Good Old-Fashioned Fun

Whoa! Easter was the last time I updated my blog??? Really?? I actually have a few unfinished posts waiting in the drafts, but the writing vibe just hasn't been flowing! I have been creating! I've been sewing like crazy! I've made tutus, outfits for my kids, and some diaper bags for a friend of mine that sells them! Okay I can't get the pictures in the order that I want them so we'll just have to deal with them in this order!

This is a set my friend Shelly, my sister April, and I did together for a little girl's first birthday! It turned out so cute!! We're going to do a pink/lime green one soon, and I really want to do a hot pink/zebra set!

These are some of the bags that I'm sewing for Shelly. She sells these on different websites and to people around here. Aren't they sooo cute?? See the zebra/polka dot one?? That one is one of my favorites, and I want one just like it with a monogrammed K and royal blue trim for a school bag! This is a tutu I did for my cousin Crystal's little girl, Haven! She is such a cutie, and she's turning 1!! And this is an outfit I made for my girls yesterday! I had found this fabric 1/2 off at Hobby Lobby, and bought all they had of it! I still have some left that I'm not sure yet what I'm going to use it for! I might make Ainslee a skirt and with an appliqued shirt to match!

So there's a recap of some of the things I've been doing lately. But that's not why I'm posting today! Today I want to document for forever in history a game that Trey and I play that I DOMINATE! It's a little game that we like to call Google! Here's what happens: Trey and I will be driving in the car or talking, and we'll disagree about something (like the origins of qwerty, or alliteration, or Forrest Gump's home town, or the lyrics to a song), and we'll say, "When we get home, we're going to Google that." Here's where Internet (I'm not sure why spell-check makes me capitalize that...maybe I should Google it!) on our phones would come in SOO handy, but we aren't in the modern cell phone age just yet so we wait like they did in Little House days until we get home to look up random things on our favorite search engine! And like I said, I ROCK THIS GAME!!! I won all of the aforementioned searches! I'm sure he's won some, but I've chosen not to recall those, and this is my blog, so I don't have to mention them! ;0)

Happy Easter, Everybody!!

Just another day...

Today is mine and Trey's 9 year anniversary! I loved every minute of our wedding day! I got up early and prayed and read my bible. I met my friends at Stoby's for breakfast. Then I spent the rest of the day getting ready for our 2:00 wedding. We got married in a small Methodist church that was exactly what I pictured. I had always said that I wanted to get married in a small, packed old wooden church instead of a big, seemingly empty modern church. We had daisies, which are my favorite flower, and the bride's maids wore yellow dresses. Trey gave me a bible with my new married name on it, and I gave him a picture of me, his mom and grandmother that I had secretly taken months before when his grandmother had started to get sick and we weren't sure if she'd make it to the wedding.

But as I sit here at the kitchen table nine years later, it feels like just any other day! Layton is laying on the couch, running a fever, and coughing. He must have come down with a virus yesterday. Ainslee and Ava are running through the house in their dress-up clothes, pretending there's a dog chasing them. Trey's at work. I'm back and forth between facebook, texting my sister, and reading my favorite blogs. Nine years ago, I had no idea that we would be the parents of three kids! Or that we would be back in Redwater. Or that I would teach in the same classroom that I went to school in. Trey had NO idea what he was getting himself into! ha! But we are absolutely content and happy with our plain ol', ordinary, nothing-special, perfectly wonderful life together!

Yesterday my Melaleuca Value Pack came in, and let me tell you! I am so excited about the products that were in it! I should have taken a picture of it because it was like Christmas! I even texted my friend, who then told me I need to get a life because it was sad that I was so excited about cleaning products! Ha! BUT I knew she was teasing me because she had experienced the same joy just a few days before and had cleaned her house from top to bottom and had texted ME about how much she loved everything!! It was 30+ of the most useful products they have!! Laundry detergent, Tub and Tile cleaner, Lotion, Dishwashing detergent, Fabric Softener, Whole-grain crackers just to name a few. So far, I've loved everything I've tried!! If you are not a Melaleuca customer yet, get with me, and I can get you set up! Exchanging harmful chemical-heavy products with all-natural, high-quality, budget-friendly Melaleuca products will be a decision you'll be glad you made now and years down the road!

Last night my sister and I were sitting at the table talking while she was figuring her order from her Scentsy party, and I was watching the Melaleuca webcast, and we looked in the play room and saw the funniest,sweetest thing! Again, I was wishing for a camera. I have got to replace the batteries! I'm missing so much! Anyway, Ainslee had three chairs lined up, with a baby doll in each chair. She was sitting in a chair in front of them, holding a book, pretending to be their Sunday school teacher. She was "reading" them their lesson and talking just her like her teacher does. Then she got up to give them each a piece of candy! She'll make such a good teacher one day! She already knows what kids want: a short lesson followed by a piece of candy!

Going through the Big D...

And I do mean Dallas! ha! We started out our spring break with a 3-night trip to see some of our best friends, the Ashlocks. We met them in Conway in college and have stayed close since then! We were actually only in-town friends for about a year and a half and have been long-distance friends ever since then!

In the spring we always have a Rankin/Ashlock/Kordsmeier reunion, but the Rankins couldn't make it this year so we moved the party to Dallas to help us out since we had to make a trip that way anyway!

