The Eve of 9

Here we are about to celebrate another Birthday. My sweet boy turns 9 tomorrow! Yesterday J.J. fell and broke his new little toy gun. This sweetie, without hesitating, told J.J. that he could have his that he had just gotten. On Friday after the last day of school for the break he came home with some candy canes he had gotten. There were 3 little ones and one big one. He handed out the 3 little ones to everyone and put the big one up for himself. Pipi immediately dropped hers and started to cry. He went and got the big candy cane that he was saving and gave it to her. This boy is always doing things like that. I have to say that they definitely broke the mold with this one. He is such an amazing kid, and makes my heart smile daily. On this day 9 years ago we had to leave the movie theater just after purchasing tickets because my water broke. We were so nervous about becoming first time parents, and were amazed when they let us leave the hospital with this little baby on Christmas day. Now here we are 4 kids later and couldn't love being parents more!

We are spies!

Those of you who know us, know that we can't just have an ordinary simple birthday party. My kids start planning their next party as soon as we finish the current one. No-Bo wanted a spy party this year, so we were spies in training. Once everyone showed up at the house the doorbell rang and there was a folder that said the presents had been stolen and if he wanted them back we had to follow all directions. We blind folded the kids, and drove them to the secret spy training academy (AKA the community room at the high school). There they were lead through a series of spy training activities. They had fingerprints made, came up with spy names, worked on disguises, and had to identify the missing spy object from a tray full.

Apparently being a sneaky spy means you can't look at the camera.

Can you recognize these incognito spies???

After their spy training they had to follow the clues that were written in invisible ink to lead them to the presents. These were the lasers that they had to navigate through to the next clue which was inside this room (which by the way when we got home we had to make laser beams in the hall because they loved this part so much). That room had balloons scattered all over which were "bombs" that they had to "detonate" in order to find a clue inside one of them which of course was written in magic ink. Once they found the presents there was a safe on top of them which had explosives inside. They had to use the clue they found in the balloons to open the safe, and then each child had to set off an "explosive" (party popper that had confetti) to protect the presents.

If you can't tell the cake is supposed to be a magnifying glass, and my sister Lindsey decorated the bomb cake for me!




Gotta love trick candles especially on a bomb cake!

This is it...

...a picture on his last day as a 5 year old! Why does time go by so quickly the older we get? I don't like it one bit, and I am not ready for my babies to grow up. STOP, STOP, STOP!!!

My Pipi

Oh that girl. She definitely keeps us on our feet. She is just so cute, and has been saying and doing the cutest things lately. Her little personality is just something else. I have to say that she runs the show around here and keeps those boys in line with her commands. What's funny is that they usually listen and do what she says. Everyone keeps saying that she is going to give us a run for our money...not sure why! I have been writing them down to share...ENJOY!

This is one of her most recent acts...this is her bedroom wall when you first walk in her room. Should I really be upset since she was practicing her "R's" . There were also a couple of "J's". Never mind that I spent almost a month painting this room!!!

One day she said "Don't cry over spilled milk J.J." just after he knocked over his glass and began to cry.



"Mom, I love you all the way to GOD". What more could I ask for!

For a while I would say something and she would just give me the thumbs up.

"Our house is a disaster!" (watch what you say little girl or I will put you to work)

One night we there was a big storm moving through, and it woke Pipi up screaming. I went upstairs to console her. I picked her up,walked to the window, and showed her the lightening and we listened to the thunder. Then talked to her about God. I was telling her how God was up late bowling and was using his flashlight to see. This seemed to calm her down, and she went back to sleep. The next day she was repeating what I had said to her...well kinda

Pipi- "God was up late last night shining his light that was so bright, and he was playing with his balls!"

"I love myself"


When my Dad was visiting she asked him why his belly looked like he was having a baby.

She is getting excited about the upcoming season, and she always says Christmas instead of Santa Clause...I LOVE IT!

"When I grow up, I want to be Christmas...then I can go down everyones chimney and give them presents."

It is never ending, and I don't wish it to be!!!

Merry Dreams

He has worn this hat to bed the last two nights. This precious boy only has 2 more days left to be 5 years old! Can I stop him from growing up so he will always go to sleep in a Santa hat??!!

Hello Mr. Turkey

Could you not just gobble him up WHOLE???!!!

Ice Box

So I have been helping L.C. with his science project this week. He had to create a box that would keep/slow down a piece of ice from melting. They are going to have a competition in class on Friday. We have tried very hard to let him do most of it on his own, and come up with his own ideas. You all know how painstakingly hard this is...right??? I would throw a few suggestions out here and there about improvements and such. Well yesterday he finally said to me "Mom, I don't have to win to get an "A" ". All I could do was laugh. Oh the wisdom of an 8 year old! Again for those of you who know me know how much I like competition and I LIKE TO WIN!

