun!}

Spring Break campout

2010-04-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

Wow! I love spring break. The weather is great, and there is so much to do. Our spring break started on Friday night with Swing Into Spring! That is opening night of spring sports where the teams get to run through a tunnel, there is food and bounce houses, and then it all ends in fireworks. We have three boys playing sports this spring, and it has already proven to be almost too much for me. On Friday night Jacob and Nathan both played their first Soccer game. This is the first time our family has played soccer. So, Nathan runs ahead of us to get to his game on time, and when I get there everyone is looking at me. They wanted to know where his shin guards are. What?? I know nothing about any shin guards! Well, he can't play without them. Great, so there is my first mistake. Well, the coach comes up with this brilliant idea that maybe one of the other teammates can just switch with him when she subs them out. Sounded good to me. The problem was the girl she asked to share had these guards that you have to take shoe, and sock off to slip them off of her foot. So I am taking her shoes off and putting her guards on Nathan when she says to me. "I think I need to go tell my Mom". OOPPS! I turn around to a Mom on the other side of the field looking at us with a "What the CRAP" sort of look on her face. So I quickly finish switching then run over to her to explain. I said he would just wear them for five minutes and then I would switch them back. That was embarrassing.
Right after that Jacobs game started on another field. So for the rest of the hour I was running with a two year old between the two games, not really being the supportive parent I should be for either of them. Steve was working late that night so he could make up for time he lost to go to school. He did make it for the ceremonies though. I am just going to have to be better at having three kids in sports I guess. :)

Even after that frustration I took the boys on a fantastic camping adventure Monday morning with two other Moms in our ward. No Dads! Not that we wouldn't have loved to have the Dads, they were just all busy with work. We had 3 Moms, 12kids (including 3 in diapers) and 2 young women with us. The kids did an amazing job at starting the fires. I got the hot spot of cooking over the fire which I loved. And I would say we ate pretty dang good during our trip.

The boys hard at work putting up our new 3 room tent. Love the tent! Hate the set up.

This is Nash, a 9 year old boy that stayed with us the whole time. He was awesome!Hot Dogs one night.
See the lake just behind our campsite. We spent some time letting the kids swim and fish there.

We ate lots of smores
Let the kids chop some wood
There was also a playground right next to our campsite which was wonderful. The two year olds stayed busy there.
We went on a great one mile two hour hike
The lovely brown river. This is pretty much how all the lakes and rivers in Georgia look.

We had such a great time and I am so happy that I have friends who are brave enough to go camping. :)

What's new?

2010-03-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Something strange yet Wonderful is happening today! My dear friend Shawnna invited Brandon over to play so that I could have some time to do whatever I wanted. So, here I sit in an empty house and it feels amazing!! I could count on one hand how many times I have been in my house by myself. I am so out of my element and am not sure what to do with myself. But since I had a heart to heart with Alicia about blogging a couple days ago I decided that this would be a good use of my uninterrupted time. There is too much of our lives that you are missing out on because I am not keeping up with my blog!! So here is the latest.

BRANDON:

Brandon has made some great strides since the New Year. He is now 2.5 and such a smart boy. He had a tooth ache sometime in February (getting his back molars) and did not want to suck his binky. He said it hurt his mouth. So, I jumped at the chance to take it away. It was THE EASIEST binky removal ever. Not a tear. So that is gone now, and with it went his precious blanket. Apparently to him they were a packaged deal. Without me even realizing it he started to go to bed without the blanket and is broken from that habit now too(sorry Aunt Laura). I thought that was very interesting though.

He also has decided that two and a half year olds don't need naps anymore, so we are going through that annoying period of an extremely exhausted 2 year old come 4:00pm. He sometimes takes a nap at that time, and then stays up until 10 or 11 watching netflix on the computer. He still has not done the potty training thing yet though. My rule is they will be trained by the time they turn three, so he has a couple more months and then he is DONE!! :)

JACOB:

Jacob is still enjoying kindergarten and is very well behaved. I went to a parent/teacher conference the other day for him, and she said he is well above where he is expected to be at this point in the year. As we were talking I mentioned that he is a great helper at home because he didn't go to Pre-K but instead stayed home with me doing dishes and laundry. The teacher was shocked and amazed that a child who didn't go to Pre-K could be ahead in his kindergarten work. I wasn't. We could all teach our kids Pre-K stuff if we want to.

NATHAN:

As you know, Nathan just turned 7. He is doing wonderful in school. It seems that he has worked out his bad behavior and is doing great in his class. He enjoys scouts and is now playing soccer afterschool. We have invited one of his friends to come home with us two days of the week and we are all enjoying that very much. He raced in his first pinewood derby race this year, and took first out of the three tiger cubs. :)

STEVEN:

Steven just started up baseball again, and he is doing so much better. He really loves the sport. I just wish he had more athletic ability. He is still getting A's in school and just took a test to be in Quest which is like an honors program. We really hope he gets in cause it is a great program.

STEVE:

Steve is doing awesome things. He started back at college in January and is taking 12 credits at Georgia Southern. He is handling the busy schedule so well and is even getting to work before 8am most days!! He doesn't see the boys Monday or Tuesday cause he is gone the whole day. But he is getting great grades and is really committed to school right now. He was recently in charge of a joint YW/YM activity where he did a scavenger hunt. It was lots of fun and the kids loved it. He is also getting geared up to get our garden planted which is going to be awesome. He also has taken on the hobby of making beef jerky. We got this beef jerky gun at a garage sale, and his friend gave him a dehydrater, so here he is making his own "slim jims".

And last but not least, he has purchased himself a new pet. He bought a ball python who now lives in our room and eats a mouse a week. He is a very nice looking snake and the boys and Steve love him.

ME:

As most of you who read this blog know, Steve and I started a biggest loser contest with my side of the family last week. So, that is something that I am thinking a lot about although I lost no weight the first week. But...with Brandon not taking naps anymore he and I were getting so bored at home and didn't know what to do with ourselves. Brandon had even started taking hour long baths for entertainment.

Well, there is a gym here that about 10 women from church go to and they invited me to come try it free for a week. I went last week and I LOVE IT!! They have free babysitting, so Brandon can go in and play with friends while I walk on the treadmill or do a weight lifting class. It feels so good and makes me feel like I am doing something important with my time. I just did a body pump and a body attack class this morning. AWESOME.
I was also given a popcorn maker from Laura for Christmas and put off opening it thinking it was going to be complicated (dumb I know). Well, I decided to open it and try it out at YW's one night, and we have been popping it like crazy lately the kids love it. We use it as a form of entertainment when people come over.

Nathan's 7th birthday

2010-03-04T06:45:00.004-08:00

Nathan is now the big 7! It is so fun watching the boys grow up, even if they do seem to be getting harder to handle. :)

Nathan had a very fun birthday yesterday, and is looking forward to a great birthday party on Saturday. In fact he is inviting everyone he sees to his party. Even when I am standing right there, and I say no we can't invite that boy we already have too many people coming. He proceeds to tell the boy "K, the party is on Saturday, it is at my house, my address is..., my phone number is....." The whole time I am standing there saying as politely as I can "He can't come, please stop telling him all of our information!" Like my Mom says, I think our children get too good at tuning out Mom's voice.

Anywhooo. For Nathan's birthday I brought chocolate cupcakes to his class. I spent all morning making these darn things because I have only one muffin pan that holds six muffins. I needed 24 and they take 20 minutes to cook. So I finally get to the school, and we all enjoy our cupcakes. N had told the whole class about his birthday party so all the girls were asking me if N can't have girls at his party. Which I politely told them that is right.

When we were done with the cupcakes I signed Nathan out early so we could go to the book fair, and then he would come home with me just half hour early. At the book fair the Primary president from church was volunteering and talked to N about his birthday. She asked him what he wanted, and he said I just want a dog! Well he has been asking for a dog for about a year, but I am holding off one more year until he is eight and Steven is almost 10, so that they can do the bulk of the work for the dog. Nathan knows this, so there was no surprise. But when we got out to the car, he started bawling saying "I want a dog, I want a dog. This is the worst birthday ever!" Wow! He got to spend a little time in his room for that tantrum, and a warning that his birthday may have to be cancelled.

Well he calmed down in the afternoon and enjoyed his day. We went to Ryan's for dinner which is all the boys favorite (including Steve). Then we came home for presents cake and ice cream. Perfect birthday.

