Family Time

Last week Mom Freda had her 85th birthday, so on Sunday the family got together in Alma to help celebrate. Almost everyone was there but a few faces were missing from the crowd. We all brought desserts and the kids got bubbles to play with outside, courtesy of Aunt Kelli(Great Idea!). We were blessed with beautiful weather so the little ones stayed outside most of the afternoon and played in the sun! It was nice to see everyone and we all had a fun day. Here are a few pics from Sunday.

The Birthday "Girl"

Uncle Buddy & Harrison

Aunt Marti & Harrison

Mom Freda with Skylar, Harrison, Jackson and Chera

Chera & Jackson

Chera, Gray & Jackson

Corbin

Harrison has been picking up some new tricks from a few of the other kids that go to his daycare...here is the latest (BLOGGER will not upload the video right now...will try again later.)

Home Again Home Again

So back to normal life, the fun trip to OK City is over and apparently I am NOT the Next Biggest Loser :D...since I didn't get a call back. It's okay though...everyone needs to stand out in the 30 degree cold for 7 hours once in their life! We had a blast and ate some pretty good food along the way. If you ever go to OK City you have to try Mama Roja's Mexican Kitchen...the best enchiladas I've ever eaten! An the ambiance was great, the restaurant overlooks the lake so if your with the one you love it can be very romantic! Once we stood in line for so long to get in to our "interview" the thrill of being there was kind of over so I didn't take anymore pics at that point..Here are a few that I did take.

The sun setting over the lake

The Lighthouse by the restaurant

And this is what I got to come home to, Jackson and Gray had waited up for me but ended up falling asleep on the couch. I thought it was funny how Gray was laying so I took this picture...it's good to be home!

On our Way!!

So Mary and I are on our way to OK City to audition for the show The Biggest Loser! Mary's brother let us use his awesome laptop to we can update our blogs tonight and tomorrow! Auditions start tomorrow morning at 10am and you can start lining up 3 hours prior to that...we'll be there by 7 am to set up camp...Mary was smart enough to bring her lawn chairs for us to sit in.
So tonight we're going to go out and enjoy a nice dinner, maybe for the last time. This series is suppose to air in the fall so I would assume it would film in the summer...we don't really expect to get on the show but it will be a fun experience just going to the try-outs...maybe we'll meet Bob or Jillian! Okay...that's it for now...maybe we'll post again later tonight once we get settled down after dinner....wish us luck!

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and for a chance to win $100.

Today I've decided to participate in "Hi/Lo Thursday" over at the Riggs blog....this is the family of little Abby who you've all been praying for.
I'll start with my "hi"...it just happened last night. I was introduced last year to the teachings of John Rosemond by my sister but never really started to practice them...I finally decided to watch his video this week and thought that it was time to start making the change...anyone familiar with us knows that J & G end up in our bed every night and mommy and daddy get NO sleep...so the first step is to get them sleeping all night in their own beds. Last night was a great night, G came into our room 2 times but both times I brought him back into his room and he stayed. J never even woke up last night! I'm so proud of both of them!! H also slept thru the night so we almost got a full nights sleep.
Now for the "lo", I could talk about the economy or our water getting shut off yesterday due to a lack of communication at the water company but those things just really aren't that important when it comes to real life and the things that really matter. I've been following a blog for just a few weeks now about a family with a 10 month old little girl. She recently got sick with ear infections and just couldn't kick the sickness, then she all of the sudden developed black eyes....after blood work it was revealed that little Cora had cancer. This tiny little girl fought as hard as she could but only lived another 3 weeks, she passed away this weekend. How can I complain about anything when I have 3 healthy little boys? I remember when H was 2 weeks old and got viral meningitis...I was so scared and didn't know what to expect, I don't know what we would have done we had gotten a different outcome. God be with the McClenahans during this hard time and give them peace.

Hours of Fun!

On Sunday morning the City of Fayetteville came to our neighborhood and started collecting all of the debris from the storm 2 weeks ago. The boys LOVED it. We had roll off containers and dump trucks and "digger" type things, I don't know the technical term but they were there most of the morning and in front of our house alone for an hour. The boys stood on their bedside table watching out the window as all the debris was collected, they thought it was so cool...I'm wondering now why I didnt take a picture of that sight!

