Semi-Dance Recital

Audrey's dance class is so different from last year.  Just one year makes a difference in the skills these girls have.  They really do a great job of imitating the teachers!  I am really looking forward to the big recital in May!  Before the Christmas break, parents were invited to come inside the room to watch!

Of course, one of teachers sometimes stands right in front of her!

We are so thankful Audrey's cast was cut off the Friday before Christmas!  Praise the Lord her arm healed so fast!!  She was such a trouper when they cut it off!  It did take a couple of days to remember to use her right arm!  She kept forgetting the cast was gone...I'm sure I would have done the same thing!!

A Big T-Rex Birthday Party

That is the answer we were getting anytime we asked Paxton about his upcoming birthday.  That was all he wanted!  It proved to be a very dinosaur birthday!  Thanks to a friend of a friend, we had an awesome T-Rex cake that tasted yummy too!

Paxton wanted to eat the dinosaur right away but I made him wait until the next day so we could celebrate with family too!  The cake did not look so great after riding home in our car...but it still tasted good!
We just played with a few friends at McD's after school.  I think everyone had a good time!
Paxton received dinosaur books and toys, among other things! 

We are so blessed to have such great friends!

 

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Birthday Celebrations

It is so hard to believe my 'baby' is 3 years old!  In some ways he is so big (the way he talks, counts, sings, climbs, figures things out) but he is still catching up in other ways (forever un-potty-trained??)!  He is my sweetheart, cuddlebug, reader, and family clown.  He kisses, hugs, and rests his little hand on my arm!  His hair still sticks out in a lot of places!  He has difficulty blowing out of his mouth (and can't blow his nose at all).  He tries to blow through his teeth with his mouth closed!  You'll see. 

He loves to wear boots (maybe because of Grandaddy).  If I was his dinosaur t-shirts, I should hide them or he'll just wear them the very next day again!  He even refused to wear pj's to his class pajama party-had to wear the t-rex shirt!  He thinks baby Jesus is a rock star!  In the car, at night, when he saw some Christmas lights, he started screaming "BABY JESUS" (like people have for the Beatles or Justin Bieber)!  Then he would whisper "Baby Jesus" and then scream it again.  It's not as funny in the telling but we were laughing so hard our sides hurt (Audrey too).  After that Audrey was trying to get him to do it again.  She kept saying "Scream, Paxton!"   But he hasn't been in the mood yet!

Here is Paxton's class celebration:

It's Just a Gingerbread House

Sometimes I forget things.  It's possible that I decorated a gingerbread house at some point in my 37 years but I don't remember it.  As a result, I didn't think it would be that hard to do.  Did I mention I'm not very artistic??  The other problem I didn't anticipate was that the kids would only want to eat the gingerbread house, not decorate it!  Once we resolved that...Audrey helped some!  The first issue we had was the bottom layer (base) was broken in several places!  The thing the entire house is built on (multiple tangents available here)!  So we used some icing to "glue" the pieces back together.  The instructions suggested we decorate the walls and base before assembling them.  That was a great idea!  The biggest help of all was our adopted student Allie!!!  She helped tremendously!  She is the reason it looks so good!  Whew!  Glad that's done!  And I'm not sure I'll do one next year...maybe it will be Daddy's turn!

Did I mention how quickly Audrey lost interest??  And Paxton wasn't interested once he found out he couldn't eat the gingerbread boy!  Thank you Allie!

Another Zoo Visit

I will try not to post the pictures from every zoo visit we make...because we go all the time.  I can't think of anything my kids love more than going to the zoo.  I am so thankful the Waco zoo is close and so well done.  Audrey's preschool class has a mascot named Ernie.  Each child gets to bring him home for a long weekend(obviously this was pre-cast).  Then we document his visit in his journal.  Most of the other kids had already taken Ernie home so it was fun to read his journal and hear about all he has experienced.  Most of them included pictures too.  We took Ernie to the zoo and to the movies. 

This musical square is their favorite part of the zoo, hands-down!

Our computer crashed in the middle of our weekend visit so I didn't get to include the picture of us at the movies.  Audrey was pretty upset and continues to ask if we can still put it in the journal.  We saw MegaMind and it was a lot of fun!  Our adoped Aggie, Ali, came with us.  Paxton even did pretty well!