He got a card with $$ from Aunt Kristin and Uncle John.

He got a card with $$ from Nana and Papa, and got to talk to them on the phone yesterday.

He got a very cool nerf gun from G and G Allred, and got to talk to grandma.

And from Steve and I he got a Star Wars Leapster game. (That is a good replacement for a dog isnt' it?)

So now we look forward to his party on Saturday. I think we are going to build a fire and do hot dogs and I gotta think of some fun games to play.

7 wonderful things about Nathan that I love.

1. He is very considerate of others. He doesn't like to see people hurt or upset, and tries to defend them when he can. Including when Steve or I is getting one of the other boys in trouble for something and there is Nathan telling us why we shouldn't be mad at them.
2.He is a very lively excitable boy. Yes it can make things hard when he needs to sit still, but when it is time to have fun, he is the one that can make that happen.
3.He is a smart boy. He is a fantastic reader and continues to get A's on his report card. The behavior side of the report card has some marks, but the grade side is right where we want it.
4.He is excited to start soccer this year. He has never played, but is really looking forward to running around and kicking the ball. Perfect for him wouldn't you say.
5.He is really enjoying scouts and did great in the pinewood derby. So great in fact that he wants to have car races at his birthday party. :)
6.He is my most cuddly child, and I love that. Days can go by without me really touching Steven and Jacob (except for kisses goodbye and to bed) but if Nathan is needing a hug, he just comes up and gets one. Along with saying "I love you Mom." What a great quality in him.
7.He is maturing so much (FINALLY). I have been excited for Nathan to mature a little bit just to keep him out of trouble, and keep me from being frustrated with him. He stays out of trouble at school for themost part and seems to make better choices in general. We are not completely there yet of course. The bus driver had to talk to me the other day because he won't sit down on the bus even after being told ten times, and he got in trouble in primary because he wouldn't sit down and shut up, and was turning the lights on and off in the primary room. But.....we are making progress.

LOVE that Nathan!

Fun in February

2010-03-04T06:45:00.003-08:00

January happenings

2010-03-04T06:45:00.001-08:00

New Years with the Kirkhams

2010-01-17T07:13:00.000-08:00

We had a very exciting New Years! Our friends the Kirkhams (met them in Germany, now they live in North Carolina, just four hours from us) were willing to come with their four kids to join us on New Years. We LOVE their company and were so happy to have them here.

On their drive here, they go through S. Carolina which is a big fireworks state. So they stoppped at one of the stores and got us some perfect fireworks for our party.

We made cheese fondue for dinner which was very fun for the kids. Then we played a couple of games and waited for midnight. Brandon asked to go to bed at about 10:30pm, but the rest of the kids stayed up for the party. We had planned on building a fire out back, but it rained up until about 11:30, and then it cleared up for us to go shoot fireworks.

(Starting to get tired)(Oz, Tori, and Steve playing Settlers)

Oz and Steve had a great time with their toys of course, while the kids watched from the trampoline.

After that excitement was over the parents went to bed and we let the kids sleep out in the family room watching a movie. They thought that was pretty exciting. I think all the kids were finally asleep by 2am. Which meant sleeping in for the next morning. Most of them woke up at 10am

We then made some chocolate pancakes for the sweets lovers in the house, and breakfast burritos for the salt fans. It was a fantastic breakfast

I love having the Kirkhams over and am so happy they live close enough for us to see them often.

CHRISTMAS

2010-01-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed Brandon's santa outfit so much last year, I thought we could make it last one more year!

Christmas was wonderful as always....

Steve got a new Telescope from Santa and some massage oil from me.

I got $$ to go towards my trip in April to visit Jessica in NYC for her birthday and a popcorn maker from Laura that I think is going to be so much fun.

Steven also got the telescope from Santa, and he loves his pocket knife from Mom and Dad and the science kit that G&G Allred gave him
(One of the projects in the science kit)

Nathan got a remote control plane from Santa and some other random presents. For some reason that boy never plays with what he gets for Christmas.

(Nathan is using his foot to get into that present)

Jacob got a bake oven from Santa, and a top secret bank from G&G Allred that he loves. It has to detect the right voice before it will open, and Jacob loves that it won't open for anybody but him. His password is "YES".

(This is his SpongeBob snow cone maker he got from the Seraydarian's. The boys have big plans for a snow cone stand this summer.)

(The three older boys got guns from Nana & Papa. We are really going to turn these boys in to hunters.)
Brandon got a really cool ride on toy from Santa that is big enough for all the boys to use. That was my favorite Santa gift.

We had so much fun opening presents, eating quiche and then sleeping on Christmas Day. It was very enjoyable. And I am getting used to it just being "us" for Christmas.

Steven's new blog

2009-12-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

Steven has been a little bored over this Christmas break, so he decided to start a BLOG! (Thanks Davin for the idea.) :) His blog is at the top of my links. Enjoy!

Christmas Eve

2009-12-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

We did a lot of new things this Christmas and it was lots of fun. First off, Steve found someone from church to go hunting with, so for the past week he has been hunting five or six times. After a couple of times of going by himself, Steven decided he wanted to join Dad, so they have been going together. On the morning of Christmas Eve they left at 5am to go see if they could shoot a deer. Steve has gone hunting a number of times in his life, and has never even seen a deer. Well, on the 24th he calls me from his tree stand at about 9:30am and tells me that he just shot THREE Deer. There was a group of five, and when he shot the first one, the others did not run away like he thought they would. They just jumped a short ways down the road, and so he shot two more before they finally got the idea. Pretty crazy. I asked how Steven felt about the whole thing, and I guess he was OK with it, until they skinned one of them. Then Steven was bothered by it. But I guess he was OK with the shooting part.

It has been pretty cold here, especially at 5 in the morning, so Steven is trying to stay warm, not getting ready to rob a bank. LOL

So, later that night after Steven had a nap, and Steve had put his deer on ice, we began our festivities. We had our traditional KFC for dinner, but this time I bought some cute Christmas plates to eat off of, and we lit some candles to make it a little more special. YUM!

After dinner we went out caroling. Our backyard neighbors have a tradition of doing this, and we wanted to join them this year. We needed to give our twelfth day of Christmas anyway. So we drove around to about nine different houses with plates of cookies and sang a couple songs to each. It was so much fun, we all really enjoyed it. The only problem with it was, we still wanted to do our traditional Christmas Eve play and open one gift and get things ready for Santa, and by the time we got home from caroling we didn't have much time to do what we wanted to. We did get it all done though, even if it was in a rush and then the boys happily went to bed to wait and see what Santa brought.

Robes for Steven and Nathan

A toy for Brandon
and a Snuggie for Jacob

Early December

2009-12-29T12:06:00.000-08:00

We had a very busy and fun month of December. We had a pack meeting Christmas party where all the boys got a present.

The three oldest boys participated in the school Christmas program. Where Steven's class sang a song with instruments.

We decorated the house and tree for Christmas.

And we also did the twelve days of Christmas for the first time this year. It turned out so great. We really enjoyed doing it, and it didn't complicate my Christmas like I was afraid it was going to.

November in a nutshell

2009-12-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

So, did November go by quickly or WHAT! One of these days I will stay on top of things, I am sure of it.
But for now, here are some of the things we did in November.

{OK, well this is actually the middle to end of October. That is when the cotton fields are ready to be harvested, and it is such an awesome sight. There are these fields all over the place that are covered in white, and some of the fields are huge. So, it looks like the cotton goes on forever. I love those couple of weeks that we get to see the cotton when we are out driving around}

{Steven did his first diorama the week before Thanksgiving, and we had a lot of fun figuring out what to do. We made the swamp water out of vaseline and food coloring. Oh, and that is an alligator in the water if you can't tell.}

{Steve got his gun out for the boys to practice shooting some cans. It is a good thing there is a field behind us.}

The boys had a whole week off for Thanksgiving break, so we headed up to Virginia again for the week. Nathan and Jacob had to get fillings in their cavaties the first half of the week. Poor Jacob had cavities in all four corners of his mouth. After his first shot he was a little shocked by the pain of it, and was shaking while the Dr. drilled. Then before he knew what was happening the Dr. gave him another shot for the bottom part of his mouth. When the Dr. got to the other side, and was about to give him a third shot Jacob freaked out. He covered his mouth tightly with his hands and got up out of the chair. Through some coaxing we got him back in the chair and the Dr. tried to get the cavity out without the shot. He was successful thankfully and Jacob preferred the pain of the drill over the pain of the shot. Nathan was next and had been crying for the hour Jacob was in the chair about not wanting a shot. So we went directly to the drilling with Nathan. The Dr. said he didn't get it as good as he would have liked, but it will stop the problem for a time until Nathan is older. What a PAIN!

