Beat the Heat

We have never had the sprinkler on and let our kids just run through it! Can you believe that? What kind of childhood are my children living?!?! We mostly have the soaker hoses and sprinklers on at night to conserve water and the livelihood of our grass. Well, today I got a little stir crazy at the house, really resenting the fact that it was 108 degrees and feeling like I was a prisoner in my own home due to such heat outside. After packing up the kids and getting an ice cream cone and having them melt down our hands before we could finish them (in the car!), I had the kids throw on a swimsuit and run through the sprinklers. I did too! The water never felt cold, in fact, it took a few minutes for it to cool down from being too HOT! Here are a few pictures of the day:Love Caden's look on his face in this and the next picture. His expression captures the excitement he felt being in the water! He loooooved being in it today!Oh's and Ah's a plenty!Caden even tried to capture the sprinkler a few times. He loves the water as much as Gavin and Reese do. Here he's got it all to himself for a minute. Trying to harness the majestic cool waters of the fountain!
Stand back! Reese found another hose that had a multi-spray nozzle! She had some deadly blows! Gavin taking it...going to pick it up for ammo against Reese!Caden wondering why there are so many grass pieces in his little wading pool. He only bear crawled all over the backyard and knew when it was time to get those pesky stray grass pieces washed off!Amen the chiggers have been dealt a deadly blow, along with all spider friends when the "terminator" sprayed the other week. Lawn lounging is much more pleasant now!

Do you love Super Heroes?

I DO!!

Tonight Reese pulled out Gavin's old Superman PJ's and wanted to wear them. She wanted to be "Superman so I can fly and save everybody's life!" She even put on some of Gavin's super hero underoo's to top it off. Immediately after clothing herself she ran around saying "up, up and away!!" (See top pic for action shot of such!) Here she is giving us a butt shot! She kept looking behind her to reassure herself her super powers were still intact (make sure the cape was still attached).
What a super hero-licious babe she is!

Here's what our superhero would look like after suffering a stroke! This shot is too hilarious! She was "flying" all around all crazy like fighting the "bad, bad guys" and I happened to get this shot! WOWZERS does she just look jacked up! Still too cute though! I love my little super hero!

Blah!

I don't have any pictures to add to this post, and we all know I can't post without some sort of picture sooooo.... Here's a picture of Gavin and Christopher washing up Christopher's bike getting it all purty for his bike ride this weekend. He's training with his cousins and uncle for the Hotter n Hell bike race at the end of this month. You can also read about it HERE. I just love Gavin in his mud boots! He's too cute!

We've got a new look once again. The Photobucket God's that be declared too much bandwidth was being used (whatever that's supposed to mean) and made my blog a mess. I suppose too many people were using the template(s) and Photobucket (which I do not normally use, as I've never been impressed with them) couldn't handle the load. Whatever. Being HTML "challenged" what you see is what you're gonna get for now! No outside url's to screw around with me blog this time!

Anywho. Not much to blog about this week. I have been dealing with a mysterious illness that has me in and out of the loo (need I say more?), and I just can't pin point why or what it is. No other member of our family has been dealing with this, just me. I believe it might have something to do with stress and anxiety. The winds of change are fast approaching our house and between preparing for that, dealing with my children's dental woes (post coming) and church responsibilities, along with everyday life...it's all catching up with me. So, in other words, I have just been making everyone miserable in this house (cuz when mom's bad the whole mood of the house is bad right?!?!) and they have run away for the weekend to East Texas and let me be. I miss 'em, but don't miss 'em enough to want them to come back just yet ...lol ...mmmmwahahah (my evil laugh). If you have room in your long list of prayer worthy topics, please pray for insignificant me. Thanks.

