Kindergarten at Last

Well it has become offical I am now the proud Mommy of a Kindergarten student. Isabelle is so excited to be going to school she could hardly wait to get out of the car, I think she might have jumped. No tears were shed because really who has time to be sobbing when dropping of your kid at school. Thats right I just dropped her off in line and went on my way. I could hardly get out and walk her in seeing how I had four other kids in the car. I think she will love it and do so well, I can hardly wait to hear about her day.

So far though I have gotten an e-mail from her teacher, asking where her lunch is. Nice, she told her teacher that I had just packed her snacks, and I will be the first to admit that her sandwich was really sad, but just snacks come on Is really? I will get to find out about her day in about an hour and half, I can hardly wait. Until then I have a few pics I would like to share of the girl. Two from home and the third from my car window as I was watching her walk into the building. Such fun and what a big girl!

Meet Hoppy

Meet the newest member of our family, Hoppy. Isabelle brought him home with her all the way from Wisconsin. So far so good, I have not killed him yet. It seems that my track record with pets right now is not too good, so we'll see. The kids love him and he thinks the kids are more wild than he is. He likes to eat and play with his food and water dish, making a huge mess. I really want the weather to cool down so he can spend some quality outside. Rigth now we figure that it is just too hot with the 100+ degrees out there everyday. For right now he hangs in the house. Here's to cooler weather.

First Day of School

Well today is Barrett's first day of school. He is going to the Montessori Acadamey in Arlington, and is very excited. One of his favorite people, Mary will be joining him there this year. They are even in the same class together. That will really make my life easier for drop off and pick up, but I think it will also be good for the kids. I can hardly believe that school is starting already. It feels like we just got out for summer break. Time flys when you are having fun. They are both very excited and I think they will do so well there. It is very exciting. Here they are getting ready to leave for their first day. Of course when we get there, Barrett is asked "where did all your hair go?" It just makes me so sad, but at least it will grow back one day.

Bear, Bear, Bear . . . need I say more

Everyone should have a Bear. Well maybe not, he does have his moments when he wants to be funny, cute or sweet. Then there are the other moments when he is just a pill. And I say that nicely. I love him so much but he can drive me insane. Like today. . . he must have felt left out because Isa got her hair cut today and Cooper had his last week.

So he took it upon himself to do the same. Typical middle child seeking attention. Of course he could not just cut off a few pieces and leave it at that oh no, he had to give himself a buzz right at the front where I had not choice but to shave his whole head. Believe me I really thought about leaving it that way as punishment but I figured he would not care. Here is the "new" Bear, I really hope it does not take long to grow out. I have to put sunscreen on that head of his. It's just crazy! All that beautiful, sometimes curly hair. I think I might have shed a tear.

Will there ever be Peace

Why can I not go to the bathroom in peace? It seems that no matter what I always have at least one child in the room with me at all times. Never can I take a shower, make a phone call or pee by myself. They don't tell you this before you decided to take the plunge and have children. That not matter what every waking minute will be consumed with little people, asking for something and getting your freshly washed, just put on outfit dirty. I only want to be able to pee by myself, is that really too much to ask?

First Hair Cut

Cooper is such a big boy now. He has just had his first haircut, and let me tell you he looks so much older now. I know that sounds silly but he really does.

He did pretty well, considering there was another little boy there who was screaming, so Cooper thought that was what he should be doing as well. Then he calmed down and let the lady do her thing. Plus he got his first sucker, so he was really happy about that one. I can hardly believe he is growing up so fast. Where has all the time gone.

At least now I don't have to hear Ben complain about his "mullet." I don't think that was the case, but hey whatever. He does look super cute and more grown up. I think he should stop but he does not have the same feelings.

Why I am walking . . .

I can still remember the day when my Mom and Dad came to our apartment to tell us that Mom had Breast Cancer. Ben and I were sitting down in the pampasan chair and they let us know that she has cancer and before our wedding she is going to have surgery. Since she is just having a lumpectomy, she will have to have Chemo and Radiation both. But she did not want to start her treatment until after we were married. She was so strong throughout her whole series of treatments and surgery, stronger than I would have thought she could be. I was so proud of her.

About a month before my wedding we went do to Tyler, Texas for her surgery. It turned out to be an out patient surgery, that means she was able to come home the same day. In the end I think it might have been better for her to stay over night but I do not think Dad would have liked that very much. We kept getting reports about the number of lymph nodes they removed throughout the day, and the number kept growing. I began to think how could they take any more, how much of her breast is going to be left. Or why do they not just take it all and be done with it, after all they can make new ones.