As my reward for comforting 2 crying boys at the dentist office for two hours, I got to go see the Blind Side with my in-laws while Steve babysat. It was a fantastic movie, and I am so glad I got to go see it. Now, I need someone to go to New Moon with me.

Finally we got to Thanksgiving, and had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Everything was just perfect! We started off the day by taking family pictures, which I will be posting soon.

While we were in VA, I realized just how terrible Brandon's hair was looking. He has crazy cowlicks all over the back of his head, and his hair was ten different lengths. So as soon as we got back I got out the clippers. I think he looks much better.

Now we are on to Christmas festivities. I am going to do better with blogging this month for sure. I like to look back and see what we did during the holidays, so expect more soon.

Happy Birthday to ME

2009-12-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

Way back on November 10th, I turned 33 and I had a wonderful birthday. Steve was out of town for the week, but was just in Augusta so planned on coming home that night. That morning I had playgroup, so I went and spent some time with my friends there. Because of wonderful Facebook, people all over the place know when it is your birthday now. Well, my friend at playgroup brought a balloon and cupcakes to playgroup to wish me a happy birthday.

After playgroup, I had a lunch date with my visiting teachers at a thai restaurant that I had not tried yet. I was already excited to go, but then another friend of my from playgroup offered to take Brandon for an hour so I could go out to eat without him. Yippee! then I was even more excited. So, Brandon went to burger king with his friends, and I went out to delicious thai food with my friends.

Next we came home and took a nap of course. I made something very simple for dinner (can't remember what) and then talked on the phone to family until Steve got home. He walked in the door with a dozen roses, a wrapped present, and a cake lit on FIRE! Those candles were blazing and he is juggling all this stuff while he comes in the door singing Happy Birthday. It was so funny. So, we go in and have cake and open presents. Steve got me a Wii fit! I love it, it is lots of fun to play with, although it doesn't give you that great of a workout.

{I was surprised}
Steven also wanted to give me a present, so when he got home from school, he went in his room and went to work on something. He was making coupons for me to use like clean bathroom, clear table, etc. What a thoughtful gift, I loved it! But this one was my absolute favorite.Haha, I got five of these and I think I only have 1 left.

I had a great day and am grateful to be 33.

Brandon's good night song

2009-11-01T19:19:00.001-08:00

I was singing to Brandon tonight, and noticed that he was singing with me, so decided to get out the video camera. He is so funny. He is a decent talker for being 27 months old, but not fantastic. But he wants to be understood so badly. Watch how he moves his mouth to every word hoping that will help him be more understood. He is actually very good in the conversation skill, but of course, can't always be understood by anyone but me. He will get it soon enough though. Enjoy!

Fun Halloween!

2009-11-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a fun and successful Halloween. Steve spent the day at the temple with the youth, and the boys and I had a Tiger cub hike to go on. Nathan is doing Tiger cubs this year here in Brooklet, and they asked me if I would be the Tiger cub leader. Of course I will! Why not? So, we planned our hike for Saturday morning and had a marvelous time. Since Steve was gone, all the boys came with me. Steven wore his uniform so he could be the assistant leader to the younger boys. I loved it.

We just went to the Botanical Gardens at the university here in town and it was a very simple hike. Halfway in to the hike we came across this stage that the boys thought was pretty cool. They all got up on it and then decided that they wanted to sing a song for the parents. While trying to think of a song Jacob yells out, " I know Mom, we could sing I am a Child of God!" I just laughed and said that the other boys didn't know that song because it was a church song. This was with a group of 6 adults and three other scouts. So, they sang a school song instead.

After the hike, a nap, and dinner we were ready for trick or treating. It was 90 degrees and humid, so the boys were a little hot in their costumes, but they did OK.

Here is Steven as Obi

Nathan as a Ninja

Jacob as Spiderman

Brandon as a cow (the black pants got put on later)

Since the houses are a little further a part here, people all drive their kids around. They either take golf carts or just keep the trunk of their van open and the kids just hop in and out. Do they do that in other places? The street was lined with cars moving at a very slow pace. The boys made out with plenty of candy, and now we are done until next year.

Week before Halloween

2009-10-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

Boy have we had a fun filled week! I don't remember Halloween being this eventful when I was growing up.

At the boys school they have their drug education week the week before halloween, and each day the kids got to dress funny. I didn't get my camera out for this, but they had lots of fun with it. They had Tacky Day, Backwards shirt day, Pajama day, Camouflage Day, and then today (Friday) they had to dress for their parade, which I will tell you about later.

On Wednesday Steven had to bring snacks to class, and since I was in the festive spirit, I made pumpkin muffins in the shape of pumpkins for snack. OOHH, they were so dang good.

Then Wednesday night was the ward Trunk or Treat! It was tons of fun, and I love that we get to go once a year.

Steven as obi wan kenobi
On Thursday morning Brandon and I got to go to a Halloween party where all the nursery age kids from church were invited. It was so much fun and such a creative party. He dressed as a cow for this party. When we got there, they decorated haunted houses that were made out of rice krispie treats. Then the kids went on a treasure hunt, and then ate lunch. Brandon loved the mummies he ate for lunch which were hot dogs wrapped in crossaint dough. Heather(the hostess) had such neat ideas for the food that were all very halloweeny.

On Thursday night Steven won his final football game, and the team walked away undefeated. To make things exciting the coaches let the boys spray them with silly string and colored hair spray after they won. The boys LOVED that.

Today (Friday) was Brooklet Elementary Schools annual Pumpkin Parade. They block off the main street of our little town, and parade the elementary school kids down it. Each class chooses a book that they have read, and then they dress as the characters for that book. It is lots of fun, and very exciting for the kids.

Principal and Assistant Principal
Jacob and friends dressed in pj's
Nathan dressed as a pig
Steven as a caveman
Steven acting like a caveman

After school today we went to an elderly home in Statesboro, where the boys went trick or treating to each door of the residence. We did this with some other families from church, and it was a good experience.

Tonight we finally got around to carving the pumpkins. They would have rotted had we done it any earlier anyway. The boys had a grand time, and now we are all set for the big day tomorrow. Even though the boys have already eaten and still have a huge stash of candy. What a sugary week!

Brandon got to use his pumpkin carving tools on an apple
When he got bored, he helped me get the seeds out to make pumpkin seeds.

More Updates Tomorrow. Happy Halloween!

Fall Break

2009-10-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love the school system we are in here in Brooklet, and one of the many things I love is their breaks. They have quite a few week long breaks during the year, and then there summer is just eight weeks. I think it works great.
One of those breaks was the 12th through the 16th of Oct. We started it out going camping, and then slept one night in our own beds before we headed to Virginia. Steve's parents live in Virginia, and it is so nice to have family close enough to drive when we want to. The main reason for this visit was to go to the dentist, and being with Nana and Papa was just a huge added bonus. See...Steve and I have terrible dental insurance, and I have terrible teeth. My mother-in-law works for a dentist who gives free care to the families of the people who work for him. Since I thought I was going to need a root canal on one of my teeth, it made sense to me to drive that 9 hour drive to get it done for free instead of paying for it myself. The big problem was that Steve couldn't come. He had something all week at work that he had to be there for. So.... I headed out in the van with the boys by myself. I was very concerned about it because I never drive long distances, and I have gotten in to a habit of staying up late, and then taking a nap every day. So I knew that come 1:00 I would be exhausted, and only be halfway to my destination. Well, I went anyway! And it was great. We did so good. The boys watched movies, and I listened to my IPOD until I started falling asleep and then I had to turn it off. I made sure we were stopped for lunch at my usual naptime, and let the kids play at McDonald's for half hour. We actually made it in great time. I was so happy.
While in VA, we loved seeing Fran and Lyle, and the Hardy family. The boys loved all the toys, and playing with their cousins Daniel and Emma. And we all made it to the dentist. I didn't need that root canal, even though I have a suspicion I will need it sometime in the future. And it seems that some of the boys have inheritated my poor teeth. Steven's teeth are perfect, Nathan has two cavities, and Jacob has EIGHT. Yup, that is right. Eight cavities. And these boys DO brush their teeth at night and before school. So oviously they are not brushing them well enough. The worst part about it is Jacob will start losing a lot of those teeth that have cavities in them in less than a year, so do I really go through the hassle of getting them filled when they are going to fall out so soon. I am confused on that part. But anyway, we will be heading back to Virginia a little early when we go for Thanksgiving so that the dentist can fix the boys teeth. Ugghh, poor boys.

