Sunday, June 28, 2009

Fish & Cucumbers

Jason went trout fishing in Oklahoma Friday nite and part of Saturday and caught the two biggest trouts of his life..Needless to say he's happy as a lark. Both trouts were 17 inches in length. That means absolutely nothing to me, but maybe it will to you.


Here's the boys eating fresh cucumbers from Jason's garden. Macie's wasn't a fan, but anything the boys can dip, they luv. They ate like little pigs!! I need to post a picture of the garden cause IT'S OUTTA CONTROL!!



Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Good Start for the Day

This morning all the kids slept in until 8am...Not quite sure that has ever happened, but I love it. Eli is always a comedian in the mornings, and this morning was much the same. He didn't want to sleep in Macie's bed with Macie and Austin last night, so he was in his room alone. Thru the monitor I hear snorting sounds-then heellllooooooooo - hhhheeeellllloooooooooooooo. It was hilarious to hear him say this..He finally comes to my room and tells me his pullup is wet, so I tell him to go take if off. He said he already did and I asked him what he did with it and he says "I put it in your nose" hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa..It was hilarious!!!! I'm proud he said "nose" and not someplace else - hehe..

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Happy Father's Day

My fondest memories of my dad are him pitching softball after softball to me in our backyard, or him and I having races in the backyard helping me get ready for a track meet. We both thought we were faster than the other. I was fast, but never won a race against him. He'd always time me as I raced to the mailbox to check the mail. Another fond memory of my dad was him being a prankster. He'd booby trap cabinet doors - scaring me half to death, scratch on my window screen at nighttime or bring home different joke things. Like once he brought home a envelope of snake eggs, which wasn't really snake eggs. Once you opened the envelope you'd hear a rattlesnake's rattle..

Here's one of my favorite photo's with my papaw Russell.

Wrestling was another fond memory.



This Father's Day for Jason was a little different than the following years. Since everyone is older and enjoys giving gifts I let each child pick out they're own gift for Jason. Eli's first choice was a telescope. Why? I have no earthly clue. He says "so daddy can look up at the stars", which Jason has no interest in doing. That may be a Christmas present, who knows. Eli was the only one that couldn't keep a secret, btw.

Eli got Jason a "shoot gun". Which is nothing other than a dart gun.

I think this was Austin's proudest moment. He was so happy & excited with his selection. He picked out a Hot Wheels Cement truck "so daddy can play trucks with me".

Just as we were leaving the toy isle Macie saw a little nerf football and she just knew that was "the gift" she must give.

Then came my gift. My gift idea for Jason was a last minute "brilliant" one. He loves "The Monk", so he got a DVD gift set.

I've seen this quote on a picture frame and regretted not getting it. But to all the special fathers out there-this is for you.
Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.
-anonymous
Happy Father's Day!!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

No Title

Not too much is going on, so here's a few pictures.



They were a wee bit unorganized with the slides, or maybe it was just Macie went down the wrong one, but as you can see no one caught her and she still can't swim..But she's still lovin it, so that's all that matters..

Good ole pigs in a blanket is what the kids ate yesterday for lunch..Super easy I just wrapped the hot dogs in crescent rolls and baked them according to the directions on the rolls. I'm fresh outta kid lunch ideas for now, which I know your relieved - haha

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

No Visual Needed

I had to share this gross, funny tale that just happened this morning:

The boys are taking pj's off as I'm picking out their clothes for the day and Eli disappears. I hear Macie scream GROSS!! So off I go to find out the problem, which now I wished I hadn't. She proceeds to tell me that Eli sat on her w/o underwear on. hahahaha. Boys will be boys!! I had no idea that started so early, ugh.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Tuesdays Menu after Swim Lessons

Macie's still lovin swim lessons, but this picture makes me a tad nervous. I've got the arrow pointing at her.


After swim lessons I made the kids a Waffle Apple-Wich.
Simply toast your waffles, add your lunch meat, cheese, apples and a dab of syrup. The kids loved them!!..I took a small bite and it wasn't bad. Again something different.

Makin Lil Pizzas

My kids eat basically the same foods for lunch, so this week we're tryin new things..Yesterday I let the kids make their own pizzas and THEY LOVED IT and they were pretty tasty.

