Stokes Family

Final Holiday Pictures

2012-01-30T17:41:00.049-06:00

We had a great time in Gatlinburg . Alex's best friends own a few attractions and were
able to get us into several places there. They didn't own the aquarium obviously, but we got free passes.

The girls mainly wanted to see the shark tunnel and they weren't disappointed.

Chloe the deep sea diver. That wall in the back is so realistic! Looks like that guy's about to get eaten.

They had tons of cool exhibits.

The shark room was their favorite of course. I don't remember it from last time. There was so much to learn. This shark reached up and bit the air when you pushed a button, showing the whole process of the "attack."

I caught Hannah and Hudson holding hands many times, but he caught be getting their picture here. So he let go pretty soon after that. :)

Ice cream stop while the older guys went to a shooting gallery.

The quintessential Tennessee scene.

Glow-in-the-dark circus golf. Father daughter strategy looks pretty similar.

Ringmaster Amy

Before we headed out of town, we visited Great- Granny again at her apartment. She showed the kids all of her musical toys and gave them plenty of candy for the road. Which for the most part ended up being mine and Dax's candy when the kids were asleep. We met Matt and his girlfriend for lunch before we were on our way.

We drove straight to the lake house in Dyserburg. You can tell from Hannah that it was a bit chilly : )

I can't believe we're all so grown up. I love my dad's hair in this one.

Hannah was about finished taking pictures at this point.

You can usually find Melody doing something like this wherever she goes-
taking photos of all sorts of interesting things that might otherwise be overlooked.

Almost time for another Christmas!!
But first we headed over to Mary Beth and Chris's new house they will be renting just down the road from my parents. It was huge! Lots of neat rooms, but also a lot of work to clean up.

The typical Ryan sister pose. Melody did not fully commit and therefore
looks funny. The rest of us don't right?

Reminiscent of the fake fighting pictures we took a couple of Thanksgivings
ago, my dad literally put us in this position for a picture. He moved our
hands, heads, and everything for a specific look, so here's the grand result.
Haha- we're not very normal.

The lovely walk back. Mary Beth says that the white truck
that passed us by at one point was a reality tv star they know of,
but I forget which show. He apparently lives in the area.

We unwrapped lots of presents.

Our traditional "ugly" gifts.

My mom got these glowing Christmas Disney cups last year after the holidays.

Melody got them a swing for the backyard. Something was apparently
very funny.

With some leftover gifts from another family gathering, the three of us
played that game of many names where you steal a gift.

Some folks tried their hand at fishing.

It's never just Christmas, it's Mary Beth's birthday, too!
Can you see the lovely construction paper flag announcing 27?

That night, we drove back to Collierville and spent a few days there relaxing
and not driving.

We took the kids on Grandma's favorite walk.

It was so fun watching the kids explore the woods.

Hannah and I decided to cross a little creek that turned most people back
for a little challenge of our own. I nearly landed right in the mud, but
we made it and Hannah did a great job balancing on the rocks. Grandma
took Chloe and Colin back the way we came and Hannah and I followed
the empty path to see where it lead, which was very far away. : ) We did discover
a lovely lake, though. After a few movies, hours and hours of watching "Chopped,"
and lots of playtime, we headed back to Texas.
We had a wonderful time in our travels and the kids
couldn't have behaved better! I was even less stressed out this time, I believe,
but that's up to Dax to confirm.

We arrived at Nana's house for our final Christmas. We enjoyed
a great dinner and more presents. Colin checks out his new drill.

Since the kids spend the night fairly often, Nana
gave them a neat new spot to sleep in her bedroom- based
on the little tent in the film The Holiday.

Do you see anyone new? That's Byron (Lord Byron) up on the
couch over there. The kids have previously been terrified of dogs,
but Byron here has officially cured them. (They now go up to all
sorts of dogs).

He seems to like us all.

Another gift from Nana were some wheels for the girls. Chloe
needed a lot more leg strength than I imagined. When the weather
is more consistently warm, we'll head out for more practice.
We plan on getting Hannah a bigger version for her birthday.

Colin got a basketball goal- a nice addition to his bright little room-
my favorite room in the house.

He's trying out his toddler bed occasionally. He loves to get into it at night,
but wakes up frequently knocking on the door, so he's not super comfortable yet.

Melody's gift was a set of construction straws. Hannah was thrilled to be
trapped in her rocket ship.

Chloe is beyond excited about playing in the leaves after church.

You can tell the pose I was going for, but it went all wrong- haha.

Now that we're back home, Colin is coming into his own and getting into everything he can.
He climbed up to the pass-through, reached over the sink and grabbed all the candy canes out of the vase, and began eating them through the wrappers. He's trying to hide, but his mess gives him away. He's done that with chocolate, too. And he still grabs the chance to help himself to some chips if someone leaves the pantry door open. The funny thing is he's not upset when you take the food away. It's almost as if he shrugs and says, "Well, you got me. What can I do?"

Christmas Stage 2

2012-01-08T20:22:00.029-06:00

The kids did wonderfully on the drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house.
We had plenty of activities and hardly any fussing! The next day, they
had fun getting reacquainted with the house.

After a relaxing day and an outing to see Mission Impossible with my dad, we headed to East Tennessee.

We stopped in Nashville to have lunch with Aunt Melody and to finally meet Josh.
We found a neat hot dog place, which turned out to be more grease than hot dog!

We arrived in Knoxville that evening. We stayed at our friend Matt's house and caught up with college friends, including the kids' godparents. Lots of chatting and memories as always. A friend brought his 7 year old daughter so the girls had a lot of fun playing with her.

You would think after so much travel, meeting new people, and not being in their own home, they might be a little uncomfortable getting to sleep, but I guess all the activity overrode the unfamiliarity.

The next morning was Christmas Eve. Dax took the girls to his childhood church,
St. George's in Knoxville. This was where he took me when we first started dating. I was really taken aback by all the icons and the whole feel of the place back then. Now I see all the beauty!

Later that morning, Matt's gracious parents brought over a big breakfast and gifts for the kids.
Colin and Matt's mom played a bit of hid and seek.
Then we headed off to Sevierville.

I love this neighborhood where Dax's dad and stepmom live. The Tennessee hills I used to see o my Tennessee history textbooks growing up made no sense to me when I lived in Memphis. Where is that in Tennessee? I was lucky enough to go to college in this pretty setting and student teach almost directly in the hills. It was such a nice sight every day.

Getting to hang out with Papa Hats!

Christmas Eve is when Dave's side of the family gets together. For some crazy reason
I have no pictures of the extended family! There were 8 other people there!
Here is cousin Hudson, though, receiving
his choice of gifts for the season- anything related to the University of Georgia.

Dax and Colin try out the helmet.

Trading jokes with Uncle Alex.

Dax's brother with his sons, Weston and Hudson. It's hard to believe that Weston
was only 5 years old and the little ring bearer at our wedding.

The girls getting matching UT dresses. Good for football next fall. And of course
we'll have to take their picture and send it into the Vol magazine like everyone else.

Matching sleepers! I'll be sad when they're not into matching anymore. : )

Christmas morning, we visited St. Anne's church in Oak Ridge. That's where Dax and I had our Orthodox wedding almost 11 years ago. Colin wasn't too into the service, so we didn't stay for much chatting afterward. With time to spare before heading back to Papa Hats and Granny B's house, we had lunch at Ihop. Lots of tasty food for all, include Christmas sprinkled pancakes,
then we returned to the house for even more good food for two more days.

Granny B's side of the family came for Christmas Day. Weston helps Colin
open a cool toy.

Glow-in-the-dark remote control truck.

The adults were so happy to get a rare picture of all their grandkids.
With us in Texas and some others in Florida, who knows when they'll
all be together again. Gavin, Charity, Isabella, Hudson, Hannah, Colin, Chloe,
and Weston

This one was funny because Colin kept crawling back and forth across
their laps making them giggle.

I like this pose. Colin was in love with these steps
the whole time we were there. Only the last day did we
think to put a tv tray in front of them so he would
stay away.

Chloe and Hannah were very excited about this hand vacuum.
Perhaps that needs to be on my shopping list. There are a few messes
around here they could surely help out with.

All the sons- Jason, Joel, Alex, and Dax. Have I mentioned before
that in Dax's family everyone has two sons.? Including, I just realized,
Beverly. Dax is the one that had to break the mold, I guess. : )

Decked out in his Georgia gear.

Now with spouses! I will never learn to stop hunching over because
I'm tall. I always think I'm standing straight, but I'm not! Of course
nowadays I spend all day hunched over toward the kids, so that
doesn't help. Well, way to bring this picture down! ha

The girls got plenty of stuffed animals to love this year!
The funny thing is they always kept track of these two for the remainder
of the trip, but now that we're home, after the girls go to bed,
I hear the creak of the door. It's Chloe setting the cat in the hallway. ?

Again, the kids did really well meeting all sorts of new relatives and experiencing
new things.

Next we'll visit Gatlinburg!

Christmas Stage 1

2012-01-06T19:30:00.030-06:00

Merry Christmas from Hannah- our contemplative, curious, athletic, artistic, bright, glowing girl.

Merry Christmas from Chloe- our boisterous, chatty, cuddly, giggly, clever little munchkin.

Merry Christmas from Colin- our resourceful, busy, sneaky, observant, sweet, loving little guy.

We have so many pictures from the Christmas season, I'll have to break it up in to several posts, so here goes the first. : )

Last year, Colin was only a few months old, and we wished we had participated more in Christmasy family activities. This year we did much more. Nana treated us to a trip on the Polar Express (the girls' favorite movie this season) in Grapevine, TX.

We grabbed some hot chocolate and watched a little pre-show with a dancing train conductor.

All aboard!!!

Elf-like hostesses sang songs, danced through the aisles, and passed around "snow" balls while we took a little ride.

Santa came by with the gift of silver bells.

After the ride, the girls made a glass ornament with Nana. Hannah's dipping the melting glass into confetti for color.

Fire it up some more. I don't have a picture of the final result, but it was a huge glass globe with colors smeared through. Very pretty and a lovely gift from Nana.

Last year we kept hearing that Bass Pro Shop was a great place to go for Christmas and they also had free Santa photos, which is definitely a plus for a small Christmas budget. We are the opposite of outdoorsmen and weren't sure what to expect, but it was terrific! Isn't this a great fireplace in the lobby?

I had no idea how huge this place was. And it was really decked out for Christmas.

Santa took a nap while they changed the photo paper. For being first in line, we sure
had to wait a long time, but the kids were patient. Again, no picture of the end result because it hasn't been scanned yet, but it was a little more interesting than last years, which I thought was pretty interesting : )

To the coloring station. They also had a craft table and a couple of train sets you could play with.

We rode the reindeer carousel twice. Chloe was thrilled.

I like the matching "huh?" face on these two.

We visited the bass aquarium and how could I pass up this pose with the shark? I couldn't.
p.s. Hannah never did reach out to save me- haha She's a realist, what can I say.

Dax teaches his daughter the crossbow. They figured it out eventually. We won't be buying one anytime soon.

Hannah, Hannah Crockett- Queen of the Wild Frontier
What a great night out. We had a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel and called it a day.

With Megan out of school, we jump at the chance to get together. She surprised
us with some cookies to decorate. Again, Chloe is thrilled : )

We had a few decapitated ones, but I think they're cute.

The clan- so fun to watch them grow up together. I just realized how long
Hannah's legs really are! Just like her mom. (I apologize again for the red-eye-
Iphoto is not letting me adjust them).

Colin is now old enough to face forward, and he's much more comfortable now.

I love seeing this site on my way home. Put a little blonde wig on
Colin and they look like twins.

Since we traveled quite a bit for Christmas this year, we had an early family Christmas at home.
We filled their new bowls with popcorn and snacked while we opened gifts. A fun time.

They received this new tunnel from their godparents. A great new way to get to the kitchen.

But only for kids.

Next stop- Collierville, TN!!

Christmas Countdown

2011-12-08T16:13:00.031-06:00

Is there a sweeter face?? The kids have been a little sick this season. Colin had a cold this night and since he's sucks his thumb to get to sleep, he couldn't get comfortable in his bed.

Here he is fussing over something at our garage sale. The kids saw a few stuffed animals they wanted to keep and started tossing them around. Hannah got a bunny stuck on the roof, and suddenly Dax says, "I'll just use my cane" .. and pulls out a cane I didn't know he had. haha

Thanksgiving is a good time to catch up with the Bentons. Phoebe and Finley came over for playtime. As they get older, the moms get more and more chatting time. There was only one bloody lip! Which is more than I can say for many playdates with little kids.

Chloe and Finley looking sweet. Pardon the red-eyes in this post- iphoto was not letting me correct them.

Grandma and Papaw came for Thanksgiving!! We had all the usual food, and Nana brought some delicious dishes, too. The kids were happy to see their grandparents. We had some fun playing baseball in the yard with cereal box bases. We took a walk to the park, too.

Grandma treated us to Happy Feet2. Chloe was more interested in visiting the restroom, but overall, they sat perfectly still and never took their hands out of the popcorn boxes.

We had fun putting up the tree. The girls organized the branches by color and helped me put it all together.

We always love getting out our old favorites. The dollhouse dolls visited Mary and Joseph, but it looks like they may have made themselves a little too much at home.