While in VA I talked to a good friend of ours that we knew in Germany who just recently moved to the D.C. area. We made plans to meet up before I left and catch up a little bit. We meet at a museum in Richmond and spent about five hours there checking the place out and chatting. It was a perfect reunion. The boys had a great time, it was great to see the Eliassens and the museum was pretty cool. We now have plans to seem them when we come for Thanksgiving too. I love how facebook keeps us so connected!

{This is out in front of the museum. I packed summer close for us for this vacation, and it was 55 and raining the whole time we were there. I had to go buy some pants for the boys and this day at the museum was especially cold. Nathan left his coat at Nana and Papa's house so he is suffering the most.}
{This is one of those spindles that hangs from the ceiling and there are pins in a circle around it. As the earth turns the spindle's swing shifts a little bit and eventually knocks all of the pins down around it. Very cool. We saw one or two of them drop.}
{Cockroach!}

{They used the soft blocks over their head to build that arch.}
{Jacob's castle}
{I let Brandon get away from me for a little bit while we were in this room, and when I found him he was at this school desk very interested in the documentary that was being played. It was about his naptime too.}

After we left the musuem we planned to only drive halfway home that day. We stopped in North Carolina at another families house that we knew in Germany. We stayed at their house for a couple days during the summer, and we are so happy to be close to the Kirkhams again. They are such wonderful friends. So we spent Friday night playing with them before we drove back home on Saturday.

{Brandon and Abigail at the Kirkham's table, that just happens to be big enough for company. Yeah!}

When we got home Steve was waiting for us with a great surprise. He has wired the house for his Bose cube speakers and the TV sounds awesome with them. Remember the wires hanging out a couple blogs ago? Those are all taken care of now! He also washed every pile of clothes that he saw laying around the house. I will admit that that wasn't a surprise that I loved since a lot of it didn't even need to be washed, but I love him for the effort anyways.

Camping on Colombus Day weekend

2009-10-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

Me and the Boys at High Falls Campground.
Last weekend our family took the opportunity to go camping. The boys had a week off of school starting with Colombus Day, and Steve got that day off of work also, so we planned a trip.
First thing I did was call Jessica. She has been saying she wanted to go camping, and we really wanted her to come with us, and she agreed! So, she flew in Friday night, and we headed out to High Falls Campground which was about 2.5 hours away the next morning.
Our adventures started right away. We needed a little more room in the van, so Steve and I discussed tying stuff to the top of the van. He was uncomfortable about it, but I assured him that Dad always did it, and things would be OK. So he tied all the camping chairs and then two tupperware bins to the top. One tupperware had ALL the food in it, and the other had ALL the cooking camp stuff which included flashlights, the water pan for over the fire, all utensils, cutting board, knives, etc, etc, etc. All the important stuff to make eating at the campground bareable. Well, when we took off ,Steve said he was not comfortable with how the bins were tied up there, and said we needed to go to a store and get bungee cords. I of course was irritated because I thought he should have been able to do it with rope, plus Steve makes us go to the store almost EVERY time we go on a trip. I just wanted to get on the road, and not have to take an extra half hour plus to go to Walmart. So, we happily headed down the road, and about 20 miles in to our drive we hear this weird sound. And Steve says, "There goes all the stuff!" Sure enough, we looked behind us and there were cups, tableclothes, marshmallow scewers and that big water pot bouncing all over the freeway. It was terrible. Jessica and I told Steve to back up a little and we would see what we could salvage. Now remember we are in Georgia. There are just not that many people in Georgia, so don't picture a California highway when I tell this story. It was a pretty mild freeway, but had enough traffic that people were running over the stuff spread across the road. So, while Steve took down the other stuff from the top, Jessica and I ran up and down and across the freeway to see what we could save. Amazingly we saved about 70% of the stuff. Most of the dishes, some of the flashlights, the tupperware bin and some other stuff we were able to pick up and take with us. The water pot was smashed and we were very concerned about what that had done to someones car. Steve eventually got nervous about us running around on the freeway, so we left.

The rest of the camping trip was basically a normal trip. Very nice weather, great company having Jessica there, the food was Fabulous, and we all had an awesome time. Jessica mentioned how much easier camping seemed with our family than it did when we were growing up and this was a very easy camping trip. Tents went up quickly and easily and other than the trip to Dollar General to replace some important items it was pretty easy. I forgot to mention earlier that the food tupperware bin did not go anywhere. For some reason it stayed put on the top of the van, so that saved us a bunch of money.

Now, Here is our camping trip in pictures:

{Jessica and the boys setting up}
{Steve bought a hammock for this camping trip, and it was a hit!}

{It is so nice to have Jessica around. They are headed off for a potty break.}
{Jessica brought Diary of a Wimpy Kid for Steven to read, and I haven't ever seen him absorb a book like he did that one. He loved it.}

{The next morning, of course we had Eggs in a Frame. Steve and Jessica made a great cooking team, and made some delicious breakfast.}
{We had to keep a close eye on this little terror during the trip. He was in his time out chair most of the time.}{After breakfast, we headed over to a hike of the falls and had a wonderful time. It was a beautiful area, and a very nice day.
Nathan found this tree that he thought was interesting. He thinks it looks like a 4}

{While on the path we came across a black snake. Steve knows a lot about snakes because he used to catch them all the time when he was growing up. So, he was excited to pick it up and show it to the boys. He carried it on the hike with us for a good ways, and then found a sunny spot to put it down.}

{Jessica, by one of the scenic look outs.}

{Brandon chewing on a piece of pine straw. Otherwise known as a pine needle. Depends on where you are I guess.}{The second and last night of our camping trip it rained a bit during the night. Enough that Jessica, who was sleeping "under the stars" had to get up and go to the van to sleep. So when we got up in the morning, we started to take down camp. If you remember my last camping blog you will remember that we got rained on pretty hard, and Steve and I had to take down camp during a down pour. We learned our lesson this time, and cleaned up while we had that break in the clouds. It drizzled on us a little, but we got it cleaned up just before the down pour. Then we headed to Shoneys for breakfast and some hot chocolate.}

More of the story

2009-10-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

So.... as I read through my last blog I realized that I left out a very touching part to my story. My friend Sheila who came over to help me clean up the water told me what she was doing when I called for help. I thought this was so neat. She was in charge of teaching Sunday School that Sunday, and was preparing her lesson. The part she happened to be reading about was the story of the Willie Handcart company who got stuck in the snow on their way to Utah. A bunch of the saints who had already reached Utah got together a rescue party and went and saved this group of people who were all freezing and starving to death. The question the lesson suggested asking your class is how can we be like those pioneers and "rescue" others who may need us. She said I called right as she was reading that part. Isn't that neat? I loved that she shared that with me, and then told the story in Sunday School. She was a great example of how we can rescue our friends and neighbors.

Now more on the floor. A guy came Monday morning with 8 awkward annoying machines that he was using to dry out he floor. They had to stay on for three full days. He did say the floor will have to be replaced and it wasn't until the next day that I wondered why is he drying out the floor if it has to be replaced? But now that it is dry, I am thinking we may just leave it in the house until it gets really bad and then replace it at that point. That way I don't have to deal with it right now. Cause the floor really doesn't look bad to someone who doesn't know what happened and isn't looking for the damage. We will just get the money from the insurance and wait until we are ready to switch it out.

Oh and some of you asked how the boys didn't notice the water. They like to watch their show with the lights off, so the room was pretty dark and they were all sitting on the couch. So, it was just flooding the floor underneath them. Plus... when they watch TV they are pretty glued to it.

Now for something a little more exciting. I LOVE the cute little phrases and songs that kindergarten teachers come up with to help the kids learn, or obey or whatever. Jacob was singing the cutest one the other day, and I thought you would all like to hear it. He forgot for the first couple seconds what he was suppose to be singing. And I think this song is sung when they sit down on the rug for story time.

Here are the words in case you didn't catch them.

One Two, buckle my shoe.
Three Four, bottoms on the floor.
Five Six, zip up your lips.
Seven Eight, sit up straight.
Nine Ten, we're ready to begin.