This was before I put them in the oven. I'll have to work on my food shots. The pizzas with all the cheese are Eli's - hahaha..Austin had a mountain of pepperoni on his, until I took some off :0)
The recipe is called: Easy Grands Pepperoni Pizzas
This is very easy..
You need: 1 can biscuits ( I used the Grands)
1 cup pizza sauce
whatever cheese you like
1/2 package of pepperoni
Just separate your biscuits and flatten them out, add your sauce, pepperoni and cheese. Bake @375 for 10-15 minutes..Simple enough!!

Monday, June 15, 2009

1st Swim Lesson

Today Macie took her 1st swim lesson. On my way to the lesson I'm thinking to myself that I'm going to introduce Macie to her instructor and let them know this is her 1st lesson EVER and she can't swim. Well I didn't get that chance. Today they didn't do much, just evaluated each swimmer. They had all the kids sitting on the edge of the pool all in a line. I noticed for the kids at the first of the line the instructors were holding the kids above the water and letting them kick. Then there was one who swam under water to the instructor. Macie's school friend was next who can swim very well. So Macie was next. The next thing I see is her plunging into the water and "plunk" she sinks like rock. I'm thinking "What tha H*%! The only conclusion I can come to is that the instructor was asking each kid if they can swim. K, I'll tell you right now Macie can't swim a lick, but when the instructor asked her I bet she said "yes" and I'm sure the instructor said "okay let's see"..hahahaha Boy did she..
This 1st picture is her coming up from her "swim"..She gets her confidence from her dad - haha

Macie was nervous before her lesson so I'm glad she went with her best bud from school.

Surprisingly, Macie liked her 1st lesson. She was very proud of herself for going under water..haha I'm nervous for her for the days to come..

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Crazy Things Happen when,,,,,

Crazy things happen when uncle eric and aunt amy come over. Tonight we were blessed with eli wearing clothes. In the past Austin has busted out in his birthday suit.haha I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


None of us are sure exactly what he's dressed up as. It's a toss up of a policemen, firefighter and see how many clothes you can get on.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Eli The Comedian

Our little Eli is a light shining bright at our house. His little personality is becoming funnier and funnier with each new day. In the past couple weeks the boys are in the habit of hitting each other and Macie. They get in BIG trouble for hitting Macie. We're trying to teach them not to hit girls, especially sissy. Well Eli was in Macie's bathroom this evening getting into her lotion and I shooed him off - he gets mad and swats Macie's belly..BIG no, no!! Anyways we deal with that and we're sitting in the car while Jason's renting a movie. Eli starts telling me that Austin hit Macie in the face. Macie pipes up and says the only one she remembers hitting her is Eli and Eli says: "we're not talking bout that and I'm serious". hahaha It was so funny!!

On our way home we stop at McDonald's for ice cream. Once home Eli starts diggin into his and he says "now this is what I'm talkin bout". He's such a sweet, funny boy!!

Weird twin thang:
A couple days ago I notice a scratch looking red mark on Austin's neck kinda down from his ear. A couple days later Eli has the same scratch looking red mark on his neck down from his ear..Same exact spot!!Freaky!!!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Ridin' The Creekmore Train

We rode the Creekmore train yesterday and that has to be the cheapest, best entertainment for kids in Fort Smith. The ride is a quarter!! The kids have been wanting to ride for a while now and LOVE IT.

The boys have been dying for more sunglasses, so they got some yesterday and Eli loves his - Austin not so much. Eli would wear his to bed if I'd let him..He wears his hat and glasses around the house. ha



Because we're an odd number family poor Macie had to sit by herself, but she didn't seem to mind.





Cute, quick story:
Yesterday since Jason was off work we decided to let the boys go with him to the ballfield. The team was going to hit and warm up before the game. I told the boys they'd have to get their hats, sunglasses, ball gloves and ball before they left. I go into their room to help them get ready and find Eli wearing snow gloves HAHAHAHA and Austin crying b/c he can't find his other snow glove. Ssssoooo I have to explain to them that we don't wear snow gloves to the ballpark, only their ball gloves. They were totally pumped to go with Jason, no matter what they looked like :0)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

St Louis-part 2

Day 2 of our vacation takes us to the zoo which I posted earlier and the Anheuser Busch Tour. The tour started off with the clydesdales. Beautiful animals!

Here we are with their baths, which takes 45 minutes. They have an awesome stable. I have a ton of pictures of the brewery tour, but will spare you those.

