What she does to stay occupied

As you probably already know by now, I work from home. Gracie has been at home with her work at home mom since she was 7 months old. The child knows how to occupy herself!

Here’s some snapshots I found on my phone from back in the winter.

This day, she was pretending it was a beach day. The blankets were the sand. She even had her bikini and ukulele!

This day, she had made all sorts of shapes out of construction paper and tape and put them in her rolling suitcase. She set up a “shop” to sell her wares.

She used paper, tape and a rubber band to make herself a guitar. I was pretty impressed by this one. I didn’t even know she was working on this and she did it all by herself!

Here is an art project we did together one day.

If her bubba is home, the two of them are likely to be playing pretend together. This day, they had set up an animal shop in the living room.

Do you clean up a lot of messes, you ask?

Why yes. Yes, I do.

But because these things keep her occupied for a while, at least I am able to get some work done before I have to clean it all up!!

Modern Mission

Our friend Niki celebrated her 40th bday by having several families go to Modern Mission to play outdoor laser tag.

Braden had been to bday parties there 3 times before and Jason had been once. Rhett, Gracie and I had never been.

We had THE BEST time! Aside from all the ticks in the woods :)

We were split into teams (kids vs adults) and we did a few of their different options of games. They were all different war/strategy games and we had a blast.

I can’t wait to go again!! I’d love to get a big group of adult friends together to go.

Here we are getting geared up before heading out to our mission!

 
(I’m including this picture, just because I’m aware that there aren’t many pics of me on this blog. I look like an ultra goober the way I was all hunched over. Apparently it was my sub conscious effort to get more on Gracie’s level. Jason was doing it too! So, this picture is on here, but will remain small :)

Boys ready to go get in the action!!

Wouldn’t you know… the kids beat the pants off the parents.

Although they did have a teenager and 2 adults (1 of whom happened to be the owner of the establishment and was a total sniper…)

They thought they were big stuff!

Gracie couldn’t actually play, but she wondered the woods with us and played along. It was really hot that day and she was a trooper. My strapping husband carried her around a good part of the day once she just got too tuckered out.

I found out that I’m a pretty dang good shot for a girl. I injured and killed several members of the enemy team throughout the day.

I’m hooked. I wanna go play again!!

12 year anniversary gift

May 29 we celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary. The fact that it falls on Memorial weekend each year, is always both a blessing and a curse. This year, it was a blessing for me and a curse for Jas. Ha!

We’ve been wanting to replace the floors in our living area downstairs since we bought the house 2 years ago. We finally decided to do it over Memorial weekend this year and this was my anniversary gift from my hubby.

Best. Present. Ever.

Before pics of NASTY carpet
(I took most of these pics with my phone…)

The floor had recently been shampooed and had JUST been vacuumed. How do you like those dark stains?

How about these?

And don’t forget the large yellow pet stain left over by the previous occupants. The flash makes it hard to see, but trust me… it’s yellow. This part was hiding under our couch… so gross…

Good riddance carpet!!!

Mom and Dad came over to help us get started on the hardwood floors. We were so thankful for the help!

End of Work Day 1. WOW!

The next morning, when I woke up, I walked in on this. Laying on the bean bags (the only living room furniture we had left!) and playing Wii.

It took Jason up until late on Monday night to finish the trim and everything. At that point, he had worked 3 weeks straight without a day off and then he worked his tail off Sat, Sun and Monday of our long weekend. Then had to work a long week the next week too.

And he never complained (as usual). He said he was just happy because I was happy. Seriously, he’s my hero.

We managed to sneak away for a little bit on the Monday afternoon to go furniture shopping. (We sold our old sectional on craigslist the week before. That microfiber suede was about the WORST material to have with children. The couch was stained and I had it cleaned from time to time, but it was almost $200 to have it cleaned! Crazy! Time for something more family friendly! 

I LOVE my new floors AND my new furniture. I’ve been waiting quite a while for this so I’m SO thankful!!

A view of the other side of the living room. (With all the clean blankets and sleeping bags from the weekend’s camping trip…waiting to be put away… :)

I LOVE my anniversary gift!!!!!

Mamma’s Favorite Song

By special request, a special guest star made an appearance to sing my favorite song today.

Enjoy :)

We love us some Tim Hawkins!

Random

Misc pictures on my computer.

 

 

 

Life is good :)

Body Art

On the last day of school, instead of having his friends sign his yearbook, Braden decided to have them sign his arm!

I let him wear it for a couple days and then made him wash it off. LUCKILY, he was smart enough to have them use dry erase markers instead of permanent ones!