In other news, the UPS man did deliver the goods this week! We received our blog book, ...yearbook or family history of sorts in the mail!! I was so excited! I LOVE THE BOOK! The quality is excellent! The only thing I would do differently this time around, is add MORE pictures! Just lots of full page layouts! We just want to look at pictures more than read! I want everyone who blogs to get one of their own! Our blog is so lame, yet so cool as a book. Y'alls book would be AWESOME. Check into it! Seriously. I have also been a baby blanket making fool these past few weeks. I have pumped out 5! I know some of you are waiting patiently for yours and you'll get it really soon. I promise. I just wanted to wait until all were done so I could make ONE trip to the post office with 3 little kids in the 100+ drenching temps!

Itsy, bitsy spider...?!?!

Nothing like cleaning and vacuuming under the couch and finding this little guy crawling up your hand!!!!! Yeah, an ear piercing scream filled the house and Christopher came running into the house (thinking I must have found one of the kids bloody and dead) to me on the couch screaming in hysterics. Unfortunately, my panic had caused the kids to freak out as well and so they were my chorus. Christopher being the daddy hero that he is, came in and captured the spider and let him loose along our back fence. Much more humane outcome than what I would typically have done. Needless to say, I had a bug killer (Terminator Terminix) come out and spray my house inside and out the very next day...ugh! ***shudder**

For all the Wii Lovers...

So you think you can Wii?!?! Take a look at Christopher's latest Wii age! Doesn't get any better than that! For all the Wii wanna-be's out there...you know who you are (Julia, Alyssia, Jarom, Chelsea...just to name a few) TOMATE!!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 3rd annual 29th Birthday! Hooray! Christopher and the kids surprised me with a cheesecake (my absolute favorite) assortment, a new grabber (I've had to live without that since Caden was born) and a new Transformers Wii game...hmmm, I wonder who wanted that more. That night Christopher and I went out to eat, return the Wii game (mmmwahahaha *my evil laugh*) and see Bourne Ultimatum!! Hello! That movie rocked my world! Awesome action from the moment the movie even began. Basically I almost peed my pants when I heard the soundtrack start with the black screen. Must see! My favorite of the summer so far.

Thanks to my mother-in-law Cristi for the gift card and my parents for the cash...birthdays don't get much better than that! My birthday surprises aren't over yet. Christopher's gift has yet to arrive in the mail. He said he spent "a billion dollars" on it...so, the suspense is building over here. I'll keep y'all posted!

Updates

Busy, busy week we just had. It started with the kids Summer Reading Carnival. It was identical to last years, only this year there were less trolls and more real prizes. No pictures were taken other than this picture to the left where Christopher was getting the video camera ready and Caden looking super cute. The rest we have is video in the hopes that we will make a video much like last years. However, Christopher is super busy with work and school preparations, I doubt it will be made soon...if ever.

We also were able to go back to school shopping with our dear friends the Cooks. Marni and I took the kids to the Grapevine Mills Mall for some MEGA back to school shopping in their mega mall. We love this mall for all its outlet stores within the mall but mostly the ginormous TCP outlet they have there. We got some killer deals. We also had fun eating at the The Rainforest Cafe and experiencing their volcano dessert of a brownie and ice cream tower with a sparkler on top! Yummy! Of course, we also fed the crocodile!! The kids and I had a good time.

In fact, we had such a great time, we did it again on the next day! Christopher took a half day off work and right after the bug killer was done spraying (post coming) we went back to the mall and did some more shopping. We also rode on the mall carousel. I got in the tea cups with Gavin and he about made me throw up! Remind me not to get on those with him at Disneyland!! Just thinking about it again makes me sick! We also hit up the Lunar Miniature Golf and Gavin, Reese and Christopher put to test some of their Wii golf training. Lunar golf is much like cosmic bowling, only it's putt putting. Christopher actually sunk a hole in one! So did Reese! HA!

We were glad to have made the trip to this mall. There are just so many malls in the DFW area and so many great places. We are glad that we have the time to experience them all! I just can't believe we didn't have our camera for any of it! What's wrong with me lately?!?! We'll take you here Julia and Chelsea when you come down for a visit.

My Blurbarian Obsession

I think I found my "scrapbooking" niche. I have struggled for years to put together books for my children with all the cute little paper and embellishments, tried the digital side which was a little better, however, I believe I have found my bliss with Blurb!

