Finally A Girl!!!

Just a little over two short weeks ago we welcomed our first niece into the family! Actually, it is the first grandaughter...there were only 4 grandsons up until now. It is so fun to finally be able to buy some pink!! :-) Lil' Miss Brenley is just precious and has the fullest little head of hair you've ever seen. Also, she was 8lbs. 10oz when born, hence the cute little chubby cheeks you see in the pics! We love her to death and I just had to share a few pics! Enjoy!
Kim just looked great!!! Such a great pic of them!
Proud Uncle Chris!
My first Niece!
Sweet Baby Kisses!
He was so happy to finally be holding her!
Chris just couldn't hand her over fast enough!! :-)

It's Snowtime!

Well, this morning God blessed us with an absolutely Beautiful winter view!!! Chris woke up about 7:30 this morning (yes, all 5 of the rest of us were still asleep!) and he looked out our window and I hear "Oh Crap!" Well, we try not to use that word in our family (doesn't really sound good coming out of toddler's mouths) so I sat straight up in bed saying "What?!" He of course proceeded to tell me that it was snowing and we jumped out of bed in excitement, waking up all of the boys to let them look out the windows. We then proceeded to bundle them all up because we knew that it would not last long. My camera battery was dead so my pics are still on Chris' iphone for now but I did charge it and later we ran back outside to get a couple of pics with the snowman that Corbin, Callen and I built. We really did have so much fun for the 30 min. or so that we played out there. It's hard to believe that it's only December 2 and we've already built our first snowman of the winter! Funny thing...the boys and I started praying for snow just 3 days ago on Sunday! So cool how God answers even prayers that are just simple desires that we have! I'm so grateful that we have a God who loves to see His children smile and have fun in His creation!! Thank you Lord for our fun and beautiful morning!
Not a bad little snowman for our first one...I forgot how heavy they can be once you get the bottom ball a good size! Since the snow was wet, it got heavy really fast and was almost like a huge ball of ice. It was so heavy I couldn't even push it back up our hill to put him by our house, so his home is down by our sidewalk. :-)

Sweet little Cohen was too interested in the snowman, he never would look at the camera. I don't blame him, in his memory he's never seen one of these!

Searching for balance...

So that title could obviously lead into about a million different subjects, right! Well, today...it's friendships. I'm not posting this to complain, more to get insight if you have some, or just a prayer (for all of us trying to do this same thing) if you feel led.

I'm having a hard time balancing being a Follower of Christ, a wife, a mother and a friend. That's a lot! For any of you that know me well, you know I am an extreme people person and could carry on a conversation with a wall if I had to! :-) The hard part...so many friends. Now, don't get me wrong, that's an overwhelming blessing. The problem is, how do you, on a consistent basis, continue to make time for ALL of them? This I cannot seem to figure out. And I'll be the first to admit, I'm rotten at it! My hearts desire is to be a loyal friend to the end, but how does this happen over a span of 31 years and gobs of friendships built? I've been blessed with some of the best friends in the world over my lifetime, from Jr. High/High School at GCA, College at DBU and now our home church, 121 Community Church. I couldn't have asked for greater friends than who the Lord has put into my path! Sad, but true though, many of those friendships have been really hard to keep up with because of sheer numbers. It has nothing to do with the friends, just my lack of ability to find the time to make them all still work. That's not an excuse, it's an issue I'm not quite sure how to attack. So any of you who may have ideas, I'm all ears.

Calendar? I'm guessing that's gonna be something someone suggests. I agree, scheduling is huge! How often though do you get together with friends, close or past ones you are trying to keep up with? Do you quit trying when someone can't seen to 'put you on their calendar' in spite of verbally saying they really want to get together? Sometimes it seems it's emotionally draining for me to go back and forth and not just do it! I try to be a flexible person and love to do things last minute with people when we can. Just seems like a lot of times calendars almost get in our way as much as they help us? Does anyone know what I mean? I understand that we have schedules, but when you haven't seen someone in forever, if you really want to get together don't you fit them in? I'm preaching to the choir here, don't think I've got it altogether!! Obviously I've been convicted or I wouldn't be asking how God leads you in your friendships! :-)

