My sweet girl!

Wow!  It's been a long time since I've blogged.  Probably nobody even goes to my blog to read it anymore since I take so long between posts.  Oh, well.  It's mainly for me to remember and share memories.
Jordan had told us a few years ago that he wanted to live with us forever.  He never wanted to get married and stay with us.  We just chuckled and told him that of course he could live with us for as long as he wanted.
Tonight as I was driving home with Rachel and Joshua in the car, Rachel and I had a similar conversation that went something like this:
Rachel:  "Mommy, when I get older I'm going to leave our house."
Me:  "Yes, someday when you're older."
Rachel:  "You & Papa are going to miss me when I leave."
Me:  "Yes, Rachel, we will miss you a lot."
Rachel(starting to get teary-eyed):  "I'll be sad when I leave your house."
Me:  "You don't have to leave if you don't want to.  You can stay with Mommy & Papa for as long as you want to."
Rachel(wiping her tears, voice cracking):  "OK.  I don't want to ever leave.  But I won't be the same me."
Me:  "It's okay.  You'll just be bigger.  Mark still lives with Grandma & Grandpa and he is a big boy.  He is about to move out of their house now because he and Sarah are getting married and he wants to live in his own house with Sarah.  You might meet a boy one day that you want to marry and that would be the only reason you might want to leave our house."
Rachel:  "No, Mommy.  I'm never going to want to marry any boy and leave you."

I just had to get it down in writing so I can show Rachel what she said when she decides to get married one day.  If only their sweet words could last forever! 

Out of the Mouths of Babes!

Well, each of my children always has something funny to say. More when they're little, but sometimes the older ones too.

Jacob has gotten old enough that he doesn't have too many funny slipups anymore. Joshua is young enough that he still doesn't say many words, but his facial expressions are hilarious. He'll give a look sometimes that is like rolling his eyes, but he droops his eyelids really low and glances out of the corner of his eye at you. Then he laughs very loud and runs away.

Jordan and Rachel gave us a couple of funny kid-isms to share again.

First, Jacob was saying (for some reason I can't remember), "I've fallen and I can't get up!" - the quote from that old commercial. And Jordan said, "Is that Shakespeare?" Jacob pretty much fell out on the floor laughing at him.

While Jacob & Jordan were in Houston a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to get Rachel to help me with something and she didn't want to do it. I said, "I'm doing all these fun things with you. Today I took you to the park and Children's Museum and tomorrow we're going to the Bounce, and how do you repay me?" And she said, "I don't know! 50 dollars?"

Techno Kiddos

I continue to be astounded at how quickly kids catch on to technology. Rachel and Joshua are growing up with a whole different type of technology than Jacob and Jordan have experienced before now. It is so funny to hear the things that Rachel says and see the things that Joshua does related to technology.

1st story: We have a TV with DVD and VCR upstairs in the kids' gameroom and we have a Blu-Ray player with our TV downstairs in the living room. Rachel wanted to watch a movie and I told her that she needed to watch it upstairs. She said, "But Mommy, the movie is on Blu-Ray!"

2nd story: This is partially my fault - When I run errands, take the kids to the doctor, go to events for the older kids, etc, I usually let Joshua play on my iphone because it keeps him happy and quiet and then we don't have a scene like in one of my prior blogs. I have gotten free apps that are educational games for little kids and have 2 movies on my phone that I let them watch, too. Anyway, Scot and I decided we needed to cut back on Joshua's "iphone time". He fusses everytime he sees my purse wanting my iphone and is obsessed when he has it. So I got some of his usual toys for him to play with in the car when I was going to take Jacob, Jordan, & Rachel to the dentist. I had gotten everything together and was herding the kids out of the house toward the car. I had left my purse and Joshua's diaper bag sitting on a chair. As I turned around to tell Joshua it was time to go, he had already thrown his other toys on the floor, unzipped my purse, and taken out my iphone and was trying to input the passcode to start playing on it. I couldn't believe that sneaky little devil. I was glad I had the iphone at the dentist, though, since I spent an hour and a half with Joshua in the waiting room.

They continually amaze me!

Baby Pictures

Since our oldest "baby" is starting highschool in the fall, I thought it would be fun to post baby pictures of all the kids to see how they looked compared to each other. It's funny because I have to scan pictures of Jacob and Jordan. There weren't digital cameras when Jacob was a baby, but there probably were when Jordan was a baby - we just didn't have one yet. We got our first one in December 2001. Hope you enjoy the look back!