You might remember in this post I mentioned that I was going to bind my blog into a book. For a sort of family history. Well, for the past 6 days I have spent countless hours putting this "book" together using this website's free software called "BookSmart". I can't even tell you how much FUN I have been having putting this together. I just finished my Blog Book for the Forney Four + One from June 2006 (start date) up through June 2007 and came up with 194 pages! It is currently being bound (hardcover with dust cover) and will be shipped out sometime next week. I will post about the book again once I have received it to comment on the quality and satisfaction of the finished product.

Since finishing this book, I have started the process in making my July 2007 - July 2008 book that I will leave open and keep adding to it until next year. The more time I have for it, the better I can learn the functions and make it a truly awesome book. I also have plans to upload all my pictures and scans from all my children's scrapbook worthy materials that I have saved over the years and will make a book for each child. They even have smaller 7 x 7 book sizes that I would like to make into vacation trip books or even gifts. Oh, the possibilities are endless....and I've just begun. Wish list: my MacBook, camera upgrade, and a whole lot of child free time! That's why it's a wish list right? I do have a birthday coming up AND Christmas...a girl can dream.

If you would like to view a little of my book, please click HERE . They only allow the first 15 pages to be viewed (which aren't the coolest posts or pages...we added A LOT of photo layouts and such to the book), and it will look just like my blog, but you can view other blog books that are on public display and get a feel for it. We will add our videos that we posted to the blog to the book in the form of a burned DVD of each video. Time for my blurbarian fix!

"Keep Daddy Safe"

My brother, Jarom, is currently serving in the Army Reserves overseas in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As stated in previous posts, this past month he was able to come home for 2 weeks R&R. He flew into Washington where his wife and son were waiting for him along with my family for the 4th of July. I was able to visit with him then. The following week we left Washington, returned to Texas for 3 days, and then went on up to Utah for Christopher's conference. While on our way up there, we got to stop and stay the night with Jarom and his family in St. George seeing him again. While in Provo for Christopher's conference, Jarom and his family came on down from SLC to have lunch with me and the kids. Once again, seeing him.


Imagine my surprise this past Tuesday morning, just a day after we returned from Utah, getting a call from Jarom saying he was in town! He had a layover in Dallas and would not leave until the following morning! Yippee! We jumped into the car and raced over to pick him up! How lucky are we to have been able to spend time with him in WA, twice in UT and now TX!?!

Gavin, Reese and Caden loved having him around and I think literally played for hours with him! Gavin and Jaom played fishing on the Wii until Gavin kicked his trash and Reese and Gavin enjoyed wrestling with their Uncle Jer Jer. I loved being able to clean up a little from our trip, do a little blog booking and going out to eat one last time with my brother for the next 7-13 months.

When it came time to say goodbye, the kids, especially Reese, didn't want him to leave. Reese wanted him to stay longer and said he could only leave if he would help save her life. He definitely is defending her way of life!

This deployment is harder on Jarom than when he first left. Hudson, his son, was just a few days old. Now he is 5 months old and really this was his first chance to meet his son, be it for 15 days. It was enough to break his heart upon boarding the plane. He would get tears in his eyes when he would talk of his love for his son and the love and dedication of his wife. He feels blessed beyond measure to have his wife Chelsea and a son so "cute-n-fair" as Hudson! On the back of their car they have a yellow ribbon that reads "Keep Daddy Safe" and echo that same message. Keep Hudson's Daddy Safe! We love you Jarom! You are such a stud!

Bean, come and play with me!

BEAN!! I want you to come play at my house. Poochie no call me. I talking on the phone right now. We can go to Madison's house...she has lots of beds at her house and we play with baby Blakeley. She misses me. I misses her.

I can't wait already! This is taking so long already! - Reese

Aunt Bean, you have been requested to come play at our house. I'm not sure Reese can wait until October! ***This is taking too long already!*** :0) And Poochie, why don't you pick up the phone when my baby girl calls? I know, you're still mad about your cat legs that Caden ripped out of their sockets! I know this! :0) Give us a call sometime you two. We miss you!