We decided to take the kids to the airport to watch the planes and have a picnic. They had so much fun watching those planes take off!

The kids played so well together the entire time we were in Dallas. Here are Nathan, Layton, and Daniel. Surely one of those boys will be a future son-in-law! =) It was pretty windy so we moved the picnic inside the cars. The boys dined in the back of this car, and the girls took over the back of ours. They felt like sitting in the trunk instead of the actual seats while eating jelly sandwiches and BBQ chips adds some form of excitement to the whole experience.

Trey and I opted for the eating-while-standing-up-so-that-we-could-get-to-the-juice-spills-and-fetch-more-chips experience. Here's us at the airport looking a little wind-blown in our matching Razorback garb. We are definitely not that couple that plans to coordinate our clothes, but the thing is that we have enough Razorback red shirts to fill an entire large load in the washing machine! I just discovered that the other day and was saddened by the realization. Don't get me wrong, I love the Hogs, but it might be time to introduce another color into our closet! It's not the best picture of us, but we rarely get a picture of the two of us so I thought I'd include it.

Here's the whole gang! Nathan and Layton are in the back; Ava, Ainslee, and Daniel are in the front. I have to state again how well-behaved everyone was! We really have some great kids! I'm so glad they all get along so well!

They were so funny! Everytime one would take off, they would run like they were chasing it and would cheer for it as it ascended! Here's Daniel and Layton jumping up and down cheering it on.

I didn't intentionally dress the girls alike, but they both did end up in their yellow shirts and khacki capris! It's not going to be too long before they're mistaken for twins! Ava's only a few inches shorter. The baby face and baby mullet keep her noticably in the 2's, though! Notice the white bows...I'm thinking it's time to take some clothes to my sister so she can work her magic and make them some really cute bows to match!

My new business venture...

I am so excited to tell you all about this new business (ad)venture that I'm on!!! I've been looking for something for a while to supplement our income because we REALLY want to be 100% debt free and we REALLY want to buy or build a house! And soon! But we need some extra mu-llah!

Enter Ainslee's persistent eczema and my dear friend Alexi who also has a daughter who suffers from eczema. Alexi calls me one day out of the blue and starts telling me about this stuff that they've tried on Kyra and how great it's working. Skeptical me kind of put Alexi off a little and just never found time to listen to the information about the product. Well, thankfully, Alexi is more persistent than that eczema, and she caught me on a weekend when I did in fact have some time. So I sat down and watched this webcast about Melaleuca.

Oh my gosh, y'all! I'm so glad I watched that video! Long story short, we are in the process of totally converting our home to all-natural, zero-chemical Melaleuca products and Ainslee's skin is looking and feeling great! I'm so totally, over-the-top, excited about this company and can't believe I hadn't heard of it before. (Well actually someone had casually mentioned it before, but I didn't get what they were saying so I blew them off too!...I think that may be something I need to work on..I'll put it on my to-do list!)

So anyway...the point of this post is that I want to tell all of my friends and family about this wonderful company, and I would love to share it with you too! If I haven't already talked to you, email me, call me, stop me at church, and I will set you up to watch this video! You'll be so glad you did!

Has it really been 5 years??

This is me 5 years ago! I was 25 years old, had just had my first baby, and had not even imagined how wonderful my life was about to become! Oh sure! We had prayed for a baby, we had longed for a baby, we had ached for a baby, we had lost a baby. But none of that had prepared me for how truly wonderful motherhood would be. None of that prepared for the emptiness I would feel when I was away from him. Or for the pure joy when I see him smile. Or for the rage the fills me when I hear of someone who has hurt a child.

Becoming a mother completely intensifies every emotion I've ever felt. I've loved before...but not in the complex way that mothers love. I'd hurt before....but not like I do when he hurts. I'd cried before...but not like I do when he hurts and I can't fix it. I'd felt anxiety before...but not like I do thinking of all the things that I could do wrong. I'd laughed before...but not like I do when he says things that are so funny, and I wonder where he gets his sense of humor. Oh how I love that boy!

There are no words adequate enough to completely describe how I feel about being a mother. It's everything I've ever wanted. And more. Much. Much. More.

Snow day in NE Texas

Yesterday morning it started snowing!! The kids in my class went crazy! I tried to figure out how many times in their 10 or so years on this earth they've seen snow. I think this might be the 2nd or 3rd time! You wouldn't believe how many pencils needed to be sharpened, noses needed to be blown, hands needed to be sanitized, bathroom emergencies that just couldn't wait for the bell, and things that needed to be thrown away just so they could get to the window to sneak a peek! Well we aren't heartless, mean teachers so we let the kids out to play in the quarter inch of snow, and they had the best time! We took pictures, and I wish I could post some of them here! I loved how excited they were. Of course, my Texas, post-civil war class discussion that I had planned didn't hold a candlestick to what was happening outside the window so I had to adjust my lesson plans slightly! Oh well! They can learn about Reconstruction any day, but here in Northeast Texas, they may not see snow again for a few years! Seize the moment!

