JonZReaTom

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-25T21:11:00.001-05:00

What a full day we had yesterday! Full of food that is! For the first time ever, I found myself responsible for the bulk of Thanksgiving dinner! All that Big Dinner practice finally paid off! Yea! It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed making all that food.

Jim fried a turkey (delicious!!!) and I made dressing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, ham, rolls, mashed potatoes, jello salad, and fudge pie. Whew!

It was a meal to be thankful for! And though we were unable to share it with family, we were delighted to share it with friends!

We have so many things to be thankful for this year! If I blogged all night, I wouldn’t have time to list them all! God has blessed us abundantly, our health, our happiness, our wonderful family and friends, our home, our jobs, a week off from teaching (ha!), so much that I should never complain about anything!

May you all begin this holiday season with minds full of many blessings!

Happy Thanksgiving from JonZReaTom!

Superlatives

2011-10-22T22:05:00.001-04:00

I realize this is really random, but it seems like a quick and easy way to capture some of the cute and quirky things that make my kids special at this moment of their lives. So, if five-year-olds got superlatives, here are the ones we would win.

Most likely to randomly lean over and give you a kiss and say I love you…Zachary

Most likely to be sent to timeout…Zachary

Most likely to sing really long songs that have no actual words in them…Thomas

Most likely to sing really long made-up songs with actual words…Reagan

Most likely to be kidnapped by his kindergarten teacher because he is so adorable you just want to take him home…Jonathan

Most likely to fall down on the soccer field…Thomas

Most likely to score on the soccer field…Thomas

Most likely to need to go to the bathroom IMMEDIATELY upon sitting down for a meal…Thomas

Most likely to ask for extra stickers or suckers at the doctor’s office so he can share with his siblings when he gets home…Jonathan

Most likely to come home with a green dot instead of a yellow dot…Zachary

Most likely to get in trouble at school because he is yelling at other kids WHO AREN’T DOING WHAT THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING…Zachary

Most likely to get in trouble at home because she’s screaming at her brothers…Reagan

Most likely to ask a bizarre out-of-the-blue question at bedtime to put off actually going to bed…Reagan

Most likely to visit Mom and Dad in the wee hours of the morning…Thomas

Most likely to do a chore without being asked…Jonathan

Most likely to tell you a story you don’t think will ever end…Jonathan

Most likely to ask a stranger in a waiting room to read her a story…Reagan

Most likely to name a pet Rainbow Heart Love…Reagan

Most likely to explain to you very intellectually why you are wrong…Jonathan

Most likely to explain with much crying and hysterics why you are wrong…Reagan

Most likely to just cry…Thomas

Most likely to throw himself in the floor while crying…Zachary

Most likely to still not eat chocolate…Jonathan

Okay, I better stop before this post takes you two years to read. I’m certain I could think of a hundred more. Some of you could probably think of a few as well! Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into our little lives! Happy weekend!

A Great Day

2011-10-02T08:24:00.000-04:00

Soccer in the morning. Painting in the afternoon. (Zachary actually painted! Twice!) S'mores and hot dogs over a campfire in the evening. It was a day for having fun! And a day worth remembering! I hope to have more days like this one!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

We’re Going to Keep this Box of Kleenex

2011-08-25T08:54:00.001-04:00

Today the kids went to kindergarten, each child to his or her own classroom.

That’s right, 4 kids, 4 teachers, 4 classrooms.

And I lost it.

I could have held it together to drop off just one child, but trailing from room to room dropping off one child after another was more than I could take. In fact, I’m tearing up right now just writing about it. By the time we dropped off Thomas at the last room, I was just short of sobbing.

I’m not sure why this is so hard. THEY were fine. The kids walked into their rooms and barely looked back. They were fine with being separated from each other. Their teachers were wonderful! Their classmates looked great too.

They were SO BIG. And maybe that’s it. My babies are so big now. They’re in SCHOOL. THEY GO TO SCHOOL!!!

I’m so excited for them, and I’m so proud of them. And I know that they will love school, but…they’re my babies…and they’re just so big.

And just in case you’re curious, this is what we took with us to school today:

8 boxed of crayons, 4 boxes of markers, 4 pairs of scissors, 24 glue sticks, 12 bottles of glue, 8 boxes of Kleenex, 4 bookbags, 24 pencils, 4 changes of clothes, and 4 bottles of hand sanitizer

So now I’m going to go to work and surround myself with teenagers and talk about Beowulf and hope that NO ONE asks me how kindergarten went because I really need to stop crying.

Memphis Trip!

2011-08-19T14:11:00.001-04:00

Just as I was about to leave for work this morning, Jonathan decided he needed to be sick. So I’m home instead of at school today! He’s doing much better and hasn’t thrown up in the last few hours, so I thought I’d take a minute and blog!

This will basically wrap up the summer for us! Finally!

