I'm Scarred and Scared

Before I show all of you what we did last night, I think it is important for you to understand why I am the way I am. Well, one of the ways that I am. When I was four or five years old, my mom's friend took me to see this movie. From that day on, I was scarred. I no longer had Cinderella dreams but roller disco dreams. I don't remember when I got my first pair of skates. I do remember that they were metal and strapped on to my tennis shoes.
I was astonished to realize when we got to our destination that these two turkeys didn't know how to skate! Great mother of pearl! (Sorry, too much spongebob around here)
They're pretty cute, even though they didn't know how to skate! Didn't take too long though. He's sorta getting the hang of it!
I think she'll be ok. We're never letting her watch a movie about roller skating though. I can't let her be scarred like that.
I can hear the disco music in my head. Next thing you know, they'll be turning circles and doin' the jive. Oh, but that wasn't disco, was it?

We also took the youngest's BFF. They are so silly together. What's scarry is that they are two of a threesome. They all look very similar. They also talk alike, walk alike, sing alike.... Well, you get the point!

Some Won't Like It!

My baby girl (not the human one) went to the salon today. This may offend some people out there. I remember seeing the story about a lady who was in legal trouble because she dyed her poodle pink in honor of breast cancer awareness. Well, there was no noble intent behind this. The groomer just asked if she could do it. I said yes. Imagine Shawn's surprise when he saw this...

Brace yourself.

We really aren't mean to animals.

But this is pretty cute.


She's rubbed the top of her head enough that it is almost worn off. When it was first done, her tail and the top of her head were as bright purple as the feathery things on her ears.
She may be a little traumatized but I think that she'll come out of it eventually.

Jumpin J Flash

My youngest boy is almost finished with basketball season (a month after the older kids). They have another tournament this weekend and we'll be finished. I love watching my kids play basketball. Probably because I loved playing it when I was younger. I still get out and play with the kids in our driveway. They think it's pretty funny that mom has "ball handlin' skills"!

So, here are a couple of video's from Saturday's game My boy's #5. Sorry about the shaky, blurry shots as well as the weird conversations in the background!

This kid is one tough turkey! He is almost a head shorter than most of the boys on his team but it doesn't discourage him one bit! He is the first to jump in and tie the ball, rebound, screen, block, and anything else that needs done! Shawn coaches his team and has been wonderful! I'm amazed at how much he has taught these boys about basketball.

Fun and No More Waiting

The kids went to the egg hunt with our old church. They had fun and I wish I could have been there with them but that's another story all together!
My two youngest. It was colder Saturday than we all thought it would be!
All the kids had fun together. Addy and Aidan will do anything that Uncle Shawn tells them.
From what I hear, Dec and Brayden (the one in the red belongs to my sister and the one in the camo belongs to my hubby's sister) are becoming pretty good buddies. My sis-in-law has a couple of cute pictures of the two of them on her blog.
They even feed each other! How cute is that?

On another note....
I've been anxiously waiting for this

I'M IN!!!!! Still going with my education. This program will take 11 months. When it is over, I think I'll take a break for a while. No more work AND school. Just work. I can't wait!

Together with Family

We had a great time with family this weekend. I wish it would have been longer.
Rileigh is getting prettier every day.
She has the longest fingers I've ever seen on a newborn.
She was getting very sleepy!

This is my niece Alyssa. She is so rotten but she's also so adorably sweet!The kids had so much fun being together! It is amazing to me that they all get along so well. The older kids all help out with the younger ones. They don't even complain about it.

We even saw Grandpa Billy Jo which was great because we aren't able to see him nearly as much as we would like to!
I'm so glad that we were able to see Jason and Alyssa. They don't live close to us and when we get together it ends up being a stressful event. I'm not saying that it wasn't stressful with all of us being together in a small house overnight but it was much better than it could have been! I miss my brother and I'm proud of the man he has become. He also made a beautiful little girl... that is just as ornery as he is!