Jacob as a newborn

Jacob at 1

Jacob at 2

Jacob at 3

Jacob at 4

Jordan as a newborn

Jordan at 1

Jordan at 2

Jordan at 3

Jordan at 4

Rachel as a newborn

Rachel at 1

Rachel at 2

Rachel at 3

Rachel at 4

Joshua as a newborn

Joshua at 1

Joshua hasn't reached 2,3, or 4 yet so here is an updated school picture at 18 months.

A Real Tee, Finally!

Joshua's Batting Tee

Well, I found the perfect t-ball stand for Joshua at Walmart today. He loves it! I made a video of him, but of course it's too long for my blog. I'm going to post it on facebook for you facebookers and see if I can somehow provide a link here. I shall return to add the link if possible.

Our Creative Little Baseball Player

Well, Joshua has become obsessed with baseball, or should I say swinging a bat and hitting a ball. Ever since Jordan started playing baseball, it has become an obsession. That has become his main activity. He has pretty much used everything as a bat: toy bowling pins, stuffed animals, a pack of pencils, books, movie cases, dog toys, sippy cups, and actual toy bats. The list could go on and on. He usually uses a real ball (or something round) as the baseball, but this one day in particular he had a very interesting combination as his bat and ball.

I guess I should have mentioned that I am usually the tee stand (or my hand is the tee stand). He brings me the ball and says, "Ball". Then I am supposed to hold it in my hand and he hits it (most of the time - sometimes he hits my hand or my arm) with his bat for the moment. He has a perfect batting stance and swing. I have been looking for a real tee stand that would be good for him. Anyway, back to my story. Rachel has a bucket of fake food. One day Joshua brings me a fake whipped cream topping with a cherry on top and says, "Ball" and guess what he had in his hand to use as his bat? A lipstick pen of Rachel's! :) It was so funny! I guess he was pretty desperate to play ball and that was all he could find at the moment.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Well, let's see - where do I start with this one? I guess I'll begin with the preface.

Preface:
Jordan had a 3 day fever virus with a low-grade fever last Sunday, Monday, & Tuesday. Then Rachel got this same virus with a higher fever that started on Thursday. So today was day 3 of this virus. By the end of the day, she was starting to feel better so we decide to venture out and see Pixar's "Up" because the boys were dying to see it and to celebrate school being over.

Chapter 1: The Movie:
Rachel started to feel bad again during the movie so she needed to curl up in a lap. Joshua became uninterested in the movie fast. He decided to walk back and forth between all of us and climb from lap to lap and into Rachel's booster seat. As he's doing this, his shoe falls off and falls in between the seats in front of us; he picks up his juice cup and chunks it all the way down the row in front of the people next to us; he decides to drink from my water bottle and pours it all over himself and me. When I tried to make him sit still and stop hanging on the seats in front of us and screaming in the people's ears, he threw a royal fit and screamed even louder right during the completely quiet part of the movie. So Scot had to leave the movie theater with him since he was disturbing everyone around us. Then Rachel decided that she was thirsty for water, but Joshua had thrown the water bottle down on the floor and I couldn't find it in the dark. She then proceeded to melt down because she needed that water! Needless to say, I have never been so happy for a movie to be over!

Chapter 2: The Restaurant
I don't know why we didn't learn our lesson from the movie, but we decided to go to Olive Garden for dinner after the movie. We let the boys pick where to eat as part of their reward for all A's and excellent, commended scores on the TAKS test. So we ventured to Olive Garden figuring food would settle Joshua down (it usually does). We chose a big booth over a table with a high chair for Joshua (BIG MISTAKE!). Scot, Jacob, & Jordan sat on one side. And I sat on the other side between Joshua and Rachel. The first thing Joshua did was empty his diaper bag and throw all the contents on the floor under the table. He then tried to unzip my purse and empty the contents, but I stopped him from that one. He then was picking up everything within his reach from the table and throwing it. I moved everything out of his reach and we placed our drink orders. I knew Joshua was thirsty so when I got his apple juice, I filled up his cup and gave it to him. Then (just like a major league pitcher) he rared back and threw his cup across the table right into Jordan's glass of Dr. Pepper which spilled all over Jacob's lap! Jacob screamed at the top of his lungs, "Joshua!" We were right in the middle of ordering our food so our waiter witnessed the whole thing, actually pretty much everyone in the restaurant within view and earshot of our table witnessed the entire thing. To be honest, I don't remember much about what happened right after that. I think I blacked out from embarrassment. All I know is Jacob went to the bathroom to dry off, Scot took Joshua out of the restaurant, and our waiter ran to get napkins or something like that to clean it up. I also remember hearing a comment from the table next to us that was something like this, "That baby threw his cup and spilled a drink.", followed by hysterical laughter. Once we got our food ordered, we got a high chair and got Joshua semi-settled down with a breadstick. Then Rachel said she needs to go potty. So as we are getting out of the booth to go, she steps in the booster seat that the hostess had brought at the beginning of the meal to put Joshua in at the booth. She falls over, bumps into the high chair, and lands flat on the ground and starts crying and screaming like she's dying. I rushed to the bathroom with her laughing hysterically. People probably thought I was a pretty heartless mother. By the time I got back to the table our food was already there. I said, "That was fast." Scot's response was, "They are probably trying to hurry up and get us out of here." I think this one tops our Bennigan's experience many years ago. Just ask if you want to know about that one.