In July we made one last trip, and I took the kids to Memphis to visit all the fam there. We had a blast, as always! We went bowling, played some arcade games, played on the slip n’ slide, hung out with the cousins, and bounced ourselves silly at the bounce house. It was so much fun! Pictures at the bowling alley were awful because I wasn’t allowed to use the flash, and the kids were just too fast for me to get any good ones at the bounce house, but here’s some shots of the slip n’ slide:

Cousin Kallen

Thomas

Cousin Kinley

Thomas and Zachary

Reagan

Thomas

Reagan and Kinley

Zachary

And don’t forget Baby Graham! He’s getting so big!

It was a great way to start the end of our summer! Up next: SCHOOL!!!

VACATION!!

2011-08-05T17:06:00.001-04:00

Over the 4th of July weekend, we took a vacation and went to visit friends in Virginia Beach! It’s a 10-hour drive from here, so on the way there, we split the drive and spent the night in Greensboro, NC.

We had made reservations at a Days Inn there, but when we arrived, we quickly decided that we DID NOT want to stay there. (Sorry. We prefer that the locks actually work.) So we relocated to a brand-new, super-nice Holiday Inn Express.

The next day we arrived at Michele and Matthew’s house! You may recognize them or some of their kids from pictures from Memorial Day weekend when we stayed at Matthew’s parents’ cabin.

We did actually go to the beach one day. It was so much fun! I wish we had been able to take more pictures than just this one, but it was really crowded, so we had to devote most of our attention to watching the kids.

The boys especially had a blast! Reagan was a little wary of the waves, but the boys were all about them, jumping and splashing up a storm!

Reagan and Katie really hit it off! Reagan LOVED having another little girl to play with! I wish I had a picture of the boys playing with Andy! They pretty much thought he hung the moon because he weapons AND Star Wars toys!

After church on Sun, we went to the Nauticus, a museum for all things naval and nautical, including an actual battleship you can tour!

Working the controls for the non-submerged submersible

Horseshoe crabs!

Who’s safer? The kids or the sharks?

Exploring the battleship Wisconsin was really cool. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t! But we still had a good time walking around and climbing up and down the ladders and looking at the massive guns! There’s a tour of the inside too, but the kids weren’t old enough to go on that one. I think you have to be 8.

Six hot, tired children! Jonathan, Zachary, Reagan, Katie, Thomas, and Andy

Before leaving, we stopped to make cards for our military to thank them for all they do!

Don’t forget me!

Yes, Baby Jack was there too! And he was a real trooper! So was his Mommy who carried his little sleeping self on her back for most of our sweltering tour of the battleship!

Monday was the 4th of July, and we mostly just took it easy and enjoyed each other’s company.

Still in our pajamas, but thoroughly enjoying the unexpected neighborhood parade!

Then it was time for the Slip n’ Slide! Best $5 Daddy ever spent!

Jonathan

Zachary

Katie

Reagan

Andy

Thomas

I want to slip n’ slide too!

Then we drove ten hours home the next day. Yuck!

What a special trip this was! It was so nice to spend time with old friends and watch all our kids play together! We really appreciate Michele and Matthew having a boy and a girl so close in age to our kids! Ha! And we also appreciate their willingness to share their home with us for a few days! Love you guys!

Birthday Surprises

2011-07-31T16:17:00.001-04:00

The kids’ party was the weekend before their actual birthday, but that was not the end of the festivities! We had more surprise up our sleeves!

We went to VBS that morning (at Farragut where my amazing friend Michelle was in charge this year. Every year I am blown away by what they do for VBS there! It is quite an impressive production!) So we had a big fun morning there, where I’m certain they told everyone they met that it was their birthday and they were FIVE!

Then Happy Meals for lunch!

Then a NAP to rest up for the BIG AFTERNOON SURPRISE!

Someone’s coming to see you for your birthday! Who could it be?

BUD AND KAYKAY

AND

KINLEY AND KALLEN!!!

The kids guessed that it might be Bud and KayKay, but the cousins were totally unexpected!

It was a short visit. They arrived Monday afternoon and left Wednesday morning, but it was a blast!

The girls, playing with mermaids

The boys, building with Legos

A story worth noting: Tuesday night after dinner, we all settled into the living room to watch the kids’ birthday slideshow. While we were watching, it began to rain outside and got quite windy. I happened to look out the front door just in time to watch the tree in our front yard bend almost over to the ground!

I yelled to Jim in the playroom that maybe we should check the weather, about the same time that he yelled something very similar to us in the living room because he had noticed the trees in the back yard. About that time the electricity went off and Jim sent us all to take cover in the bathroom.

Now, our guest bathroom is not that big, in case you’re wondering. At least, not when you cram in six small children and two-four adults, depending on whether the menfolk are in there or not!

Luckily, there were enough flashlights for every child to have one!

Also, luckily, the tornadic activity that occurred in Knoxville that evening did not happen near enough to our house to cause us any problems AND the loads and loads of trees that went down all over the neighborhood also did no damage to our house. So we were safe!

We all waited around for awhile for the power to come back on so we could finish the slideshow, but it never did. Eventually, Bud and company went ahead and left to go back to their hotel (our guest room is now a kids’ room. One more change that happened this summer). They had a terrible time getting to it though! The downed trees blocked their way!