2 weeks, an Ice Storm and Still Kickin'

It's been several weeks since my last post and much has happened! The big boys (bb) and I had a fun afternoon at Fun City one Sunday afternoon...the boys had a blast running around playing in the ball pit, playing air hockey and all sorts of other games. They actually ate the pizza there, I think it was the garlic crust that they liked so much, which is good to know having such picky eaters. So, NWA got hit very hard by the ice storm last week. We were not anticipating the extent of damage and outages that we had. We lost power at around 5:30 on Tues Jan 27. We stayed in the house that night...it was about 20degrees outside so I don't know how cold it got in the house. We bundled H up in 2 pairs of fleece pj's on top of an extra pair of socks...I also tucked a fleece blanket on top of his sheet so he was extra warm! BB also slept in socks and fleece footed pj's in between mommy and daddy, we had an additional 2 blankets on the bed that night so it was really hard to move around! Wednesday we took the boys to Chick-fil-A for a warm meal and then daddy had to go to work. I went back to the house with the boys and we played in the house for as long as we could stand it...the temperature had probably dropped to about 40 by then inside the house and I was freezing! The boys didn't really act like they minded because they were running around keeping warm, plus I was making H keep his toboggan on his head...he didn't really care for that. We finally got ready to pick daddy up since we had dropped him off and I packed a quick bag because we were heading to a hotel. In case you ever wonder, keeping 3 toddlers in a 15x15 foot motel room for 2 days is NO FUN!!! The first night was horrible...they were running around like a bunch of wild animals because they were so excited to be in a "hotel". H was afraid of the shower and there was no bathtub so we got his body washed the first night and did not get his hair shampooed...the next day I didn't' even attempt the shower so he basically didn't have a bath for 2.5 days...all he did was run around with me so it wasn't like he was dirty or anything! Friday both H's babysitter and the boys daycare was opened so I was able to head back to work. After work we hit the house again hoping for power but no luck...we headed to Alma to stay at Mom Freda's house for the night before heading to Russellville for the rest of the weekend. Thank you to MF for letting us destroy her house for the night! It is a true blessing to have her in our lives! She made homemade soup, cornbread and pumpkin pie for us and the boys ate it up! They LOVE cornbread so that was their favorite thing! After saying our goodbye's on Saturday morning we headed to Rsvl. Chad kept the boys all day bc I had to go out of town to a funeral. It was a sad occasion but it was the best day I've had in a while, I got to spend all day with my sisters and mom! We didn't see our kids again until about 8pm that night! The guys even got all the kids out and took them to dinner. On the way out of the restaurant Chad was stopped by a passing car and the woman handed him a $10 bill, it was from the gentleman in the car, Mr. RL Summers...she told him that he loved children and to go get all the kids some ice cream. So on the way home they stopped by Sonic and got 3 Sundae's...enough that the kids could not eat it all by themselves so we were all able to enjoy it! Sadly, mom called yesterday and told me that Mr. Summers had passed away on Wednesday. I didn't know this man but I can only imagine the random acts of kindness that he did throughout his lifetime and what a loved man he must have been, I'm sure he will be missed.

The kids had a fun weekend playing together and on Sunday we visited some family friends...they have grand kids the boys ages so they had all sorts of toys to play with, I think the air hockey won them over though, they had a blast playing with it; although the fact that they had ample room to run around plus a couple of trees to climb probably didn't hurt either :o

Sadly it all had to come to an end and we headed back to NWA on Sunday afternoon, I forgot to mention that we got a call from our neighbor on Friday night saying our power was back on so we got to come home to a nice and toasty house!

We started this week off to Jackson not feeling well, sore throat and all so we started him on an antibiotic and by yesterday he was feeling 100% better. The other boys are good and we hope they stay that way! Hope everyone has a great weekend, I think we're going to start it off with movie night tonight...probably Madagascar II. Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.

Cowboy Gray

Racin' cousins

Harrison on the tractor

Action Shot of Jackson and Jacob

Real men boys drive pink!

And now for the pics from ICE STORM 2009

(Most of these pics were taken from my car, don't judge!)

Mr Mikes house across the street.

These are all the street behind us