Nathan has a cute phrase that they say at school too. This could really be put to good use by us Moms.

The story of the flood

2009-10-03T18:42:00.000-07:00

I typed this story up last week, and then it got erased when I was just about done, so I ignored it for the week because I was frustrated, but now here it is....

Last Friday was the last night of Steve being out of town. The boys and I went to a High School Football game because they like to introduce the flag football players at one of their games, so Steven was being introduced. We had a pretty good time, but left at half time because the boys had lost interest. When we got home the boys asked if they could still stay up late. On Friday nights they get to stay up late and watch TV if they have had good behavior at school that week. (It has been a great incentive for Nathan.) At about that time Steve called from his hotel, and I wanted to talk to him about the day, so I told the boys to turn the TV on. This was about 9:00pm. ThenI went in to the office and got on the computer while I talked to Steve. I talked to him for about ten minutes , and when I was done talking I stayed on the computer because the boys were all occupied watching their late show. Right?? WRONG!

At 9:30 I hear Brandon start whining so I went to find him. I walked through the family room towards his room, and on my way I stepped in a puddle of water, took another step and stepped in another puddle of water. I looked towards the bathroom and Brandon was locked in it, so I ran and turned the lights on and my family room was FLOODED! Apparently for that half hour Brandon was not watching TV like I thought he was, instead he was flushing toilet paper down the toilet and watching the water flow over the top. It had to have been running for like twenty minutes. The bathroom, hall, and family room were covered in water. I couldn't believe how much there was on the floor. My bathroom has a tile floor, but the hall and family room have a very nice hardwood floor.

So, I quickly made all the boys get a towel and start soaking up the water. That was a joke! The towels were dripping before they even got to the floor. The boys would bring me their towels and I would ring them out and send them to soak up more water. After about 15 minutes of this with little progress, and my hands hurting from ringing out four towels every minute I decided to call for help.
My backyard neighbor is a member of the church, and a dear friend to me, and I knew she had a carpet cleaner. So, at 9:45pm I called her and told her the situation. She came right over with the carpet cleaner, and worked for an hour to get the water up. She probably filled her two gallon tank fifteen times, and had to dump it. Like I said, So Much Water. So she and I took the rugs outside, and I mopped up the rest and we went to bed. Thank heavens that is over. Right? WRONG!
Over this past week I have noticed the floor cracking and then getting little white spots all over it. Everyone I have talked to said I definitely needed to call my home owners insurance and find out if there was more damage done to the floor. Well, I finally did that this past Friday, so one week after it happened, and when the lady came to check it today she said there is definitely water still under the floor. It has probably just pooled under the wood floor, and is sitting on the concrete slab, and rotting the wood floor from underneath. Aarrgghh!
I am so mad at myself for not paying more attention that night. This is going to be such a headache to have the floor ripped up and a new one put in, not to mention the $500 deductible we are going to have to come up with.
I was pretty calm the night this happened and was very ignorant in thinking that once we soaked up the water the problem was solved. What was weird to me was the slight panic attacks I had in the middle of the night for two nights after this happened. On Saturday night Jacob came into my room because he was scared and he was kneeling next to my bed asking if he could sleep with me. I woke up and looked at him and then started yelling, "Where is Brandon, do you know where Brandon is!!??" I remember being very afraid that Brandon was in danger.
Then the next night at about 3am I woke up and jumped out of bed, and was quickly headed to Brandon's room to see what he was doing. Steve talked to me before I got out of our room and asked what I was doing. I then became conscious and realized that I was panicking for no reason. Weird huh??

So...if you are still reading this we need some opinions. What kind of floor would you get for your family room. I guess we have the option to change if we want, and I may want to do that. The hardwood looks beautiful, but it scratches SO easily and it stresses me out every time something gets slid across that floor. We thought today about carpet of pergo or hardwood again. Does anyone have an opinion for me? I would love to hear it.

The End

Sunday Night Entertainment

2009-09-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

Last night the boys decided to do a "puppet show" and did a great job. They went in their room for about five minutes, came up with a story, and some props, and then practiced a couple of times before performing. Good job Steven, Nathan, and Jacob.
(please ignore the wires all over the wall, Steve is getting to it. ;))

Since the camera was out I decided to take a picture of grumpy boy who missed his nap. Earlier Steven somehow broke half of his binky off, but it seems to still be suckable. Enjoy. Oh, and yes he does have a black eye that is healing from Jacob scratching him with a hockey stick right under his eye, and he has a scratch on his head from falling off the lowest bench of the bleachers at Steven's football game Saturday.

Football and Firetrucks

2009-09-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

We are really enjoying the fall weather here in Georgia. Not quite cold enough yet for hot chocolate (that is for you Felicity) and it is still humid, but it's not as hot and we can tell the cool weather is coming. Yea!

Through much discussion Steve and I decided to put Steven in football this year. He didn't really want to play at first because he doesn't know much about the sport, but Steve talked him in to playing. We just thought it would be a good way to get him moving, and we wanted to see how he would do. Steven actually loves sports and wants to be a sports guy, he just doesn't have the natural talent and he doesn't seem to have it in him to practice until he gets good. We keep trying with him though. :)

So, last week they started off the football season by having the teams run through the tunnel and then Steven played his first game. It is nice to have him in a sport again even if it does complicate our night life.

Now for Brandon. The poor boy is just bored a lot of times at home unless we are out at stores spending money. I have come up with a couple solutions. Once a week we are going to go to the school and have lunch with one of the boys. We went to eat with Steven today and Brandon loved to be with all the kids. And Steven loved teasing Brandon in front of all his friends.
The other great thing is playgroup has started! Yea! I love playgroup because it does allow Brandon to play and learn things, and it let's me hang out with my dear friends. Last Tuesday we went to the fire station and got to see the fire trucks and see the fire man in his gear. It was lots of fun and Brandon was pretty impressed with it.

Jacob has had great behavior in school this week and so he is the star student of the week. That means he gets to bring home Max the monkey to share the weekend with him. We will take pictures of things we do with Max and then do a little scrapbook page to put in the Max book.

Nathan is doing well also although there is nothing specific about him. His behavior in school is getting better and his grades are always Great, he is a smart boy. Basically he is just loving life.

Our Temple Trip

2009-09-09T09:53:00.001-07:00

As an anniversary surprise to Steve, I arranged for us to go to the Columbia, SC temple last Friday night. It is about a three hour drive, and because of that we haven't gone very often. So, this time I arranged for us to go overnight. I had each of the boys stay at a different families house from the ward.'They went from after school on Friday, until Saturday afternoon. It is so wonderful to have a network of friends that you trust to leave your kids with, and who are willing to do it. It also made it a fun weekend for the kids as well as for us.

Of course as with every time we try to go to the temple it seems there is trouble. I spent all week finding people to babysit, booking a hotel, and getting things ready so we could take off on Friday. On Friday morning I checked the temple website to get the address, and happened to see the schedule of closed dates. And lo and behold I see that the temple is closed on Saturday. The very Saturday we were planning on going. So, of course I go into panic mode and do what I can to try and get us there Friday night for the 7pm session. As I am calling people to see if the kids can come a little earlier, two of the four families say they have sick kids in their home. And not just a little sick, but a fever, throwing up, and soar throat sick. But being un-intimidated by germs as I am, I said if they would still take the child, it wouldn't bother me to leave him. They both agreed to still take the child. Whoo hoo!

So, Steve and I are in the car by 4pm and headed to SC on Friday afternoon on Labor Day weekend with no time to spare. Needless to say we did NOT make the 7pm session. We got to the temple at 7:15 and were able to do sealings for about an hour which was absolutely wonderful!

What we found out after it was too late was that there is a short cut to the temple. Steve and I trust our GPS a little too much, and thought that it would take us the best way. Well...it took us fifty miles out of the way to keep us on a freeway. In Georgia, often times the fastest way to go is on the back roads. So, we took the fast way on the way back, and it cuts out between 30 and 45 minutes from the drive. Enough time that we would have made it if we went that way Friday night.

After the temple on Friday, we went out to eat at Outback which was delish. Steve got a fish dish since he is trying to eat healthier, and I got the chocolate cheesecake for dessert since I was out to eat as an anniversary celebration. :) Saturday morning we slept in until 9, then played a game of cities and knights on line which is our favorite thing to do as of late. Then we got up and drove back to the temple for some pictures. Next to the temple is a very nice church bookstore that we browsed at for a while including an outdoor yard sale they happened to be having that day. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful overnighter. Then we drove home the fast way and were home by 2:30.