Friends and Family

A big deal to me on our trip to Utah was being able to visit and catch up with some of my friends that I left behind. Here is my dear friend Catie and her adorable son Brighton!

I miss Catie! She always has a smile to share and cracks me up! Holy cow, if anyone other than Christopher could make me laugh till I peed my pants....Catie could! She is also a shining example of love and has awesome parenting skills! We were impressed girlfriend! Love ya my signing friend!

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I also was able to visit with my friend Brynn. I met Brynn through her husband Sean while I worked at Nuskin in Provo. She just had her second child, a darling little girl named Ellie (for Elisabeth) and her son Noah!

I miss Brynn b.c to me she always seems to "have it together", is very smart and has an amazing marriage! Not to mention she can do Tae Bo, vacuum and nurse her youngin' all at the same time! You truly are amazing and an inspiration to me! Oh, and she potty trains her boys just like me! Hang in there babe!

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Lastly, I was able to spend some time (and a night in St. George..THANK YOU!) with my brother Jarom and his little family just before he headed back overseas. His wife Chelsea is probably the best thing since sliced bread to every to have happened to Jarom and dare I say myself!?!! ;-) She is such a fun sister-in-law and I feel grateful that we are such good friends. Hudson his son is such a lady killa already! I love him to death! Y'all need to get workin' on the next masterpiece! ;-)

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On our way up. I was to visit with my friend from my childhood, Kim. However, due to various travels, it didn't work out! I hope we get to visit soon! (Did Jim win his game?) On our way back, we stayed with our family friends the Merrill's. They just moved from our town here in Texas to Colorado to start their own advertising business! We really enjoyed this last leg of our trip as Colorado is a favorite of ours and the kids had a blast seeing their old friends and playing around before jumping in the car the next day for a 16 hour trip home!

We feel blessed to have such good friends all over the country and cherish every one of them. Love you all!

Utah Summer Trip July 07

Every January and July of every year Christopher has to make a trip back to Utah for a training and conferences and such. This past January we went up for some fun times and had such a blast that this July we make the trip with him as well. This trip we stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Orem vs. the timeshare in Midway. Having come from a vacation to Washington just 3 days before we went out, we were looking for a little downtime...a little R&R (at least mommy was!)! Here are a few pictures:Gavin can be playing frisbee or t-ball and in the middle of play we will see him start to make cat like movements. We have come to learn that he will stop at anything to catch a butterfly (which he is quite good at) or some grasshopper, ect. Here is a rather large grasshopper he found at Texas rest stop at the beginning of our trip.Reese testing her nerve holding the little bugger!Lots of chill time at the hotel...why not, I didn't have to clean anything or make any beds! Booyah!Frisbee and silly face makin'.
Caden demanding to be feed the ice cream I was enjoying! Boy does he love his foods...or non food items for that matter.Of course there was time for Chuck E. Cheese. However, we were disappointed in the Orem establishment. Poor selection of games and quite dingy. The pizza wasn't that appetizing either. Caden did enjoy the rides!Reese and I enjoying our prizes scored from the Chuck Miester! Star glasses for all, as well as a ring and bracelet.For old times sake we went to the Nickel Arcade! That place can make a border town Wal-Mart look immaculate! EW! But, the kids had fun with the rides and games....and the hand sanitizer bath they received afterwards!I love this picture of Caden! I don't blame him of being afraid to touch that nasty car!
We also took in a bit of nature! The mountains in Utah are the redeeming virtue of the state! The hot weather sans HUMIDITY is a big plus and almost a tie to the mountains!! I was in heaven the whole week, but the mountains sure are majestic.

Gavin checkin' out freeeeeezing mountain water stream! And checkin' for some organism he could collect.Bubble time in the woods is always a treat!
Nature hiking and exploring along the stream!
Our friends the raccoons that enjoyed the company picnic and Julie's carrot cake!

We are glad to be back home after a month of travels and getting in our end of the summer fun before school starts! Yippee!