My grandmother turned 90 this past weekend and we celebrated this glorious occasion by all driving to West Virginia and throwing her a party. I'm pretty sure turning 90 years old deserves a get-together.

Here she is with her ONLY great-granddaughter. Out of 12 great grandchildren there is only 1 girl. So you know what that means...lots of boys around. It must be in the genes.

Mom did a great job planning the weekend including a special birthday celebration for Benny boy because his birthday was on Saturday. She made a ton of cupcakes and a big cake. We also ordered around 11 large pizzas to feed the whole family...that's a lot of pizza!

A lot of people drove in from out of town to help Mamaw celebrate. After we got Papaw out of the house and down to the party(everyone that took part in getting him out of the house, GOOD JOB!!), we all ate lunch(pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw--YUM!, baked beans, potato salad, fruit, etc.) and let the boys play in the gross river water. I'm not sure if it was the heat and humidity that got to me or it was simply the fact that I didn't want to hear my boys whine about not being able to swim...but I let them. And I'm happy to say that no one has developed the plague yet. I've been watching way too much 20/20 and Dateline.

It was great being able to share Mamaw's 90th birthday with her. She was thrilled to have her family around and together all at once. Happy Birthday, Mamaw!! We love you!!

Vacation Bible School

Our church's vaction bible school was last week. It's a week filled with many exciting and fun things, including exhaustion by the time Friday rolls around. Each year has a different theme. This year was a theme park. The stage was complete with a carousel, ferris wheel, and roller coaster. There were little holes carved out on each of the kids mouths that were on the roller coaster so the cast could squirt pretend throw-up out with silly string...too funny!

Here's Conner on Monday night...Taylor and I were tour guides for his group.

Sammy and Ben wanted to "spike" their hair for this special occasion...oh, the joys of fixing boys hair. I honestly thought that the task of fixing hair was reserved for the mothers of girls, but boy was I wrong!

Here are some of the kids right before Tuesday night was over. It's wild in our gym, but so worth it. Most of these kids have never been in a church or heard the gospel. It really isn't about trying to cram in a bunch of bible to kids in a week...it's about reaching little ones and telling them about Jesus. Taylor and I averaged about 12-14 kids a night in our group...half of them got saved!!

This was the look on Taylor's face each night because he got the fun job of dropping Sam off in his pre-school class...Sam screamed EVERY night. But after 5 minutes, he ended up having fun(or so the teachers said).

Taylor was a song leader(far right). I have to brag about my husband because he does a fantastic job getting the kids involved. He's goofy and loud and so funny when he dances around. A lady he didn't know came up to him at the end of one of the nights and told him that he was the "best bible school singer she's ever seen!" He's got such an amazing heart for the ministries he's involved in and this was no exception.

Many children came to know the Lord this week which is exciting news. That is really our main goal in running a bible school every summer. We also were able to raise money for a missionary, too. Also, the girls won the penny war--woo hoo!!! Go girls!!

Who did this??

Last Friday I had given my kids specific instructions on what the rules were while I cut the grass:
#1: Stay in the yard
#2: You can only go in the house if you have to use the bathroom
#3: No kids in the house
#4: You can have 1 popsicle from the outside fridge, if you want





(This picture is a different story--my youngest decided to help daddy with the yard work and dumped an entire load of fertilizer in the yard...not funny. Actually a little scary. He's fine and yes, he was washed in the bathtub thorougly. Needless to say, the grass is fried.)
Back to the story. I finished up the yard fairly quick and ran inside to grab some water. I had a few surprises when I came into the kitchen. I calmly surveyed the damage done: Lots of oreos eaten with many crumbs left behind, mysterious blue food coloring trickeled all over the upper landing of my steps, and a whole 2-liter of root beer almost all gone! There were also other random things sitting on the countertops...blueberries, raisins, a frozen bagel.
I calmly walked out to the backyard and asked my children to come inside. They were completely oblivious and actually mad that I had interrupted their very important baseball game and swinging time. I asked nicely, but firmly, "Who did this?" All three of the perpetrators were clueless. Then they all responded in harmony, "He did!" Conner and Sam were both pointing their finger at Ben, while Ben was pointing at Sam. I ended up solving the mystery with only a few threats(not literally). But these are just a few of the things that happen when I am not on top of the boys 24/7. Luckily in about 10 or 15 years I'll laugh about it. At least the grass is nicely cut and edged, though. :-)

Birthday Season

As I post this, our entire family has already celebrated around 9 birthdays since the beginning of June: Sam, Taylor, my brother-in-laws(Nathan and Matt), my sister-in-law(Kristin), my mother and father, my mother-in-law(Jean), and myself. We still have around 4 or 5 to go until August. I am not sure how so many people in our family have summer birthdays. I really can't think of anyone besides my sister and my nephews that has a winter birthday. I feel guilty when I begin to dread the birthday season. I only dread it because I am not the least bit creative in thinking of really cool parties for my kids. This was the last year I could pull off a "family" birthday party for Sam. When your kids hit the age of 5, they expect the world's greatest birthday party given including lots of candy, cake, kool-aid, games, prizes, presents, decorations, clowns, ponies, face-painting, and kids...lots of kids! This is not to say that I don't admire my friends who can pull these amazing parties off...trust me, I wish I had their talents. However, I didn't get the "creative" gene from my mom. My mom would hand make our cakes growing up. These cakes were not just flat, 9x13 cake pan cakes. The shapes were everything from My Little Pony to Holly Hobbie. The icing was not just layered on either. It was applied to every square inch with the hand of a master cake decorator, love ya mom!!! That is just one of her many talents. She used to sew our clothes growing up, too, however I didn't acquire that gene either.