That was June 21, by the way! If you live in Knoxville, you probably lost your power that night too!

Oh, well! It gave us a little unusual excitement! And it was a great visit! We wish they could have stayed longer!

The Big Five! Finally!

2011-07-28T14:56:00.001-04:00

Woohoo! I’m finally blogging about the kids’ birthday! (Thank you, David, for the yummy birthday cookies!)

THEY ARE FIVE!!!!!!

Really, it doesn’t seem possible. They’re still my babies! They shouldn’t be about to start KINDERGARTEN!! They don’t let babies into kindergarten, do they?

But, alas. They aren’t babies anymore. They are five. They pick out their own clothes and dress themselves and brush their own teeth and buckle their own seatbelts.

They are great big five-year-old kids.

And THAT, my friends, is worth celebrating!

We had big plans this year for the kids’ birthday party, involving lots of outdoor water fun and an overnight campout with the Indy cousins…but it didn’t quite work out the way we’d hoped.

Because it rained. And rained. And rained.

Oh, well. We made the best of it! Luckily little kids are perfectly content to just play with toys when there are extra kids around, so JonZReaTom and guests basically just ran around the house and played, and occasionally stopped for presents or cake!

The day started out well, with sunshine and pancakes!

Then it was time to make a camping cake! After picking bits and pieces from several other camping cake examples from Coolest Birthday Cakes and Family Fun, I came up with this:

It’s no professional job, but I was pretty proud of it! I loved the idea to use the candles for the campfire, and I LOVED the way the pine trees turned out. (The recipe is on the above-mentioned Family Fun site). The Bronco was Jim's addition along with its rock wall. No campout is complete without the Bronco!

Putting the kids on the cake was all my idea. I’m pretty proud of that too!

We are now well-armed with both Nerf guns and Star Wars light sabers. Luckily, the light sabers got a better reception from Reagan than the guns did. Perhaps because there were no other little girls opening up princess dolls at the same time!

Reagan enjoying a tea party with Kennedy and Cousin Avery

I wish I had taken better pictures. It was hard because the kids were constantly changing activities, and our house is not that big, so it was a little crowded with so many people in out of the rain! Oh, well!

It did eventually stop raining, and we were able to move to the backyard to grill out and pretend we couldn’t see how muddy the kids were getting.

Mud puddles!

And even though it was wet outside, we decided to pitch the tents and camp anyway! The kids just really had their hearts set on it!

In our pajamas with Cousin Avery, waiting for bedtime and enjoying some of our presents

(We won’t discuss the lightning storm that flared up in the middle of the night and sent us all inside)

So even though the day didn’t turn out the way we hoped, it was still a great day! We got to hang out with friends (our friends AND the kids’) and family (We’re especially grateful to PawPaw and NeNe and Clay and family for coming in from out-of-town to spend this special day!), enjoy some great food, and have a lot of fun!

Happy birthday to my little superheroes!

1 House, 12 Adults, 10 Children (age 5 and under), and 6 Dogs

2011-07-23T18:38:00.001-04:00

Doesn’t that sound like fun?

For Memorial Day weekend, we went to visit our friends John and Sue, the parents of our good friend Matthew, at their thankfully-quite-large mountaintop cabin and take part in a get-together that used to happen fairly often before we all had children and spread our homes all over the world. (We also went here and one other time that I can’t find a post for)

It was a jam-packed weekend, full of fun, catching up with old friends, and the joy of watching the next generation play together.

To give us all a break from a very full house, we went one day to Tweetsie Railroad, an amusement park in North Carolina geared mostly toward younger children. It was PERFECT for our crew of kids and they LOVED it!

Thomas on the carousel

Cousin Avery, Zachary, Thomas, and Cousin Tyler on the boat ride

Thomas and Reagan on the rocket ride

Matthew and son Andy relaxing in the shade

Unfortunately for me, one of the early rides we went on was the Tilt-a-Whirl, a ride I will never go on again FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! I should have known better and never ridden it in the first place! BUT I THOUGHT I WOULD BE OKAY! Most of my problems in the past have come from waiting in long slow-moving lines in the heat, so that I was sick before I even got on the ride. This time, it wasn’t that hot and the line was super-short! I thought I could do it.

I couldn’t.

Here, look at pictures of other happy adults riding with happy children!

Aunt Carey and Uncle Clay with Cousin Tyler and joathan

Jim with Reagan and Thomas

I rode it one time. And apparently turned genuinely green. I managed to not throw up, but was pretty much useless for the next hour or more while I tried to overcome my nausea. There was a lot of sitting still with my eyes closed while whispering to the kids to please not touch me and motioning to Jim to please stop asking me questions.

Stupid Tilt-a-Whirl.

Anyway, I eventually got over it and was able to enjoy the rest of my time. In addition to the rides, there were also shows, a music one and a magic one. We watched both, and the kids even got to participate in the magic show!

For the big finale, the poor magician ended up with every kid in the audience on stage, all of them asking for keys because a couple of kids were asked to hold keys and then every other kid wanted one too. It must happen pretty often because the magician handed out keys to all of them and didn’t want them back. It was great!