Waiting anxiously for cookies. The doctor told us Chloe had hand, foot, and mouth. Well, all that ever turned up were little spots on her throat, and she rarely complained. The others stayed at Nana's and Chloe and I baked cookies. Notice something exciting and new? At least to us, anyway. A new fridge!!! The parents are coordinating to purchase this for us. Very much needed, loved, and appreciated! Dax and my dad went out for Black Friday and got a good deal. I also went out for a few purchases and ended up in long lines at Toys R Us, but had a good time. My mom and I made our annual visit to Kohls. : )

I've been dying to improve our eating habits and the Nativity Fast
certainly helps since it cuts out meat and dairy. I've been trying to shop more
"real food" also and sticking mostly to the perimeter of the store, where
all the fresh items are. The bill is a little higher, but we are wasting much less food,
and in my opinion, I'm full for much longer, I've had much more energy,
and the food tastes very good. To convince the girls to get on the boat (Colin
can't be convinced of anything lately and Dax is always on board once
I decide on some action) I drew little breakfast items we would be sticking
to. Fiber and protein are breakfast essentials and we hadn't really been focusing on that.
Typical of Hannah and Chloe, as soon as they learn something new,
they are 100% in agreement and like to participate. They've eaten eggs when they
usually don't prefer them, and have even decided on honey rather than syrup on their
waffles.

Hannah has been in love with markers the past few weeks. Here's her tree.
I love the strand of lights!

This is entitled "Grandma with 2 boo-boos on her face." Haha! I don't know where that came from. She drew a number of these style portraits that day. The one of herself had glasses, since she wants to wear glasses like a girl in her class. All too soon, I'm sure.

We use the washing machine as a hiding place in Hide and Seek pretty often. Colin always gives me away, though. : )

You never know when Colin might decide to go pants-less and try on someone's shoes.

Another night, Colin and I stayed home alone and enjoyed time together. I made him a paper airplane.

And he loved playing with all the snow-globes.

I was excited to find him another thrift store bomber jacket this year. That's just his style to me
: )

We're not doing Christmas cards this year, but still wanted a picture of them all together.
We've yet to visit Santa, and I'm almost sure Colin will disapprove. Here's an outtake of the final photo.

The best one!

Much better of Colin, but the other two were a little off. Still cute, though, I think.

December 6th is the feast day of St. Nicholas, so the kids set their shoes out the night before.
We talked about the St. Nicholas story and how we could be more like him by helping others secretly. Dax put out gold chocolate coins, icon cards, and new pendants to go on their crosses. Hannah asked why St. Nicholas came at night. We explained that we remember who he was, but it's not that he really visits. She was still asking the same thing, so I told her that St. Nicholas wanted Daddy to give them those gifts. Then she said, "But why didn't he just come in the door?" I guess she thought he just dropped them off. : ) On a side note- we were reading some Christmas book the other day, and I get the surprise question we all know is coming- "How did I get out of your belly?" It was just the context that surprised me. I explained in gentle terms (since I had C-sections) how it happened. She was highly disturbed at first, but was soon okay with it. : ) Wow, speaking of bringing up subjects out of nowhere... back to the pendants.

Hannah got Elizabeth, Chloe got Mary and Jesus, and Colin got Nicholas.

Chloe has done really well with her big sister going off to school, but some days, she doesn't really get to do much in place of playing with Hannah. She might entertain herself while I do chores or end up lounging around with shows. She's a bright girl and loves to learn so it bothered me that I wasn't using our time so well. So I made up a simple little lesson sheet for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Once Colin takes his nap, she and I spend about 30 minutes doing little activities. This week focused on the letter A, so we counted Apples, arranged Almonds into Art, read poems about an Alligator, etc. We've had a great time doing it, and she's very excited about "her school." Today we put out honey for Ants on our back fence. When we returned to check, it was all gone.

We tried to make Apple chips, but they turned out pretty terribly! At least the making part was fun.

She was excited about this number sticker activity book.

Mazes are a little much for her although she gets the concept, so I did the drawing. Chloe is very efficient, I would say, and this was pointed out when she tried to draw the line straight to the mailbox. I said, "Oh, we have to stay on the street." She said, "Why don't we just walk on the grass?"

Another thing I've been desperate for is a better schedule.
Sure we have our meals and playdates, etc., but when we have days at home,
it turns into chaos quickly. I bought all these themed papers at Walmart for a dollar
by the way since we are too cheap to buy new ink for our printer. : ) I like them better
anyway. I also wanted to make sure to get in the day what I feel is important, and those things
were always squeezed out of the day- like a basic bible story. Hannah gets it at school, but
is not into sharing what she learned, so I have no idea where she is on it. Also, the kids spend a good chunk of their Sundays in church, but really don't know what most of it is about understandably. So I made up a few sheets and printed coloring pages of objects they see at
church like a censer, an altar server, etc. They seem to like it all so far, and learning about it together at the dinner table is nice. The most effective change in our day by far has been "Personal Play Time." This means each kid gets private playtime with just me. They choose what we do and get uninterrupted play. The others seem to respect that so far! Hannah usually chooses a game. Chloe has chosen books, ponies, etc. I usually wrestle around with Colin or we pick up his room together and make it play. I've loved it so far, and for the first time ever, Hannah told me I was fun to play with. So proud! It's very stabilizing to know everyone has bonded with me in some way that day. I've even scheduled in Mommy time! It's usually taking care of chores, but I'm fine with that. We're looking forward to all the fun things this Christmas season!

In With the New

2011-11-20T19:35:00.019-06:00

Dax went to Seattle for a week at the beginning of the month. That was a whole week. Well, really 5 days.
Nana was so great to watch the kids so I could teach. Other than that, I was challenged to be a single parent for most of the week. Unfortunately, the first day, all the kids got sick and the water heater burst! Other friends were sick, too, so school and any other fun plans we had were completely canceled. I said lots of prayers for patience, and it certainly helped. We had a peaceful week. But by Friday, I had great sympathy for anyone who tries to raise children all on their own. : ) Dax had a great time at his All American Council and went to lots and lots of meetings.

Here he is in front of the original Starbucks. Of course I had to jab at him a bit and ask him why he wanted his picture in front of this station wagon.

He took this one for me- cheese. haha

The local high school put on a production of Winnie the Pooh, so the girls and I met up with friends and went. Hannah rejected sitting with us at first and headed for the front row. She got lonely soon, though, and joined us again. The show was cute, and besides an awful lot of dialogue verses action, I was proud the girls payed attention and we very quiet.

I really liked the homemade costumes. It was cute how they managed to make humans
look like animals with just a few touches of makeup and props. This was Roo.
Don't you love the girls' identical "shy but excited" pose?

And here's rabbit. All the students did a great job.

Since my painting class has been over, I thought I'd try a step by step instruction book from the library. This was the little scene. Let me just say the picture in the book looks worlds better, but I did learn a few little techniques I need to practice. I also learned that the right tools will certainly make more of a difference. I need a couple of smaller and larger brushes at some point.

Hannah had "Hilarious Hair" day at school since the letter of the week was H. This was our chance to use up more of that blue hair spray!

This little guy gets into anything and everything. Apparently cereal cannot be enjoyed in a bowl. This was my mistake since I was running behind trying to get everyone ready for school. Otherwise he would have been in a high chair.

After particularly long days, I'm ready for them to watch a movie or show. They usually pick Backyardigans.
And popcorn is their very favorite snack.

You can't tell from this picture, but we got new carpet!!!! We've waited so long for this and it looks really nice. Rather than pay extra, Dax had a friend help him move furniture and dispose of the old stuff. I came home that night to do lots of paint touchups to the room- also been waiting forever to do that. Here I am getting into the ice cream by whatever means necessary.
I also wanted much lighter curtains than we've always had. I searched about 15-20 places and didn't find what I wanted, but there, crumpled in the floor of Goodwill was a $3 panel I thought was perfect- nice and simple. I went home, cut it in two, hemmed the sides and bottom and voila! After washing them, I was so anxious to hang them up I didn't iron them. I hope it doesn't take another 5 years for me to get around to that. The good news is that a lady bought our old curtains at a garage sale (which were still very nice) and said she was going to redecorate her whole house around them- wow!

While looking for curtains at the mall, we found a letter writing station to Santa. The girls didn't really get it, but that's okay. Chloe told Santa she liked Tinkerbell. I reminded her she already had Tinkerbell, and she said, "Oh, yeah!" Hannah wrote something about Barbie : ) The mailbox was actually real and required stamps- um- which I never ever just have on me. We just stuck them in there anyway because let's face it- who knows where they are really going?

It's always fun to see the stores' Christmas decorations, but Sears was pretty low on the list- this was pretty much it!

Running from the camera. And he does have 2 boy cups, but always steals the girls' instead.

Also something new, I finished Colin's quilt! I went with a really basic X this time because I didn't want to wait months for it to be finished.

I also painted the top canvas blue to match the bottom. A couple of other little things and I'll call his room finished.

I sat down for a split second for some Ipad time to myself and they drag out the food. Well, Colin drags it out because like I said, he's into everything. I'm trying to steer him in the right direction, so rather than scolding him out of the trash can constantly, he gets to use it on better terms by throwing his diapers away. He loooves to do that. And rather than having him slam doors and get in the way of the dishwasher, dryer, etc. he knows it's his job to close all doors when I tell him it's time. He always claps for himself. He's also finally said "Mama!"

You never know when your toy hamster will lodge himself in your hair.

Birthday and Halloween

2011-10-31T20:19:00.037-05:00

Chloe's Chuck E. Cheese dreams finally came true. And we wore purple to celebrate her favorite color. She now has an almost all purple wardrobe, and if you find something purple in the house, you can bet it's Chloe's.

She always runs to this ride first.

Grandma teaching Chloe how to shoot things- hehe

Jackpot!

Papaw made sure Colin got in on the fun.

When it was time to meet Chuck E. Chloe was ready instead of scared.
She gave him a high-five. The place was packed, but our host did a good job of
keeping us on track.

Crowned by the mouse.

Chloe got to hear her name extra loud among the chaos since the little girl at the next table was also named Chloe.

I thought for sure Chloe wouldn't want to go in the ticket blaster, but when the host said Hannah could go in with her, and we watched someone else do it first, she was ready.

It was so funny to watch them in there. Chloe was super calm and concentrated getting all those tickets! The host actually said he'd never seen a 3 yr. old follow all the directions and not scoop tickets off the floor drop them all.

Present time! Chloe got so many perfect gifts.
Thanks to everyone for making her day special!
(And thanks to Melody for helping with last minute party favors!)

On Chloe's actual birthday, Dax and Hannah made ribs. Dax is reaching to turn off the smoke alarm : )

Chloe was excited to get several fun things. At the last minute, I found this little lamp for their room. She's been asking for one.

In other activities, we went to a nature preserve with some friends. Colin was so tiny in those tall woods.

His favorite past times are pointing in general directions and chatting about some mysterious subject.. and throwing things. I'll get a picture of the latter sometime, I'm sure.

At the end of the nature trail is a surprise playground.

Hannah's school had a pumpkin party and parade, so costumes were in order.
She wanted to be a princess, so we just used her dress-up clothes. Chloe couldn't resist being Tinkerbell.

It was also her day to share an object that begins with F. Granny would have been proud we took her "Feelings" Puzzle.

The costume parade!! Is there anything cuter? Of course I couldn't stop smiling.
I've got a video I'll post another time. Hannah just loved it and was waving to the crowd.

Saturday, we went to a kid's Halloween party. It's no secret I'm not fond of the scary elements of Halloween, not because they are scary, but I just don't think it's fun to treat death like a joke..and other reasons. However, I continually find myself on the fence. The activities we've participated in involve pumpkins, happy costumes, tasty treats, and at the very scariest- cute spiders. As far as trick-or-treating, I only have fond memories, so I'm not sure what we'll do in the future. Obviously we won't be able to avoid the things I feel aren't good to teach them. So many will differ from my opinions, I'm sure, but until those future days come, we're enjoying the lighthearted fun. Sorry for my little soapbox there! In the meantime, don't you love our Cat in the Hat costumes? We sang the theme song and quoted the beginning of the cartoon show all the way to the party. We also had a great time dying Colin's hair tuft blue.

Here was our party host! Haha. He did this all afternoon.

This party was planned to the nines! Every detail was so cute!
They painted pumpkins here.

This was just 1 of three perfect tables of treats!

I liked their mantle, too.

Some other guests : Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion

Princess riding her unicorn.

Monster!

Dad and strawberry look like twins.

Candy corn relay.

The relay kind of lost its way pretty soon, so some of the parents (who were also teachers) were calling it "Task Completion."

I was the only adult with a costume, but I couldn't resist complimenting the Things 1,2, and 3 after one of my students' parents offered up the costume. Jessica counted for wearing the hat. : )

Artfully Yours

2011-10-23T19:45:00.002-05:00

Well, my beloved painting class has come to a close, so I'm here to bring you the results : )
I did this painting over 3 weeks of class and a few hours at home. It's been in my mind for quite a while to paint something for Colin's room since I've searched stores and online for wall art and haven't found anything. He already has a couple of rocketships in his room, circus-like curtains, and a rug featuring a road to all different places in the world. So since his room's theme seems to be "Adventure" that's what the painting is about.

I wanted it to be whimsical, so I made swirly, chunky clouds. I also wanted it to be an aerial view.
Quilts introduce the fair in the valley below, and if you look closely, you can see little Colin running toward his adventure. There's a maize maze, candy shaped concession stands, a train coming out of the mountain, a little midway, rollercoaster, circus, ampitheater, and racetrack.

