A BIG DAY!

Why is today a big day you ask? Because today marks 9 months HOME with our daughter. Which means today she has speant as much time WITH US as she did AWAY FROM US. The nine months she spent in Guatemala seemed to inch by painfully, but they sure have flown by on this end. This child, this inspiration, sat on the back bleachers (in her own seat, not in my lap because she is BIG like that) of the gym tonight watching the kids perform on the stage... clapping, waving her arms, dancing, and trying to out perform them. It cracked me up and brought tears of joy to my eyes.


(Me in my EllieDub shirt... a fundraising opportunity for a Guatemalan adoptive family who have been through a lot!)

American Idol Season 21

Tonight Baylor's school had their Kindergarten and First Grade Music Performances. A few weeks back Baylor came home from school and told us that he was having a program at school and that he decided to try out for a part. He said he was a "finalist" but would find out for sure once the music teacher heard all the other kids who were interested. It totally shocked us. Recently, Baylor has preferred to stay out of the lime-light and does not want to draw much attention to himself. He has not been interested at all in trying out for our church's Children's Choir Performances. His words were that (at try out time) he did not know the words to any of the songs enough to sing them. So we asked him what he would be singing for this class performance. He broke out in song...

I thought love was
Only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else
But not for me
Love was out to get to me
That's the way it seems
Disappointment haunted
All my dreams

And then I saw her face
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm in love
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave her
If I tried

My SON stood in front of the parents of 8 classes of First Grade parents, grandparents, and significant others (I am thinking 350-400 people not including siblings) and sang a solo. I am amazed. He did FABULOUS. WOW! One proud Momma!

A milestone

Eliza has reached another milestone in her life. Today my princesea is 18 months old.


She is full of life and love and has brought an amazing joy to our lives. She has taught the boys gentleness in touch and spirit. She is everything I could have asked for and more. She is the girly, girl who loves already to have her toe nails painted and who carries a purse in the bend of her elbow. She puts on her fake lipstick as if it is a born trait and can see a shoe sale from yards away. I so look forward to all the years we have playing dress up and doing all the things mommy's do with their daughters that their sons would have no part of.

She loves us all, but is attached to her mommy. Since I was sick a few weeks ago she has had a little issue with needing me more and has gotten into the routine of crying in the late afternoon if I am not holding her. It is exhausting to me and I get fed up with the dramatic production of tears when I am "right there" but greatly need to finish the dishes or the project I already started. But at the same time, I love that she loves me and knows that she needs me that much. I know fully that she is attached and makes no bones about who she loves. She is teething at least one molar and one front side tooth ( she has had 3 on the bottom for months now and had been "woppy-jawed"). She walks and runs like nobody's business and she is so tiny people stop us everywhere to ask if she is old enough to walk. She has a few words but has been slow to develop that. I fully believe that while children are learning another major thing (teething, walking) they stop other things (talking) until they have the other stuff down. So where she seemed to be talking some a while back, she stopped with everything but the Ma-ma, Da-da, Bay, Ca-Ca, and No. She is back to throwing a few things out there and will babble a sentence of jibberish if she stops long enough. When I asked her today if she was ready to go... she said "go". I love it and can only imagine what kind of voice is going to come out of that little body.

Check back tomorrow for another milestone worthy of talking about.

A few notes

Wednesday must be Senior Day at K-Roger's... don't get me wrong I have several "seniors" in my life that I love dearly. But in the course of strangers at the local grocery, it can wreck havoc on a mom's routine. I usually do my grocery shopping on Monday but I had to take the boys to spend their birthday money so I waited until today. These people stop their carts in the middle of the aisle to review the details of the Tide for 7 minutes. 7 minutes that I stood their waiting because I could not get by, and I did not want to disturb and force them to readjust, or mess up their thought process. And then there is the kind grandpa that stares at me for 3 aisles until he comes up with the phrase... "I see you have eenie, meenie and miney... where is mo?" When I say he is in first grade, his mouth dropped and I am sure he came up with something else to say, but there were only 2 aisles left and I was on a mission to get OUT. It took me 30 minutes longer to do my usual grocery round... and I got less stuff.

Does that sound rude? I do not mean for it to... it just was funny to me how different K-roger's looked on Wednesday at 10 AM verses Monday... it really took me off gaurd!

ON TO MORE IMPORTANT NEWS... Brent gave me the liberty of leaving home before the kids bedtime tonight to enjoy the new Target. I clocked it and it is exactly 3.5 miles from my driveway to the entrance of the place. If I had a camera I would have taken a picture of my face entering this place... because I could hear the angelic host singing "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH" vividly! I walked around aimlessly for I have no idea how long because when I entered the building I also entered a time warp and I lost all track of space and time. I just walked around forever taking it all in... KID FREE. It was glorious... and I will be back... OFTEN!