Daddy with Reagan and Thomas

Reagan, Zachary, Jonathan, Andy, and Thomas

One of the highlights was the train! An actual working steam engine that pulled a line of open cars around the park! During the ride, we got to see re-enactments of a bank robbery, cowboy shoot-out, and Indian attack. By the time we stopped at the fort, the train had been taken over by cowboy bandits who held us for hostage! Jonathan actually turned to me and asked if the bandits were going to shoot us! I assured him it was all pretend! Then the cavalry came to our rescue and we returned to the station where the “bandits” handed out bullet casings to all the kids!

The whole gang, minus most of the dogs

It was a wild few days, but SO much fun! Many, many thanks to John and Sue for allowing us all to descend upon their house and create mass chaos!

Oh, and big thanks to Carrie too for being so great at entertaining the kids and for inviting the Pirate Fairies to visit! So fun!

Next up, JUNE!!!

What’s in a Name?

2011-07-14T15:24:00.001-04:00

Apparently quite a bit!

Today at VBS we learned about how Jesus has a name, that he received his name from God, and that it means “God saves.”

Jesus’ name is special and we all have special names too. As part of the theme of the day, one of the activities the kids did was find out what their names mean. Apparently God secretly influenced the naming of my children because they are quite appropriate, one in particular!

I admit that what the kids’ names mean is not something Jim and I considered when we picked the names. We both liked the name Reagan and chose three more presidential names to go with it. (For the full story, read HERE.)

Little did we know…

Zachary means “remembered by God” as in “God remembers Zachary every day and protects him from incurring the complete wrath of his parents who are driven absolutely bonkers by his whining and constant car noises.”

Jonathan means “gift of God” and fits him perfectly. God knew how rough it would be sometimes to raise quads, but at least He took pity on us and gave us Jonathan who often makes the rough times just a little bit easier.

Thomas means “twin”!!!!! How cool is that?!? Not only does it make sense because he’s a multiple, but also because according to JIM’S ENTIRE FAMILY Thomas is practically a clone of his daddy. Daddy’s little twin!

Reagan. If you thought the other names made sense, wait til you hear this one! Reagan means “little queen”! Are you kidding me? It’s like we waited until after she had been around a couple of years and then chose the exact name that matched her personality!

Coincidence? Oh, no, no! God knew exactly what He was doing when He picked these names and put them in our heads!

What about you? Does your name fit you perfectly?

Different and Wonderful

2011-07-12T21:03:00.001-04:00

This year for Mother’s Day, Jim wanted to do something out of the ordinary, something different from the usual take-mom-out-to-dinner standby, so he planned a picnic lunch after church.

But it wasn’t just any picnic lunch!

We picked up sandwiches at Subway after church and rove out to Norris Dam State Park where there is a beautiful park area and easy walking trails. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in a shady spot, and then took some time to make pictures, taking advantage of the scenic backdrop!

Conveniently, these are also the outfits we didn’t get pictures of when the kids wore them on Easter!

Jonathan

Zachary

Reagan

Thomas

After pictures, we went for a little walk. (We changed our shoes first!) If you’ve never been out to Norris Dam, it’s a really pretty park. There a picnic area, trails, campsites, fishing, boating on norris lake, etc. We chose a really easy, mostly shaded walking trail, but I believe there are more challenging trails there too.

By the end of our walk we were a little hot and a lot thirsty, but we had such a good time! It was so beautiful there! I can’t wait to go again sometime when the weather cools off!

Big thanks to my sweet husband for making Mother’s Day so special!

Because Indianapolis Needs More Quads

2011-07-10T14:15:00.001-04:00

Jim’s brother and his family have recently moved to Indianapolis, so we went to see them over Easter weekend and check the city out. If it hadn’t been our first trip there, I would have tried to organize some double quad madness with the Murray Crew, but I just didn’t have it in me for this trip. Hopefully, we can pull that off on a future visit! Not sure how Reagan will like it with four MORE boys, though!

Anyway, we had a blast in Indy! They have the most amazing children’s museum there! Check it out!

There were Transformers!

And vehicles you could actually drive!

And dinosaurs!

And Barbie! A whole exhibit dedicated to Barbie!

And spaceships!

And windows to peek through!

And trains!

And most importantly, family to have loads ad loads of fun with!

And that barely touches the surface of that museum! We were there for HOURS and still didn’t see everything!

We also had fun at a nearby playground! Jim got some GREAT pictures!

Make way for ducklings!

Cousin Avery

Mad faces!

All the cousins! (from the top and left to right) Tyler, Zachary, Reagan, Jonathan, Thomas, Avery

We also took the kids bowling for the first time!

And even with all of this, we still managed to find some time to just hang out at the house and enjoy each other’s company!

Okay, and grade some papers. A teacher’s job is never done!

Unfortunately, the one thing we didn’t do was get pretty all-dressed-up-for-Easter pictures. Partly because of the rush we were in to get to such a large crew to church on time that morning and partly because of the POURING RAIN and partly because we had to leave right after lunch to head back to Knoxville. Oh, well. We still had a GREAT time! Thanks so much guys for letting us come! Love you!