The main feature was always going to be someone waving out of a hot air balloon, so that went in early. There's a large lake with tiny beach umbrellas and sailboats. Little patches of puff paint forest are all around, too.

Here's how it looks in his room!

The last class was supposed to be snacks and critique, and since my family was in town for Chloe's birthday, Melody came along!! We ended up doing some painting after Dax brought up the paints to class, and had a great time with everyone.

Melody's sweet seahorse.

The water cup I used for all my paintings was my "subject."

The class! We started off with about 9 people, but gradually it dwindled to a loyal few. I really had fun with these people, and I hope our suggestions of meeting outside of class for a few landscape paintings will pan out. Mary, the teacher, is in the middle. Her artist's name is Stangeblossom. How good do you have to be before you can come up with an artist's name? ...hmmm

After each class, Strangeblossom, gave a painting of her own away, usually one she completed in class. I had to leave early for a concert one night, but was excited to learn I had won one! I thought it was appropriate considering I love Mt. Dew : )

I decided to use a scrap paint canvas like she did, but all I came up with were two M&Ms. This was a gift to Melody, but either she thought I was joking or she secretly didn't want it because it's still at my house for some reason.. hehe

Melody took some beautiful photos while she was here.

Back to my own photos. Colin loves this spot in the front yard.

Colin and Papaw spent some great time together this weekend.

Chloe was super excited about Grandma and Papaw's presents. She got a purple outfit- her wardrobe is quickly turning all purple! That will be a fun memory when she's older. She also got a few books she and Hannah have been anxious to get. They love "Seek and Find" books. They have a green and yellow. Now they have a blue and red and they were ecstatic! I'll post the video when we load it on the computer.

This one is really sweet.

Melody took this one as well- one of my favorites.

We took over the streets of the Fairview neighborhood heading to visit Nana's house.

Once there, Melody and I tried to take a few un-beautiful photos. I call this one- "A study in contrast" - discuss.

Melody couldn't take any ugly photos. I ended up taking this one of a deck post I thought was pretty cool.

Nana is starting a rose garden in the backyard. I'd say this one is a great start!

I'll be back soon with plenty of Chuck E. Cheese excitement.

Happy Fall Y'all

2011-10-14T23:57:00.079-05:00

Less is more... because the less I post, the more pictures you get! For quite awhile, I didn't think I had many pictures, and now I have too many! And you'll see your fair share of pumpkins for sure : )

We were invited to a Fancy Nancy Birthday Party. In the books, Nancy is all decked out in hair bows and costume jewelry, so that's what we did, too.

Several parts of our front yard do not have grass- just mud- and it's not so pretty. One day we planted a bunch of grass plugs, and to keep the girls busy, they got to cut all the dead leaves off the monkey grass with their kid scissors. They took the job very seriously as they sported their pajamas. The grass isn't looking any fuller yet- maybe due to our pesky moles?

Every Wednesday we have a playdate with friends. This time we fed ducks at the lake. Colin was upset I didn't let him walk right in. The weather has been so pretty that we've had a picnic lunch at various parks much more than we've had lunch at home this month.

Dax and Anna drove out to Tyler, Texas to see Father Demetrios speak. He was Dax's childhood priest and was in town for a short time.

One of Colin's favorite things to do (besides constantly beg for food) is to crawl into Hannah or Chloe's bed and pretend to sleep. Here, he's probably getting spaghetti all over Chloe's sheets if you look at his shirt.

Sometimes I ask for a "Cheese!" and get stuff like this.

Now what we've all been waiting for- a plethora of pumpkins.

One day we were invited to a weekday morning birthday gathering for a friend. The Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch beats all others I've been to, and the weather was perfect, too. The girls loooove Strawberry Shortcake.

This is about 50% of their wood cut-outs. Characters were hidden everywhere. It was fun to see some older ones from my generation lurking about. And don't you love that house? I wanted to move right in and have acres of pumpkins for my daily view.

Not really his first pumpkin patch, but I couldn't resist.

What the other 23 tries looked like.

Colin masters the art of sauntering, meandering, and toddling all at once.
This might make my sisters think of the "Dust" game.

Enjoying freedom.

Do you see Hannah's little head popping up? This maze was for 3 and up, but maybe even 4 was a little too young. All our 4 year-olds went in together, and soon got lost and confused. A couple started crying and Hannah looked worried (from what I could see). One girl got superhero adrenaline and somehow scaled the hay looking for her mom. "I'm scaaaaaared!!!" she shouted with her fist pumping in the air. It was the funniest thing! I felt bad for laughing. No moms seemed to be making the move into the maze that said "No adults" so I tried out my own superhero powers and jumped over the side. I led everyone to safety and crawled out covered in straw. I was pretty proud until I realized my glasses were missing (they had been on my pocket while I wore sunglasses) so back into the maze I hurdled, crawling all over the place until I found them. Humility always finds a way.

Chloe was obsessed with this little building. I hope she moves on to higher aspirations soon.

The party guests crammed into a tiny space.

I'm not sure this will mean much until we return next fall. : )

Colin is the 8th dwarf...Hungry.

Colin refused the hay ride and chose this instead.

Somehow the girls cajoled these older boys into pushing them on it next.

Pumpkins #2- Nana's work had their annual fall festival.

First order of the day- getting tattoos.

I took Colin into the petting zoo. He actually did really well and wanted to pet the animals, but was unhappy if they moved toward him.

This donkey wouldn't leave him alone. Haha

I liked this llama (alpaca?). Anna told us later that this guy escaped with some of his animal friends and they had to chase them around the property!

Our kids don't like these things- understandably, since they don't see the humor in it from their side of the cutout- but we as parents, have the duty to make them do it anyway : )

Hannah refuses and it makes me laugh that Dax thinks he's hidden.

Finally up for a hay ride.

\
Checking out the big rig! I loved the interior of this thing. Spacious and clean- I could imagine myself on the road with my music, my snacks, and my plush truck cab. I'm dressed for it already, right?

Pumpkin Patch #3!

The Dallas Arboretum pulls out all the stops for fall with their thousands of pumpkins. This was the first time Dax was able to go with us. It was a beautiful day, the kids were in good spirits, and we had a great time.

We enjoyed some of the regular garden areas first with a race: Hannah vs. Mommy and Chloe

The theme this year was Princess Castles- so interesting architectural houses were all over to run through. The kids all got to sit in Cinderella's coach. Many little girls were dressed as Cinderella to get their pictures taken.

This one makes me laugh. Harvesting her pumpkins for some pie, I imagine.

I'm new to the Hispanic-American traditions of girls turning 15, but we saw these princesses all over the place getting their pictures taken. The girls thought they were part of the exhibits- or that they were seeing real princesses- I'm not sure.

We picnicked on a nice big hill.

Ever wonder what "Mad Hannah" looks like? I don't recall what the problem was... haha

Hannah saw kids rolling down the hill and really wanted to try.

With a teeny tiny bit of prodding from Hannah and me, Dax rolled with her. She loved it.

Here you can spot me lounging in what I long to be my own yard.

If you haven't noticed, they did get their hair cut! I love long hair on girls, but theirs what getting pretty scraggly and it was getting hard to make it look nice. It turns out Hannah has a lot more curl than we thought. You can't tell here because it's all in the back.

We'll be back soon with Chloe's birthday party! She has been telling anyone and everyone (including inviting a fireman) about her party and how she will be 3. I don't think she even feels 2 anymore.

September

2011-09-23T00:14:00.033-05:00

Watching Daddy play catcher. Dax's faculty/staff team did not come together this year, so he was happy to sub for a friend's team one night.

I think they stayed here for about 5 minutes.

The wives being goofy. Just in case you're wondering, she's just crossing her fingers- I just noticed what that looked like-oops!

Nana works on new storage for her kitchen and the girls help paint.

The girls took their first "official" trip to the dentist and both did very well. Chloe went between telling Hannah, "I'm not scared!" and "I'm too scared!" The hygienist was a great guy and really explained things to them and put them at ease. Chloe's showing off her clean teeth.

Snarly, sparkly teeth!

Colin confiscated a toothbrush, brushed his teeth, then brushed spit into his hair. Then repeated.

I ran across this at Hobby Lobby the other day and thought it would be a great $15 spent to entertain the kids. I expected them to be really excited about getting to color all over a toy, but it remains looking like this a week later.

Colin has had a great time in it, and it makes for a good Hide and Seek spot.

The other day I was helping Hannah clean her room and I kept hearing plastic crinkling. I thought about what it could be but didn't investigate until it got louder. Little man had found an open pantry door, opened the Cheerios box, and helped himself to the whole bag, hiding behind the kitchen table. Little did I know that day marked a beginning. He is now a very sneaky little thief. He's taken things from my purse (of course), toys from babies, an unfinished hamburger from a random kid's lunch at the park, and he'll manage to get a snack from any mom he can find. He also tried to leave the kids' area at the library about 12 times today- something the girls just never bothered to do. I'm sure he was on some kind of mission.

Fall is almost here, and I love homemade looking fall decorations. I found some cute felty pumpkins at the store but decided I should make some instead of dishing out dough. I found a couple of how-to videos online and put together some scrap fabric to make these little pumpkins.

It's a banana party. I just thought this was funny.

Here's another simple activity from a book. This page is from a book about a girl who walks to school with her mom and pretends the typical things they see along the way are adventures- so the cat at the corner is really a tiger, the creek has alligators, etc. So we drew our own.

Hannah must be up on the latest scientific discoveries. Apparently we are on a super earth with multiple suns. I drew the house, mountains, and rock pile, and she drew the "lava."

Happy Thanksgiving!! I wish this was my table.
Last year a group of friends held "Thanksgiving in September" and we repeated it this year.

Colin's always pleased to sit in a chair by himself.

Some of the kids color turkey pages and write what they are thankful for.
Hannah was thankful for Daddy bringing her to this party.

A pretty good spread!! We brought corn salad, cauliflower gratineed, and my family's old standby, can-shaped jellied cranberry sauce, which I think only I ate.

All of them are growing up so fast! The two oldest were just learning to walk when I first met them and now all the rest have come along! I think we had a grand total of 15 kids.

I found a quiet spot- someone made me put the napkin in my shirt- maybe to cover the crazy wildlife design! At least I was in fall colors.

The other day, we played "sandwiches," which is basically stacking the kids all on top of each other.

Chloe and Colin enjoy lunch while Hannah was at school. This was the first time they ate together at this table and at one point, I noticed their little bare feet "hugging" under the table : )

I've been up to a few things. I'm back with the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, and our concert is this weekend. We're playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, Cuban Overture, and Catfish Row from Porgy and Bess- all famous stuff and fun to play. Our piano soloist is a previous Van Cliburn winner! Less exciting is my new organizing. I got these notebooks with birthday money forever ago. So now I've made nice little labels for them. Hopefully I'll be motivated to put things in them now that there's a place for everything.

I'm also taking a painting class!!! Dax's school has a Lifelong Learning Center, and I've had my eye on art classes forever, but they've never worked for our schedule before. This class is for acrylics and I'm having a great time. 3 peaceful hours once a week where I get to listen to adults, and sit with a snack and bunch of paints! The first class, the teacher told us not to sketch, but to choose something from her still life setup and just paint. Well, I was pretty pleased with my two-toned pineapple, but not so much the rest. I don't really know where I was going with that background, but that's the fun of it. Hannah says it's a waterfall.

My goal was to really get out of my box, but the pineapple is still definitely within my box, so I'll get there eventually.

This week we used palette knives, which I've never done before! We had to bring our own still life this time. I'm still not sure about the background, and the camera makes it almost look a little better than it is. I had to wash everything off the canvas and start over. My first version was of a blurrier watering can with some kind of crazy pyschadelic background. At first it seemed some other people in the class were easily frustrated and not so sure about painting, but they brought back their work over the week and did a great job. And some of the knife paintings today were really neat!

Big Week

2011-08-30T15:17:00.044-05:00

Since our trip to the fair last year, the girls have mentioned wanting to go again about every couple of weeks. We kept saying, "Sure- next year!" and they would cheer with excitement. Well, next year finally came and they were super excited to go again. Nana kept Colin so we could be hands free.

This time Chloe was barely tall enough to ride a few more rides. She had her heart set on the ferris wheel, but that sure wasn't happening even though it was quite a bit smaller than most. She was way below the line. Maybe "next year", right?

We took them through the fun house and they really liked it. I have a specific memory of myself at some young age screaming bloody murder at the sight of this turning tube- the last thing to crawl through. They had to stop the whole ride for me.

So even though my kids are deathly afraid of dogs, they were just fine with the fun house.

This ride was so funny. Hannah was ringing the bell and Chloe kept swatting at the bell rope, unable to figure out how to get it to ring, which was really strange for her. I kept calling, "Grab it!" and finally she did : )

Cool treat for the major heat. They did have mist fans everywhere, so we didn't let them get scorched.

Inside the exhibits, they enjoyed bubbles for awhile while Dax talked to a Sears rep. Then Hannah whispered to to me something so quietly, it took about 8 times for me to hear - "I want face paint." Chloe picked a cat face and Hannah picked a sparkly tiger face.

As you can tell, Chloe was super pleased. Lots of people got a kick out of her doing this for about 5 minutes.