My own kids were even more excited than my 4th graders!! None of them had ever touched, tasted, or played in the snow! When Layton got off the bus at the middle school yesterday, the first thing he wanted to do was see what it felt like. "Oh, soft..." was his reaction. I think he was built for colder climates, though, because later he crawled, rolled, and plopped himself down in it without a flinch. A few years ago, when I first became a mother, my friend gave me a helpful tip. She said when taking my kids out to play in the snow, to put one pair of socks one their hands and feet, then cover it with a plastic bag, then cover that with mittens on their hands and another pair of socks on their feet. That way they can stay out much longer because their hands and feet won't get cold and wet! It worked!! Dry hands and feet make for much longer playtime!

Ainslee looked like a little snow princess. She laughed and giggled and threw snow everywhere! She made lots and lots of snow angels. She didn't last quite as long as Layton would have, but she really had fun while we were out there!

Ava wanted nothing to do with the snow. Even while I was bundling them up, she told me she didn't want to go because it was too cold! I thought I could convince her once we got out there, but it was no use! I held her for a little while and then put her inside the play house where snow hadn't gotten. She lasted in there for a few mintues. Eventually, I just took her next door to my mom's house and she happily watched from the window!

Well now the sun is trying to poke through the clouds, and this year's snow will soon be gone! It was fun while it lasted, but spring is just around the corner! We can't wait for t-ball and Easter and day lasting until 8:00!!!

Did I really just talk about cows???

We had a kid-less weekend this weekend, and it was great! I had big, big plans to get the house totally clean and organized and to throw a bunch of junk toys away while the kids couldn't see. None of that happened! Not even a little bit! In fact the basket of laundry sitting on the couch didn't even get folded! ha! Friday night we went to bed EARLY, like both-of-us-asleep-by-8:30 early! Saturday morning I got up and gave the ACT. That's an easy $100 right there!! Then I came home, sat down, tried to get motivated, and my mom called and asked if I wanted to go see Dear John so of course I said yes!! So, you see, I didn't have TIME to clean. I don't know how I thought I was going to get that much done anyway! I only actually had a few hours!

On a side note, Trey is watching the Super Bowl while I'm typing this, and he keeps making random comments to me about what's going on. I haven't responded yet, but I don't think he's noticed! He loves football! I do not!

Anyway back to my totally boring recap of the weekend...After I went to the movies with my mom, I met Trey at Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping. We were unsuccessful in that endeavor because neither of us could make a decision about what we wanted to eat. I was thinking pasta and sweet, romantic movie; he was thinking hamburgers and The Office reruns. Oh he knows how to romance me! ha! We ended up renting The Proposal, which was my 5th or 6th time to see it, but it was Trey's first. I told him he would laugh his head off, and I truly believed that he would, but for some reason he didn't. I guess he doesn't have an appreciation for Ryan Reynolds' antics like I do.

When we got home, we drove by our neighbor-down-the-road's house, and there were two cows in their yard. COWS! I could not believe that they had gotten cows! I mean we live in the country and are surrounded by pasture, but cows?? I texted her "Did you get cows???" She didn't write back, but as we pulled in our driveway, I noticed something very strange. WE had cows! Five of them! We stopped the car, and they started walking toward it! We had no idea what to do, but I knew I wasn't about to get charged by a bunch cows! Did I mention that a couple of them had horns??? Well, they did! They got a little sidetracked on the way to our car by some grass and crepe myrtles so we just sat there, watching them for a minute. Well then something even stranger than having cows in our yard happened. Apparently there's some signal to come home because the owner came out and started yelling and we heard a few gunshots and all the cows came running down the road! There were at least 10 of them plus a bull. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen! I just have to stop and wonder if the men of the old Texas cattle drives had known about that secret signal that made the cows run home, would they have had to have all the cowhands and cow dogs?? It could have been a one-man show! I teach Texas history so sometimes thoughts like that enter my head! Well on the cows' way back to their own yard, they managed to trip over our phone line (phone line isn't buried..I'm not sure why...I can't even come up with a guess!) so now we have no phone line, but this was the perfect excuse for discovering that my dad's wireless Internet reaches our house!

I can't imagine what someone reading this is thinking about where we live! Picture an old dirt road with pasture on one side and woods on the other. Now sprinkle in about 5 houses and evidently some cows, and you've just pictured my world!

I'm in the kitchen

Do you remember when I posted this post about our favorite breakfast?? In that post I said that the "recipe" called for two cans of biscuits, but if you were a memaw, you could use homemade...remember?? Well I went all memaw on my family this weekend and made that fabulous Monkey Bread-ish breakfast using homemade biscuits! Well...if you consider Bisquick to be homemade, which I do because I didn't have to tear the wrapper off of a can and then beat the can on the side of my counter to make it pop.

I decided to make a full-all-out Monkey Bread instead of the modified muffin cup monkey bread simply because I got a Pampered Chef Fluted something or another for Christmas. It's a bundt pan I think. On a side note, my sister is now selling Pampered Chef and would love your business! Anyway so I wanted to try out my new fluted bundt pan, and I knew it would actually be a full recipe, meaning that it would take four cans of biscuits instead of just two. Well I didn't have four, but I did have a box of Bisquick. On the box it said that the recipe made nine biscuits so I doubled it...because I think that's what all other culinary geniuses would do. I just rolled that dough into little balls, dropped them in the cinnamon and sugar and then strategically placed them in the flute. Then I poured that buttery-brown sugar goodness all over it and let it bake. Now since I didn't have an actual recipe I didn't know how long to let it cook, and I was afraid that the middle biscuits wouldn't get done. But let me tell you that if I hadn't overcooked that monkey bread, it would have been DELICIOUS! The middle ones were cooked well so I could tell what it would have tasted like all over! It was addicting! The outside was a little hard. I think I'm going to have to experiment with this to get the perfect cooking time and then I'll share. I'm in a weight-loss challenge right now so I can't experiment TOO much, but I did buy the heart smart Bisquick for when I try it next time.