Be-Dazzle Me

While Audrey's cousins were here for Thanksgiving, they beautifully decorated her hot pink cast.  They added colorful jewels.  Samm did some fabulous artwork on the inside.  She wrote Audrey's name and drew a fairy, lips, girly-stuff!  So cute! Everyone we see tells Audrey her cast is beautiful.

She also has a jeweled "A" behind her elbow.  I almost wish we could keep the cast but I already know it will stink inside and be pretty yucky!  Oh well...at least it's well documented!

We went to a birthday party today and the parents could not believe the cast was not slowing Audrey down.  She was running and climbing as much as the other kids!  She even climbed this incline where you hold onto a rope- one-handed! 

Extra-Large Dogs

I have a sister who loves Great Danes.  I had never spent much time around one until she brought home her first one.  They are actually pretty great.  If you don't mind really large dogs!  That sometimes act like children or cuddly cats.  Their first Great Dane was Samson.  He was a rescue dog who was very happy in a house with 4 kids.  He put up with a lot of junk from my kids...and never seemed to mind.  My kids loved him and were only a little afraid of him.  Sadly he passed away last year in the Spring.  This past summer my sister found another Great Dane who needed a home.  He is a different color and maybe possibly even bigger!  His name is Boaz but we call him Bo.  He is younger than Samson so he acts more like a kid.  He sometimes gets too excited, but who can blame him?  My kids love him too.  It cracks me up when he tries to sit in your lap or lay on the couch but he's almost as tall as I am and probably weighs more than I do!! My parents live next door to my sister and when I'm in my parents' guest room I can hear Bo's deep bark through the window.  There is a large divider between the houses but it's not too tall for Bo. 

 This is Bo peeking over the wall.

This is my 8-yr old niece standing on her toes to reach the top of the wall.  Bo wanted to know what we were doing in my parent's backyard.  I guess we were having too much fun!  At least he can't get over the wall...yet.

Recipe Hoarder

I have a confession!  I am a recipe hoarder!  I really don't even cook very often but I am continually pulling recipes out of magazines or printing recipes off the internet!  Currently I can smell something yummy baking in my oven.  It's pumpkin bread with a twist!  You start with a yellow cake mix and add pumpkin, mashed  banana and cinnamon.  After it cools, I will top it with cream cheese/powdered sugar icing!  What's the occasion you are asking?  Nothing!!  I tore the page out several weeks ago and purchased the ingredients.  Finally the bananas were so  brown they were about to be thrown away!  So I made it this afternoon.  If we don't make progress with it, I will take it up to work!!  Needless to say, I have uneven pages stacked up and bunching up on the shelf.  I love cookbooks too!  When you look at the bookshelves, you would think I cook every day!  The other problem is how not-often I sort through them and file them away.  So just a window into my soul!  Let me know if you need a recipe!

Update on my girl

Despite the drama we have been through, Audrey is doing great!  She only occasionally complains of itching or hurting.  She has become more active and pretty much back to her usual self!  She is trying to climb and play like normal.  I keep having heart flutters when I see her doing something that might result in another fall!!  I think I worry a lot more than I used to.  Funny how my attitude can change so quickly.  She will have the long cast on for around 3 weeks and then she will get a shorter cast for another 2-3 weeks.  So all her Christmas pictures will have a pink cast!! 

When my boss DG heard about her cast, he said she needed to come up to the store to get signatures.  When I told her, she responded "OK, I'll go to work with you tomorrow." 

Me-"Ummmm, I'm not sure..."

Her-"What? I'll get a ride back!"

I worked this morning and JD brought the kids up to the store to eat lunch with me.  So DG signed the cast and wrote on her other hand.  Then, she walked around getting more signatures.  Once, she even asked "who else do I need to get?"  

The truth is I think it feels a little bit like being a rock star!!!  She is loving the attention (even when she acts shy)!

Absentee Blogger

So I've had several ideas for posts but it's amazing how hard it can be to sit down and put it on blog paper!  Most recently, we had some drama yesterday.  We spent 3 hours in the emergency room because I was concerned Audrey had broken her right arm.  She fell off the arm of the couch and was death-gripping her arm.  Her pain did not seem to lessen.  The problem with scrambling off to the ER was Paxton was still napping and John David was also sleeping!  So I called our adopted college student and she was gracious enough to come hang with Paxton.  I also woke John David up to give him the scoop.  She was such a trooper and so stoic at the ER.  Many nurses, EMT's, etc. came by to say they had heard the cutest girl ever was in our room.  One even told me Audrey looks like Suri Cruise!  Yep, I get that alot! After some x-rays, they confirmed that it was fractured in 2 places.  They also needed to bend her wrist back, etc. to re-set the bones.  So they kind of put her to sleep so she wouldn't remember it!  She is doing so well.  If only Paxton could understand why he needs to keep a 5 foot radius away from Audrey!