Talent Show 2011

Both boys participated in the school talent show this year. They both did SO great!!

Rhett’s class performed a dance to a medley of songs that their teacher put together.

The video is split into two parts because I didn’t realize that Rhett would be coming in for his last part before the girls were finished with the Umbrella song.

Rhett is in the jeans with  holes in the knees, black t shirt and black gloves. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see him better from where I was sitting…

Here’s the first part!

Here’s the 2nd part! The boys are slithering into their spots for the big finale as the girls are finishing up the Umbrella song. How fun and creative! I loved it and wanted to see them do it again!!

Braden and his BFFs performed a song and dance once again this year. Other than some technical difficulties with the microphones in the beginning, they did perfectly!

Braden is in the jeans, Africa shirt and fedora.

They choreographed it  themselves and they worked really hard on it. They each practiced their own parts on their own time and they got together to practice as a group 5 or 6 times over the 6 weeks or so leading up to the talent show.

They’re already talking about what they want to do for the talent show next year!!

I’m SO proud of both of my boys!!! Can’t wait until next year’s talent show—Gracie is already saying she is going to be in it!

Show Day

Rhett took a karate class at the Little Gym this past semester. The last day of class, they had a show day where they got to show off their skills to the parents.

Jason was working in Rogers that afternoon, so he was even able to meet us there and watch too. We were so thankful for that!!

 

 

Way to go Rhett man!!! You are awesome!!

He liked the class ok, but it wasn’t a challenge to him at all and he got quite bored with it. Even though the class age limit went up to age 12, he was the oldest kid in the class.

We’ve talked with him about his next adventure. We discussed Taekwando, Gymnastics and Hockey.

His choice as of right now is Hockey. He is going to be starting an ice skating class in a couple of weeks. If he picks up the skating ok, the plan is for him to sign up for the hockey team. I think he could be really good at it with his body type and his personality. I hope he will like it! He’s tried several different sports, but so far hasn’t found the thing that he loves. So, we’re going to keep trying until he finds it!! If nothing else, he’ll sure be a well rounded little boy because he’s experiencing so many different things.

I’m so thankful to be able to provide my children with opportunities for extra curricular activities. I’ll admit, having 3 kids involved in so many different things is hard on me because of the schedule/transporting, going to all the practices, games, etc. BUT, I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

End of year school awards

First, there was Braden’s Spanish Awards.

Here he is receiving his certificate and ribbon on stage.

Each student was chosen to take part in some part of the ceremony. Some did skits, etc. Braden had originally been chosen to recite the pledge in Spanish, but he backed out because he was afraid he was going to mess it up.

He ended up having to dance….he was a little embarrassed… When we got home, he asked me if I videoed it. When I told him that I did,  he told me not to put it on facebook or the blog :) He’ll just have to forgive me later. Ha!

Next we had the end of year awards ceremony.

Both of the boys got awards in Math and Reading. Awesome job boys!!!

Rhett’s Bday Pool Party

The last Friday of school, we had some of Rhett’s friends over to the pool for a belated birthday party. His birthday was in April, but we were never able to have him a party, so we decided to just wait until the pool opened so he could enjoy a “summer” birthday party.

He wanted a Star Wars theme, a cookie cake and pizza. Also, he specifically wanted to put the candles in the pizza and NOT the cake :)

 

He had a great time and loved his party! He also got to have his first friend sleepover here and invited 2 friends to spend the night. He felt like such a big boy!

Happy birthday again Rhett!!

Mothers Day

I had a wonderful Mothers Day this year!

I opened my eyes to find these beautiful roses on a table at the end of our bed. My hubby is an early riser, so he’d already woken up and gone to the store to get me these by the time I woke up.

Here’s Gracie in some of her dress up clothes with my flowers.

Here she is holding my Mothers Day card she made for me.

Braden made me a homemade piñata in Spanish class. When he gave it to me he said, “the last step was to fill it with candy and I just realized I forgot that part…” :)

Here’s my sweet card from Rhett. The colored paper at the top is a paper flower. I especially love the award at the bottom!

Inside of Rhett’s card.

After we woke up, we got ready and headed to Silver Dollar City to spend the day. We met my parents and my brother and his family there. My mom got to spend the day with all of her children and grandchildren for Mothers Day!

When we were there it was the last day of the World Fest. We got to watch performers from Trinidad and Tobago. They were incredible. I could’ve sat there and watched them all day. Here’s Rhett doing the limbo with them. Gracie had just gone through.

Rides!

I’m so thankful to be a mother and thankful that I got to spend my mothers day with my mother and my family!