Hannah felt super empowered with hers. She talked to random people, saying, "I'm a tiger!" and growled at various groups of people, too. Earlier in the fair, she also spoke awhile with some rollerderby ladies who were trying to recruit her : )

Dax and I loved this. With no one else on board, and given the chance to sit anywhere they wanted, they chose these seats.

Neither girl did too well with the petting zoo. They both screamed if an animal even looked at them. They were brave enough to pet a baby goat, but then the screaming started again, so we had to take them out. The bounce houses were a better fit.

Ballet recital !

I thought the recital costumes were very cute this time around, although I love the colorful birds they were last time. Now they are in different classes, so Chloe was a fairy and Hannah was a princess ballerina.

Chloe is a bit mistaken on the demeanor of a fairy and growls at the camera.

As for the routines, it's really anyone's guess what they'll do. Their classes aren't structured around the recital per say, since not everyone participates in it, so come recital time, it's not always clear to them what they should dance. It's still pretty cute, though, and as long as they watch Ms. Rachel, they know what to do. Chloe did a great job...once she got on stage. Two video clips below. And Hannah did a little more than usual : ) Her first recital, she just stood there- her second recital, she raised her arms, and this one she did a few more moves in addition to yawning and playing with the tape on the floor- haha!! It's always funny to see this because she is one of the most diligent ones in class, but she still did a good job, too : ) That video also below.

Little man looking ornery as we get ready for church.

This is his standard face as of late. He's turned 15 overnight and pretty much disapproves of everything I do, unless I'm chasing him through the house. He likes that.

I decided to spend literally 3 minutes organizing some music for my students and this happened. Hannah's looking at this as I type and says, "Heh- that's our party."

Hannah and Colin love doing this around the house. The fun thing about having 3 kids is that there are three different relationships to watch.

Wohoo!! I can't believe my own child is having a first day of school- after all those pictures my mom took of us- now it's my turn. Off to pre-school she goes! It's just a few hours two days a week, but a wonderful new world for Hannah.

The lady in black is the assistand, Mrs. Schmidtke. Hannah is still trying to remember that name! Doesn't her classroom look fun? It definitely makes me want to go back to school. Or at least just rent out this room to play in by myself for awhile.

Putting her stuff away in her cubby. I love cubbies! She found a laminated shape in there and had to take it to a corresponding spot on the carpet.

After that, she was completely settled in and barely looked my way as we left, so good for her!
That's Mrs. Weber, the head teacher.

I took the two little ones to a parent meeting and Colin made sure some of the other parents didn't listen, but instead carried on a conversation with him : )

I originally decided to just bring them back home and have a normal day there, but with all the excitement, I just felt like that would be a downer. Plus, it's the first time I will have several hours with just Chloe and Colin, so we decided to have some fun. The school is also about 20 minutes from home and I wanted to stay near on her first day in case of an unexpected breakdown. So I took C and C to a nearby outdoor mall and let them play at the fountains.

Yep, there's that face again- hehe.

Soaked at the beginning of the day.
Next we walked over to the Nestle store and shared a cookie for a snack.

Then we went into my favorite toy store, Brilliant Sky. I needed to get a couple of birthday presents. They have some original toys in there, lots of play areas, free gift wrapping, and very kid-friendly staff. We walked right into a storytime, so Chloe felt like she got to be in a bit of school, too, since she was feeling a bit left out. They even did a craft project related to the Rainbow Fish book they read. It turns out this is a weekly thing, so we'll probably be regulars.

Colin found a baby baby grand.

And a John Deere lawn mower. If you're wondering about Christmas presents, he loved this thing. There's also a train table area, a doll area, dress-up and kitchen, and dollhouses.

They head back to the piano for a sibling spat.

Guess who won? Haha! Don't worry- I made sure Chloe got in some playing time before he took over. : )

After a Wendy's lunch, back to school to pick up Hannah!
We got there a little early so we could peek through the classroom windows and she was doing really well. It's so fun to see her in that environment, and of course I feel proud seeing her on her own, and a little sad she's at that first stage of independence.

Playground time after school! I love that there is so much space and accommodation for younger siblings here.

At the toy store, as a gift for her first day, we picked out a baby tiger for Hannah- since she seemed to like her tiger face so much, and the very first thing she played with in her new classroom at orientation was all the animal figures. Chloe picked out some ducks in a row. Later, she was disappointed they did not become unstuck from their row.

Hannah's first pre-school artwork. Her name is "Penny."
She says Matthew, Ava, and Wyatt are her friends at school and I got bits and pieces of how the day went. She seemed to really enjoy everything. As we passed by her room one more time on the way out, she saw her teacher and yelled, "Hey, Weber!" and told her a little something. Oh dear! haha So I had to tell her again that teachers need the Ms. or Mrs.

Chloe's rainbow fish.

Little Rascals

2011-08-23T19:35:00.039-05:00

Colin was excited to be big enough to ride around in the red car.

Here he is refusing to get out of it.

Since tax free weekend was coming up, I went through the clothes bins to take inventory before I bought anything new. This is always an opportunity to play dress-up.

Dax's school had a party for faculty and staff. I call this picture "collision course."

I remember going to someone's house when I was a kid and they actually had one of these in an upstairs nook. How great.

Chloe had her heart set on getting one of the various balls and bouncing it on the court. I told her to just ask for one. Hannah is good about approaching people like that- very much unlike me as a kid- and it turns out Chloe is, too. She went up to the boy in orange, and unfortunately he refused, and poor Chloe dragged her feet and hung her head about it. I encouraged her to keep trying. She got one man to let her borrow the ball for a few seconds, then she staked out the game from the previous picture and eventually got one of her own. She was so happy! I kept telling her good job. : ) As side note, I do realize my shirt is 8 sizes too big, but apparently spouses were wearing school shirts and this is what they had so I went with it. : )

This looks like another collision course in a bad way- ha!

With little ones, there's never lack for silly pictures. Chloe's bouncing a ball off her head and Hannah clearly needs to visit the potty.

Just chillin- as much as he can in the heat!

I got a chance to get a shot of all three of them on a pretty day. Hmm- almost.

Very close...

Good one!

We returned to the Highland Village Balloon Festival this year with Nana in tow.

The kids were up and excited at sunrise.

When we went last year, Colin was just a limp little thing at 2 months old. And I think there was a droughtless green grass last year, too.

I thought this picture was really great, until I zoomed in and saw all the half-eaten
Cheerios in her mouth. So I recommend you not zoom in.

The kids are demonstrating sequence here. Colin is coming for snacks. Chloe is digging for snacks. Hannah is shoving snacks in her mouth.

"What's the meaning of life?"

Balloonists' Prayer...

The Winds have welcomed you with softness
The Sun has blessed you with its warm hands.
You have flown so high and so well,
that God has joined you in your laughter,
and set you gently back again
into the loving arms of Mother Earth.

Here are some of my favorite balloon shots.

They had a few rides and crafts, and a lot of air conditioner salesmen.

We walked over the beach again, but no skipping rocks for me since Colin has no concept of safety of course and wanted to walk into the lake. Here are my favorite shots of them.

It's been awhile since I posted anything about how we try to turn their library books into activities. Today, technology proved itself to be helpful again. This week we checked out our first non-fiction books rather than just stories. I thought they might not be as interested since talking dogs and bunnies weren't going to be around, but they turned out to love it. We read about racecars and then ran to YouTube to watch the Indy500, which I suddenly found to be pretty thrilling once I had read up on the subject a bit : ) We read a book about astronauts. So we watched a couple of rocket launches on the computer. They were saying "Wow!!!" and I was thinking it, because as many times as I've seen videos, I've never seen it with children and realized how incredible it is. Chloe immediately wanted to race cars and wear a helmet as well as be an astronaut. Hannah wasn't committing so readily. That's their personalities in a nutshell.
Finally, we read a book about deep-sea creatures. I was simply reading the picture captions since the words were for much older kids, but Hannah insisted on listening to the real text. They also loved it when I sounded out the scientific names of each animal. Hannah's favorite was the angler fish, which she seemed to know all about already thanks to a PBS show on the Ipad, she said.

Here's the handsome guy now! She likes how his headlight works.
I happened to have the Blue Planet DVDs so they ate their lunch and watched the Deep-Sea Creatures disk. Again, I thought they would lose interest, but they oohed and ahhed the whole time.

I suggested Hannah draw the Angler Fish. She said, "I can't draw it. But I can draw like it."
I was pretty surprised when she showed me her drawing! She also said she added it's "long name" (scientific name) which is MNAHAAAAAHNNH. That definitely cracked me up.

It's been awhile since I posted anything the kids have said. Unfortunately,
I've forgotten some, but a couple I managed to put on Facebook, and some just happened today.

Colin was sick last week and when I took the kids through the Walgreen's drive-thru for his presciption, Chloe started begging, "I want chicken nuggets! I want chicken nuggets!" I guess every drive-thru has that potential, right? I should have asked the pharmacist for some just to joke around, but I'm not that brave.

Upon the girls not following any rules of a game, I said, "You guys aren't fun to play with." Hannah said, "Hey, we aren't toys!"

Chloe was holding a mechanical pencil the other day and I noticed she had taken the eraser off. I told her not to do that since the lead would fall out and we wouldn't be able to use it anymore. She said, "I just want to see what's happening in there. There's no batteries."

Today Hannah was upset to discover that a few months ago I threw out a pair of ruined pants. She looked at me and said, "Do you know why I have tears falling on my face?" (which she totally didn't) "I don't know where my pants are. Where are they? Where did you put them?" 'The trash can' wasn't her favorite answer.

Hannah's been helping a lot more around the house the past couple of days, which is great! But I found out that tonight's help was part of a bargain Dax had orchestrated. She came to her room and said, "I'll help you clean up if you help me finish my dinner" - which means spoon feeding her corn and green beans. If you're wondering, I absolutely took the deal.

Colin has been talking "up a storm"- a phrase I grew up with : ). He mainly babbles with great intent, looks you in the eyes and ends his phrase as a question. Whatever you answer, he's pretty satisfied, so I really don't know what I'm signing on for. However, his first real word happened today and as you might guess, it was "No!" Today I was chasing him down to take his nap and he looked behind me as he ran and said, "Noooo!" I thought this was fluke, but then at dinner, he said it to Dax when he didn't want his food. It figures, since he hears that word x 3 kids every day of his life. Also today, Hannah asked about her upcoming pre-school teacher's name. It's Mrs. Weber. She she repeated it, then Chloe repeated it, and Colin walked toward me, stopped, and said, "Webah?"

Today I threw everyone in the van and dropped by a friend's house to pick up a copy of this month's book club book. She's a teacher, and wasn't home, so she had left it on the doorstep for me. Thankfully the kids were fine about not getting out to play, but as soon as we passed a Sonic, Chloe was wanting food, and most especially a drink. I told her I didn't have any money and we would be home soon. She begged again and I said, "You know what? You could get a job! And then you would make money and then you could buy food and drink whenever you wanted." She really like that idea. She said, "Yeah!! I will get a job." I asked her what kind of job she wanted. She very quickly said she wanted to "fix the house." I was kind of impressed since I didn't think she understood the concept of a job. I told her that was a great idea and we talked on about it for awhile. Finally Hannah said, "Um Mommy? Are you just pretending?" I told her I wasn't and did she have a job she would like to do? "No, I'll just watch. I don't want money." haha
She also asked what my job was, and since I don't make money taking care of them, I told her I taught horn lessons and played in concerts. "No, don't pretend!" she said.
Well!!

So here is the picture of Chloe at work fixing our house. It looks like she hired on Hannah after all and then also hired a lookout. Colin works for cookies.

Up next- we have a ballet recital this weekend!

Short and Sweet

2011-08-14T11:45:00.012-05:00

I figured I would take the time opportunity I have right now and post a few pictures instead of letting them pile up- which makes me need more time to post them- which means I wait up to two weeks to get the chunk of time to do it- and the motivation! Well, Colin is growing up for sure. The other morning, he passed up his high chair for a seat at the table for breakfast instead. I do not have a picture of the following mess, so he's back to the high chair for awhile.

Present anticipation at Phoebe's birthday party!

The birthday girl. We got her a little monogrammed backpack. I wanted one myself! : )

Up to more mischief. As we are still working on the air conditioning issue, we've borrowed a large fan to get some air circulation in the den. Colin's mission is to knock it over.

The other day at the library, we tried working a huuuuge United States puzzle Hannah picked out. The puzzle was pretty difficult for their age and turned out to be difficult to me, too, since another mom decided to watch over our progress and make frequent comments. I started second guessing myself on where the states were! I started with the Mid-South and tried to work my way out- haha. Anyway, Hannah was super interested in the different states, so I found a toddler friendly puzzle at a store. They've played with this puzzle every day for a week. A great use of $8.

4 years in the making! Do you remember when our office was a dark navy blue with a torn up carpet. I never dreamed that one day it would be a bright, happy room for our son...with real curtains! I was motivated the other day to really start working on them. I had the red fabric from Ikea and some short white curtains from someone who didn't need them. I bought some green ribbon and large buttons. I already had red ribbon. I got out the sewing machine and some fuseable webbing and created a bit fun and drama for this small room since they are so tall. We also happened to have a cheapy white curtain rod just sitting in the garage so I didn't have to buy that, either.

The girls liked them so much, they decided to play in there for awhile and kept asking me to leave.