Did y'all know that there's pretty much a low-fat version to anything you want to eat?? I was reading something the other day that said when going low-fat to definitely buy the low-fat version for meat and dairy. I can't remember the exact rationale, but it just makes good sense. I also have discovered and fallen in love with Morning Star products. They are vegetable products that taste amazingly similar to your favorite high-fat meat products! They have substitutes for hamburger patties, ground beef, sausage, corny dogs. I'm sure there's more, but those things caught my eye. I've tried the hamburger patties and the veggie crumbles that you use instead of the ground beef, and I am SOLD! They're incredible!

I just realized that I did a lot of brand-dropping in this post. Here's where I'd like to pretend like I'm a famous blogger and just let you know that I have not been compensated by any of these brands. Have you seen where people put that in their blogs?? Crazy isn't it!?! That companies pay bloggers to promote their products! Like a whole new advertising strategy. Hey...whatever works, ya know??

Bring on the New Year!

We had a small, last minute get-together for New Year's. Small if you only count the adults! There were also nine kids running high on sugar and excitement so that was like having about 45 people! Those 45 people seemed like they had a blast and were very well behaved considering that I don't think any request for food was turned down! I love having laid back friends with well-behaved kids!!

The night came about when Trey and I were consuming way too much fried fish and shrimp at the Old Feed House and we were talking about how much we missed having game night with friends. Our minds went back to our college years where we were never far from a night of Trivial Pursuit or Catch Phrase. So I said, "Why don't we just host one??" So I called up a couple of friends and lucky for us some of our besties didn't have plans yet so they brought their kids on over and we feasted on snack food and played games! We played Wits and Wagers, which is new to us, but apparently, I'm a natural since I won 2 out of 3 games! E! True Hollywood Story and Entertainment Tonight come in handy when playing trivia games, as if you need an excuse to watch the classics!

This was the first New Years since parenthood consumed me that I have even attempted to watch the ball drop! We made it through two of them! First we watched along with the New Yorkers at 11:00. I'm not sure what we did to kill time until our own midnight, but I'm pretty sure that it involved saying, "Get this mess cleaned up!" no fewer than 100 times since 8 of the 9 kids were still up and full of energy! Ava was even still going strong!

Well they got the mess cleaned up and we gathered around our small dinosaur of a TV and counted down. We all kissed our kids and probably reflected internally on how lucky we were to have them! Although, about a millisecond later the mass exodus began and everyone parted ways!

In the picture above are Richard and Joanna, Trey, me and Ava, my sister April (do you think we look alike? Some say we do!), and our friends Brian and Amie.

Chirstmas #4

The day after Christmas we got together at my Aunt and Uncle's house. At this gathering, the adults get stocking stuffers and everyone buys a little bit for the kids. There's a $5 limit to the stocking stuffers so it's fun every year to see what creative thing everyone's come up with! This year I decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls for everyone! I used Pioneer Woman's recipe. It makes so many that there were a couple of small tins left for our family, and let me just say, they're the best homemade cinnamon rolls I've ever made. And I'm not just saying that because they're the only ones I've ever made. They really were good! I hope everyone else enjoyed them too!

Here's a picture of my aunt reading Twas the Night Before Christmas to all of the kids. Well all if you don't count Ainslee who was acting a little bit shy that day and insisted on sitting in my lap. You can see Ava and Layton right in the middle of things! And look how nicely Tyler is sitting! If that's not kindergarten training, I don't know what is!

And here are Tyler and Layton with their footie pajamas! Layton was so embarrassed when he first opened these up, he wouldn't even take them out of the box. Once he saw that older, cooler Tyler got some too, he was all about showing them off! He has asked to wear those every single night since then! Even after he dripped breakfast on them and they didn't get washed that day. Of course, I do have my limits and had to say no, but I did wash them the very next day so that he could start all over the process of wearing them way too many nights in a row!

Christmas #3

OK so I'm almost done blogging about Christmas Extravaganza 2009! I can't quit without mentioning the fun time we had with Trey's parents on Christmas day. We spend Christmas lunch with them, and we have a traditional Christmas lunch and I make all the sides! Yeah you read that right! I make my Nanny's dressing, real mashed potatoes (we usually eat instant!), and some sort of vegetable. This year I made green bean bundles, and they turned out fabulous! Trey's aunt Barbara came with them this year! We had plenty of room around our brand new kitchen table that they got us for an early Christmas present!