At least in about a year and a half, my kids will be able to say that their mother knows the anatomy of their heart and lungs or what the thymus is, but for now they'll have to settle for store bought ice cream cakes(wow, it was GOOD!!)and silly made up games because at this point, that is all I have to offer.

Here's a few pics of Sam's 4th birthday. He loves Spider-Man so the wrapping paper, balloons, and cake were appropriately picked in that theme. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephews came as well as my parents. He had a great day!!

San Francisco Anniversary Trip

Taylor and I celebrated our ten year anniversary in March. We were able to travel to San Francisco. Although I love the idea of sitting on a beach and relaxing for five days w/out kids in tow, I also knew that a trip to Napa Valley and San Francisco would be difficult with kids. Also, Taylor and I have never been so we were definitely up for a new adventure.

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Muir Woods was amazing. Friends had described how big the trees were, but you cannot comprehend until you actually see them. Alcatraz is fascinating. If you ever go, you must do the headphone tour through the prison. I loved hearing about all of the escapes.

The wineries are so beautiful. We visited around six and definitely had our favorites. Most of the wine was gross...I'm not a big fan of reds, but the sweet white wine was good. We had some really good food in Napa as well...way too expensive, but good nonetheless. We also treated ourselves to a little spa time, my idea, of course. Taylor didn't seem to mind the one hour massage...haha!! Many people gave us ideas of what we should definitely do when we were in the city. Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, China Town, Ghiradelli Square, Pier 39, etc. I never thought we would be able to pull off everything, but we were able to do it all!

Staple Boy

Warning: This picture is gross!!! If you are squeamish at all, don't look at it...well, I guess it's a little late for the warning.

The first night Conner and Ben returned from West Virginia was quite eventful. They had a great time and were eager to see Sam. I was happy to know that the boys really do miss each other when they're apart. Needless to say, Sam had a very bad accident while wrestling with his big brothers. I was doing my usual...standing at the sink doing dishes. I know this might sound crazy, but I really had a sneaking suspicion someone was going to get really hurt that night. When Taylor and I heard the "thud", then silence, then screaming, we knew something was really wrong. Taylor ran downstairs and came back up carrying Sam who had blood streaming down his head and face. Conner and Ben(the culprits) were both crying. We finally got the blood to stop and headed to Children's urgent care. We were there for about two hours...I wish I would've had my camera. They wrapped him up like a wounded soldier and it was too cute. Anyway, Sam received two staples and was very brave. He didn't even cry.

So now we affectionately have labeled him "staple boy".

the REALLY nice lady

A few weeks ago I made a trip to Costco to purchase my usual: toilet paper, paper towels, chicken, hummus, cascade, tide, bounce, chips, bread, peanut butter, t-shirts for Taylor, salsa, watermelon, blueberries, cereal...things a family of five just needs! I only had Sam with me and he was behaving quite well that day. I was impressed with his ability to sit in the cart for longer than two minutes and his lack of whining. As I was checking out, he wanted to help put things up on the conveyor belt. The lady behind us in line began commenting on how cute he was and what a nice helper he was to mommy: "Oh, he is too cute!! I just love his big brown eyes. You are such a good helper. And you are very quiet." I laughed and continued unloading my cart. She was persistent. "Is he always this helpful and sweet? It is so nice for once to see a child who isn't screaming and is well behaved in this store." At that moment something clicked inside of my child. He just couldn't let her give out such a lovely compliment without proving her otherwise. He looked straight at her, stuck his tongue out, and blew spit. Yep, my "sweet", "well-mannered", "helpful", and "quiet" child was quite proud to be sticking his tongue out and spitting. The picture above describes perfectly what he looked like during his outburst, except he's much older now than he was in that picture...which makes it so much better! But the story doesn't end here. Oh no, it gets better. I apologized for his rudeness and told Sam to please stop his behavior. The nice lady said, "Oh, I bet he doesn't even realize he's doing that. Don't worry about it. Kids will be kids." Unfortunately, Sam was not done being a "kid", looks directly at her with a straight face and says, "Your butt stinks!" At this point I am mortified. I mean, I know my children have a strange obsession with potty talking, but never in a million years did I expect one of them to go this far. At this point, the nice lady politely laughed and quit talking to me and my child. I wanted to run far, far away but I apologized, told the lady that Sam had big brothers, and quickly walked to my car. I spent the 20 minute ride home explaining to Sam that we don't tell strangers that their "butts stink". I sure hope that the lecture sunk in...we'll see.