See the reason I think it took so long was the she also has fibro-cystic breast disease which makes her breast very dense. That in its self can make it hard to detect breast cancer, which she probably had years before her surgery but do to some outstanding factors, never came to light until almost ten years ago. That is another story in and of it self.

After the surgery Mom came back and was still very sleepy from the drugs and just needed to rest. Once she had finished this process we made our way home until she would have to go back for treatments, two days after we were married.

I remember that it was several weeks later that we saw them again, and Mom had previously called and we were talking about how here hair was starting to fall out. You always hope that your hair won't fall out but it still happened. She walks up and I was not sure what to expect from the hair loss but what I saw was not what I expected. She looked as if she had very, very thin hair. You could see her scalp, which has never seen the light of day until now. Her hair is really very thick so it was strange to see this woman I know and love with so little hair.

You know what she wore her hair, or lack there of, proudly. Never once did it slow her down or make her feel like less of a woman. Once she lost her hair the only time she would wear a hat was when she went to church. In support of her, the ladies at the church all began to wear hats too. You would have thought that we lived in the deep South and went to a Baptist Church. The support the ladies showed meant so much to me and my family. Cancer is not a one person ordeal it affects so many people.

My brother and father both shaved their heads, Ben said he would do it too, because I felt that I should show my support and shave my head. Ben did not like that idea to much. It was risky for Adam to shave his head since he was in his last year at the Air Force Academy, and they tend to frown on whole head shaves but it all worked out.

I also remember the way the chemo affected my mom and her body after her treatments. It took almost the whole two weeks and sometimes three to recover enough to be able to get the next treatment. Sometimes she would have to lie in bed because she was so weak or would get sick because the chemicals were so strong she could hardly keep anything down. Cancer sucks the life out of you, and makes your life hard.

At least now she is doing well and has been cancer free for the last nine years. She does have to take a daily drug to keep the cancer hormones at bay, but other than that she is doing well and keeping healthy.

I wanted to share with you the picture that they had taken during her treatments for the pictorial directory. The photographer did not want to use the picture because of her lack of hair but she said no, this is how I look right now. She was not going to let cancer get in the way of her life.

I hope that all of you never have to go through Breast Cancer any type of cancer for that matter. Right now your donation will help make that a reality for many. If you have not donated please do so by clicking on the button on the right or by visiting my facebook page. Together we can kick cancer to the curb.

The Best Game Yet

Today was little league day at the Ball park. We had about eight kids from our t-ball team show up so that we could walk around in a parade on the field, track. Cool right, well not today, they decided to cancel the parade because not enough tickets were sold, and we had waited for about an hour at least before they finally came to let us know. Once they did I started asking for things, like a suite for the night, tokens for the kids park, free food, anything to compensate for this mishap in communications. Well it turns out we did get some free stuff, about 60 Rangers hats, so all the kids got one and pretty much so did Mom and Dad. Plus the best part for us, Bear and Dade got to walk out with Mike Hegeman, a former Rangers pitcher, to throw out the first pitch of the game. That's right we got to go out and wait on the field and then the boys walked out to the mound, while Mike tossed out the first pitch. We, the parents, knew it was too cool, and one day so will Bear and Dade.

Plus as we were leaving Nolan Ryan was almost close enough for me to touch. Instead of being a freak I took a picture.

My New Ride

I have officially embraced the cliche of Soccer Mom. I now am the proud owner of a minivan. I can almost not hardly write the words, but you know what I absolutely love it. Such a smooth ride, so wonderful to drive. And the kids just love it. They have been waiting since we bought it to go for a long ride so that they could watch a show while in the car. Since I'm pretty mean and do not let them ride around town and watch a show.

One of my favorite features, besides the pushing a button to open the doors, is the little mirror that folds out of the ceiling so I can see the kids from the passenger seat. Too cool. Did I mention how much more room we have now in the car. The kids are not sitting on top of each other, it is so nice. Plus there is all this room to carry all that kid crap you have when you travel. No more worries about not being able to fit it all in. I guess this means we will have to take a few more road trips. Now to find the time.