For some reason I didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple of the girls opening their presents! If I had taken any pictures of Layton, you would see that he and Ava both stayed in their pajamas all day! Ainslee had to change into her new Hello Kitty shirt. Usually I try to stick to pajamas and underwear when it comes to character clothes (before I had kids I SWORE that they would never ever never wear any clothes with characters on them! Boy have I eaten those words time and again!), but when she said that she really hoped that Santa brought her a shirt with a cat on it, I thought it was clever to go with Hello Kitty instead of some awful feline like the one that was on WalMart's 4th of July shirts this past summer!

Here's Ainslee with her new jewelry box! She's so girly. She and Ava both got one from Trey's parents, but now, looking at this picture, I think they must have gotten swapped when we put them in their rooms. Oh well, they'll never know the difference...unless of course, years from now they look back at this picture and Ava wonders why Ainslee posed with her jewelry box!

3 Christmases down! 1 to go!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning means one thing!! Waking up early to open presents! This year was so much fun! It took the kids forever to go to sleep the night before because the wind was howling outside and they were so excited about Santa coming! Layton came running in our room at about 1:30 in the morning to tell us that Santa had been there and that he had brought a castle! We finally let Layton and Ainslee get up at about 6:00, but they could only look at the presents that weren't wrapped and go through their stockings. Ava's a girl after my own heart! She loves her sleep, even on Christmas morning!

Here's Layton in his school bus tent! As soon as Santa saw this on ebay, he knew it would be perfect for this little guy! Layton loves to play school bus, and there's plenty of room in there for his sisters to ride along!

Once Ava finally woke up, she was pounced on by the other two to look at her kitchen! She now has her very own kitchen and doesn't have to share Ainslee's!

And here's Ainslee in front of her baby care station! It has a high chair, crib, sink, and swing. It also came with a baby that is dressed in Disney princess clothes. The baby is so cute! She even has a little twinkle in her eyes!

Santa also had a few wrapped presents for the kiddos. Layton got a scooter and Transformer's helmet. Ainslee got a Disney princess CD player and baby that is about as big as she is! Ava got a new little baby and high chair/swing set. They loved going through their stockings that Santa packed with new socks and underwear. He gave Layton a big thing of gum and the girls necklaces. He even managed to find those green panties that Ainslee wanted!

Christmas Recap #1

Christmas started for us on Christmas Eve at my mom's house. We had Christmas-y finger foods like sausage balls and little smokies!! Yum! Then it was time for the presents!!!!

Tyler, Layton, Ainslee, and Ava in front of the tree before we passed out presents! Don't they look so cute in their pajamas???

Ava was so funny! She had no concept of waiting her turn! She wanted to rip into all of her presents at once! Here she's excited about something, but I couldn't tell you what! She loved all of her presents!

Here's Ainslee opening her laptop that my mom got her! She loves playing with that thing! Ava had gotten one for her birthday in November, and Layton also got on for Christmas.

Here's Layton opening a yo-yo that my sister got him! He loves to pretend like he's Mr. Lusk doing tricks with it!

Learn from each other

Raising kids that are only a year and a few months apart sometimes feels like I'm raising triplets! Sure there are some pluses.... like they're all on the same schedule! They go to bed at the same time, they eat at the same time, nap at the same time (BIG plus!), snack at the same time. They're interested in the same things so it's easy to buy toys that they'll all like! Sharing clothes is almost a reality! They like the same movies and enjoy the same restaurants!

There are a few draw backs though. For example, you'd think that by the time you got to toddlerhood with your third child, it would be old hat, but since the first two are still in it too, it's like we're still rookies! Plus we still have lingering questions, like when will they be able to completely go to the bathroom by themselves??? I mean ALL by themselves, clean up and all!?! When will they learn to pick up their toys without making us sound like a broken record that's stuck on "Get in there and clean up"..."Get in there and clean up"...."Get in there and clean up"... When will they realize that sleep is a good thing and not something to be dreaded???

One good thing is that they can learn from each other! They learn how to dress themselves by watching each other, they learn how to feed themselves, they learn how to work the DVD player...oh wait that's not a good thing because now all of our DVDs have fingerprints! The following conversation is an example of Ainslee trying to teach Ava the proper pronunciation to a word:

Ava: ook dere's yeh-yo. (Look there's yellow)
Ainslee: UGH
Ava: yeh-yo, yeh-yo, yeh-yo
Ainslee: UGH! Ava! It is not YEH-YO!!! It is LELL-O!!!!!

Okay so they can't learn EVERYTHING from each other! But sometimes it's fun listening to them try!!

Oops...I did it again..

Okay...bad title I know! But look at me! I've gone forever between posts again! My plan with the subtitle was to go back and update on each kid, and I started with Layton because he was the easiest, starting Pre-K and all, but it just didn't happen! The only thing I for sure want to add is that Ava did turn 2 in this midst of my blog neglect! She's such a sweet little rascal...by far the most outgoing of my group and oh so friendly! She's also very mischievous and loves to aggravate her older siblings! We love you sweet Ava!!!