Speaking of winning (not to rub it in) I must mention that my good friend Heather in Japan said that I needed to give the little ones who helped me carve the pumpkin credit, so here's to No-Bo and J.J. who also have bragging rights!

A game of cat and mouse

Now we know where this saying comes from...



...and why we have a cat!!!

Bottle up

I just wish that I could bottle up days like this!

Or my sweet little babies...I just love the innocence that they still have! I don't want them to grow up!

Or the smell and taste of homemade pizza...YUM, YUM, YUM!

WHAT WOULD YOU BOTTLE UP????

and the winner is...

Thank you to those of you who voted! Guess who gets bragging rights for another year!! Yep that would be me...the master carver! I'll try not to rub it in too much!


Here are my sweet peas on a rainy Halloween! They did awesome going up to doors and saying in unison "Trick or Treat". My big guy Luka was invited over to a friends house for the night, so he missed all the fun we had and I have no pictures of him. I think that I missed him more. It was weird not sharing these memories with him. I think we agreed today that he wouldn't miss out again on this time with family.

We went to some friends house after we trick or treated in our neighborhood. Adults were supposed to dress up too, so this is what we came up with. I stayed up late tye-dying the shirts and sewed all afternoon on our pants. Not too bad for last minute!

The kids and I made a huge yummy mess making and decorating cookies.


J.J. loved the sprinkles!
Tinkerbell and Peter Pan before their school party. He was not at all happy about dressing up this day!



















Just had to include this picture. She loved dressing up and playing the part. After we watched the movie she would say "oh and something I forgot...dust...yep, just a little bit of Pixie dust". Such a Q-T-Pie!

Pumpkin please...vote

Well here we are...another year has gone by, and we are having our 2nd annual pumpkin carving competition. Your vote is needed. Last year was a success, and I don't want to brag or anything, but I am the one with the bragging rights! We would love to have more people vote...come on it's fun...I'm not at all competitive...at least to those of you who don't know me! The kids actually had a lot to do with these designs this year. They went upstairs after dinner, and drew up designs for us to follow. They decided whose team they wanted to be on, and it was split evenly. Click here to look at last years jacks. You have until midnight October 31st to vote. Just click on the comments and leave your vote there...don't be scared!






















Pumpkin A...............................................................................................................Pumpkin B

Patton museum

While we were in Kentucky we went drove up to Fort Knox and went to the General Patton museum. J.J. wanted to see the tanks, and boy did we see tanks. Tanks from every war thy were used in.

I bet you didn't know how strong this little boy was??!!


Here are the sweet girls hanging out. They love each other so much!


We almost got everyone to look and smile!


Thanks again mom and dad for a great trip!

Kentucky continued

So after we left Dinosaur World as if that wasn't enough, we went to Mammoth Cave National Park. It was only 5 miles away, and we wanted to take in everything while we were there. Any guesses as to what this picture is??? I won't bore you with a bunch of them, but this is inside one of the caves. This room is called the rotunda. It is enormous and the ceiling was perfectly round (hence the name). Mammoth Cave it the largest in the world with over 300 miles of cave systems. The second largest has only over 100 miles! We only went on a 2 mile tour.



Can you tell it was a long day. This picture was actually taken before they walked the 2 mile tour during what should have been nap time. They did great. Pipi fell asleep in the cave while Daddy Jim was carrying her. I then got the hand off for a while. I had to wake her up at one point because we were going down stairs, and the ceiling was so low there was no way to duck with her. For a short while in the cave we had to crouch way down to make it through. It was so low that Pipi could drag her hand along the ceiling! Then we had to walk through Fat Mans Misery...can you guess what that was?


I love this picture just because of the way J.J. is holding onto Daddy Jim's leg. He had a great time with him and they became buddies.


The boys counted when we were leaving the national forest and said they say 28 deer! They didn't seem too afraid of us either. I pulled right and stopped next to this one and it never moved!

Extinct???

...I don't think so!!!

On Friday I packed the kids up, and we drove a million miles to Kentucky...it really seemed like they moved the state...okay it was just 7 1/2 very long hours. The kids had several days off for fall break, so we decided at the last minute to meet my parents in Kentucky to go to Dinosaur World. They had my sisters kids for the weekend, and I knew the kids would have a blast. My niece and nephew were so surprised when they woke up the next morning...they had no idea we were coming.

These boys love being together!

Pipi and Lou could not get enough of each other either. They are so sweet together holding hands and hugging.




Here they are doing a dinosaur dig. I think they found a big one!

What a tasty lunch...run, run, run!

These life size creatures are every where. There were many we had never heard of.


Here is the crew on the photoasaurus. This dino is much bigger than life size. It sits out by the interstate to attract tourists. They are sitting on the very end of his tail.

Whatever you do...don't look back...

Oops too late...those sweet cheeks were just to hard to resist!

Daddy Jim loves his boys, but he has a thing for his girls!

Thanks Daddy Jim and Granna for a wonderful trip! We love you!