Kitties for the Kiddies

This post is for my two oldest who are missing the family animals. Our kitten's eyes opened after they left and they wanted to see them. Plus I think it's pretty cool that my kiddo's like reading my blog. That's pretty awesome.
So here they are at almost two weeks old. Both thriving.
When Poly heard them up on my lap, she whined until I let her get up there too. When she got up there, she smelled of them and then turned her back on me. She really is a moody little girl. I think the kittens really wanted to play but she would have none of that. She just ignored us.
They are so cute. I wish they would stay little forever. Anybody need a kitten?

And the Rain Came

The post involving our weekend fun will have to wait. It's a hurricanado outside! I thought I would share some of the scenery from our area today. This is a normally dry field out by my in-laws place. It's not dry today.
We thought we would cut through on some back roads. We weren't brave (or stupid) enough to cross here. We turned around.

This is the highway leading north out of town. They were making sure that no brave/stupid people crossed on the paved road.
Hey, look down there. That's where I work. In the top left hand side of the picture below. (Just in case anybody was wondering.)

This is the river here in town. It normally stays well within its banks, slowly meandering along its well worn path. Today it swelled through the trees and power poles completely covering the park beside the river.
The little green thing out in the middle of the water is a sign with the name of the park on it. It is probably 7 or 8 feet high.
Shawn and I thought this picture was impressive. I thought the water was impressive. Shawn thought it was the superior engineering that designed the pole placement which enabled the pole to withstand the pressure of the water.
A little creek that turned into a raging river.
The view from the other side of the bridge.

Sweet Middle Child

I love this kid. He is sweet and serious and cuddly and happy and content and I could go on and on.
Uncle Shawn likes to harass this poor baby. He tolerates it well too.
Oh, he may get a little frustrated with Uncle Shawn now and then but...
it never lasts long!
We had a big weekend. Too much to fit into just one post so I'll sum it all up tomorrow. I hope everyone else had a great weekend as well!

The All Star and Brayden

My youngest son made the Benchmark All Star Wall of Fame. He's pretty excited! I'm excited for him. I want my kids to excel in their educations. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see them improve.

This is really impressive because our school was ranked #3 in the state the year before last. I can't remember what our ranking was last year but we were still in the top ten.

I don't know if you all were aware of this but, Einstein was an extremely disorganized person. He was so smart that he functioned in complete chaos.
Judging by his desk... I'd say he is well on his way to being the next Einstein.
Brayden and his momma came to visit. He had his doctors visit today and everything looks good. Uncle Shawn was so excited to get to see him!
I love watching babies when they are looking at their momma. They have a different look for mom than for anyone else. Utter adoration!

What 'Child Rights'?

I have a son who will be fifteen years old soon. We disagree. Often. That being said, he is still my child. Last time I checked, it was my responsibility to raise him to become a decent adult. Part of becoming a decent adult is knowing that there will always be rules. The only people who live their lives without following rules (of some sort or other) eventually end up in prison.
In our house, there are certain video games, movies, TV shows, and books that aren't allowed. If there is a TV show that has inappropriate content, we don't allow the kids to watch it. There is a particular series of books that my son has been reading. I don't agree with the content of these books. Before I get into this any deeper, let me just say... I love books. I love to read. I frequently had my nose in a book when I had free time. I encourage my children to read.
Anyway, he brought one of these books home a couple of times and was told not to bring them into the house. He then lied about checking them out of the library. We find out again that he is reading this series while he is at school. We ask him and he tells us, "No, I'm reading such and such."
Well, today, my hubby went to a parent/teacher conference with one of my son's teachers. (I had class all day.) The conference was really good except that the teachers all said that my son gets in too big of a hurry to finish his work so that he can read. My hubby casually asks, "Oh, what's he been reading?" They reply that it was the series that we had told him repeatedly not to be reading. OK, I'm getting to the point here.
Hubby calls the Librarian to see if he can get a record of the books that our child has been checking out. Would you like to know what she told him?
"No, I'm sorry we can't do that. It would be violating your child's right to privacy."
HELLO!!!! My child doesn't have privacy rights! We are his parents. If he were to crash a car into someones house. Who do you think would be responsible for paying for it? I'll tell ya who! We would! This world has become so backwards. Political correctness has taken away a parents' control. Then they wonder why kids act like they do today.