Working Together

2011-06-25T22:19:00.001-04:00

In case you haven’t noticed, I have four kids.

FOUR.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have siblings. Probably most of you. I have a sister. I love my sister! But we DID NOT always get along growing up. If you have siblings, I’m certain you didn’t either.

But I only had ONE sibling.

My kids each have THREE siblings. That’s three other kids who are constantly around you to take your stuff, want what you have, invade your personal space, and agravate you ON PURPOSE JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN.

So when they all four came together and actually built a structure TOGETHER without a single child getting his feelings hurt, with no fighting, no fussing, no whining or crying, NOT ONE SINGLE UNHAPPY MOMENT FROM START TO FINISH!!!

It was worth taking a picture. I present my simultaneously pleasant children and their Monument to Sibling Peace Everywhere.

PS—I feel certain that shortly after this picture was taken they all jumped up to knock the monument down, during which time Zachary stepped on a block and commenced wailing, Thomas made sudden leap of spasmodic excitement, accidentally punching Reagan in the stomach, ad she fell over screaming and knocked Jonathan into the side of the couch. Everyone was yelling, and no one said he or she was sorry.

I did not feel the need to take a picture of THAT.

Marching Along

2011-06-22T15:40:00.001-04:00

Okay, back to catching up. I really want this DONE!! I want to talk abut their BIRTHDAY and turning FIVE and KINDERGARTEN!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Okay, so I got these cute pictures on St. Patrick’s Day:

Kiss us! We’re Irish! At least if you go back far enough in the family tree, we are!

Our beautiful Reagan!

Now, Jim and I have often been told how beautiful and well-behaved and sweet our kids are. AND THEY ARE! But they aren’t ALWAYS. Sometimes they are like this:

Or in some cases, this plus whining or crying or all sorts of obnoxious unhappy noises and fussing because he hit me or she took my whatever or I don’t like this kind of chicken or this is not the show I want to watch.

blah, Blah, BLAH

ALSO IN MARCH, we celebrated my birthday! Yea for me! The best part was the surprise party Jim and the kids threw for me the day before my birthday! It was a Thursday, and I’d had to stay late after school because it was Parent Conference Night. I got home late, exhausted, and hungry and opened the door to this:

The kids’ artwork decorating the kitchen and a stack of presents! (Please excuse the pile of stuff in the background. We were painting the playroom)

Jim had taken the kids shopping and let each of them pick out a gift for me. THEN he took them to the grocery store to pick out a cake. Three children immediately pointed to the chocolatey-ist one they saw, and then everyone looked at Jonathan. BECAUSE JONATHAN DOESN’T LIKE CHOCOLATE. And Jonathan said:

I don’t like chocolate, but Mom does, so we should get the chocolate one for her because it’s HER birthday.

I swear, he’s one of the sweetest children on the planet sometimes. I love all of my kids and they all have their sweet moments, but of the four, Jonathan is most likely to think of others before himself.

And Jonathan's sweetness on top of the fact that my kids were big enough to choose presents for me and big enough to write their own names on the card was more than I could handle and tears were definitely shed over those special moments and the thought of how quickly my babies are growing up.

I may go cry some more now.

Happy Father’s Day!

2011-06-19T16:41:00.001-04:00

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and granddads in our life, especially my dad and my husband! I love you!

In honor of Father’s Day, I’m skipping ahead in the summer posting catch-up to the BRONCO RALLY!!

In case you don’t know this about us, we have a Bronco.

And Daddy LOVES the Bronco!

So this past April we overnighted in Townsend (the kids’ first hotel stay! Who knew hotels were so much fun!) and spent some time with other people who also LOVE THEIR BRONCOS!!

And we had a super-awesome time!

The kids in front of the Balloon Chaser Bronco Ambulance

Now, for those of you who don’t know much about Broncos, they generally seat four people, five if three squeeze themselves into the back bench seat. BUT WE ARE A FAMILY OF SIX. So that’s a problem. Except my husband is a genius! He figured out how to put TWO bench seats in the back of the Bronco, lining them along the sides, facing each other, like the back of an Army truck. Voila! Room for all four kids in the back! Once we get some harness straps installed back there, we’ll be ready to roll all over town!

Until then, we can still take the Bronco to the rally and show off Dad’s handiwork! The seating arrangement is an unusual one, so it got a lot of attention from the other rally-goers. And JonZReaTom got a lot of attention too!

So what do little kids do at a Bronco rally? Surprisingly, a lot! There was a Kiddie Olympics with all sorts of sporting events and a medal and a basket of goodies. There was an Easter egg hunt with eggs that had actual money in them! And let’s not forget the coloring contest and awards ceremony! We almost missed the announcement of Reagan winning SECOND PLACE in the coloring contest!

The boys all won honorable mention. They didn’t get a big trophy like Reagan, but they did all get to pick out their own Matchbox Bronco toys!

And don’t forget that there were some really cool Broncos to look at!

The boys really liked the monster Bronco

Suzy’s was Reagan’s favorite!