Tackle

The kids love to play tackle with Ben. That is pretty much the first question out of Bear's mouth when Ben gets home. "Can we play tackle, Dad?" The other day Ben was sitting on the floor and Cooper gets himself ready and runs right into Dad. It took Ben about one or two tackles to figure out what he was doing. He would back up to the window and run towards Ben and "tackle" him. It is too cute, so I ran to get the video camera to share with all my peeps. I hope you enjoy our little baby boy being such a big kid. (please remember I am not a vidographer but a photographer.)


While I was in Sulphur Springs we were standing in the kitchen and Cooper backs up against the cabinet and runs towards me. Walks back and then counts, and does it all over again, so I squat down to make it easier for him to tackle. He is just so smart and too cute.

Cucumber Crazy

The cucumbers are taking over the world. Ok maybe not the world but at least my backyard. We have two plants, which I thought was too much but nobody (read Ben) listens to me. And so they are taking over, this is what I pulled today and I'm sure that we will have more in the next couple of days. If you live close by and want some I have plenty.

Watch Out

Barrett is already working his little manipulative magic. Susie told me this story of Barrett today of his antics at Vacation Bible School. About twenty minutes before going out to play on the playground, Bear starts to work his magic with the young helpers in his class. He begins to start talking about the yellow swing, and how he is the only one who should be able to swing on it and that it would be a really good idea to have them push him. He keeps talking about the swing before crafts talking up what he wants to do and convincing them that he should be in. And you know what they completely bought into it and Bear was the only one who got to swing on the yellow swing with his little helpers pushing him. He had them eating out of his little hand. Just to hear Susie tell me the story just made be think about how he is so cleaver. That kid is going be wildly rich and powerful one day.

Running around

Cooper did really good today running around town with me. We had to go to Wal-Mart to look for a lovey because I left his behind but did not find one. So I only picked up a new windshield shade for my car. Very important with leather seats, but more on that later.

Then we went to have the tires rotated, balanced, and aligned. So fun right, not really, but he did great and thought that all noise in the garage was pretty cool. He was enthralled with the whole process of removing the tires and lug nuts. Plus he was the hit of the show in the waiting room. All the men were entertained by his antics.

Then we went to the DMV office. Which some of you might know what a hassle I had in Arlington, getting my new Texas DL. Well the lady did not have me check my mailing address and so she sent it to an address I have not lived at in at least eight (8) years. Yea, never going to get that one. So I just went out the one here in Sulphur Springs and got it fixed, right away. There was no line, and I got a new picture. This time it is going to the right address and we should be able to get it soon. At least I did not have to bring 37 pieces of identification. Cooper did really well there as well, he did get into my gum which is kind of funny.

4 All Ready

I just cannot believe it that Bear is four. It seems like just yesterday that he arrived in the world, started walking and talking. Then just plain exploring everything and getting into a world of trouble. But we love him just the same.

His party was a great success. He had a few friends over and family. It was just the right size for his birthday. We were not sure of the weather so we changed venues sort of at the last minute. Which was probablly pretty good but I think we will still have to make it out to the little play pool anyway.

We put up the water bounce house, and the little bounce house and the kids went to town. They had so much fun playing around it was great. I could not believe how fast they were going do the slide. I think the greased it up with something special to make it go down so fast. Even the little babies had fun sliding do the little slide and sometimes the big slide as well.

The adults had a time of watching the littles play around and attempted to stay cool, but they all seemed to make it. Bear wanted to have red balloons as his cake, they turned out a little orange since white and red really make pink but hey we won't tell if you won't tell. Over all I think he had so much fun.

Happy 4th Birthday Barrett.

Ride On

I plan to do a great big up date or maybe lots of little updates but for right now I just want to put up a little piece about Bear. He is so sweet and INDEPENDENT. He was gone from us for almost two weeks, all by himself, no big sister or little brother. I only got a chance to speak with him once, other wise he was just not ready to talk to Mommy. I did get updates every so often, and they were always wonderful, and full of little boy antics. After all he did end up in Wisconsin with two of his little cousins who are also boys. He had a fantastic time.