So I'm battling fitting time with friends in with making time for my husband (who has a very busy music ministry), taking care of our 4 precious boys and trying to give them the social opportunities they need (which in itself is a struggle sometimes with so many of them), teaching school on Tuesday & Thursdays, being active in several areas at our church, and doing my home business here and there. How do you all do it? I'd love to hear. The Lord is really working on my heart, I know this! My heart hurts when I can't be a GREAT friend to everyone, that's just my personality and I have to move past that and somehow grasp who God has made me to be and follow in the paths (friendships) He is leading me. The thing is, I don't want to loose friendships, that were so dear for so many years, altogether, that's awful. I know it happens sometimes but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt either. Well, I guess I should be done with my soap box. :-) Thanks you for listening!!

The 1st Day of School...

was such a special day! I'm sorry it's taken me this long to this posted. Our one and only glitch was that Cade got sick the night before with a fever but my mom came and picked him up the next morning so the rest of us could still go. She was such a trooper for doing that!!! Love you Mom! So, with bib boy back packs in tow (new Michael Jordan ones at that!), handsome outfits all around topped off with new tennis shoes from Nanna-D, big smiles and the studliest boys you've ever seen...off to school I went for our first day at Sonshine Academy. Most of the pics below are of Corbin but I've got more coming soon off of my sisters camera of the other boys as well! They had so much fun that day and are really LOVING school. Chris and I could not be more proud of them. It is still hard and a little bitter sweet to think that Corbin, who was our first baby boy just not too long ago, is now in Kindergarten! Wow, how time flies when you're having fun! Praise the Lord for bringing us this far in our journey as parents and we pray for many more to come!!!
All four of the boys with backpacks (well, Cohen's got his lunch box!) ready to get in the car and go!
I can't believe this is my "baby"! I'm so happy yet sad just a bit! :-)
Cade just had to have his picture made with his camo backpack even though he wasn't going to school...and he had to take his backpack to Grammy's WITH his lunch box packed inside so Grammy could see it and he would have lunch, 'cause I guess he thought Grammy would forget to feed him, right?! :-)
Sweet little Callen, looking all grown up!
Sitting on the bridge you walk over to get the the kindergarten rooms. He was so ready and excited!
Standing by a list of all the kids in his class.
Sitting at his place at the table, ready to start his first assignment, and ready for me to quit taking pics! :-)
Writing his name on his paper before we even left the room!
Daddy was so proud!
One last hug from Mommy as she holds back the good tears!
Callen next to his leopard class, his name is on a lion and he takes it into his room and puts it on the board every day when he gets there! He is usually first or second getting in there so he puts it right on the top! :-)

More pics to come soon!!

We pulled another one!

Yep, last night when I was brushing Corbin's teeth he was saying "ouch" because that other bottom front tooth was hurting him. I asked him if I could try just one time to pull it. He really didn't want me to because last week when we tried it wouldn't come out and it really hurt! I convinced him though that we would only try once and in my mind I knew I needed to give it my best shot because it really has been hurting him a lot in the last few days and he really didn't want to have to have the dentist pull it. Problem is, the big tooth is already growing in behind it and they were fighting for space. So, I got a wet rag, stuck it in there and got as good of a grip as I could and pulled...and pulled harder for a sec...and as Corbin was in the middle of a big "ooooowwww"...it came out! :-) He cried for a few minutes and had to hold a rag in his mouth because this one was bleeding quite a bit but once he settled down he was sooo glad it was out and not hurting any more! He was even more excited when I reminded him of the tooth fairy that would come again! :-) So here are a couple of pics from this morning...as you can see, the permanent tooth on the other side is already 1/2 way in! He's so cute!

Snagle Tooth!