There is a little art on the walls, but I'm focusing on a bed quilt for him next. I've got all the squares cut and was determined not to buy more fabric since I have a large stash. I think I came up with something fun!

We also got our tv mounted, which has been great! We still need to get one of those cord hiders though. I also- after 4 whole years!- hemmed our curtains. They've bothered me for that long and of course it only took something like half an hour. I also put together a little brown ribbon and fabric to make a curtain for the tv cabinet. It always bothers me looking at all that equipment under there that has to be constantly straightened. It looks like I made a bit of hassle for the girls to get to their library books, though. : )

Hot, hot, hot!!!

2011-08-06T22:22:00.046-05:00

We are day 33 or 34 out of at least 41 projected days of temps over 100 here in Texas. Some have been as high as 110! So if we spend any time outside, it's definitely in water. Our playgroup had a family cookout, and pretty much all the girls showed up wearing pink and yellow so we took a photo of that. I think 2 or 3 are actually missing here.

Super fun trampoline with spraying water.

Who's little tush can that be? : )

It's not a family cookout without some songs from Gary.

At long last, after several months of work and countless late hours between myself, Dax, and a few other parishioners, our 10th Anniversary Weekend arrived! Here, I model the new church shirts. I drew the basic design, but a graphic artist cleaned it up and tweaked it to look more professional. It says our church name around the "window" and the words 'Christ is in our midst. He is and ever shall be.' That's a common clergy greeting and response in church. We aimed for a quote from St. Maximus himself, but he's a very complicated writer and did not leave us with many quotable quotes.

Events began last Friday evening when Bishop Nikon of Boston was formally greeted and helped serve at evening services.

Chantus Maximus performed a concert that evening called A Musical Journey Through the Orthodox World. The music coordinated with a slideshow featuring churches from the various regions represented in the music. I was at home with the kiddos, but got to hear part of the recording. They are for sale, so let me know if you're interested. All tickets and recording sales go toward the St. Maximus Building Fund.

On Saturday, we had an all day event that included morning services, brunch, two talks by Metropolitan Jonah- more on him later- a craft sale, lunch, and kids' activities- whew! Here are some of the craft sale items. I made these little scrapbooks. Waaaaay too much work since I sold only one, but I think they are really pretty, so they might be given as gifts as time goes on- we'll see.

Someone donated lots of lovely doll items. Our girls have some handsewn outfits by this lady for their doll and they are really impeccable. Lots of doll blankets here, too. In fact one little Russian girl told me as I was putting things away for the day that as soon as her mother was out of the lecture, she would buy some doll clothes. I didn't know if this was something her mother promised or not, but I told her I would leave that tub out. Well, the lecture ran awfully long and my kids were getting tired so I ended up packing it. Right then the lecture let out and I saw that poor little girl in tears! So I ran over and promised to bring the doll clothes right back in. Soon the tears were wiped away and she was taking home a beautiful little pink satin dress. : )

Besides the concert recording, we sold the Anniversary Photo Book (another big project of mine with lots of help from Dax) and The Hierarchy Book- celebrating visits from Archbishop Dmitri and Metropolitan Jonah. Both are still for sale, so let me know.

Anna donated some homemade jam and set up an embroidery station. As many know, it's tradition for women to wear headscarves in church as an act of humility and to draw attention away from vanity (like doing up your hair really fancy to gain attraction, etc) so....Anna offered to embroider custom scarves. Hannah and Chloe got their own, although they mostly refuse to wear them at this point. But surprisingly enough, Metropolitan Jonah requested to have his cassock embroidered with his name on the collar! He said that when he has his synod meetings, etc. all the various black wear gets mixed up on the hooks and it's hard to find his.

We also sold the t-shirts in three different colors. These are also still for sale everybody!
$12 for adult, $10 for kids.

Icon cards were for sale as well as having them custom mounted. The book I illustrated was out as well as my other big project, Liturgy Coloring Books- so far I sold 7! Only $2 each if you still want one. Hopefully, I'll be able to post the pages in the correct format soon.

One parishioner made the cutest wire frames and hair clips.

So I took one home for our kitchen. It will be a great place for the kids' artwork and fridge photos rather than having everything taped to the wall.

These crocheted hats were really fun! I bought that red one on the left, so
I can be spotted through all the snowstorms around here.

Chloe took home a purple one. She actually wore it that whole day.

As people began to arrive, the older kids enjoyed the game room and I was very impressed as Hannah inserted herself into several ping pong games and had a great time. I would have been way too shy at that age.

These monkeys found a tiny foosball table.

Enjoying the good eats!

When it was time for the first lecture, the adults headed into the auditorium and one of the dads (who had his 4th child very recently so I was impressed he still ran this) entertained the kids. I love how he quickly lined them up according to size.

The great thing is that her brought absolutely nothing! He simply thought up games on the spot and the kids loved it. Here they are trying the crab walk. His oldest son is the one doing the somersault. : )

It turned out the auditorium is not so insulated and the kids were a little too loud. Luckily, I had a craft table waiting for them, so we had plenty to keep them busy. They made clothespin butterflies, sun visors, straw sculptures, magazine picture drawings, and more. This was actually pretty tiring. I thought I had compiled enough to keep them busy and independent- no scissors or difficult concepts necessary, but I was very wrong. Every kid needed my help at every moment!

Once the adults were back, the children, led by Anna, gave some readings by St. Maximus. It was very sweet. Hannah and Chloe were in the "non-reader" group and recited with Anna between the older kids' readings. After a barbeque lunch, another lecture began. The kids went outside for a bit then enjoyed some impromptu story time since they were over the craft thing by then.
Overall, it was a great day with lots of activity and everyone seemed pretty happy.

The next morning, Hannah had the honor of presenting the Metropolitan with the traditional bouquet of flowers, always given by a young girl of the parish. His full title is: The Most Blessed Jonah, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada. Now that's a lot of territory to cover! Since he comes about once a year and we have many little girls, this was Hannah's one chance. I was really excited as his car was about to pull up. And then Chloe had to go to the potty.

So this ended up being my view instead. Colin is walking all over the place now and loves this little set of stairs.

Thankfully, someone else got a picture!!

Some of these pictures are courtesy of other parishioners. I'm not this good of a photographer.
Here are Father Justin and Bishop Nikon awaiting the Metropolitan's entrance into the church.

From inside the altar. Even these men look extremely stern, they couldn't be more opposite. Almost every time I see the Metropolitan, he has a jolly look on his face. He's truly a peaceful, loving, holy man. As for Bishop Nikon, I had never met him before, but he smiled and asked me many questions about by family and joked with me at the banquet later that night. He's also a sweet, kind, leader.

All the servers with the clergy.

And most of the parish. Minus my whole family it seems. At this point, I had actually gone home. Colin was being a little too rambunctious and fussy, and there simply wasn't enough room in the church for us! I have no idea where the rest of my family is!

Sunday evening, we had our finale banquet at Oakmont Country Club- our set up was basically this, minus the huge flower arrangements- because I forgot my camera!!! Anyway, our tables were actually decorated with stems of Rosemary from the church property, which was a nice touch, I think, thanks to someone on the planning committee. The evening was great! We were served a wonderful meal. I actually got to sit at the speaker's table and had a nice view of the whole room of people. Shortly after eating, Dax presented a slide show he compiled with three different pieces of music of pictures from the last 10 years. People laughed, said "awww" and had lots of moments of silence. He really did a great job. The whole slideshow ended on a quiet chord with a picture of the church at dusk. So nice!

After some delicious cake, Dax made an introduction speech and told the Stokes family story of how we came to be with the church as some of the founding members, branched off from the main cathedral in Dallas. Apparently he's a comedian because he had everyone laughing. Then Father Justin spoke and had people tearing up all over the place. There is not one person in the church who doesn't cherish him. He also gave an extremely beautiful thanks to Dax and especially his wife that everyone loved. Next the two guests of honor spoke. Bishop Nikon had a clear, bold voice and had a very thought-provoking message. I loved when he said, "The past does not belong to you. The future does not belong to you." Then he went on to speak of what kind of living you should do in the present. Metropolitan Jonah gave a very nice speech as well and reminded us that what we have as a church is truly a gift.

Finally, Dax presented gifts. He surprised me by telling everyone about the work I put into planning the event and gave me the new church logo in a frame as well as a copy of the photo book for our family. He gave the bishops their photo books and then gave Father something we've planned for awhile now. What kind of gift do you give someone who's spent 10 years serving his flock in every way imagineable? Our idea was to compile a memory book. So we begged, pleaded, and threatened : ) and received lots and lots of personal memories from the parish. We printed up cards of the memories and put them in a nice album. Thankfully, he loved it! Dax probably doesn't want me to post this, but he teared up while presenting it and got mad at himself at the microphone!! I just think it shows how much he cares : ) We also gave Father's family a frame with pictures of the church and their time there.

Well, that was the end of a successful weekend! This was truly a test for me. I was asked to coordinate it simply because I was one of the founding members, not because I have any experience or talent in planning events. I was overanxious about it. I complained when things didn't go my way. I wasn't thankful enough to all that helped with the planning. And I said many times that I will never do this again! haha. But! I learned how to better organize people, what is worth the time and effort and what is not. I learned I need to work on patience a great deal more and that I have an extremely patient, smart husband. I learned that people really do have the best intentions, even though they may do things differently than me. And most of all I learned that I don't want gratitude for this work, I just wanted people to have a nice celebration of their time at St. Maximus, which is what Father wanted in the first place. Many people have said they had a wonderful weekend, and that's what counts. And we did raise a small chunk of change for the building fund, so that's great, too!

On the home front, the kids are super glad I'm not obsessed with the anniversary anymore. We took time out on Monday and I took Chloe to her first movie- Winnie the Pooh! Hannah acted like an experienced pro even though she was reluctant to go at first. They both laughed through the movie and had a nice time : )

Dax got Colin all dressed up for shark week on Discovery Channel! He's holding 2 stuffed sharks by the way. He tried to take his picture in front of the tv, but there was only footage of a gruesome shark attack, so that wouldn't do! haha. For those who don't know, I grew up completely enamored with sharks. I even had a shark collage I made out of snipped out National Geographic photos. There was no such things as shark week then, so I had fun vegging on the couch at night this week revisiting my old obsession.

On Wednesday we had our last summer playgroup. One of the moms has a media room complete with huge HD screen and projector and red velvet curtain! How luxurious! Did I mention the popcorn machine? Well, all the kids gathered to watch Tangled- or rather wriggled and played around the room while the adults watched. Here's Colin anxious to climb up to the movie screening.

I always love seeing all their little friends lined up, many of which we've known since they were newborns.

Isaia was a little nervous about the scary parts.

Colin was anxious to grab his chair.

But mostly he found other things to do. This boy looooves slides. He even wants to conquer the really tall ones.

I made a few changes around the house. The second dollhouse was getting to be a little too much, so I turned it into a little shelf.

Can you tell the before and after of our dining room chairs?

And once again, you can't be very surprised, we rearranged the living room! We have hopes of getting a wall mount for the tv, and we needed to see if a new set-up would work. It's a little less room getting into the area, but once you do, it's very comfortable and cozy, perfect for playing games, watching a movie, and having a chat- all of which we've done. Hopefully it will stay like this for a long time. Thanks for braving this long post! I've already got more pictures ready to upload for next time!

Special Visitors

2011-07-24T21:23:00.027-05:00

We were so happy to bring back Melody with us to Texas. The morning after we got back, she went with us to a crafty playdate with the kids where we made visors : )

On Thursday, we visited the library for awhile and she took a few neat pictures.

Thursday night, we headed out for the long awaited Harry Potter midnight showing! The theater we love to go to is attached to a large mall, so Melody and I shopped around for a bit. Of course we couldn't resist this. A dad with 2 kids nearby volunteered to take our picture once he saw us goofing around. Then we met everyone at Applebees for a late night bite. Megan and Scott came. And Dax had just picked up our good friends (his from high school and college) Matt and Ken from the airport. It was so great to see the three of them hang out. Unfortunately I only got the picture below of all of them.

At the theater- ready to find our seats!

There was lots of screaming as always, and someone yelling, "It ends tonight!" haha. So we took our own excited picture. The movie was great and it was a really fun night. So sad to know it's all over.

Wow, this got boring quick, right? Actually, on Friday, I was excited to take Melody to Ikea! Because who doesn't like that place? I discovered they had a cut your own material section, so I brought home this material to make curtains for Colin's room. We got loads of cinnamon rolls and some soft serve before leaving with a few fun things.

On Saturday, Hannah attended her first "big girl only" birthday party at Busy Beads. It's a neat little jewelry shop on the town square, and in the back they have a party room. The girls each picked out their own bead pack and got instruction on how to make a pattern. It's so fun to watch Hannah be independent in doing these activities. I like to watch her think : ) She did really well with establishing a pattern...

And then saw her neighbor's beads of completely different style and color were another way and she scooped all her beads off the pattern to start again! At least she goes for it!

Her finished result. She picked out a little fairy charm for the center : ) She was actually more excited about this shirt than she was the party. Grandma bought it for her to start preschool, but once Hannah saw it, she was in love. She asked to wear it to the party, and Saturday morning she ran to my bedside saying, "I'm ready for the party, I have my shirt on!"

After some rounds of Bingo, everyone headed over to the ice cream shop. What a neat party.