Kitty Drama

Wednesday night I had to run our pretty little gray cat out of the garage. I could tell that she really wanted to be there but my hubby REALLY doesn't like cats in the garage. Thursday, after it had been snowing for a couple of hours, my daughter noticed that Bella was "skinny". We began searching around the house for kittens. We found two of them curled up together on the front porch. We put a plastic tote out on the back porch and put a heat lamp over it. I wasn't too sure about it, with the snow and all, but we put them out there anyway. My hubby went out and checked on them and one was ice cold. It had crawled away from its momma into the wet edge of the towel. (snow had been blowing into the tote) Shawn brought it in and I thought it was dead. I held it in my hand, for what seemed like an eternity, looking for any sign of life. Eventually, its little tail moved. I tried to think what I would do if someone came into the ER in that condition. I began rubbing the tiny little thing, trying to get its blood circulating. We plugged in the heating pad, covered it with a towel and wrapped both kittens together inside. Eventually the kitten came around. My hubby was very, very opposed to letting them stay in the house or in the garage. We rigged up a better shelter with dry towels and heat lamp moved closer.
At 5:30 this morning, I heard the neighborhood dogs on the back porch barking like crazy. It sounded like they were tearing the whole porch down. I woke my poor hubby up by screaming, "They're eatting the kittens!" He jumped out of bed with only his boxers on and ran to the back door, grabbing one of the boys' BB gun. He yanked open the sliding glass door, yelling "Git on outta here!" and firing his firearm for all he was worth. It was really quite amusing if I hadn't been so worried about the kittens. So, they were brought inside.
Bella is pretty protective of her kittens. I'm not sure if she had more than two. She must have had them somewhere else and moved them to the front porch. There was no evidence that she had them there.
So, when the weather warmed up a little today. We tried putting them back outside. The oldest girl happend to look outside and notice that Bella had taken one of the kittens out of the box, carried it to the back door, and was pawing to get inside. I grabbed the camer but she had already set it down before I could take the picture. Poor little thing. Only a day old and already has been through so much!

After all the drama, they are plumb tuckered out!
They are now nestled snuggly in a tote in the garage, momma cat and all, with a heat lamp on them. Hopefully, their little lives will be a little less eventful now!

The kids prayed and the snow came...

Happy Snowday! The kids couldn't wait for Daddy to get home from work. They knew that a MAJOR snowball fight was in their near future!
The youngest was determined to make a snowman.
In spite of the chaos surrounding her.

Dad was showing of his wrestling moves on the oldest.
The youngest boy wasn't having any of that! He had to be in on it!
But, he over-shot his bodily blow. At least he had a soft landing surface.
Still oblivious. Happy as can be with her snowman beginnings.

It's amazing what a couple of misplaced snowballs can accomplish. Maybe it wasn't misplaced. (He's not gonna be too happy when he sees that I put this picture on here!)
They always give as good as they get. That's my boys.

They should sleep well tonight! Lots of pictures!

The weather was so nice today that we took the kids to the springs. We had a picnic on a blanket. It was so nice to get away for a few hours!
The youngest girl, looking at the water.
Both girls. This picture would have been much better without all the wind!
From the other side of the water, the girls and I spot daddy taking a nap on the quilt.
So, we sneak around and the youngest makes a sneak attack. (I don't think it was too sneaky but he played along!)

The kids playing around. Maybe we should get a cannon in our back yard. They had so much fun on that thing!
The oldest "monkey-ing" around.

They really wanted to get in the water.

The youngest boy, he is so sweet!

He was going to hide and scare everybody else.


This is my gang. They're the best!

After leaving the park, we went for ice cream at this little shop that has the best ice cream that I've ever tasted. My hubby decided that he was glad that we don't live close to it because he would be as big as a house. (His words, exactly)
I'm sorry if this picture offends anyone. I know some people don't like looking inside other's mouths. They are so silly!
My beautiful girl. Well, one of the two.

This weekend has been a blast! We've played and enjoyed just being together. I can't wait for summer.