Chapter 3: Blockbuster/McDonald's
Scot decided that he needed to use a coupon that was about to expire and get another reward for the boys and rent a video game. So on the way home we stopped by Blockbuster. This time we decided to play it safe. Rachel had fallen asleep in the car (feeling bad again). She had fallen asleep in the booth at Olive Garden after her traumatic fall. Rachel, Joshua, and I stayed in the car while Scot, Jacob, & Jordan went into Blockbuster. Rachel woke up and said she needed to go #2. As soon as they got back to the car, I told Scot that Rachel needed to go potty and I was going to run into the adjacent McDonald's to let her go. He decided that he could run into Kroger while Iwas taking her to the bathroom and grab a few groceries. She used the potty in about 2 minutes and we had to wait for Scot to come back and get us. She saw the playground and miraculously felt better. She asked if she could play and I figured as long as we had to wait, sure. So she began to play. She climbed up in the playground and came down the slide and started crying saying she was wet. I looked at her shorts and her entire backside was sopping wet. Then I saw a kid come out of the playground with their drink cup. They had taken their cup in and gotten everything wet. Because the next thing I notice is a puddle of wet stuff on the first step level where you climb up into the playground. Rachel had just gone past this level and as soon as I start to think, "That's dangerous for the playground to be wet." Low and behold - what happens? I hear a gigantic thud and screaming. I run over and there is Rachel laying on her back crying. She had fallen (slipped) from the 2nd step level after slipping on the water. When I picked her up, I stormed off to the ordering counter. I told them that some kid had taken their drink into the playground and gotten everything wet and that my daughter slipped, fell, and hurt herself. My final comment after an evening of frustration (in a very loud voice) was, "You better get someone in there to clean up the playground before someone gets seriously hurt and you get sued!"

The End...
...of a series of extremely unfortunate events!

Another bummed up face

Well, this time it's poor Joshua. I knew it would happen eventually because he is a crazy, daring, rough-and-tumble boy who doesn't learn his lesson when he gets hurt. He stepped on a ball on the playground at school and fell face forward into the woodchips. It looked pretty bad. The daycare called and said, "We hope you're not planning on taking any family pictures anytime soon because Joshua had an accident and messed up his face." Nice! Well, he seems okay. Hopefully no major scars!

Lessons Learned

I've always known that I should discuss the lessons/message that my kids are receiving from TV shows, movies, etc. But this morning I was reminded how important that is needed when your young child is watching something. Rachel was watching a Veggie Tales DVD: Madame Blueberry. If you're familiar with these, they are wholesome, good, Christian videos. Well, the gist of the story is Madame Blueberry wants more and more stuff thinking that will make her happy. She encounters a couple of little kids along the way who are happy with just a ball or some pie and make her think about why she still isn't happy with more stuff. Anyway, Madame Blueberry's house is destroyed because too much stuff is delivered and put into it. At the end, the characters are all sitting around laughing and talking and eating pie with a little girl and her parents. Madame Blueberry is happy, so here is what Rachel learned from this DVD (quote): "When your house is destroyed, you will be happy if you eat something." I laughed so hard and quickly explained what the real lesson was that she was supposed to learn. I would hate to have to sue Veggie Tales later down the road because they made my daughter fat. LOL - Just kidding! So funny!

Go, Go, Joshua!

Joshua is our little dancer. He absolutely loves music! Anytime he hears music he starts dancing with the cutest dance moves. One of them he does in this video. One of his favorite songs is "The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" theme song. And another is this christian song called, "Go, Go, Joshua". I am attempting to sing it in this video while he dances. There's lots of noise in the background which takes away and distracts him, but it's still cute.

Another black eye!

Well, I guess the boys couldn't be outdone by their sister. They needed to prove they were tougher than her, so Jordan caught a baseball with his eye. He was at baseball practice and "somehow" the ball missed his glove and smacked him right under the eye on his cheekbone. His wasn't as much of a "black" eye as a "swelled-up" eye. He had a lot of swelling but not much discoloration. Sometimes Scot's profession comes in handy. Instead of having to go to an ER and wait 3 hours to get an x-ray and find out he was okay, Scot took him to his office and took an i-cat x-ray of his entire skull basically. No broken facial bones or nose - thank goodness! He just got to look cool for a few days.