Dad’s favorite was ALL of them!

It was a great, exhausting weekend! I have no doubts that we’ll go again next year!

Happy Father’s Day everyone!

Memphis Milestones

2011-06-19T13:43:00.001-04:00

For Spring Break, I loaded up the kids and drove us all to Memphis, BY MYSELF FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!!! And by the grace of God and very carefully timing stops with the ends of movies and the distribution of food, we managed to make the trip quite successfully. I was really proud of how patient the kids were with the fact that I couldn’t climb back there to retrieve every dropped toy or pass out snacks just whenever. BECAUSE I WAS DRIVING FOUR FOUR-YEAR-OLDS SIX HOURS ACROSS THE STATE OF TENNESSEE!

So why take on this crazy journey? Because I couldn't wait any longer to see MY NEW NEPHEW!!

Baby Graham was born at the end of January, so we HAD to go and see him! Isn’t he a cutie?

Bud and KayKay’s SEVEN grandchildren!

Aunt Jojo’s house is SO MUCH FUN! We had a great trip even if it wasn’t very long. Love you guys!

And the Fence Was just Gone

2011-06-08T15:18:00.001-04:00

Apparently we didn’t do much in February, except mourn the loss of our fence.

You see, it rained a little that month. And a little more, and a little more, until eventually there was A WHOLE LOT OF RAIN which created A WHOLE LOT OF FLOODING.

I was just leaving work one afternoon when I got a call from my neighbor Liz. She wondered if I had been home yet, and since I hadn’t she said we’d had some flooding in the neighborhood and she thought something might be wrong with my fence. Then she said she and her husband Chip would be home and to call if I needed any help.

Help? Surely I wouldn’t need any help!

As it turned out, she was speaking conservatively about the flooding that had occurred in our cul-de-sac. She said later that she didn’t want to freak me out.

When I got home, I freaked out anyway.

You couldn’t really tell from the street that there had been any damage, but I could see the backyard through the kitchen window as soon as I got inside.

I gasped. Literally. My hand covered my mouth. I rushed to the back door, barely registering that the carpet around it was wet, and went out on the patio.

I called Jim. I don’t think I actually panicked, but I must have sounded like I was on the verge of hysterics because he left work and came right home. I also must have been babbling because although I’m certain that I told him on the phone that the fence was GONE, he was shocked to come home and find that the fence was REALLY GONE.

Two whole panels had broken off and were lodged on the bank on the other side of the creek.

The rest of the fence along the creek had collapsed towards the creek. LOOK AT THE DEBRIS ON THE FENCE! You can imagine the water rushing through our yard, trying to get back to the creek, crushing against the fence until over it went. And don’t fail to notice that the timbers that bordered our play area are now resting on the fence too!

Part of the problem was that not only had our fence collapsed, but so had our retaining wall! See the posts sticking up in the air? They used to be horizontal and covered by yard!

The deluge started here, in the overflow ditch. You can see where our fence fell down into our yard, pushed over by the water rushing to fill the ditch. When the ditch overflowed, the water went two directions: across the yard toward the play area where it then crashed into our fence headed back to the creek and between our house and Laura's where it knocked open the gates on its way to the street.

According to Liz, when she came home from work, the entire cul-de-sac was flooded and she couldn’t even get to her house. The water covered the whole street and flooded the entire downstairs of the house across from us! That poor couple had JUST MOVED IN within the last month.

Here you can see how high the water was as it rushed towards the street! UP THE MY KNEES!!!!!

And here along the back of the house! Luckily, the only water that got into our house was in the corner of the playroom near the door. At first we thought the water had come through under the door, but then Jim remembered he had recently removed some caulk along the bottom of that corner because it looked bad and he wanted to replace it. He just hadn’t gotten to it yet. Oops. At least we know that our house is watertight as long as the caulk is not compromised! (Jim has fixed the caulk, by the way)

So in the end, we had to replace the carpet in the playroom and have the fence repaired. This also involved Jim fixing the retaining wall. Interestingly, the only portion of the retaining wall that wasn’t damaged by the flooding, was the part on the end nearest Liz's house, the part that Jim had constructed himself! The part we paid someone to do had not fared as well.

So Jim rented an excavator and got to work! And with a little help from me, he made the wall better than ever! (He even taught me how to drive it! Now I have a skill to fall back on if the teaching gig doesn’t work out!)

We’re so thankful the damage wasn’t any worse than it was!

And I’m glad I was at work when it happened! I can’t imagine being at home and watching all that destruction while it was happening! STARING IN FEAR OUT THE WINDOW WHILE THE WATER SWEPT CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE HOUSE AND DESTROYED MY BACK YARD RIGHT BEFORE MY VERY EYES AND THE EYES OF MY TERRIFIED CHILDREN!!!!!

Yea. I’m glad I missed out on that.

I Got a Gun.

2011-06-05T13:23:00.001-04:00

Okay, before I get to more snow, here’s a cute story to finish up the visit from the cousins.