In the meantime, Melody perused some local antique shops and book stores and discovered this beauty. Now you know someone somewhere is need of a Planet of the Apes type bust, but they have no idea where to start looking.

We took Melody to my favorite sandwich shop, Jimmy Johns, and had a girls lunch.
Dax, Matt, and Ken took the other kids to Dickeys barbeque and had their own fun. In the evenings, we enjoyed dinner, and just hanging out watching tv. One night we went to Anna's for a spaghetti dinner and had a nice time over there.

Matt brought his super nice camera and got some great shots of the kids. Melody got some really neat ones, too. Matt's pictures are the last 5.

Of course- one of my favorites.

Chloe is turning out to be a big jokester. She loves to do or say things in the wrong way and then grin at you and giggle. And she has such a sweet disposition (when she's not being a two year old : ) We were at a country club arranging for a church dinner, and she overheard us saying it was the same place of the wedding in which Hannah was the flower girl. I took Chloe to the potty on the way out, and she announced upon finishing, "Okay, I'm ready! I'm ready to get married!" (Imagine those 'r's as 'w's) I said," Oh you have to be a big person to get married. You're not getting married today." She said, " I am ready to get married. But I have to find my flowers first."

As for videos, we've got one of Hannah playing kickball and doing a relay race, an example of Colin learning to mess up his sister's puzzles, a great representation of his relationship with Chloe, and finally, a few solid steps and cheers from his family. : )

Most of July

2011-07-19T15:45:00.048-05:00

One of Colin's new camera faces.

Blue-eyed beauties- with lunch on their faces.

This is Colin saying "Cheese!" He actually says "Chzzzzez."

Happy Independence Day! Dax and I played a patriotic concert
together this year.

He sat right behind me and poked me with his slide.

I got to play with Nancy. We used to get to play together nonstop but
it's been pretty rare over the last few years.

When it was my turn to host a summer playdate, I decided to make it more complicated than meeting somewhere to play- typical me. My house is way too small for the 20 or so people, so Jessica graciously offered up her house and Megan graciously accepted planning a musical playdate for the kids. At first I was pretty anxious because so many people were canceling at the last moment, but we ended up having a nice time. Megan started the kids with several songs and body movements. She must have the touch! See how every child and adult are looking right at her? : ) Next we tried different styles of music. We marched to a march, walked like elephants, and improvised on toy instruments to jazz. Then we read an animal orchestra counting book and talked about instrument families with recordings to listen to. Finally, I played a few PBS and Nick Jr. show "excerpts" for the kids to guess. Then they tried the horn themselves!

Most kids actually formed sort of an embouchure (after trying to swallow the mouthpiece) and got out a sound or two, some easier than 11 yr. old beginners I've had.

The moms gave it a shot, too.

The next day, we were off to Tennessee! We made it there without much stress this time.

The first thing they always head for...

On Friday, we hung out at the house, Grandma took the kids for walks, and Dax and I got an evening to ourselves. Saturday, we all headed out to my parents' new house in Dyersburg and met the rest of the family there. Chloe is pretty much potty trained right now, but we went with the safety diaper for all these trips. At one point, she had to go in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped and tried the tall grass. I didn't figure she would be up for it, but it at least gave her an option. Of course, right after that we came to an intersection full of places to stop. In general, she did really, really well for all the potty breaks, so we're very proud of her.

Enjoying the new playroom. Every night, the girls pray for Kayla and Preston on their list of family members, and every single time we say their names, they both start a chorus of "I want to see them!!!" So at long last (since last Thanksgiving), they got to play together.

Surrounding Papaw on the back deck facing the lake.

So good to see everyone.

Gettin' old- haha.

Colin playing chase around 1 or 2 chairs they have moved into the house so far : )

The pizza line-up. Eating tasty pizza and drinking a Mt. Dew with my family with a view of the lake was definitely a moment to enjoy.

Then we did birthdays!

For Grandma and Papaw's birthday, we took the kids to get their portraits made. Soon, I'll scan the photo for a better look. I'm sure Grandma will have more to do on her actual birthday with the rest of the family, but that's a little piece that includes me.

Back in Collierville, we ran around in the field across from my parent's house, soon to be developed, I'm sure.

The "end of movie" shot. This wasn't choreographed or anything : )

The kids loved seeing what Papaw had in store for them.

On Sunday, we visited St. Seraphim Orthodox Church in Memphis. After church, the kids made a chair train, with Father Mark's wife bringing in the caboose.

With their godbrother Aaron and godsister Sarah.

It just happened that the Lush family (the kids' godparents) were in town for a wedding on the same weekend. Since they live in Chicago, it was amazing to actually get to spend time with them.

Do you ever watch the Food Network show, Chopped? Since we don't have cable and my parents do, we spend most of our tv time watching HGTV and the Food Network. Saturday night we watched chopped and came up with the fun idea that Melody and I should compete in similar fashion! My mom picked 4 random ingredients and we each had to come up with an appetizer, entree, and dessert. Fun! She even put them in a fancy picnic-like box like they do on the show. Little did I know I had found that box of food in the laundry room earlier and wondered what the heck a bunch of microwave bacon was doing in a bejeweled box? Haha.

So the ingredients were: Microwave bacon, glazed donut sticks, fruit cocktail, and dill pickle spears.

If you haven't seen the show, whatever the contestants find in their boxes, they have to use, and use in a way that it's edible and can be tasted within the dish. So Melody and I took 30 minutes to decide on our meals and look up ideas on the internet. (We aren't so skilled we can come up with it on the fly). Then we headed to the grocery store for the remaining ingredients. On the way, we decided team effort was okay and shared our ideas. Oh no! We had both decided on fried pickles!! Haha.

Hard at work in the competition kitchen. My mom came over with a Lego microphone a couple of times to interview us Iron Chef style. : )

Uh oh! Strike 1!! Hahahaa- this makes me laugh every time I see it. All I can say is...
it wasn't me! Sorry, Melody- haha.

And...back away from the plate! Time's up! Yes, we are goofy.

My dishes revealed: Pickle cream cheese spread on Italian loaf, Fruity Chicken with Parsley Garnish, and Bacon-Donut-Chocolate Chip cookies.

Melody fried up those pickles and whipped up a creamy dip.
She also made a fruit salad and ice cream garnished with donut and
smothered in homemade chocolate sauce : )

What will the results be?

The panel tastes...and loves it! Seriously, every single thing we made was delicious. We need to host our own show. There were too many differing opinions as to favorites so we considered it a draw and a huge success. It took us hours to do this by the way, not so much the 1 hour the show gets, but of course they have editing.

On Monday, we took the kids to the local water park to cool off.

Weee!

I looove when people try to duck out of pictures but they are still very much in the picture.
Makes it even cuter : )

Colin had several firsts in Tennessee! He took his first steps, found his belly button, and played peek-a-boo. Then my mom treated me to a few new clothes from Kohls for my birthday and we met everyone else at our favorite restaurant, O'Charley's for dinner.

A wonderful trip!! We'll see everyone when we make our big swoop of Tennessee this Christmas! In the meantime, we brought a souvenir back with us...Melody!! Those pictures to come.

Full Calendar

2011-07-03T01:15:00.040-05:00

I've had so much to do, I've been piling up the pictures. So here we go. My good friend, Mike, returned to Texas for a quick visit. Heather and I had not seen him for almost 4 years so it was great to introduce him to the kids, whom he quickly won over by giving out frosted animal crackers. Smart guy. We had a nice lunch at the house and just hung out together catching up on our lives and remembering old times. Now he's back in Pennsylvania and we'll just have to see him on Facebook.

It's HOOOOTTTT here! But it's really tough to stay indoors with the shades drawn every day, so we take the opportunity at our weekly playdate to get wet. This was two weeks ago at the Frisco spraygrounds.

Here are all the moms lined up- there wasn't much shade- except for the smart mom with the umbrella shade.

We have a separate weekly playdate with Megan and her kids. We headed to one water park only to find it closed and having to spend 3 times as much at a different water park- because can you really plan such an outing with 5 kids and not follow through? : ) Colin got a little wet and then napped it out, which was fine by me.

The Denton Water Park was a bit of a drive, but well worth it once we got cooled off in the clear water. I would love to go back one day and try the lazy river.

So fun to see these 4 together.

Our next big "outing" was for a book club family weekend at a lake house -owned by in-laws of a book club member. I missed the women only lake house retreat last winter and have heard about this place for a couple of years. Dax had to conduct his musical so he and Colin stayed home while I took the girls about two hours south for the weekend. It was a ton of work keeping up with all the kids- 10 kids under 5! But it was well worth it.

The house was awesome and had a view of the lake from every window.

My bedroom with the girls. It was decorated very Texas with the softest blue jean denim duvet.

The famous "purple room" I've heard so much about with happy quilts everywhere. The kids ran to this room first as you can tell.

Jessica fixing dinner in the kitchen with her standard camera pose.

The cool bunk room. This house was stocked with everything you could think of. There was not one moment of need. And if you looked in the most obvious place, there it would be. I wish my house worked that way.

As for the outdoors, the back lawn stretched out forever with plenty of safe space for the kids to roam. Down at the water was a stone barrier, a type of sidewalk, and another drop to the water, so it was nice knowing the kids couldn't just play at the edge anytime they wanted.

Rest of the yard and view.

The awesome backyard with about 35 places to sit and relax- not that I did much relaxing : )

Chloe's favorite.

They had a very long swing set up for both kids and adults. The kids swung high into the trees! I didn't get to try it, but Hannah loved it.

The food was all prepared...not by me! Granted I helped with cleanup when I could, but several meals I don't have to fix, that are all delicious? I'll take it! Jessica pretends to be a Food Network Host as the girls watch a salad in the making.

The first evening, we were missing a family and one husband, but there were still a lot of mouths to feed.

Mike entertained the kids with a kiddie pool and the sprinkler while I sat in a rocker and enjoyed some kind of pineapple drink. That's the life!

After the kids went to bed, we played a game called Quelf. This game is not for everyone, but it was perfect for this group. The game calls for you to do pretty odd things, like hold hands with the person your marker shares a space with, play leap frog with each other. Kelly drew a terrible card which told her to keep one hand on the floor the whole game. After about an hour and remembering she was pregnant, we agreed she could just keep her hand on the table instead. She also had to say everything twice at one point. Very funny.

I had to lick an elbow. Very goofy.

The next morning, all the older girls got their hair braided and suited up for the water.

Mikey and Ali try give my kayak a dry run.

Jessica takes him out for a real ride.

Then I take Chloe.

Kim goes tubing with some of the kids.

Hannah and Chloe preferred the boat most of the time, but I think because there was a major stash of snacks on there! I got to take my first ride on a jetski and loved it! Later, all the dads were taking their daughters and one dad was sweet enough to take Hannah. It was her favorite part of the weekend.

I took Hannah out into the actual lake to swim. Hard work to tread, hold onto a rope, and have a 4 yr. old around your neck!

Time to head back. Later that evening, we took a sunset tour around the lake to look at some mega houses. Then once the kids were in bed,, the 9 adults played a game called "Things" and the ladies stayed up extra late to chat about how each friendship got started and the funny memories there.

The next morning, I was completely beat, but somehow Kelly was happily serving all the children gourmet pancakes when I got up! We spent most of the day cleaning and preparing to leave while the kids watched "Little Bear." We returned home with lots of exhaustion but good memories.

This week I got a surprise call from Nancy whom I haven't seen since Chloe was a newborn. We met her at the mall for playtime and lunch. She treated us all to cookies and again, won the kids over with food. : ) It was really nice to catch up with her. We also met up with Megan again to play and also returned to the play place, The Ark with our playgroup. That one didn't go so well as there were a couple of rough kids and I was pretty tired from staying up working on our church's 10th Anniversary. I was so out of it, it should have taken us about 20 minutes to get home, but I missed the 1 turn I had to make and ended up in another town completely! 45 minutes later, we made it home. Thankfully the kids were patient with me.

This past Monday, our book club had it's (most likely) last ever meeting as a whole. Two members, Melissa and Kim (in the gray and white shirts) are moving to Houston and Colorado respectively. We've contemplated using skype, but we're not sure out that will work out since typically if you want to talk at book club, you better jump in! Tears have been avoided so far since this group has really shared pretty much anything we can with each other and we just won't be the same anymore. One member pointed out that different doesn't have to be worse, so we'll see how the group develops.

Thursday night we finally had dinner with a family from church. We'd tried to schedule it back in January but could never get it together. It started off great with all the kids bouncing off the walls and a great meal, but pretty soon Colin had had enough. He's getting his 10th and 11th teeth in! Crazy! So we had to call it an early evening. Then I went out to a movie on my own with Dax's suggestion that I take some time for myself. Isn't he great??? I saw Super 8. It was pretty good, but nothing super memorable. The memorable part was myself sitting in the dark with no one to talk to and nothing to think about- ah!

On Friday night, I had Jessica and Lindsey over to watch Black Swan. It turned out to be the only evening in an entire month we could get together. Now I avoided this movie from the get go, but Lindsey had seen it. She was generally appalled by most of it although she understood the thriller aspect of it. So why did we watch it? Jessica in her late teens, had apparently been in the top ballet schools in the country. She's very into dance and knows the ins and outs. So we basically wanted her opinion. Was this movie accurate in many ways to the ballet scene? Other than the obvious twisted behavior, it turns out they got a lot of things right. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has a weak stomach or generally doesn't want to see that kind of thing. Some of it was pretty disturbing. Besides that interesting 2 hours, we had a nice long quality chat we never get to have with our kids around.