Here we are on the 3rd and final day of vacation. Technically we were supposed to stay another night but we gave up and came home. We were crazy enough to attempt a middle of the day cardinals game. The only good thing about our hotel was it was close enough to the ballpark where we could walk. We got there early to watch batting practice and guess what? Jason caught a ball for Austin Baseball Sharum..Austin loves baseball and calls himself Austin Baseball. Why? I have no clue, but whatever. He was happy as a lark. I had Eli and Macie down below trying to get the players to sign their hats with no success.

I had to post this picture to show you just how happy Macie and Eli were that they didn't get a ball. Not happy campers! Austin's still happy as can be! haha

I love this picture if only Jason wasn't so close. I had the hardest time trying to pose the boys in this position. I shoulda positioned them better. The idea was cool, though. I might have to learn how to remove people from photos in photoshop. If you know send me a tutorial.

Have no clue who this is.

After the kids did this Jason was itching to try. The speed on the clock is from his warm up pitch. He threw faster than 52mph, but was disappointed. I'm sworn to secrecy on the speed.

So after only the 2nd inning of the game we left. The kids were melting in the sun..To be fair it was hot, and they are only 4.
So the second best thing of the trip was getting to eat blueberry pancakes at The Cracker Barrel in Springfield for dinner - sad, but true..Needless to say we didn't dine well in St. Louis.

St Louis

We went to St Louis for our family vacation this year. I'm glad we went, so we can check that off our "places to go" list, cause we'll never go back. I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet, so I won't go into a lot of detail. I'm going to try and just hit the highlights. We stopped in Springfield on our way to St Louis and I found the cutest pair of sandals for $5. That was one of two best moments of the trip.
Once in St Louis, our first stop is The City Museum. Everyone seemed to be having a blast, but we're kinda germaphobes. When you've had two babies very sick with the stomach bug for 10 days, when you've waited in the ER for 10 1/2 hours watching them stick you child repeatedly trying to find a good vein to start an IV, when the idiotic doctor runs pointless test after test costing me around $900 - you get a tad gun shy about germs. But like I said - everyone else seemed to be having a blast. A great place for kids.

Next stop that nite was The Arch. I thought since we did this later in the evening it wouldn't be that crowded..WRONG!! We waited in line for around 20 minutes which wasn't bad, but what we didn't know is once your up at the top you can leave whenever. The ride made me a little nervous and I'm fine with heights and love roller coasters. I would have done better if I could have seen out ;0)



So once at the top it's crowded, I'm talking can't move crowded. There were 2 lines waiting to get down, and they kept sending people up. So it was very nerve racking trying to get to a window and maneuver 3 small kids around. Very crowded (can't stress that enough) up top which was ridiculous. I mean I understand it's a money making business, but there's got to be a better system than that. There was easy 100 people up top and trust me the top isn't all that big..

The next morning we're off to the St Louis zoo. We got there right when it opened so it was nice. Not too crowded and the weather was great. Two hours of walking non stop, and carrying the kids around we gave up and left. The boys just can't walk that long or that far - poor Macie, she was a trooper the whole trip. She could out walk Jason and I put together. The bad part is the zoo was huge and we only saw half of it - ha..I can't remember what this cat was-maybe a leopard, but he seriously wanted to eat the kids. If any of you know how house cats act when they're about to pounce on something then you'll understand this. Inside the cats cage there was a huge net, well the kids were looking at this cat and he started to hunker down and creep real slow towards the kids, eyes focused on the kids..Then he stopped at the net and was motionless - frozen - looking at the kids..I told Jason the hair on my arms were standing up, let's go cause he wants to eat the kids..That thing even followed us around his cage as we were leaving..These things FREAK ME OUT!!

Pictures from my other camera have to be downloaded to the computer, so more of the trip to come.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Tennis Camp

Today was the 1st day of tennis camp for Macie. She did very well and had a blast. This is her gymnastic friend Carsyn (I hope that is spelled right), who is also at the camp.

Here's Macie's school friends. She loves these girls.

Macie was able to hit the ball on most tries.

"Thumbs Up"!! Great job!!

Doing some kind of drill..She looked so freakin cute in her outfit!!

That net was in the way. Maybe tomorrow I'll sneak out on the court for better pics..