In addition to celebrating Tyler’s birthday, we also celebrated Christmas, so there were presents for all the kids to mark the occasion. Clay and Carey had decided to get the kids each a Nerf gun. Tyler loved the one he got for Christmas, and they knew our kids would love them too.

And they did! At least, three of them did.

Reagan, admittedly, was not thrilled with her present. You could see the thoughts in her mind.

It’s a gun.

I’m a girl.

There’s nothing pink or sparkly about this thing.

Of course, as wise adults, we all knew that she would enjoy the gun and be SUPER MAD if all the boys were running around shooting up a storm and she didn’t have one. But that didn’t mean anything to Reagan right then.

It meant even less when Avery opened HER present…Disney princess dolls! In all their sparkly princess glory!

Reagan was SO disappointed! And Uncle Clay felt SO bad! It didn’t matter that she’d play with the gun like crazy. It only mattered that she was sad right now.

I think Clay was ready to hop in the car and run to Target, when we remembered that we had some spare toys hidden in the closet BECAUSE YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO NEED SPARE TOYS! One of those spare toys happened to be a Disney Ballerina Belle!

We quickly threw Belle into a bag and Clay gave her to a very delighted Reagan!

Since then she has definitely learned to appreciate the fact that she has a gun too. She may not like it as much as the boys like theirs, but she knows it’s good to be able to defend yourself against your brothers!

Visits from Family

2011-06-03T16:38:00.001-04:00

The rest of Christmas Break was filled with family!

First Bud and KayKay…

…then Uncle Clay, Aunt Carey, and cousins Tyler and Avery!

Avery and Reagan

Reagan in the Christmas dress my mom made for my sister when she was little! (Or was this one mine? I can’t remember. We both had one, just in different sizes!)

Tyler

As we usually do when we get together around this time of year, we celebrated Tyler’s birthday! He turned FOUR this year!

Jonathan, the angry birthday monster!

Static Electricity!

While the cousins were visiting we also had visits from Aunt Jayne…

…and Pawpaw and NeNe!

It was a VERY busy Christmas Break! I could have used one more week before school started back! Oh, well! School started back whether I was ready or not!

Coming up…more snow!

Snow Days

2011-05-31T16:15:00.001-04:00

It’s currently 92 degrees outside, so maybe these snow-filled pictures will cool us all off!

It snowed here the day after Christmas, and three out of four Harris children had a blast playing in it! Zachary said, “No, thank you!” to the cold wet weather and stayed inside.

The bushes probably didn’t enjoy the day nearly as much as the kids did!

Let the Posting Begin!

2011-05-31T12:22:00.001-04:00

It’s ~~Spring Break~~ Summer Break! Time to blog about Christmas!

Grrr…it’s really ridiculous that I’m just now getting to this! I seriously started this post back in March. Oh, well! On to Christmas!

By all means, go back and read “Must Finish Christmas Before February” so that these Christmas posts flow better and my sad posting abilities become THAT MUCH MORE OBVIOUS!!.

The theme of this year’s Christmas was Toy Story!

It started with Jonathan asking for a pull-string Woody. He had seen one at target and wanted it ever since. Zachary promptly asked for Buzz. And after watching Toy Story 3, Reagan said she wanted Jessie and Thomas wanted Bullseye. We were grateful none of the kids wanted any of the seriously CREEPY toys from that movie!

Santa managed to find a really cool Woody/Buzz combo where the toys actually talk to each other! We were thrilled to death with it…until we discovered that Woody didn’t have a pull-string. WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE A WOODY DOLL WITH NO PULL-STRING!!!!! WHY, SANTA? WHY?!? Jonathan had specifically asked for a PULL-STRING Woody, over and over. He never forgot to mention the pull-string.

We debated sending Santa all the way back to the North Pole to get a different one.

Santa was not happy about that.

We decided to compromise. This Woody was really cool, so maybe Jonathan would be okay with it. Santa promised he’d bring another one, if Jonathan didn’t like this one.

So we waited til morning…

The first thing Jonathan did was turn Woody over and look for the pull-string. When it wasn’t there, his arm dropped down. He was so disappointed! We knew he was just seconds from dropping Woody on the ground, one of those slow-motion falls, just like in the movie, where poor Woody falls and falls spinning into toy oblivion.

Quick! Quick! Damage control! Push the buttons! Show him Woody talks! Show him how Woody talks to Buzz!

Luckily, this was cool enough to revive excitement about Woody and Santa was saved from an emergency trip to get another one!

Seconds later, the kids noticed there were actually other presents too, and stockings, and Reagan almost brained herself trying to get her stocking down. She pulled the incredibly heavy stocking holder down too, but managed to somehow catch it, saving us from a trip to the ER!

The rest of the day was PLAYTIME!!

Finally, it was time for bed. The day was done and so is this post! Merry Very Belated Christmas everyone!

Lesson of the day

2011-05-28T16:54:00.001-04:00

Note to self: mom does NOT need to ever ride the Tilt-a-Whirl again. EVER.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Daddy's Little Girl

2011-05-07T10:42:00.000-04:00

Last night, Reagan informed our good friend Michelle, "Mommy's smarter than me...but Daddy's smarter than EVERYBODY!"