This morning, Dax woke up with the idea that we should ride the new trains near our house. There is finally public transportation between our town and Dallas. We decided to only go a little ways and stop at the next town over, just for the experience for the kids.

All aboard!! They really loved watching the conductor go back and forth and make his announcements. On the way back, Colin looked over the back of my seat and gave everyone this face the whole time. One lady asked to take him home.

We got off the train with time to spare before the return trip, with anticipation of walking around downtown Lewisville. But it turned out the drop off was more in an industrial district and it was quite a walk to downtown. Rather than making the kids sit in the hot sun, we thought we'd go ahead and take the walk and find a place to eat. Once we got to the old downtown, there was absolutely nothing to do! Law offices, gun shops, and wedding chapels are not really kid friendly. We did find a Subway and then wondered what the heck we were going to do for over an hour until the return train. So we stopped in a little hobby shop and revisited our secret wish to be train hobbyists if we had the space.

It was soooo hot. We fueled up on water and wiped the kids down with wipes. This is us waiting for the last train and how I feel after the month of June. And now it's my birthday today!! Hopefully I'll see you sooner than later!

SummerTime

2011-06-15T14:42:00.045-05:00

Happy 1st Birthday!!!!!

We visited the Bentons on Colin's birthday. They were sweet enough to have mini-cupcakes.

I'm not sure why he looks so guilty. He's finally allowed to eat cake!

Unsure of what his responsibility is here.
The Bentons gave him a little glow-worm. It was really cute to look in the van mirror
on the way home and see him playing with it and looking at its face.

We had a tasty lunch outside and let the older kids swim. Good news is that
we get to head over there every Thursday for the summer.

Back at home, Nana came over for dinner and Colin unwrapped his gifts from us.

The girls helped us pick out this little racetrack. It's fun to see them all playing together.

I've tried to put my fingers in that same position and it's painful! haha

Congratulations, Colin, on being such a great addition to our family. : )

The next day, we were invited on a park playdate (kites, picnic, and nature hunt) with some church friends.

Our kite did really well!

Soon, it was just me flying the kite. I only managed to get it stuck in a tree twice.

Madeline and Chloe having a wordless 2 yr. old bonding moment.

Working on our nature journals.

Yep, I'm back with the dollhouse. So I drove the girls around to a couple of garage sales the other day and saw a plain little dollhouse. The tag said $20- no way! But the lady saw me looking and said it was $10. She also said she would give me a discount because the girls were so cute. Tempting, but we just got a wonderful dollhouse. So we went home. And I could not get that house out of my head! The girls had ended up with so much furniture, the nice dollhouse was a cluttered mess. Some of the furniture was too nice to toss, though. Having a second one could accommodate all the doll family members as well as the extra furniture. Also, the girls could each play with one.. you can see I developed crazy brain. So at about 1pm, knowing the sale was probably over, the house was probably sold, I drove the kids back over there. I could see it from the end of the street! It was still there! (as you guessed from the picture) She gave me the house and a couple of bags of even more furniture for $15. I'm no haggler. So I gleefully drove it home and proceeded to set up all the rooms. Next is wallpaper and flooring, but I have about 100 other things ahead of that on the list right now- including this blog.

Little man at church in his birthday shirt from Grandma.

Sunday afternoon, we held a going-away party with the choir for one of our longtime church members, Ben, who is moving to San Antonio. Apparently Mike is cracking everyone up- even his wife next to him- now that's an accomplishment!

These guys found one of Colin's toys and played with for about half an hour-seriously.
The food was great!! Dax smoked a brisket and 2 beer chickens. Other folks brought great dishes, too, including my favorite salads- caprese and potato.

Reader Benjamin's last Sunday Liturgy at St. Maximus.

Have you heard of the little 4 year old girl whose oil paintings are sold for thousands? There's some controversy surrounding the legitimacy of it, but after watching a video of her, I really felt she had something different going on from most young kids. She had a certain focus and creativity in what she painted. Sure, she would throw around the paint, smear colors together, etc. but there was a balance between intent and letting the paint land. All in all, I think her creations are beautiful. Here is the video I watched. Aelita Andre
Here is one of her paintings I like. She gets the most attention for her use of color.

So as with most things I'm interested in, I try to do it myself. The girls watched the video twice and loved it! We got our gel paints, a tarp, and got to work. I was also curious to see if they would adapt some of the techniques Aelita used.

And they actually did! They sprayed water on the paint and watched it spread, they decided to clap paint onto the paper like she did, and they poured straight out of the bottles just like her.

Hannah tried a new technique.

At some point, they turned to monster imitations.

We've had the same muted landscape paintings in our den for awhile, so we put our new creations in those frames. These two turned out the best.

Today was the first of our Summer Playgroup. Each mom takes turns hosting each week and decides what we all do. I've recruited Megan to help me run a music-related day (of course). Lindsey hosted today and we visited a great water park. I've lived here for 10 years and still am amazed at what is just around the corner or down the street. I was nervous at first. Watching 3 little kids in water? With a bunch of other kids running around?

Thankfully the larger pool was closed so all the younger kids could play freely. It was still hard to keep track visually, but we had a group of 8 moms watching our kids, so that was nice.

Colin explored the splash pad. At first he wasn't quite sure, but he got excited about it.

Lunchtime! As much work as having 3 little munchkins is, there's nothing that
can replace watching them all sit together and do day-to-day things as siblings.

Colin likes whole apples. The other day I was very proud about that and texted Dax. By the time I was done with the text, I turned around and the apple had been replaced by a fistful of crayons.

Hannah did a great job swimming on her belly. She was in the water almost the whole time.

Family Fun

2011-06-03T22:37:00.035-05:00

Waking up to crazy things the kids have done does not count as fun now, but I'm sure I'll remember it as such later. : ) Chloe and Hannah were covered in green marker one morning- and they have been really responsible with them until now. Then I saw Colin had marker behind his right ear, too! So no more markers for awhile, especially when I'm sleeping.

Again, not family fun, but family time nonetheless. With tornadoes dropping all over the place last week, we ended up in the tub as a family twice one night. It was extremely uncomfortable since we don't have a garden tub! In the meantime, Hannah got an education about storms and sirens since ours is two doors down. I told her not to worry. Only "special storms" have tornadoes, and those don't come very often. My mistake, because then she was very concerned with "special storms" for a couple of days. It turned out all the sirens weren't for nothing. Dax knew a few people who saw a tornado. A family from church saw the same one. And one of my students watched one from her back yard. Thankfully, we were all safe, and there were some beautiful clouds left over.

Another morning, Hannah brought this to me while I was still asleep. She was laughing and laughing. Her Cinderella doll donated her dress to the stuffed lamb, and Hannah was pretty inventive with how to put it on.

"Little man" or otherwise known around here as "No sir!" is moving all over the place, getting into everything. He's using everything he can find as a prop to stand. No letting go yet.

One of his favorite toys.

Dax surprised the kids with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese the other night. Chloe has been talking about it ever since the party. The other day she said, "Hannah says Chuck E. Cheese is a rat! But he's not. He's a mouse!" She said this with a pouty little face and furrowed brow.

We had a great time and tried to earn lots of tickets. We had one token left, and I thought I would really rack up on tickets by returning to the basketball hoop since I had done well a few minutes earlier. I missed almost every shot! We ended up with a few little toys the girls picked out.

It's birthday season! We seem to have a lot of friends with birthdays around this time of year. Lillian and Mikey always throw a great party : ) As people were arriving, Jess turned on her teacher mode and read some educational books.

While Colin poked all the kids from behind.

The first swim of the season! Chloe was so excited for the swim portion of the party.

Lots of choices here!

Colin's first time in a pool.

And the monster slide was on the other side of the yard. I didn't bring a suit since I didn't know that would be there. Most of the dads jumped right in and didn't care to get wet, so Hannah hitched several rides!

One dad takes his daughter down in a fun way.

I was finally convinced to go ahead and get wet once Chloe asked with a sweet face!

Jessica and I go together.

Maybe not the best idea since I slammed into with my bony knees!

When we returned home, there was a great surprise for the girls!! I was noticing the slow disintegration of the cardboard dollhouse we made. It was sagging, bent over, and I had never really papered the other walls like I promised. It was also taking up a ton of space in their room. So I asked a friend from church who sometimes watches the girls if she had any dollhouse plans with which I could put something together from real wood. She's a huge miniature collector- her whole house is full! She said she had something in mind. But then a friend of hers let her know about a house for sale. She knew it was too much for us to purchase, and the friend just decided to donate it to the girls!! Long story, I know, but this was so generous. And it is the exact type of dollhouse I was thinking about. And it came with lots of furniture!

Colin is very interested as usual.

Anyway, I have great plans to decorate this house for them, but I'm so concerned about doing it well, I haven't started. Hmm- seems to be the trend for me.

On Memorial Day we attended the annual church picnic. They had a little corner set up for the little ones.

Butterfly face paint. Later she was very upset when it washed away. "My butterfly!!!" she cried.

We convinced Hannah ahead of time that a strawberry would be a good idea. Otherwise I knew should would choose the whole face paint idea, and we had somewhere else to go that day!

That's a bounce house smile.

She was so bounced out, she fell asleep in the swing in the middle of the teen hangout! There were a lot more around her. It was pretty funny.

We spent the rest of the day at the Finley household, so more swimming and more great food.

For the next couple of days, we stayed home and were a bit under the weather. Thursday came our monthly potluck dinner with the Long and Dykes families. We were in charge of dessert, but as I couldn't breathe and therefore couldn't taste, it didn't turn out too well.. so we made a last minute run to the store. We always have a great time at the potlucks and I keep forgetting my camera. The girls headed straight for the dress up bin, and hopefully someone else got a good picture, but Hannah came out in the craziest outfit yet! Cowgirl hat, shirtless with a few feather boas, and a glittery red tutu- sans pants, and high heels. After burgers, Gary and little Isaia played us a song on guitar and baby drum set. Isaia was amazing with the beat, inserting little solos, and the works! None of us could believe it!! He's just turning 3. We promoted putting him on YouTube where maybe Ellen could spot him for her show. Then the guys settled down to watch the Mavs game and us women played charades, which I had actually never played while the husbands fed us movie titles. The best one was "The Eggplant Who Ate Chicago" at least I think that was it. Anyway, I hope a few pictures float my way because they were really great.

And to close it all off, another shot of our mischievous boy taking after his Aunt Melody.

After he was reprimanded (and he definitely knows the word "no" because he always gives us a certain fake sad face) he kept checking on me as I cleaned the kitchen. I would see a little hand reach out and then pull back.

I know a few posts ago, I said I included videos, but they didn't post for some reason. Well, I still have those clips and more, as well as several kid quotes, which have mostly been posted on Facebook already, but I hope to repost all of that soon. Until next time!

Vacation Megapost

2011-05-21T22:06:00.075-05:00

Aren't we sweet? Haha- Well, for our 10th anniversary this year, Dax planned a vacation for just the two of us. The kids stayed with Nana a couple of days and then Grandma drove into town to take over. Meanwhile, our final destination was a surprise to me! Our first stop was Atlanta. Then we headed to the next gate where I waited for our vacation city to pop up on the board.

This is where we went on our honeymoon, so we were able to revisit some of our favorite places and explore some new ones!

Dax plays Angry Birds. We had tons of waiting time at the airports both to and from Orlando.
I've decided to begin reading my grandmother's collection of classics, so I had Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.

After checking in, we took a taxi to Universal Studios where we revisited Emeril's restaurant for dinner. Here, I'm telling Dax to turn the camera. Guess I was a little late.

The poor waiter (one of our 6 waiters) took 4 or 5 pictures, but the flash was stubborn : )
After dinner, we wandered around the stores, then decided a movie would be nice. We saw THOR, and laughed during a lot of it, but it was pretty fun.

The next morning, we hit the parks early. Islands of Adventure was first.

We fast-walked along with all the other folks in line straight to the Harry Potter section.
(Harry Potter fans only will most likely understand the next few photos). It's Hogsmeade!
It absolutely felt like you were there. They did a great job.

Just beyond, was Hogwarts castle. This is an extremely zoomed in picture. Every detail was great!

To get to the main ride, we waited in line in the herbology classroom.

Inside the castle, there were lots of other fun places. Entrance to Dumbledore's office.

Plenty of hallways of talking portraits. Yes, they talked and moved around! Salazar Slytherin was arguing with someone when we passed by.

Dumbledore's office. The had lifelike holograms of the characters talking to us, but they didn't show up in pictures. Of course there were ton of other rooms, a talking sorting hat, and all the other good stuff. All in all the whole thing seemed so real. The castle is a lot creepier to actually walk around in than it seems in the movies. The ride was excellent, too. We were chased by a dragon while we followed Harry on a broomstick. We even got to play Quidditch!

Back in the street, we perused the shops from the movie.

Honeydukes- with the most expensive candy you could ever find.

Butterbeer! Much more affordable and very tasty- like a sweet cream soda.

The owlery.

Lots of fun things like this were hidden around, and they all worked. : )

Olivander's wands. They sold each character's wand.

Good bye!

Onto Jurassic Park, where I quickly became prey.