1st Day

2nd day

3rd day

"Giddy up, Cowgirl!"

Rachel's school had rodeo day so she got to dress up as a cowgirl. She was supposed to get to sit on a real horse and have her picture taken, but it was pouring down rain and cold all day so that didn't happen. She still had fun, though. She couldn't wait to dress up! After she got home that day, she was bending over to get something and her skirt was coming down. I said, "Rachel, you need to pull up your skirt. I can see your bottom crack." Then she said, "It's not cracked!" I started laughing so hard! I guess I didn't realize she didn't know what that meant.

Tough chick

Well, we have had our first black eye in the family and believe it or not, it's on our daughter and not one of our 3 sons. Rachel's eye had a run-in with another kid's head at her daycare on Thursday. She got out of the car when Scot got home with them and I looked at her and said, "My baby girl has a black eye!" Of course it has changed colors and got to looking worse over the last couple of days. The first day she said it hurt, but hasn't complained much about it since. They put ice on it at school and apparently (she tells me) she cried really hard for a really long time. I guess she's not really a "tough chick" - she just looks the part. Enjoy the pictures!


Day 1 Pics

Day 2 Pics

Day 3 Pic

Day 4 Pics

Funny kidisms

A while back I kept telling Jacob and Jordan to stop saying, "Ginormous" (combining gigantic and enormous). I told them it wasn't a real word and that was silly. Well, so many people starting using it that now I have to eat my words because Webster is adding that word to the dictionary.

So now they are using other "not real" words that I hear my students at school constantly using as well such as: chillaxing,be-awesome, redonculous, etc.

Rachel is starting to pick up on these words. I asked her the other day what she was doing and she said, "Just chillaxing."

She has also started calling Joshua, "Joshy". It's really cute. This morning I heard her say, "I love you Joshy, but you always hurt me." It was in her high-pitched Rachel voice, though.

Poignant Moments & Memories of 2008

Our little Joshua was born on 11/15/07. We started training him to be an Aggie pretty early.

1/9/08

Joshua's 1st bath with his papa on 1/25/08

Big brother Jordan thinks Joshua is so cute!

My kids get their 1st cousin on 2/22/08.

My sister Meredith had her 1st baby: a boy named Cole.

Cole and Aunt Misti :)

My dad, Scot, Jacob, Jordan, & Rachel get ready to go to an Aggie baseball game on 3/11/08.

Our 1st professional portrait session with Joshua

Joshua in a super-happy mood!

So cute in his Bumbo Baby Seat!

Joshua's last day in his infant cradle on 3/22/08

Our attempt at getting a bluebonnet picture in our neighbor's yard across the street.

Joshua was really sick so it was the best we could do.

April 2008

Rachel loves her baby brother!

April 2008

Jordan on his 9th birthday: 5/6/08

The 1st day in our new house on 6/1/08: what a mess!
Scot pulled 2 all-nighters getting us all moved out of our old house and into our new one.

Scot and his 4 wonderful children on Father's Day, 6/15/08

Rachel had a nice carpet burn on her forehead that Jacob had accidentally given her.

Rachel has naturally curly hair, but she had to have curlers when she saw Mommy with some in her hair. We made silly faces in our curlers on 7/5/08.

Joshua playing in the rain on 7/24/08

Ruth and Rachel at the 1st Texas A&M home football game of the 2008 season

We had such high hopes for the 2008 football season at this Aggie football game on 8/30/08. Our hopes were dashed that very day when A&M lost to Arkansas State at home.

9/19/08: We had to pull out the extra table for meals while we had family living with us following Hurricane Ike. So many people lost power at their homes for a long time.

My 4 kids and their 1 cousin, Cole, in our backyard on 10/4/08

Jacob in a rare, photo-op moment

After church on 10/12/08

10/28/08: The last game of Jordan's flag football season

Jordan scored the last touchdown to win the game on the last game of the season.

Mommy & Rachel on 10/31/08 at a church trunk-or-treat
Rachel was Snow White.

Joshua riding on Papa on 10/31/08

At PawPaw & Nana's house

Joshua's 1st birthday on 11/15/08

Scot reading to his 3 oldest children on Thanksgiving 2008

Scot and his boys on Thanksgiving '08

Joshua in his favorite place to fall asleep: his papa's lap on 12/13/08

What sweet hands!

12/17/08: Sweet brothers!