Teachin 'em young

Every since Courtney could control her hands she has been obsessed with the computer. When she could first stand she would stand in front of the couch as I was on the computer and simply reach her arm around the monitor just to push keys. She did not care which keys or what they did, as long as she could hear and feel the keys being pushed. A little later in her life she would climb up on my lap and try to sit on the computer while she typed. I think she has finally gotten it though...what do you think?

1st Day of KDO

My baby is growing up. Yesterday was her first day of Kids Day Out. I decided to work KDO one day a week this year which means Courtney gets to go too. Not by choice, but it worked out that she is in my class. I was worried but she did great, other than nap time. She isn't used to going to sleep with a bunch of other kids in the room, but Ms Heather got her to sleep successfully.

Courtney is the youngest in her class and fits right in. She's learning quickly how to climb like the big kids. She gets along well with the other kids and we really had a great day.

i don't know why, but i'm very anti-shoes. she never wears them, she has plenty of them so please don't send any thinking she needs them. i'm not lazy and just won't put them on her or anything either. it's just one of those things. some kids don't wear clothes (i won't mention names Angela) my kid doesn't wear shoes.

He's HOME!!!

What a glorious site this is! Paul got home at 5 AM this morning. He is a rock! He got back to Tennessee Sunday night, packed all day Monday, left around 7:30 Monday night, and drove through the night to get home. He is sleeping now and probably will most of the day but that is fine with me! He starts working in the morning so I'll let him sleep today. I've never been so happy to have stuff to unpack! Courtney was happily surprised this morning when I brought her into bed for our cuddle time. We are whole once again.

2 years and up. HA!

Only the best Monday ever...

It's MONDAY! Woo hoo!!! I am so happy and excited and never had a better Monday! Paul is coming home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is packing right now and should be on the road by tomorrow morning. How exciting is that!?!?!? We are pretty excited. Long story short, God has lead him home.

Here are some pictures, random pictures.

After a day of shopping...

No more morning ba-ba...

So cute with her hair up...


Aren't our children adorable?!?!

Reading her favorite book which plays Jingle Bells....over and over and over


Can you tell these kids are cousins? Johnny is 3, Gracie is 2 and Courtney was 1.

Johnny has the cutest smile ever! (does it look to anyone else like Courtney is about to smack Gracie?)

Seriously, those kids are huge!

Baby gets hurt, mowing expert Annie, 1st day of school, fish tank attack

Wow, I feel like I haven't blogged in ages though it's probably only been a few days. So much has been happening around here though. My mom has been in town since last Wednesday which has been a lot of fun. We have spent time shopping, getting our hair done, watching movies, cooking and just talking. We are in the process of planning her trip back to Oregon. OK, I am in the process. Does anyone else notice that the roles change as we get older? I tell you what! :-)

Little miss Courtney really worried me on Sunday. She'd been fussy, really fussy for a day and a half and Sunday morning I noticed she was not using her left arm. A closer look revealed a very swollen little hand. I didn't think it was bad enough to rush to the emergency room so we proceeded to get ready for church and I figured I would keep an eye on it and make a decision of what to do after the day went on a little. God is amazing though and Mr Brent took a look at it during connection group. We are so blessed to have a pediatrician in our group, and even more blessed to have such a caring one. He looked at it, totally felt around on it (which my little girl would not let me even look at it) and suggested I put her on Motrin and see how it does. So, we did. When we got home I gave her some nummy nummy Motrin and even wrapped it up. She was so cute and let me wrap it and even kept it on! The next morning she was using her hand like normal! Thank you, Lord! See, I think she fell, I know she fell since she had a fat lip. I guess she hurt her hand too but I did not know it. She is all better now though and we now have a new doctor for my baby. Thanks Brent!



The dreaded lawn care. Come home, Paul!!! These are purely for Angela as she told me how much I rock for doing all this. Well, girl, it got better! I went to start the mower the next day now that I had fuel and it was no longer raining and it wouldn't start again. So I had to jump it with my now 'work truck'.

After I got it jumped and mowed for quite some time I got stuck. OK, seriously, there is like one place to get stuck out here and, well, I found it. So, I took one of the tie downs off of the jet ski (that took forever to figure out) and hooked the mower to my 'work truck' and pulled that baby out!

I got the rest of the yard mowed with no problems. We may need some new blades now, those pesky rocks are annoying!

The next day I thought I'd give weed eating a try. Oh, that was fun, let me tell you. After figuring out how to get the thing started. Let me take you through it...half choke, a little throttle, pull that stupid chord a few times. Full choke, no throttle, pull the stupid chord a few more times. Back to half choke...you get it. It finally starts, woo hoo I think. Then I realize, I don't have a clue how to do this. Oh, it was interesting. There are a few dirt patches now; but that's OK, it's grass, it grows back, right? :-) (sorry for all my grammar mistakes, I like commas). So, I'm going along and the string is so short. I turn it off and pull on the string...it doesn't get longer. Finally I call Paul and he tells me to bang it on the ground while it's on and the string will come out. Oh, that was neat - I bet I looked super hot doing that. It worked though so I was going along getting all the long stuff and I ran out of string. I guess when you hit rocks with a weed eater it breaks the string? Weird. Oh well, here are some wonderful blackberry pictures of the parts I did get to. Not too bad, eh?


And the first day of school. Ethan is officially a 2ND grader. I can't even believe it. The night before I called him and asked him if he wanted me to come have lunch with him this week and he said he wanted me to the next day! How sweet is that, his first day of school and he wants to have lunch with his mom. So Courtney and I went and he was so precious. He likes his teacher, enjoys his classmates and was having a great day.

Here he is sitting so nicely in line, can you find him?

Courtney aka Ms Cool

At recess he took a break to take a picture with his baby sister.

Doesn't he look so big?

And last AND least...I came home to this in our tank yesterday. All I have to say is EWE! This is our bristle worm eating our cleaner shrimp. I knew that thing was in there (the worm) but I didn't know it was this big and I didn't know it would attack our precious "Shrimpy" and I didn't know there were like 5 of these worms. Big and small...again, EWE.

We'll miss you Shrimpy.

Slacker husband and baby tricks

Can you see that little mower, all the way out there? Well, it's not little, that just how much I have to mow...times 4! So, I'm out there mowin' away today, I have the blackberry doubling as a mp3 player - totally awesome and I have never thought of using it that way before, I get about 1/4 of the yard done and...no more gas. I tell Paul it ran out again (after I had to jump it with my truck) and he says, "oh yeah, I only put a gallon in it and you have to go get fuel, we are out". So, he gets husband of the year award for that. I am not even about to put a gas can in my Tahoe, so I cleverly hook the jet ski trailer up, toss the gas can in the junk container in front and hall them down to the gas station to fill 'er up. I am so clever and quite proud that I backed the truck up to the trailer all by myself and it didn't fall off on the way to or from the gas station. By the time I got back, it was raining anyway. Oh well, the mower has gas in it at least, right?

Sure looked straight when I was going...(our house is behind that tree)

Our yard goes all the way to that house. Does anyone want to buy an acre? If you mow it, you can have it or two!

Ok, how precious is my little baby who is covering up her girl parts for a picture.

Courtney's new trick...



Ta-da!

(I need to repaint that door, huh?)

Laughter and children

Tonight Courtney made me laugh so hard. I was doing laundry and turned around and there she was, with her baby stroller. Not so unusual, except it was behind her. Can you figure out how she did this?

Looks normal, right?

She must be done playing with it...


Guess she isn't done playing...

Maybe she thought she was done playing...

Now it's fun...

Run, run, run....

Laughing at Mama laughing so hard she can't see...

I love my baby girl...