Jurassic Park also lends itself to several "clever" word plays.

Definitely liked this hat on Dax. Won't he be the sweetest old man wearing one of these?

This whole pose struck me as funny. Watch out!!

Who knows what other dangers lurk in those woods....

I'm sharing this extremely flattering picture with you to show how wet we got on the next ride.
We rode one of those tube adventures and it seemed the water got the two of us over the other riders every time. Pay $5 to dry off in an an electric dryer? No thanks, we opted for the 4 hour long sun-drying system.

Dax headed to the top to squirt unsuspecting riders below.

Haha!! Then I couldn't find him, but I heard bells ringing. He'd found a nice little place to happily make some noise.

Lots of opportunities for goofy pictures. Obviously I didn't gauge my stance quite right, but it's supposed to look like the dog is sweeping me off my feet.

Dax did way better, but my computer refuses to rotate this picture.

We saw a few characters here and there. Spiderman was very stoic atop his cycle.

This is for my dad, who told me about "planking."

The new Simpsons ride was a lot of fun. It was of course very clever in poking fun at all things to do with theme parks, but also very smart in the way they designed the ride.

Caught red-handed. We also headed over to the regular Universal park and enjoyed the indoor Mummy rollercoaster and the very old-fashioned JAWS, which made us laugh the whole time.

After resting at the hotel for awhile, we walked to Uno's for some Chicago-style pizza.

And hit a Walgreens for some supplies on the way back. Sunscreen was 16 bucks at the parks! I was also in desperate need of a hat. : )

The next morning we decided to rent a car and venture to St. Augustine about 2 hours north.
We ended up with this awesome truck!

This is for my mom, who thinks I always take pictures with my ears sticking out.

I never realized this place had so much history. This is the original wall separating the military stronghold from the rest of town- originally settled as a Spanish colony.

The oldest schoolhouse in the country. With a mannequin teacher in the top window.

They had a tiny Greek Orthodox church in the middle of town with lots of interesting history about the early settlements posted along the walls.

Saints' relics, including Sts. Anthony, Peter, and Paul.

We chose cute little hot dog place for lunch. My relish looked radioactive!

Next we toured a Spanish colonial town. Here was the inside of an early house. Dax pointed out how fancy the parents' bed was, while the kids got little sacks on the floor.

I like this idea for the modern kitchen. A floating shelf would offer lots of convenience, actually.

Mr. Woodworker told us he was making a "kit fiddle," a practice instrument music teachers would carry around.

Mr. Blacksmith showed us how to make nails. I've seen these kinds of demonstrations before, but this was the first time I understood everything.

Mr. Militia told us all about preparing for the battle of 1740 with the English "scoundrels." This guy was really great and was very entertaining for the kids in the group. I now know all about the the flint-lock musket. Do you?

Next we walked over to the Castillo de San Marcos. This military fort was completed in 1695, and I'll spare you all the historical details, but they are super interesting, one being that this fort was never taken in battle. See the tiny lady having a private picnic? I guess this site is good for that kind of thing, too.

"Keep off cannons."

Soldiers quarters while they were on duty. Comfy.

18th century graffiti. This is in Spanish, but the info says it's such gibberish no one can decipher it.

I would not recommend sneaking into any of the windows unless you want spikes in your foot.

When the English eventually came along, they made some ammendments, namely bunkbeds, and a lowered ceiling for what equaled a second story in each room. I really like the shelving on the beds. Very handy.

Dax sticks his head in a latrine.

From the top of the fort.

Inside the courtyard.

I learned a lot about forts on this vacation.

Since I am weaponless, I must fend off the seige by jumping on the attackers "Lord of the Rings" style.

Out of commission.

We wandered back to town and finally found Ponce de Leon's statue, which was much tinier than expected! haha We were too lazy and old to walk across town to the Fountain of Youth... which probably would have done us some good.

Next up was a relaxing boat tour. St. Augustine is located in a little inlet, so we could see the Atlantic Ocean from the boat. There's always something about seeing the ocean that makes me sigh a contented sigh and feel overwhelmed at the same time.

This lighthouse was very pretty- the second tallest in the state (or country). I couldn't hear the announcer too well.

We saw a little family of dolphins! They told us the calf had just been born the day before. This is the closest clear picture my camera would take.

We docked next to a pirate ship. Arrg.

We walked around town a bit more, and I thought this fence was especially intimidating.

A relaxing evening at the hotel and tons of airport hours later, we were back home safe and sound.

And brought our munchkins a little gift from Dr. Seuss world : )
Thanks to Dax for the millionth time for organizing such a great trip for us. I seriously didn't have to lift a finger the entire time. He took care of everything and we really enjoyed each other- just like we always do, but this time distraction and responsibility free! Thank you also to Nana and Grandma for making it possible. I sound like I just won an award or something, but I feel like I definitely won nonetheless!

May 16

2011-05-16T15:08:00.021-05:00

Happy 60th, Daddy!

So we were able to use another photo program (not as good and a lot more time consuming) but we wanted to get the last of our pictures on before Dax and I take our trip! We found a new park nearby that's got lots of green space for the kids to play along with the swing set, picnic benches, etc.

We had a nice picnic on the lawn with our friends and played a little soccer.

Little man pretending to read.

Can you tell by his face he's use to all this spoiling and attention from his sisters?
(It looks like Hannah's licking him! But it's just pre-kiss : )

3 Expressions.

We had to make some room for collecting church yard sale items, and the girls took advantage of the coffee table being so close to the couch. Don't worry, it was ended quickly, but I got a good action shot.

Playing doctor. Hannah had it all worked out. She had a rotation where the three of us played doctor, nurse, and patient in that order. Chloe made the best nurse I thought since she was willing to run around the house for all sorts of items the doctor demanded such as toilet tissue for a leg cast.

Colin has discovered that it's funny to put something on your head. Even when it's nothing!
He can also hold up a phone and pretend to talk.

He's 11 months now! Still doing the army crawl with a little bit of hands and knees crawling mixed in. But the most important development is that he can pull up now. Can you see how proud he is?

The problem is can't get back down, so especially when I put him down for a nap, I have to go back in a couple of times to lay him back down since he can't resist the temptation to stand up, and then scream when he is stuck there.

We've done a few projects lately. We've been going through a toddler version of the Bible.
They love the idea of creation. So we made planet Earths. Then they gave me a clear reflection of our 21st century of life. So God made this couch? Well, not exactly. What about that window? The tv? All that's a little tougher to explain and shows exactly how much of nature they don't see on a daily basis. That will need to be improved, I think, before the Texas heat comes our way.

God also made plants so we discussed the parts of a flower, how it grows from a seed, and all that good stuff. They've planted seeds before, but we rarely grow anything. I thought I was being pretty clever when we used sunflower seeds and glued them onto some cocoa (in order to avoid actual dirt getting everywhere). I was thwarted when the glue wasn't quite dry and dripped gluey chocolate down the walls. Not so easy to clean : )

Hannah's improving her coloring skills.

And the girls draw aaaallll day. They prefer markers, but will draw on any paper they can find.
This is the first very clear family I found drawn on Hannah's art pad.

After we made the above photos for Papaw, I let them play outside for a minute while I loaded them on the computer. I turned around when Chloe asked me to wash her hands. What is all this?? Mud caked everywhere. I looked outside and found this. They had dumped out all our flower pots (some with seedlings actually growing) and mixed them up with water into a paste. This wasn't just mud, it was really a wet, wet paste- muddier than mud. When Hannah saw my face, she said, "Yay! It's muddy day!!!" So I sprayed it all down with a hose, including her, gave them baths, and cleaned out the muddy tub. All things I had already done the day before to prepare for the trip. I'm hoping it's not 3 times a charm. Speaking of messes, I woke up the other morning to Chloe at my bedside, fingers covered in some kind of white, oily stuff. Noo! I had left my best candle out the night before. Here is what she finger-painted with very hard to remove wax. I toured the house to find it on: couches, coffee table, kitchen chairs, book case, smeared over the entire kitchen floor, oven door, dishwasher.

Another place to stand.

I played for 4 graduation ceremonies this weekend. I was excited to see a good friend was in the horn section, too, so we had a nice time. It can be pretty painful on the lips to play at these things because of all the non-stop repetition, but it's great to see all the families and graduates who have waited so long for this day. I feel happy I get to be involved in making this day great for them.

Last but not least, my horn professor from UTK passed away last weekend. He was a wonderful man and left a positive impression on everyone he met. Visit "Memories of Calvin Smith" on Facebook.

Until then...

2011-05-14T18:31:00.004-05:00

So our Iphoto is still out, which means I have a few pictures to share, but they are stuck on the camera right now! Here's the only one that made it. So in the meantime, I will post a few little videos for the past couple of months.

1. Dollhouse Family Amusement Ride 2. Colin Playing 3. Fun With Spray Bottles

Pascha 2011

2011-05-02T13:41:00.030-05:00

So what you see here is styrofoam. When approached, I was on sending important e-mails.
I heard, "Hey Mommy, what's this?" "Styrofoam," I said. And then it began. I kind of knew what was going on behind me, but I didn't dare look until I was finished on the computer, because at least I did have a few minutes of peace.

Hannah's picture of a dinosaur eating a salad.

Now for Easter, I'm disappointed because our IPhoto has stopped working! It just closes every time we open it, and I can't get some photos off I really wanted. So for Easter, Dax put the pictures from the camera onto a flash drive and uploaded them to the computer that way. They aren't as clear as they would normally be, but I suppose that's okay in the grand scheme of things.

Holy Saturday is typically when we receive new people into the church. Usually these folks have been through nearly a year of classes with Father Justin and fully understand and embrace the Christian life they want to lead. We all fall repeatedly, but it's the intention and grace of God that keep the faithful going. This year 3 were baptized and 2 more were chrismated. I think I have that right. In any case, it's a beautiful service, one of my favorites of the whole year.

The "newly illumined" wear white. They didn't have robes when I went through this. I remember wearing a white shirt and khaki pants : )

They circle the tomb of Christ 3 times, which is of course out at that point because Pascha is the next day. One of my very favorite songs is sung at this point. I believe I've posted it before. "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia." The melody is really beautiful.

After that service, we headed to the Finley/Benton Easter gathering. I love seeing all the kids in bright, happy colors. I guess they've run out of eggs to hunt.

My 3 munchkins. You'll never get them to look at the camera together and smile, but that just means I get three interesting faces instead!

Movie star Chloe. She loves sunglasses.

Peacefully discovering her bounty.

Colin's always on the move. Sitting still is not his thing anymore.
The kids received wonderful Easter Baskets and the girls got beautifully hand crocheted doll clothes with teeny-tiny babies. Another picture I won't have access to quite yet.

Our Pascha service begins at 11:30pm and ends around 3:30am. My first year with Hannah was spent on the second floor rocking her all night. The next couple of years, we kept the kids at home and had someone else watching them, I believe. This year we felt brave. I decided all the kids would come and sleep in the floor...like all the other kids do every year. We brought blankets and pillows, they were bundled up in their pajamas. And no one slept. Not even a wink. But they were also being awfully good, so there didn't seem reason to pack them all up and go home. We could all nap the next day if needed. So around 4am, we celebrated the Resurrection and the whole parish was able to eat meat and dairy once again : )

Liquor is considered a delicacy by this time as that's also part of the fasting. So some people brought their personal stashes so they could share a taste with friends. Somehow a few ended up in front of Colin, and I got this funny picture of his priest offering him a sip in jest.

One section of the feast.

Most of these people are from one family! They set up a whole picnic. Another family was outside with a waffle maker! And most people could be found in line with the food.

The kids obviously fell right to sleep when we got home, and then promptly woke up at 8am. They were great the whole day and you could never tell they had missed almost an entire night of sleep. I suppose one day a year isn't too much to ask, especially when they get so much candy out of it. Here they are getting their baskets from me and Dax.

Back to church that afternoon for a Vespers service and picnic-egg hunt.
They have their own signature colored baskets and outfits of course.

Another one with 3 different expressions. : )

Our sweet pea.

Our lovely lady.

And our "goofy guy" who couldn't sit still for a close-up.

There we go!

Three lovely sisters and friends of the girls.

Unhappy about something. Hard to keep track these days.

Me and mini-me.

I'm so proud of Dax and everything he does, but mostly proud of this wonderful family he's given me.

I think Dax found a baby and is putting him in his basket to take home.

We had a great weekend. Hope to see you soon with more pictures if we can retrieve them!

Concert

2011-04-23T21:59:00.005-05:00

Lone Star Wind Orchestra had a concert last Sunday entitled "Passions: Icons of an Era."
I had a great time rehearsing this and a great time performing! Here is our horn section in the green room. Chris, me, Heather, Heather, Amy, and Heather. You can imagine it's difficult to get each other's attention with these names. We even tried separating it with a last name initial, but that would still make two Heather T.'s

Here we are onstage with one of the group's founding members and present percussionist, Barry Knezek.

I found a good picture of the rehearsal with Leonard Slatkin. Here is probably telling us to play quieter : ) My seat is on the other side of the bass player you see.

Dax recorded a bit of the rehearsal! It's a little hard to hear his instruction, but we are playing "Song of the Blacksmith" from Holst's 2nd Suite in F. For non-music folks, this video shows that different conductors truly do different things with the music. Everything grinds to a hault when we hit an ambiguous bit of the music. He explains how he wants it, and off we go again : )