Christmas is now over, and let me just say that this has definitely been my favorite one so far! I say that every year though! The older the kids get, the more they remember from the year before so they more they're excited!! Our kids believe in Santa, and Christmas Eve as I was sitting in the living room waiting for them to fall asleep, I was reminded of how sweet it is when you believe in magic! They really believe, without question, in a man that knows everything about them, down to the color of panties they're hoping for in their stocking! (Green for Ainslee!~who knows why!?!) Well there may be no real Santa, but there is someone who knows everything about them, right down to the number of hairs on their heads...and they believe in Him too! Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us to become like a child. I've heard countless sermons on this topic over the years, and I wasn't even planning on going there with this post tonight, but don't you think if we all had faith like children, we'd worry about far fewer things?!? It's something to think about I guess. I was listening to one of my old Acapella CDs this morning in the car, and these lyrics kind of brought the same thought: When you're up against a struggle that shatters all your dreams, and your hopes have been cruelly crushed by Satan's manifesting schemes, and you feel the urge within yourself to submit to earthly fears, don't let the faith you're standing in seem to disappear, Praise the Lord....

I always like to turn the radio up really loud with that one and pretend like I can sing! ;-)

Okay...favorite presents for the kids: For Layton it would have to be one of his many buses! He got a bus tent, a large play bus, and several small buses, and he loves them all! For Ainslee it was definitely her baby doll center that has a crib, swing, high chair, and sink all hooked together, and for Ava I think it was either one of her babies or her Barney that Trey's parents gave her! That girl loves her some Barney!

It's hard to pick my favorite part about Christmas this year. Up real close to the top though, was Ainslee's face when we were passing out presents at my mom's house on Christmas Eve. We tried to get it on camera, but we really needed a video camera! Her eyes were big and wide and she kept moving her tongue from side to side like she was getting ready to really dive into all those presents! It was the funniest thing!!

Well I guess that's it for tonight! After watching Julie and Julia tonight I feel like I have the motivation to do this a little more often! Now let's just see if I can find the time! Good night!

Going WAYYY back...all the way to Pre-K

Subtitled: Catch-up part 1

Well looking at my blog, it's been about 3 months since I last posted anything. I think that indicates one of two things: either that I've fallen off the face of the earth, or that I'm a teacher and in between school starting and coming home in the afternoons and feeding, bathing, playing with, reading to, and rocking the kids, there's just not much time to self-reflect or whatever this is that I do! Plus there are lots and lots of new TV shows on right now, most of which I fall asleep while watching, which is why I am totally in LOVE with our new DVR. I still can't remember to fast forward through the commercials, but I really, really love getting to watch the second half of Castle on Tuesdays instead of just having to wonder whodunnit!


Anyway, so I logged on this morning because I've taken a comp day that I earned from my CPR training this summer, only to find that someone has been leaving totally weird, anonymous comments on one of my posts! They're long and crazy and not even in English. It might be in wing-ding font, but I really think it's in another language. I dont' know how they get a font for another language, but whoever it is, stop it!

OK so what's been going on with us?? Layton started Pre-K back in August. He actually had to start a couple of weeks late so it was really September. He is in Ms. Blackstone's class and totally LOVES school. Being at school has really heightened his love of buses! I thought it was kind of cute last year, but this year it's a full-blown obsession. Every bus we see he wants to know which bus it is. I try to outsmart him and just tell him just some bus name, but it doesn't work. The other day I told him the bus was the parrot bus (our buses are named after animals..aren't everybody's??), but he very quickly and emphatically told me I was wrong with a "NUH-UHHH...the Parrot bus has a different front!!!" Buses have different fronts?? Who knew?? And apparently the Little Dragon bus doesn't make the chhhh sound like the Turtle bus does so I couldn't fool him there either! He gets to ride the bus over to the Middle School in the afternoons, which was nerve-racking for me, but awesome for him! I thought he would be scared, but he wasn't at all! Of course, the middle school is nothing if not the dog-capital of the world so getting him OFF the bus proved to be tricky in the beginning. I'm very happy to announce that, with the help of a very understanding mother who walked her dog to the school each afternoon to pick up her children, Layton can now get OFF the bus and walk all the way down the sidewalk to my room without me! If you're wondering how that sweet mom helped me, at first when I met him at the bus stop, she would just stand back and let me get Layton before she got her kids. Now that I don't meet him, I trust that she's still standing back and letting him go before walking herself.

One thing I've noticed since he started school is that I never, ever get the full story! Now I'm really worried about what my students went home and told their moms about ME! Lucky for me, my sister is a pre-k teacher too so I can call her up and get the rest of the story! Like when he was whining because he didn't get to go to recess "like AA's and Mrs. Pullen's class did." Here's how the conversation went:
Me: Well, why didn't you get to go outside?
Layton: I don't know
Me: Where did you go instead?
Layton: I just had to go in a another little room.
Me: Where was your teacher:
Layton: I don't know..I looked for her but she wasn't there so that girl just took us to the other room but Ms. Blackstone was not there!
Me: So did you go outside then?
Layton: No, we just had to watch a movie while the other classes played
So when I talked to my sister later I asked her to please explain because I knew there was some sort of logical explanation here, and of course there was! During PE, Layton's class had hearing/vision screening so the other classes played outside while they did that. They watched a movie while they waited for their turn!

I could go on and on, like when he got time-out at recess just for going down the slide the right way (He wasn't supposed to go down the slide at all! HELLO big mud puddle!) and how now anytime he mentions the nurse's office, he equates it with a fire drill just because when he went for his flu shot, that just happened to be the same time that they had a fire drill. Poor kid thinks it will always happen that way!