Another song or two

I think she really likes being on camera! I'm not sure how I feel about that!

Kingdom Kids song

A Girl Who Loves to Sing

My daughter loves to sing!  She loves dancing even more but I think she is constantly singing in her head.  Here is a video I took of her singing the kingdom kids song.

Technical Difficulties

I have been MIA for a while because we were having major computer problems!!  We could barely use our old computer!  We could get on the internet but not type in any box (like a blog) and often the computer was randomly restarting in the middle of whatever you were doing.  It couldn't even download pictures off the camera and print them! 

So, we have our early Christmas present for John David and myself!!  Now we can finish our Christmas shopping online and get our Christmas cards ordered!!  It's been a tough few weeks with the computer getting worse and worse!  Sad how desperate we were without it!!!

Family and Zoo Visit

This past weekend the kids and I went to Abilene to visit my family and go to the zoo.  My kids both LOVE playing with their cousins.  They would do it all day, every day if possible!  Sadly, we only briefly saw one set of cousins.  We also came to Abilene to see the zoo.  My children also LOVE the zoo!  They love animals of many kinds.  We especially wanted to see the 5 lion cubs before they went to new homes.  I was surprised the cubs were already getting big!  Paxton continues to talk about the alligator we saw sunning himself!

He and Grandad have a special bond!

Don't you wish childhood lasted forever?

Ok, so I don't really mean forever, but I do wish we could freeze that feeling of pure joy without any complications!  Remember when you just played hard all afternoon and slept hard that night.  I just feel like all adults could use a reminder of what is feels like to be a kid.  Even though it is a fleeting feeling, it is a really important one!  I love being a parent and witnessing these moments in the eyes of my children. 
Click below to see Audrey and what I'm talking about!

Dinosaur Obsession

This is what my husband and I have been driven to do.  First Paxton found a little blue dinosaur to which he became very attached.  The problem was he kept losing it for hours, even days.  This was upsetting to him!  Then I found 4 more little dinosaurs.  Then he became attached to the little green t-rex.  He had to have BOTH the blue one and the green one at all times.  Except sometimes they get lost or left on the playground!  So my husband began looking for bags of dinosaurs (just as long as it was more than our son could count!).  So here we are, with more dinosaurs than any child needs.  Thankfully, he no longer cares as much if some get lost!

Funny!  The giant triceratops was the first dinosaur we ever bought him and he's never attached to it!  The giant t-rex was a recent gift from someone who knows how much he's obsessed!!

We are living in a golden age of breakdancing.

If they had a "so you think you can dance for kids", I think these might win it! This video is pretty amazing and will make you smile if you like breakdancing even a little bit!

We are living in a golden age of breakdancing.

Trunk or Treat Pro's

We had a great time at our church's Trunk or Treat!  Paxton tried the horse-riding but it jostled too much!  Audrey got her face painted (which left a rash today!!).  We had fun and got some exercise.  Then we went to my friend's party with some delicious food!  If only Paxton would sleep in after having so much fun!!!

Cowboy Spiderman

Meet the T-Rex boy

Mother's Day Out

Who knew that my 4-yr old was learning the pledge of allegiance in mother's day out?  I mean it's only twice a week for 5 hours each day!  Technically it's preschool for the 3-4 yr olds.  I knew they were working on letters and the pen grip.  She has learned the theme song for the school.  So cute!  Yesterday, she just started saying the pledge of allegiance.  I was shocked but pleased!

YouTube -

YouTube -the pledge of allegiance!

Welcome to our Neighborhood!

Hello Friends!  I have decided to create a blog so that at least I can share pictures and videos with friends and family more easily.  I guess we will see if my blog lasts longer than a few months!  I enjoy reading blogs but am not sure I will have much to say.  I mean how does anyone have time to blog?  Some days I am just surviving til bedtime!  Have you been there?  I love the idea of men and women sharing their hearts and their lives online with a community.  I have lots to learn!