Now before he left he was trying somewhat to ride his bike without training wheels, he would do pretty well, but did not have the right motivation. Well once he arrived in Wisconsin, his cousin Mason was riding the bike without the training wheels and this apparently was enough motivation for Bear to try to do this as well. So he worked really hard while in Wisconsin and figured it all out. Once home he immediately asked for his training wheels to be taken off. And then he stated that there was not enough room to ride his bike, but some how he is making the situation work. Aunt Jodi lives on something like 80 acres and they have a nice big hill to ride down and about three acres for the kids to play on. Go figure how the city would not provide this for him. But here are some images of him in his bike riding glory sans training wheels.


barrett (he typed his name, so proud of himself)

4th of July

Ok I know it's a little late but I wanted to make sure you knew I was doing something fun with my kids, in case you were not there to witness the fun. Isabelle and Cooper had lots of fun watching the parade, swimming and fireworks. Bear was in Wisconsin and all reports say that he had a blast and even tried to go home with another family. What love right? Although this did span two days since some people were Saturday celebrators only.

I had every intention of looking at my photos and making them look pretty but instead you get them SOOC, which how would you know otherwise. I think that next year we might try to do a little parade in our neighborhood, so long as we are here in Texas or Arlington at the time.

Then for the Fireworks, we went out to Randolf Air Force Base and watched them there, with thousands of other people. It was still pretty good, the fireworks that is.

USA Wins

I am so excited to be able to watch the World Cup. It is the pinnacle of sports in the rest of the world, except the US. Which is unfortunate but hey, it all works out some how. I would hope that the majority of you know that the US has advanced to the second round by winning in stoppage time against Algeria. Now they should have clinched their win early on but FIFA did not overturn the call of offsides against the US where they had previously scored a goal. I am a big fan of calling off sides and I think it's important but even I did not think the US player was off sides. Anyway, it seemed that when all was lost and the US would be coming home in the very start (or close to it) of the second minute of stoppage time the US scored the game winning goal. It was a great game and very well played by both teams. I am very excited that the US is going to advance. Although now I believe it is a straight elimination round, you have to win to advance any further. It will be decided who they will play I think on Thursday as those games have not yet been played then later on in the week, they will face their next challenge. I can hardly wait there have been some amazing moments that I have been able to see since the start of the world cup. GO TEAM USA.

The River

At long last, or so it seems I am going to give an update on what we did over the weekend. We went with Ben's youngest sister, her family, his parents and her mother-in-law to go canoeing in Arkansas. We had so much fun. The kids absolutely loved it. All day from 9:30 to 4:30 we were on the river. A few stops along the way to eat, swim, play, jump around, and just have fun, were all it took to keep these kids happy. No one got sunburned or at least if they did not very badly. Bear was the first one to jump off the big rock. He really wanted to swing on the swing and then jump into the water, but the line for that was rather long. Lots of beer and juice boxes were consumed, Ben stated that we should have brought some more Gatorade for the ride as well. The only mishap was when Bernie and Susie ran into a tree and the canoe flipped into the water. They all feel out including Cooper who survived like a champ. His life jacket is amazing. He did not start to cry until I showed up, but hey, he was half asleep when it all happened. The river did take it out of the kids, I think all but two fell asleep on the way back home, and everyone slept well that night. It was a great trip.

Things they say

So yesterday, Ben is out watering the garden, a daily event. And Isabelle walks up to him and says, "This peach fell off the tree and I caught it." Now does that sound like my daughter to you? At least she is excited about the peaches. This is only the second year they have been in the ground here and they are already producing fruit. How very exciting. I think we'll only get a handful but still. Maybe enough for a cobler so long as any more don't just fall off the tree for her or any other child to catch.

Fast Learner

Cooper is picking up on some of the big kid stuff way too fast. I'm still pretty sure that he should be acting like a baby and not a todler. I expect him to start spouting of some poetry any day now. Until that happens I only have this to report. The kids have been doing odds and ends projects recently which involved, paper, scissors and punches. So there of course is paper, scissors, and punches just lying around all over my house, since I guess they feel that it is summer time and no need to clean up after themselves. Either way, Cooper happend upon a piece of paper, and a pair of scissors. Why do they call it a pair, since really it is only one but I guess sense it has two sides that is reason enough. Who knows. He finds these scissors and paper and immediatly sits down to work on his very own project. He gennerally knows how this whole thing is supposed to work you put your fingers in and then move it some how and it will eventually cut the paper to your desisered shape. For the life of him he could not figure it out with one hand. Now with two hands he was all over it. But not once did he ask for help, by bringing me his project to help him. At least not until I interferred and stuck a camera in his face. Then he realized that oh hey, Mom's here she'll know what to do. Then he thought to himself well if I can't get it to cut then I'm just going to poke a hole in the paper, that should work out great. I just could not believe it, he did try pretty hard at getting them to work, it was just too cute!