Well I believe I've rambled on and on enough. How does that happen when you start talking about your kids!?! Just wait! I'll give a catch-up post on Ainslee and Ava shortly! Feel free to skim right over unless you're their grandparent and then you're supposed to be truly fascinated at the wonders that are your grandchildren!

Our Darling Ainslee

It's hard to believe that our little Ainslee just celebrated her 3rd birthday. Trey and I consider ourselves truly blessed by her. We are two of the very, very few people who get to see the real Ainslee. For those people that only see the shy, timid side of her in public settings, you might be surprised to learn what she's really like.

She is very complex and has many different sides to her personality. I never imagined that a three-year-old little girl could be so dynamic. She's sweet and bubbly and has such a great sense of humor. She's very silly. Laughter rolls out of her. She loves to make others laugh. I love to see her with her guard down, enjoying her brother and sister. They play so well together. She's very nurturing. She has a good imagination and loves to pretend. She tells everyone their parts in her imaginary world. (You be the sister, and I'll be the mama; you be the brudder, and you be the daddy.) She's fiesty. She's stubborn; headstrong. She's unpredictable, and she keeps our lives interesting. She's comfortable at home and worries about the unknown. She asks a lot of questions. She's smart. She doesn't like dogs, but she says she likes cats, even though she's never liked a cat that she's seen in real life. She loves to sing, and she does it all the time! She wants to please. When she's in a bad mood, she likes for me to rock and her tell her that I love her. (and I love that she'll let me rock her and love on her!!) She doesn't like men in general, but she loves her daddy. She responds better to praise than punishment. She doesn't like to be without one of her siblings. She's a middle-child, not the baby, not the big kid, searching for her place. She loves all things girly. She wants to be a princess or a ballerina. She loves pink and glitter and loves showing off her earrings! She likes to feel fancy. She feels pretty in a dress and insists, much to my delight, in always having a bow! She loves shoes and jewelry. She's good at puzzles and loves to color. She's a picky eater, and loves to drink sweet tea and chocolate milk.

We love her so much. We love every side of her. Our prayer for her is that she knows that even though she's not the baby or the big kid, that she's right where she belongs, in the middle, right in the heart of our family. We pray that she'll love God, that when she's big enough she'll choose to follow Him, and that she'll lead others to Him.

Consider this your warning

I hate WebMD. Ok hate's a strong word. I dislike WebMD and all of the self-diagnosing that can occur. For a hypochondriac like myself, websites like that can really ruin your day and your ability to sleep peacefully. However, they can also be like..how does Edward put it?...a drug to me. Totally addicting. Now there's this other website that I've discovered that you can type in your symptoms, putting and or or, and it spits out a whole list of possible diseases! For example, I learned that I could have malaria, really, malaria, all because I experience dizzy spells while I'm on my period. Of course it could also be anemia, chronic kidney disease, excessive dieting (yeah right!), the flu, or hemorrhagic thrombocythemia.

So I was on WebMD the other day, trying to decide if a certain skin issue was cause for seeing a doctor, or if I just needed to put a little hydrocortisone on it and forget about it. (Honestly, though, what self-diagnosed hypochondriac could forget about any ailment!?! We always see a doctor!) Well I learned that, of course, the issue could be life-threatening, even in rare instances, cancer, so I better go on and get it checked! So I made an appointment with a dermatologist and sweated the days until I actually could get in. I don't know why dermatologists can't give you same day appointments. Don't they know that the sooner cancer is diagnosed, the more likely you are to survive!?!

I decided that while I was seeing a dermatologist, I might as well go ahead and get a total skin check. I mean, look at Izzy, hers almost went undetected! Plus Khloe Kardashian gets total skin checks every 3-6 months! Now my real-life friends have varying levels of skin care. Some of my friends get checked every year, some tan during the summer, and one of my friends owns her own tanning bed and tans year round. My mind went back to my 7th grade year when Mr. Spears was showing us the stages of Melanoma. He told us about how fair skinned people are more likely to get skin cancer. I remember very clearly, him pointing all around the room, and saying, "One of you WILL get skin cancer." And my friend, John Knight, (that's right John, I haven't forgotten!) pointed at me and silently mouthed the word, "You." Please keep in mind that the reason I made my appointment in the first place had nothing to do with skin cancer. I didn't have a scary mole or weird freckle that I was concerned about. My problem was more along the lines of eczema, but you see how my mind works.

Anyway so I went to my appoinment totally convinced that my eczema was cancer and the skin screen was just precautionary. For those of you who have never had a skin screen before, it's really not as bad as it sounds. It's not like you're lying totally exposed for the entire nursing staff and waiting room to see. The doctor lets you hang on to some bits of your dignity as she looks at one little section and calls out every freckle and stretch mark (why did she have to point that out!?!) so that a nurse can record it on your chart. Then, there it is, the small, but ever-present gasp, something you do not want to hear from you doctor. "What about this freckle?" she asks. "Oh that's nothing," I tell her, "My OBGYN dismissed that one already as nothing scary." Then she tells me that she dis-a-grees with him. She what?? Disagrees with him?? So it is something scary????? Images flash through my mind of all the melanoma pictures I've seen; pictures of Grey's Anatomy and all of Izzy's suffering; even John, pointing at me, picking me out as the one who would eventually get skin cancer. I couldn't believe it. This is it! This is how I will die. I'm usually not so dramatic. I've only proclaimed that this is how I will die two other times; one when I was in labor with Ainslee and my epidural wasn't working, and I didn't think it was possible to live through that amount of pain, and two, a few weeks ago when I was flying to KC. I don't know why. I was just convinced I would die on that plane ride. See...hardly ever dramatic!