Wee Wee

Today my Silas is 3 years old. I have no idea where the time went my sweet baby boy. As I held him tonight with him laying on my chest it seems like just yesterday that big boy was laying in my arms as a 9 lb 2 oz baby.

This child of mine amazes me, daily. He has the sweetest most sensitive spirit. He is so tender that the thought of you being upset with him sends him into tears. He hates being fussed at and falls apart if his brothers do not include him. He loves his brothers and everything they love even if he does not understand a thing about it. He is rarely without a hat on his head and each day picks a hat the same as he would socks. He almost never wears the same one two times in a row and if he cannot find the hat he has in mind, we have to search for it...because the world will not be right without the Cubs, Cooda, Basketball, Titans, John Deer, Queen, Cookie Monster (Nike), Buzz, Seaside hat of his choice. He has a name for them all and you cannot convince him to wear a different one once his mind is set.

He is set in his routine and rarely changes things up. Once he finds something he likes he sticks with it. Like eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch everyday and watching the same thing on TV every morning when he gets up. It is like he cannot move to the next thing if he has not checked something off his checklist.

He also loves PJ's and will change in and out of them all day. I finally quit washing them everytime he wears them because in the course of a day he might wear 4 different pairs. As soon as we walk in the door home he is either down to his skivvys or in a new pair of PJ's... and they each have names too.

I love this little angel with all my heart and if I could keep him this way forever, I would. But at the same time I am so excited to see what kind of kid/ teen/ man/ adult/ father he is going to be.

Happy Birthday, my Wee Wee!

This is how my Nommie and Gandie play

I cannot remember if they told me this was just before or just after the kind (yet forceful) worker at Jump Zone expressed her concern for kids on the side of the jumping thing.



PS...How does the blogger video thing work... it never does for me?

CATCH UP!

I have been too busy living here lately to be blogging.
Friday my brother and sister-in-law decided kind of last minute that they wanted to drive up for the weekend to visit (it was the boys Birthday party weekend). So they made the 8 (plus some with a toddler in tow) hour trip from Florida by leaving home at 4:00 AM to get here by lunch on Friday. Because we do not get to see them enough my parents came too, so we could all spend time together. We all bunked up and stayed together for the weekend here... that is all 6 adults and 5 kids. It was great and I really enjoyed the time with them here. Usually we only get short visits where we drive to my parents for the day or they stop by for a few hours, but this was TIME TOGETHER and I LOVED IT! I was sad to see them go home today because I know it will be at least June before we see them again and my nephew is so on the verge of being able to talk your head off, by the time we see him again he will be a jabber jaws, singing sam, and Pete the parrot. Julie... if you do not get him his own vacuum, let me know I will bring him one. He is your personal "ROOM-BA".

Saturday we had a combined party for Callan and Silas because they like it that way...because since they have it together we spluge a little. This year we had a JUMP ZONE birthday with 25 of their little friends. They had a blast and we all left exhausted... I have way too many pictures to share so I will pick a few good ones. It really is hard to catch them still when there is so much fun to be had.

This is Mommy and her soon to be 3 year old who was so upset that he could not have his Nemo cupcake cake immediately that he did not have a good time at his party.

Baylor and Cade taking Jesse for a ride

Callan, about the only time I caught him though the plastic on one of the jumpies... once there he was GONE and catching him still was impossible.

This is my dad and Jackson ( my nephew) going down one of the slides... I should have cropped it and closed in on it more but I wanted you to see the slides too.

This is how hot and sweaty you get about 10 minutes after your arrival.

This is sister having fun!

FINALLY the boy gets his cupcake!

And brother gets his voice changer cake topper.

And THIS boy knows how to eat some cake

Baby brother with all his loot

Callan says WOW... I got out good on this deal. Good thing Silas did not notice that Callan had about 8 more friends than him. It is times like this when I feel so thankful for friendships but so spoiled in stuff.


THANK YOU SO MUCH to our friends and family for joining in on our fun and to my family for helping it to run smoothly by taking care of kiddos and helping out. I have a picture of the whole gang but I am not sure how they all feel about hanging out on my blog so I won't post it.


And then there is this strange bit of info... if you go back in my archives to mid February last year you might remember that Baylor woke up one morning covered in severe hives. We have no idea why but we assumed it was from a bath product residue. One year later... for no reason whatsoever that we can discover... he did it again (with not a thing between then and now). He is heavy into the meds to keep the itching and swelling down, but I believe that we will be seeing someone about it this week that will not just give us more Benedryl and tell us he must have gotten into something he is allergic too.