Cicada Madness

The "kah-kay-da" bugs, as Sam called them, have come and gone... it must be tough to wait 17 years to be born, only to live for a few weeks. We sure enjoyed them though... well, some of us. Several evenings were spent shaking the smaller trees in our yard, then chasing the crazy bugs all over the place, until we had a whole pail full of them. Ben found many ways to utilize the things... secretly placing them on mommy, and seeing how many he can whack with a baseball bat in mid-air.

Conner's Big Hit

Conner's baseball team has been playing very well lately. Last Saturday, his team went into the game on a six game winning streak. This particular Saturday, his team, the Milford Storm, were up by six runs heading into the last inning. Our resilient opponent came back to take the lead by one run in the top half of the last inning. Heading into the bottom half of the last inning, the team looked very discouraged, but the coach quickly assured them that the game was far from over. After a couple of hits, we were able to tie the game. There was one out with a player on third, when the opposing coach decided to intentionally walk two batters to create a force out situation at any base. Conner was up. He had hit the ball very well that day, but in the wrong spots - right at the shortstop, and in foul territory. Needless to say, our hearts started pumping a little harder, and we were finding it hard to sit still. Our third base coach, conspicuously, gave the batter the signs. Conner nodded his head and stepped to the plate, saw the first pitch was right down the middle, and put down a perfect bunt. It caught everyone by surprise, and before the opposing pitcher was able to get to the ball, our player at third had crossed the plate. The Storm had won! Who says a "Walk-off Bunt" is not the most exciting play in baseball?

Incredible Hulk

Living with boys is never boring. There is always some sort of chaos going on. If you have more than one boy, you know what I mean. The level of noise, fighting, things broken, smelliness, messiness, roughness, etc. just intensifies when more than one boy is around. All that to say, I really thought my house would be quiet this weekend given the fact that my two oldest were travelling to West Virginia with my parents. Sam isn't going which is totally fine. I've been conjuring up all of the fun things we could do as a family of three. We could go to King's Island and all stay together for once. We could go out to eat and not have it cost at least 45 dollars or more. Woo hoo!!! I could get all of the much needed errands done that I've been putting off b/c taking one kid is a piece of cake. My house house would stay clean for at least a few days b/c I am minus two little boys. OH! I could also take Sam to the store and find some neat one-on-one things for us to do together...educational, learning things. I figured without the other boys around, Sam would be a lot more willing to do things that weren't so "boyish". As soon as I dropped off Conner and Ben, I headed to the toy store. I explained to Sam what we were doing and how "we are going to buy something fun to play together". As my pictures above describe in great detail, my toy store trip didn't quite end up how I had envisioned. While cruising through the games and "educational" stuff which didn't peak my child's interest whatsoever, Sam spotted the Spider Man/Incredible Hulk aisle. I did what any mother would do to avoid a meltdown and let him walk over "just to look". My child has many Spider Man/ Hulk toys... bath toys, outside toys, pool toys and floaties, cups/plates, balls, Wii games, spider-man t-shirts, swim trunks, and Hulk shorts, costumes(black and red spider-man), etc. So when he starts saying in a high-pitched voice that he wants the gigantic green hulk hands(which are labeled for ages 3 and up, mind you) and starts punching with them in mid-air, I said, "Sam, you have all kinds of toys like this. Let's go get something for you and mommy to do that is much more fun than big, green Hulk hands. Don't you want to get a really neat coloring book or something we could paint?" To my statements he says, "No mommy. I want to buy deese so I can westle wit daddy and gowl weally loud." I am sure the rest of the story goes without saying. I said no again. He pitches a fit. I buy the gigantic green Hulk hands that say things like, "HULK, CRASH!", ROOAARRRR!", "HULK, SMASH!", and "YOU'RE MAKING ME ANGRY, YOU WON'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M ANGRY!"
There's Sam and his daddy "westling". So much for less chaos.

Time Flies

It is sad to say that I do not remember a lot when my boys were little. The time literally flew by and it makes me sad. Thus my decision to blog...I'm terrible at keeping photo albums, I don't scrapbook or "stamp it up"(or whatever it's called), so I figured I could keep track with a little computer time each day. The best class I ever took in high school was typing:-) Hopefully a few minutes a day is all this will take. A few of my friends who blog say that...we'll see. Anyway, that's our Sammy at less than a year old. He just turned four a few weeks ago. He will always be the baby unless God says otherwise. Sorry, honey.
Amidst the chaos of baseball schedules, dinner on the run, random children running through my house each day, piles of laundry, and dirty floors, I want to remember this time desperately. As much as I think I will remember something funny one of the boys has said, I know I won't. You forget what you have heard after 72 hours anyway...so I've heard.