So, it was an eventful trip, but it all worked out beautifully in the end. The boys all had a great time, and the families said they had no problems with any of them. Brandon wasn't the best sleeper, but they enjoyed him other than that. And miraculously none of us are sick this week even after the exposure we had over the weekend. We do have good strong immune systems though. It must be our lack of using hand sanitizer. haha

Definitely a FABULOUS anniversary get away.

9th Anniversary

2009-09-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Sept. 1st), Steve and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. I felt a lot of gratitude this anniversary for all the wonderful things that have happened in my life since I married Steve. Many anniversaries just pass by without much thought, but this one was a little different for some reason. I am so happy in my life right now. I love being a Mom of four boys, I love living in GA, and enjoying the people in this area, I love our ward here, and MOST of all I LOVE my husband. He has done so much for my life that I just couldn't have done without him and has helped me to learn and grow in so many ways. Our wedding song lyrics said

You were meant for me, and I was meant for you.
Nature fashioned you and when she was done
You were all those good things rolled in to one.

And I do think we were meant for each other. I know there are other people we could have each married, but we are a great combination. We seem to be moving at the same pace, and that makes living with someone so much easier.

So, for our anniversary Steve took the day off. Yea! for Steve's endless days off. haha We had a nice day, and then for dinner he made his chicken curry which is one of our favorite meals. We then took a break from anniversary stuff so we could go to a student showcase night at the school. (the kids got to show us some of the work they have done so far this year) We walked to the school, and then took a detour on the way home, and walked around our mile long block behind our house.

When we got home Steve gave me beautiful flowers, and a delicious cake. He even bought a number nine candle to celebrate the number of years. We all enjoyed the cake as a family.

The great thing is... the fun is not over! I have planned a surprise for Steve on Friday that is going to be great. It is not elaborate or anything, I just don't manage surprises very often, so I am excited that this might actually stay a surprise until Friday. Cross your fingers for me.

I do LOVE Steve so much and all that he does for our family. I have confidence in him to lead our family down the path we want to take. He is a loving husband, and a wonderful example to our boys on how a husband and father should be. I am so glad we are together forever.

{the boys}

{bad picture of me. beautiful flowers, and cake}

Our Week

2009-08-23T18:18:00.000-07:00

The boys have been in school Three Weeks already. Can you believe it? We have all adjusted wonderfully, and all three of the boys are enjoying school. I used last week and this week to clean the carpets in my house. (I did one room a day or every other day) And boy do they look good. Now I can check that off my list and move on to one of the other million things I want to do to get organized or to clean. Ahh the life of a mother/homemaker. I do love it!

So, I failed to mention a very exciting event here in our great town of Brooklet. Every year they have a peanut festival which is a very exciting event for such a small town. Apparently Georgia is a huge producer of peanuts, which I must admit I did not know until we moved to Brooklet. So, we went last Saturday morning (the 15th) and enjoyed the parade and then went to the festival for a little bit. We were lucky because that week had been quite hot and Terribly humid so we were happy that it was overcast with no rain during the parade. A nice treat.

{There is a family in our ward who lives on the main street in Brooklet, so some families from the ward meet at their house for the parade.}

{Army guys from Ft. Stewart}

{Take note of what this tractor driver is doing while he is supposed to be posing in a parade. By the way, most of the parade is of people driving tractors. Some of them were very old school too.}

I also mentioned in Brandon's birthday post some of his two year old habits, so I took some pictures of some of them.

{Since he kept climbing out of his bed, we got him a new one. This lady was selling matching beds that were this toddler bed and a twin bed. Now Jacob and Brandon have a whole new bedroom.}

{Setting the table, with all the silverware in the drawer}

{I wasn't sure where Brandon was the other day, and when I went to find him, this is where he was. He had taken off his pants, and diaper and climbed up, but forgot to get rid of the binky. He is NOT potty trained by the way. }

{A couple weeks ago, I went to check on him at night, and I thought his blanket was completely wrapped around his head. Luckily when I came to get it off, it was just lightly placed over his face.}

One thing that we have just started to do this past week is going on a nightly walk. Steve is making a great effort to lose weight, and he has asked us all to walk/jog with him each night to get some excercise. We are all very much enjoying it, and the boys are loving being able to ride their bikes off of our driveway. Right behind our house is a brand new subdivision that is coming along very slowly. As we all know, people just aren't buying houses right now, so it only has three houses in it right now, and it is quite a big circle. We are able to walk around that with no traffic to bother us. It is like having a high school track right in our own back yard.

{Note the outfit. haha, I didn't feel like putting pants on him, and he does have some crazy colored socks.}

{During one of our walks this week Steve decided to roller blade. It just about killed him, but he never fell down, and he roller bladed the whole time. Way to go dear.}

And here is a picture of Steven with his newest hobby to pass the time.

Brandon is TWO

2009-08-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

Well, Brandon has turned two even though he has been a bit of a terror for a couple of months now. Of course he is still a joy to have in our family, but the boy gets in to everything, sneaks out of the house, crys whenever we are in the car because he is asking me for something and I have no idea what, thinks he is potty trained(which is so not the case) and has learned how to get out of his crib before I was ready for him to.

But I am happy to report, he had a GREAT birthday today. He started it off all wrong by getting out of bed at 4:15am. He came in to my room asking for a binky and after I found one for him, I thought he would just cuddle up and go to sleep with me. That wasn't the case, after telling him to go to sleep 15 times I finally took him back to his bed where he waited another half hour, and then went back to sleep. We did get a nice nap today though.

So, the birthday festivities started this evening after dinner. We had our wonderful neighbors over for cake and ice cream. They have one son who is Nathan's age and he loves to come to our house. They are also members of the church, so we have become great friends.

We sang to Brandon, and then had some chocolate cake with butter cream frosting.
Here is that wonderful smile of his.

Brandon was so embarrased from all the attention. It was so funny.

After cake we went in to the family room to open presents, and Brandon was loving it.

The Nielsens (neighbors) gave Brandon a book and a cool little car

He got a sesame street toy from Grandma and Grandpa Allred that he loves!

And from Mom and Dad he got a hammering toy and a two year old race track.

He also got cards from Grandma Great and the Seraydarians. Thank you all so much for remembering the littlest Hughes boy.

Brandon is such a wonderful boy and I am so happy he is in our family. He is talking more and more and I love to hear how he pronounces his new words. He is having a hard time with all of his brothers in school, and has decided that we need to read books together all day. Which has been kind of hard, since I have decided that I want to clean the carpets in the whole house. :) We will be starting a fun preschool group at the church in a couple of weeks, and we will both really enjoy that.

We are so happy Brandon is part of our family!

Back To School!!

2009-08-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

The boys went back to school on Monday, and I am thrilled. The school year here is a little different than most of the country, but I love it. They have the full months of June and July for summer, and then during the year they have about 6 week-long breaks. I have really enjoyed it, and it lets you travel when the rest of the country is still at school.
Some of these pictures came out blurry dang it!

(Jacob started kindergarten with a nice juicy cold sore on his lip. Poor kid)

(Nathan started 1st grade without his chipped tooth. We pulled it out the night before. Remember the one he chipped in Germany like 4 years ago? Ya, that is finally gone)

(Steven in 3rd grade, and loving his backpack)

Our summer vacation was tons of fun, and we stayed very busy, so it felt like we got a good break.

Jacob started Kindergarten this year, so now I have three in school and one home!! Can you believe. It is so exciting for me, and I can't wait to see what I can accomplish. Although Monday Brandon and I went to Walmart for school supplies, and Brandon cried the whole hour we were in the store!

The boys all loved their first day of school, and were excited to go back again today. They seem to have wonderful teachers, and we once again want to say, we LOVE Brooklet Elementary.

Other exciting news for me is that I was called as the first counselor in the Young Women's at church. I can't believe I am out of primary and going to be tested in a different area. I am very, very excited, but also pretty nervous. I talked to the YW president yesterday, and she was telling me all of my responsibilities. WOW There is a lot that I am in charge of. And right off the bat I am suppose to be going to an activity Wednesday night, but Steve is working a 3-11pm shift for the next two weeks. So, I asked our college age neighbor if she would sit with the boys for me for a couple hours. She agreed, so it looks like I will be able to go. I am thrilled.