So I went home clinging to may last days, waiting for the phone call with the results of the pathology. In the back of my mind, I really do know when I'm being irrational, and I think that's how I got through those days until she called. I rationalized in my head that chances are the spot really was fine, just like I did when I rationalized that women make it through deliveries every day and planes take off and land safely every day. So I really didn't sit by my phone waiting, and I didn't say my last good-byes. But then the phone rang. It was my home phone, and the only people that call me on my home phone are my mom or the Texas Association of State Troopers. My mom was at work, and the troopers usually wait until dinner time to call and collect their $50 donation so they can send me my awesome decal for my car. Of couse, I've only given that donation one time because my friend's husband is a trooper, and I thought I'd help him out in case he needed a new uniform or gun or car or something, but then my friend told me not to donate to TAST because her husband is a member of a different organization. I answered the phone, and sure enough, it was Candie from Texarkana Dermatology with my pathology report. My heart was racing, my head was spinning. I sat down for the news. Then she said, "The spot is benign." In my state, all I could think was, "Benign? What does that mean??? Cancer? Not cancer? Cancer? Not cancer? Oh why do they have to use real medical jargon????" It reminded me of the time that I was on the phone with Ava's dermatologist, and she was explaining to me that Ava had Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and all I could think was, "Oh thank goodness it's not staph!" Hello! Anyone ever hear of MRSA staph?? The bad kind?? The kind that doesn't respond to antibiotics!?! Yep that was me, breathing easy. Her doctor probably thought I was some kind of an idiot, sounding relieved that my daughter only had Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Luckily, though, I was able to settle my mind and remember that benign means no cancer. Yippee! I'm free! Free from worry!! But then she gave me the rest of the news that the spot did have moderate to severe change in it, and while this time it wasn't cancer, I should consider it my warning! (dum, dum, dum, dummmmm)

So friends I say all that to say, that I would like very much if you would consider my warning, your warning also. Go get checked! Seriously it doesn't take long, and it's not nearly as embarrassing as you might think. If you don't have a dermatologist in the Texarkana area, Antoinette at Dr. Parham's office is wonderful, Dr. Gaylor at Collom & Carney is great (but she's on maternity leave until September), and Dr Young with Dermatology Associates is also top-notch, if you feel more comfortable with a man looking you over. Call, make an appointment, get it done!

Our favorite breakfast

This is my first attempt to do a recipe with pictures on my blog! Lots of other bloggers do it, and it's a real treat to see how theirs turn out. Like this pizza recipe that I told my sister we have to totally try out on our next girls' night! I could totally see us sitting on her couch, watching a sappy romantic comedy, eating this pizza, and drinking a glass of wine, except of course that we don't drink wine, but sweet tea just doesn't sound as sophisticated. Let me apologize in advance because I am 1) not a good picture-taker and 2) not a good cook! So why on earth would I risk the shame of the whole world few people that read my blog seeing my lack of skillz?? (That's right! With a Z...because I'm cool like that!) Because it's good I tell you! This is a good breakfast and your kids will totally eat it up! I'm sorry for those who are watching their waistlines! This one's not for you!

So here are the ingredients. You'll need 2 cans of biscuits (I guess if you're someone's memaw, you can make the buiscuits from scratch. Just be sure you make about 2 cans worth), 1 cup of white sugar, cinnamon to taste, 1 stick of margarine, 1 cup of packed brown sugar.

First, combine 1 stick of margarine with 1 cup of packed brown sugar over medium heat.

While that's cooking, combine 1 cup of white sugar and cinnamon in a gallon-size ziploc (brand not important) bag.

Next quarter your buiscuits one can at a time and drop them in the ziploc bag with sugar and cinnamon. Shake to coat and put the quarters in a greased muffin pan. (2 cans will make 12 muffin-sized whatever these are)

Then spoon your melted margarine/brown sugar mixture over each muffin cup and bake at 400 degrees for 10-13 minutes.

While that's cooking you can start the icing! No exact measurements here, but you'll need some powdered sugar (or for those who are food network-savvy, confectioners sugar), milk, margarine, and vanilla. I am very picky about my vanilla, and I have found Adam's best to taste, that's right, the best!

I'm too lazy to stir so I put it all in my milkshake maker and blend it. If I were to measure it, I would guess that I probably use about 1 cup of powdered sugar (confectioners sugar), a few tablespoons of milk, a tablespoon of vanilla (I heart vanilla!), and a tablespoon of softened margarine. I just blend it all, and alternate adding more sugar, more milk, and more vanilla until it tastes like I want it to taste, is the right consistency, and there's enough! I suppose to you could water (milk) down some store-bought icing, but I've never tried that.

This is what your baked whatever these are called will look like.

Now, line a cookie sheet or sturdy flat surface with wax paper. Cover the muffin pan and very carefully flip it, so that the ooey gooey can run down! Yum!

Wal-lah!

Add your icing, and serve it up!