So I posted a while back that Corbin had two teeth loose. Well, I'm a bit behind in blogging, sorry!!! Only 3 days after finding the first loose tooth it fell out. Well, not really fell out, I pulled it. He was eating lunch and started to cry pretty hard. He said that his tooth was hurting. So we went in the bathroom to look at it and I could tell it was REALLY loose so I asked him if he wanted me to try and pull it, fully expecting him to say no, that's just his personality normally. BUT, he said yes much to my surprise so I got a rag wet and grabbed the tooth and pulled a bit and low and behold it came right out. Both of us kinda looked at each other shocked and smiled and looked at the tooth and the hole in his mouth. It didn't hurt any more! :-) Well, first things first, he wanted to know if the tooth fairy was real and if she was really going to come into his room to get his tooth. He was visibly nervous/scared about that so we took the same aproach as with Santa Clause and just told him the truth. Hopefully he won't ruin it for all his friends that 'believe' but it made it fun for him to not have to worry about it but still get to do it. So we put it in a bag and put the bag in a tin and put it under his pillow and the next morning...there was $3 in there (I told the tooth fairy he was going to go broke with 4 mouths worth of teeth at $3 a pop!!!). He was SO excited. So now the other one on the bottom is trying to come out and hurting. We've tried to pull it but it's hangin' in there so we'll see.
Are we really about to do this?!
Holy Cow!!! It came right out :-)
And there it is!
So cute missing a tooth!!!Putting it in a bag for the Tooth FairyPutting the bag in a tin to put under his pillow.

Closing it up tight! Then Nighty Night...can't wait to see what's in there in the morning!

A Sick Week! :-(

Well, I want to begin by saying that God has been SOOOOO good to us as a family because we really have not been sick very often! Praise the Lord for an overall healthy family!!! This week though, not so much. :-) It started on Sunday, we went to church and of course exposed everyone to the wonderful stomach bug that we got, but didn't know we had it yet, later that afternoon. Cade, Corbin, Callen and I all threw up for a good 6+ hours each. Fun times.

So we went to the doctor on Monday for Corbin's 6 year old well check and ALL 5 got the flu shot. Yeah! Maybe we won't get it.

Well, then we wake up Tuesday morning and the right side of Corbin's face and neck had swollen up about twice the side of the other. Yikes, what is that? My first thoughts were lymph nodes because he has had a problem with that before in the same side of his face. So I called the doctor and we went in again, two days in a row...not sure if we had ever done that before. Dr. McCoy made me very nervous because at first he thought it was the mumps but couldn't figure out why he would have that after having been vacinated twice already. It ended up being that the stomack virus we had decided to settle in his salivary gland on that side of the face and cause parititis, which is very painful! Just took about 2 1/2 days to run its course and clear up.

So then we move to Thursday morning. When we got up I just didn't feel like Cade looked right, although he really didn't have any symptoms. I guess I should have stayed home but if I stayed home each time I thought one of them didn't look right I would never go anywhere! And most of the time it turns out to be nothing. Well, by 4:30 Thursday afternoon he was running 101 fever and sneezing and coughing. Uh Oh!!! He was just flat out miserable all evening. Poor little guy! So This morning rolls around and I call in AGAIN and they wanted to see him to run a flu test. And they did, and he not only has the flu....drum roll please...he has the H1N1 (SWINE FLU)! Oopies!! (at least that's what Cade would say!) I kinda figured it was eventually bound to get one of them but it still took me by suprise! So he is now on Tamaflu and we are all praying the rest of us don't get it although we kinda feel like sittin' ducks. I trust that the Lord is going to take care of us just like he always has!

So on a side note...I've decided that it's better and easier for all of us to get something at the same time than to get it all strung out and at different times! You just all lay around and moan and groan and sleep a whole bunch, then after you are all better you just blow up your house and get a new one! :-) Sounds good doesn't it! No really, that's what happened with us and the stomach bug and it was so much easier to just wash everything once after all being sick than having to wash it multiple times because people keep getting sick for weeks! I'm kinda praying that IF the Lord is going to allow us to all (or several of us at least) get the swine flu that He will allow us to have it together and just get it over with and out of this house! AMEN!!! :-) We'll see and I'll get back with you on that.

So for now I continue to quote multiple times a day outloud as well as in my heart..."I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!" Even Cade can say that verse now and I love it! He is with us all the time and I trust He is taking care of us!

Sent chills down my spine!

So last night we had just left Chris' Nanny's home and were driving decently slow through a neighborhood street in Dallas about 10:30PM. The boys were asking me a couple of questions and I saw something in the distance that looked kinda fishy. As we got closer and my headlights made the road brighter, it became very clear what was crawling across the street...a HUGE (4-5in. leg span when crawling at least) Tarantula!!! That sent chills from head to toe (to a degree that I don't get very often), that's for sure! I grew up seeing these here and there, we even caught a couple of them, but you never really get used to seeing them if you ask me. They really do creap me out. So the rest of my drive home I kept getting a small itch here and there and I know it was just because I kept thinking about that spider! Good thing is I haven't seen one out and about like that in about 10 years or more so maybe it will be that long before the next one I see!!!