Back to Germany!

2009-07-25T18:20:00.001-07:00

So...WAY back in June Steve and I had the amazing opportunity to go back to Germany. We were right back in the same area that we moved from a year ago. Steve was there on a business trip from work, and since I had a young and capable sister at my Mom's house in CA to take care of the kids, we all decided that I should go and join Steve for a week. The main reason I went was because Steve's birthday and Father's Day were on the same day this year, and he was going to be there without his family. Plus, I really wanted to go back. :)

So..... I left the boys with my dear sister Tawna who has babysat my children more than anyone else. I then flew from CA through GA and on to Germany. Quite a long flight, but without kids it is SO EASY! I got to do whatever I wanted (within the confines of my plane seat of course). So, I slept, read a little bit of my book, slept again, ate, watched a movie. I had a very relaxing time. I got to Germany on Wednesday morning where Steve picked me up at the airport. He had the morning off, so the first thing I wanted to do was drive past our old house. Everything looked pretty much the same to me. Then we went to the hotel and took a nap. When Steve went back to work I went over to one of my old favorite grocery stores Toom and looked around for food I had been missing. When Steve got off work we had plans to go to the "Great American Steakhouse" in Frankfurt where they have the best steak I have ever eaten. A couple of Steve's buddies from work were coming with us. Well... when we got to Frankfurt there were road blocks all over the city. We drove around for hours trying to get to the restaurant through tons of traffic, but there was a road block at every turn. We finally saw what the problem was. There was a 5k marathon that was starting at the same time as our reservations. There were over 5000 people running in this marathon. So, they had blocked off the route through the main streets of the city and the restaurant was within that area. We finally ended up at an Irish pub for dinner and we were all pretty frustrated. I was just tired considering I was totally jet lagged. It was interesting though.

The next day (Thursday) I started out my day with the hotel breakfast. I LOVE breakfast in Germany. They serve a roll and lunch meat and cheese , or you can eat it with Nutella. It is so delicious and I was so happy to be eating it again. I made sure I made it to breakfast every day that I was there. After breakfast, I took the street car around Darmstadt for the morning while Steve went to work. Then when he got off we headed up to our old favorite, the Auerbach castle. It was beautiful and delicious and so nice to be there.

On Friday I meet up with a friend of mine Julie, and her kids and we drove up to the Frankfurt temple. We went to the book store and walked around the temple for a little while, and then they went home and I got to go in and do a session. It was so nice to be back there, and to go through the temple. Our temple in Georgia is 3.5 hours away, so it is a lot harder to go. After my session Steve picked me up and we actually got to go eat at our Steak restaurant and it was dang good. It was great to be back there.

On Saturday Steve and I spent the morning at the big flea market they have there in Darmstadt. Then we headed up to Rudesheim which is a little town on the Rhein river where all the cruises start from. We had such a great time there. We went in to every little shop there was and we didn't have to worry about who was staying out with the boys. It was lots of fun. Then we drove down the Rhein all the way to Boppard where we rode a ski lift to the very top of this hill that overlooked the Rhein. It was right where the Rhein curves and makes a U shape. It was really pretty. When we were at the top we ordered some hot chocolate at a little outdoor cafe they had. Then we went down, had some schnitzel for dinner and headed home.

(This is the view from the hot chocolate cafe)

Sunday was Steve's birthday and Father's Day. I gave Steve his cards from the boys and then we went to church. Our old ward meets in a brand new building and it is very nice. It was so nice to see everyone and chat with old friends. Most of the ward that I knew is gone now, but there were some people left. After church we went to the hotel for a nap, and then on to Zadell and Jeremy Carley's house for a game of cities and knights. They made dinner for us and a nice birthday cake for Steve. It was great to visit with them, and we miss having them over all the time.

Then Monday morning I got back on an airplane and headed back to CA. It was a wonderful adventure for Steve and I and we are very much enjoying our childless vacations that we have been taking once a year. Even though I spent lots of time on a plane and then had to get right back on the next day to get the boys and I home from CA, it was an awesome trip. And things went so smoothly I really can't complain. Other than the van battery being dead when we showed up in Savannah at 9:30 Tuesday night tired and cranky. But the policeman there at the airport had it jumped in no time and we were on our way home!

Long awaited California Post

2009-07-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

{This is Brandon's designated spot on the airplane.)

I know it has been over a month, but whatever. Whoever said I was on top of things. :)

At the beginning of June the boys and I took a golden opportunity to go to Bakersfield to visit my Mom and Dad and sister Laura and her family. Steve was on a business trip back to our old stomping ground in Griesheim Germany, so I only did what I thought was best for my sanity. And we had an awesome time!!

The flight there was a piece of cake after our treks from Germany. Mom has a big in-ground pool that the boys wanted to be in all the time. Even when they woke up at 5:30am because of jet lag and it was in the 70's, they were begging me to get in the pool. We did end up getting in that first morning at 8:00.

Now, I think this trip will best be described in pictures.

We went to this great place called Murray Farms. I had never heard of it before, but we had a great time. It was really neat. We started out looking at the animals.

Then we headed over to the pool of corn. The kids thought this was a blast and were very entertained.

We also got to go on a tractor ride out into the fields and picked some of the fruit off the trees to snack on. It was delish.

One day we had my Dad's brother Russ and his family over for a pool party. I really enjoyed spending time with them and catching up on their lives.

This is what Brandon does when you tell him to smile. Don't ask me

Very cool pool toy that got used and abused. I am not sure it is functioning anymore.

We also got to be in Bako for the Queen of Bakersfields 20th birthday. That would be Tawna. And because we were there visiting and took her bed, this is where she woke up on the morning of that special day. Sweet thang!

check out those cool lighters.

We also took the kinder bowling one day and had an awesome time. I may have liked it a little more than anyone else since I WON! Woot And whoever's post just mentioned how much more crazy things are when you visit friends with kids (Alicia) wait until you both have four and they are all full of opinions and ideas and NOISE. A lot of interrupted conversations for sure.

A couple of things not photographed. My friend Natalie came over with her kids to swim one afternoon and it was awesome to see her. Laura and I got to go out to eat two times together without kids and I always enjoy her company so much. It was very nice.

Can't leave these out.

Lila Skinner, about the cutest baby I have ever seen in my life!

Big boy Blake, who took this opportunity for a nap.

Here's to wonderful vacations with family

Hughes/Hardy weekend

2009-07-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a GREAT one. Steve's Mom and Dad, sister Erin, sister Lisa and Lisa's two kids Daniel and Emma came last Thursday from Virginia to be here for Steven's baptism. We are so happy they came to spend that time with us. We had a great time with them. Since we discovered with my Mom and Dad that there is not much to do in Statesboro or Savannah we spent A LOT of our time with the kids swimming in our four foot pool, and Steve and I making all of our favorite dinner dishes to share. We ate most of our meals at home and it was dang good food.

On Friday, the morning after they got here, we headed down to the river walk in Savannah. We of course headed straight for the candy store, and everyone really enjoyed that. It was a pretty hot day that day but we still managed to get a little tourist shopping in.

{Lyle, Fran, Lisa and Steve resting in the shade}

{All the kids leaning over the rail in Savannah}

Saturday was the 4th and Steve introduced his family to boiled peanuts. Those are a southern treat where you take raw peanuts and boil them just like you would a bean. From what I understand, that is what the early settlers of this area did with them. You can't buy raw peanuts in most of the USA, but they do sell them here, and I have even bought some and boiled them here at home. They turned out very good. We also have a guy that cooks up a batch everyday and is right on one of the corners here in Brooklet. If you ever stop by around the end of May to early September we will be sure to get you some. Anyway, my in-laws Loved them and that was our snack of choice all weekend. On the 4th, all the girls went shopping at some antique stores, and then sat around and ate peanuts while Steve made 3 courses of shrimp for dinner. Although we ate late...we ate good. It all turned out wonderfully and we finished just in time for fireworks at 10pm. Then it was off to bed for the baptism.

{Sitting in our mostly unpacked garage, with the fan on us and eating peanuts. Good Times}

{Watching fireworks WooHoo! (we really do try to be excited for the fireworks here, even though we would much rather be in Germany shooting them off)}

On Monday we ventured out without Nana and Papa, because Lyle wasn't feeling very good. We went with our family, Lisa and kids and Erin to Tybee Island. The last time we went to the beach there it was crawling with people, but this time was perfect. It was a little overcast and Monday so we hit it just right. There weren't too many people and we were able to park close. We spent about 3 hours playing at the beach and having a marvelous time.

{With three laptops in the house, you can visit and get something down all at the same time.}

Then Tuesday morning our company headed on their 9 hour drive back to Virginia, and the boys and I started our swimming lessons. I am so happy that we have families that we enjoy so much and love spending time with. It makes all the difference in the world.

{DD (Daniel's nickname) with Brandon}

{Nana and Brandon}

{Kay (Erin's nickname)}

{Papa resting in Steve's favorite chair}

{Steve signing us off}

Steven's Baptism

2009-07-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hi All-

I am so behind on blogging, but do plan on catching up. You are in luck tonight, because I planned on going to Walmart instead of blogging, but since it is pouring rain and getting late, I changed my plans. I am going to start with the most recent things first, and then go back to the rest of June. Sound good? Good.

Our oldest darling boy was baptized this past Sunday. Unlike most people, I CAN believe my oldest is 8. That seems right where he should be, and I feel like he has been around for eight years. I have always told everyone Steven has been about as perfect as an oldest child can be. I love that he has been the leader as we keep adding more and more and more brothers to his life.

His baptism was wonderful. I was a little worried that there was something dreadfully important that I was forgetting, because we were on vacation for two weeks before the baptism and had family in town for a couple of days just before. I was just afraid I was letting something slip, but everything worked out Wonderfully!!

The baptism was right after church, and we had a lot of people from the ward that stayed for it. The talk on baptism was given by Steve's Mom (Nana) and she did an amazing job like I knew she would. She even had a poster board that showed a path and a boy walking down the path to heaven and all the steps that he would have to take on his way there. It was fantastic. Then, I had the three oldest Hughes boys, and their cousins Daniel and Emma do a musical number and sing the Fourth Article of Faith. They did an awesome job. Except for one small thing. I rarely chew gum or even have gum with me. Well, I had a pack that day and for some reason decided to give a piece to all the kids just after church. So... they get up there to sing, and they are all just chewin' away at their gum. Luckily it didn't affect their singing. They sounded GREAT!

Then Steven was baptized by Steve and it all went very smoothly. It felt so great to see them both in the water to perform that ordinance.

While they were getting dressed we watched a really good movie called Come Follow Me. It is on VHS and was printed probably in the 70's or 80's, but it was great and most likely no one had seen it before. I was worried about what movie we were going to watch that would be the right length and fit the baptism. My sister-in-law Lisa went to the library while I taught my primary class that morning, and came up with this video. I was so grateful to her for taking that worry off my mind. And of course, as the closing credits rolled on the movie, Steve and Steven walked in.

Then Steve gave a great talk on the Holy Ghost. No visuals, but he did a fabulous job anyway. Then Steve was able to confirm Steven and gave him a beautiful blessing. His Papa Hughes was able to be a part of that as well as being a witness to the baptism.

It really was special, and I am so happy that it went so well.

{The boys and their cousins from Virginia}

{A little sunny I guess}

That evening we gave Steven his new scriptures. And now he is totally official. :)

{Since I had the camera at church, I had to take a picture of my CTR 5 primary class. They love to sit in the window sill and I don't really care, as long as they are quiet. All five of them there only lasted a minute though because they were squished. So cute huh?}

One Year in the USA

2009-06-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

I cannot let this milestone go by without mentioning it. We flew from Germany to Georgia on June 2nd last year. It has already been a year that we have been here, and I just can't believe it. Although on one hand Germany seems years and years ago. The coolest part about this too is that Steve flew back to Germany to teach a class at his old stomping ground on June 4th. What a perfect way to spend our one year mark. I will be joining Steve there on June 17th where we get to spend 5 days together without the boys in Germany. I am so excited to go back to Weiterstadt and eat all the yummy food around there with just Steve. We are really making these get away vacations a habit and I am loving it.

{Here we are a year ago at the front door to our house in Germany the day before we left}

One other thing that I must mention. I have been seeing blogs of people starting up there garden and it made me realize how much warmer we are here in Georgia. I mentioned our garden a couple months ago and this is it today.

Steve and I each planted some things, and they are growing beautifully. Steve has been using Miracle Grow on them, and it really does wonders. On Thursday Steve picked a beautiful zucchini and I picked a yellow crookneck squash straight from the garden. I cooked them up for dinner with some chicken and Italian dressing. I have also been eating peas out of the garden as I seem them, but the peas aren't doing so hot. I am not sure they are going to live much longer. We have a better plan for them next year.

I Can't Wait Until I'm 8!!

2009-06-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

Steven had his 8th birthday on June 3rd!! He has made it to baptism age, and we are all very excited for him. He will be baptized on July 5th. We set that date a long time ago not knowing Steve was going to be out of town, but now we are very happy we did.

Steven wanted to have a Star Wars party this year, and he had a blast. I really, really don't like giving parties. Actually I guess what I don't like is a party where the Mom drops the kid off for a couple of hours. I always try to do a party where the whole family stays. I have more fun that way, and less responsibility. But this year we decided to give Steven a real party and it wasn't sooo bad. Not my favorite, but it worked out.

He had 5 of his friends come. We started out feeding them lunch. Top Ramen is Steven's favorite, so that is what he chose. When I went to the store, I thought that is what I had in my cart. But when I got it out 5 minutes after the party started, it was Cup O' Noodle! Oops. So, I threw it all in a big pot and it worked out OK.

{The rest of the boys just ate watermelon and then were ready to get up and play. Not Steven. He sat there and ate his bowl of soup and another bowl of soup while his friends all ran around outside without him. The boy has a real love for food.}

After lunch the plan was to play star wars for a little while, but the boys knew that they were here to swim as well, so they didn't spend much time playing, they went straight to the pool. Luckily the party favors could go in the pool.

{These are the light sabers that Steve made for the boys}

{Making a whirlpool}

So they swam for an hour, and then we had cake and opened presents. Steven said present opening was his favorite part of the day. He wanted a lemon cake which I thought was interesting, but he always used to get lemon ice cream cones in Germany. So, I made a lemon cake where I added some lemon gelatin to the batter. Then after it was cooked I poked holes in it, and drizzled some lemon sauce on to it. It turned out very good, and lemony. Even the other boys liked it.

He had a great party and as a family we went to that same awful pizza buffet for dinner. Steve and the boys all love it, so Steve suggests it every birthday. I am going to do my best to get out of it at Brandon's birthday. :)

Thank you to everyone who sent gifts and called. The boys love that. Steven got a card from Grandma and Grandpa, Nana and Papa, Grandma Great, and Aunt Kristin and Uncle John. Thank you all so much.

School's out

2009-06-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

The boys last day of school was on Friday and we are very excited for summer. We got the pool set up in the backyard, and it is getting lots of use.

The three oldest boys, and a neighbor.

And we have a trip to California/Germany scheduled for this month. So lots to look forward to.

Here are the thank you letters the boys wrote for their teachers.
Nathan's

Steven's

The last day of school was very nice for the boys. First we went to Nathan's classroom for what they call on Honor's Day program. He had such an awesome kindergarten teacher, and I will always think the world of her. She gave each child an award, and even wrote them a poem called "My Sweet Sixteen." There were sixteen kids in her class this year. It was so sweet. Nathan got the award for best reader! Yay Nathan.

Here is Nathan with Mrs. Debbie.

This is Mrs. Sarina, the assistant teacher in Nathan's kindergarten class. It is amazing to me that in his school they have no more than 16 kids to a classroom, and have an assistant teacher. What a GREAT school!

Then Steven's Honor's Day program was in the gym. He got awards for Outstanding Citizenship, a Music Award, and Honor Roll. He was one tardy and one absence away from Perfect Attendance. We will have to try harder next year.
Here is Steven with his Awesome Teacher Mrs. Ledford. She is so much fun, and a really good teacher. She is pregnant with twins and due a month after school starts again next year. She is teaching third grade next year so Steven may get her again.

Now we have eight full weeks of summer, and then the three oldest will go to school. It is going to be so nice.

And as for the one staying home. He is crazy!! The boy has a thing with dumping things. For example: a box of corn flakes, a squirt bottle of water all over my wood floor, and here we have two examples of things that he dumped out. I am going to let you guess what they are.

thing A

thing B