Aligators, Snakes and Vacation...Oh My! (PART 2)

Tuesday afternoon, after our morning of fun at Jump Zone, we all packed up again and drove to Houston for an Astros game! We had never been to the newer stadium so that was really fun....very nice! They didn't win but we still had a good time! The boys were beyond cute with their jumbled, mixed up sports questions/sayings they threw at us all night long. Here are just a few: Callen-"have they made a shot yet?", "did we make a touchdown?", Corbin-"how many points do we have?", "let's go see the court". Can you tell what sport they are into the most right now? (it's basketball in case anyone was wondering, we even have a basketball goal IN the dining room...what's a mom to do with 4 boys?) :-) It really was a great night and Chris even got to have a little fun with Kendal (the rest of us didn't know about it until after he got back)...Chris got up to go walk around with Cohen, because of course Cohen did not want to sit still, and while they were out and about the entire stadium, Chris would text Kendal and ask him if he could find them. I think he did pretty well, actually, finding them all but one time! A little game of 'where's Chris and Cohen' if you will! Next time I want in on the game! :-) Here are a few pics from the night.
Checkin' out how high up we are.
The train that 'goes' if they get a home run!
The field from our view above home plate.
In our seats.
Brothers excited about the game!Checkin' out the 'court'! :-)
In front of the Astros Boot.
Ridin' the escelator with Uncle Kendal
Havin' fun in the funny fold up seat!
Coming back from one of our 'million' bathroom trips! I kept thinking they were just wanting to go up and down the stairs but they really did 'go' every single time.
Riding on uncle Kendal!!

Check this out.
The next day we just hung out at the house and chilled...needed the rest from the past two packed days! That afternoon G-Daddy pulled out a bunch of water guns that he had bought for us all to have a water gun fight in the back yard. Of course the boys went crazy and had sooooo much fun. The pics tell a better story than I can!
Getting a lesson from Daddy on aiming and shooting!
Sneeky little guy!
Armed and Ready! :-)
No fear!!!
You want a piece of me?!!
You know I'm Bad!
Here I come!Bobbing for?...I'm just not sure.Cohen in the cooler, he thought that was so funny!
Cade chillin' in the cooler, I might too if I could fit!
Nanna-D joined in on the action!
The refil station.
On Thursday, we got up and went to the Gator Farm. That was a lot of fun! There are several ponds full of them and you can buy hot dogs and tear them up and feed them. The boys really enjoyed throwing hot dogs and seeing then come out of the water after them. We got to get up withing 6" or so of a couple of those gators. Then before we left, the head guy came and gave us our own little personal 'talk' and told us all about the place and we got to hold a 4 yr old 'baby' aligator and a 6 1/2 foot albino python. An experience I'm glad we got to share but pretty sure I never care to hold another snake that big!!! I'm sure though, with only boys our family other than me, there will be more snakes...and many other cool adventures I'll get to experience that I might not if I only had girls! :-)
G-Daddy and the snake.
SERIOUSLY!!! Somebody better get this snake off of me fast or I AM going to flip out on the outside instead of just the inside!!!
So cool and calm! Not me! :-)
And if you look really close, YES, the snake began to wrap himself up between Callen's legs! Didn't even phase him!
So brave!!! I was so proud of all of them!
And then there was Cade, holding onto the snake as if it is his friend! :-)
Not as bad as the snake...actually kinda cool!
I think it kinda flipped Nanna-D out though...that's ok! :-)
Can we take him home Daddy?!
I did it Mommy!!!
This is so cool (especially now that I've seen Cade hold it and everything was fine!) :-)
Poor sweet Cade, when the guy ask who wanted to hold the aligator first Callen piped up and said "Cade does" while Corbin just pointed over in their direction. Cade just stuck his hands out with a smile and was so brave!!!
Is that real? They all weren't sure that it wasn't alive! So cute!
AAAAHHHH! He's eating our arms!
Feeding the aligators.
One of the aligators waiting to be thrown a hot dog...or he may be hoping a kid falls in, who knows!