Jim says it turns out that Reagan is the smartest of all. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Third Time's the Charm

2011-04-24T12:23:00.001-04:00

Started post at Spring Break. Never finished.

Wrote one two days ago but it disappeared instead of posting.

This one may too, so I'll just say Happy Easter from JonZReaTom! We're looking forward to summer when there will hopefully be tons of time for blogging...

About the rest of Christmas

About visiting cousins

About Bronco rallies and trophy winning

About mom working

About impending kindergarten!!!

Stay tuned!

Must Finish Christmas before February!

2011-01-22T16:32:00.001-05:00

aka Christmas Eve!

On the day of Christmas Eve, we took a trip to Jasper to visit some of Jim’s relatives. It was our first trip back since the Severe Cat Allergy Discovery of Aught Nine! We did some pre-trip medicating and kept and eye on him, and this time there were no issues! Hopefully that means it won’t be over a year before we make it back again!

The kids opened presents, and we had a delicious meal! Of course, they kids’ favorite part of the meal was the appetizer course when Aunt Kathy gave them all the grapes and crackers they wanted!

We even got to play outside for a little bit!

Thank you Granny Kat, Gammy, and Aunt Kathy for hosting us so fantastically! We had a great time! Love you all!

After the visit it was time to head home and get ready for Santa to come!

Since we were gone all day, we weren’t able to make cookies for Santa, but luckily I attended a cookie swap prior so we were able to provide Santa with a variety of homemade goodness…probably much more than Santa really needed!

The kids were so excited they could barely be still for the picture, especially Thomas, as you can see! At least in this shot he hasn’t jumped completely out of the frame!

Despite their excitement, the kids went to sleep really fast. They knew Santa wouldn’t come until they did! Yea!

Never Leave Your Droids with Reagan

2011-01-12T11:03:00.003-05:00

Jim has been sharing bits and pieces of Star Wars with the kids recently. They LOVE it! As long as there is action going on anyway! It’s been fun to watch them pick up on the characters that Jim and I love so much and then use those characters in their own imaginative play. It has also been rather enlightening…

Yesterday, Jim was playing Star Wars with Reagan, Jonathan, and Thomas. Reagan, of course, was Princess Leia. Jim was the bad guy, presumable Darth Vader. He snatched up Princess Leia and dared anyone to try and save her. J jumped up, “I am RD2 (we’re working on the names) and I will save the princess!” and ran at Daddy. T jumped up, “And I am C3PO and I will save the princess too!” And he ran at Daddy also. Daddy Vader is overcome by the droids, allowing Princess Leia to escape. Now Daddy Vader’s arms are free, and he scoops up the droids, one under each arm. Looking at Princess Leia, he booms, “Now, who will save the droids?”

To which Princess Leia responds nonchalantly, “Well, they aren’t really my robots, so you can just throw them in the trash.”

2011 Books

2011-01-10T17:47:00.004-05:00

Woohoo! New year, new list of books! Last year I managed to read 24 books! Not too shabby! Certainly better than the 19 I read the year before! Still nowhere close to Becky or Michelle, and I assume they both beat me at the Pulitzer race also, but that’s okay. The reading is fun no matter what!

I didn’t love the ranking system I used last year, simply because I feel the need to explain why I ranked each book the way I did, but I liked it better than writing out a mini-critique for every book, so I’m going to use it again. here it is:

1-3 I wish I could burn all copies of this book
4-6 Had a few things going for it, but definitely not my favorite
7-8 I enjoyed or got something out of this book, worth reading
9-10 One of the best, highly recommended

It will be interesting to see what gets read this year, since I have gone back to work. I predict a lot of classics because I’ll need to read them in order to teach them! As always, there will be a link in the blog sidebar, so check back every so often to see how I'm doing!

Happy reading!

1. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riorden-- For myself, I give it a 4 because I found it unbelievably predictable, but as a book for the grade 6-9 crowd, its intended audience, it’s probably more like an 8

2. The Blind Side by Mike Lewis--8--I particularly enjoyed the fact that much of the story took place in Memphis. If you enjoyed the movie, you'll also enjoy the book!

3. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley--8

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee--10

5. Macbeth by William Shakespeare--9

6. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare--9

7. 1984 by George Orwell--9--I'm certain I enjoyed this book more this time than when I read it in high school!

Visiting Santa

2011-01-10T17:18:00.002-05:00

Last year we went to see Santa at The Bass Pro Shops and had a really great time, so we decided to go again this year. We went on a Sat afternoon with the kids all dressed cute for a picture, but when we discovered that there was a three hour wait to see Santa, we decided to come back some other time!

The next time, we planned ahead. Jim went early and got us a time slot. (There may have been some pity for the poor family with quads involved in fanagling that time slot!) We picked the kids up from preschool and went straight to BPS. Unfortunately, the kids were not all dressed cute this time, but that was okay.

Santa was super-excited to see us again this year and requested a special picture be taken so he could have one for himself!

Official Christmas Pics

2011-01-10T16:58:00.002-05:00

Apparently I’m both a glutton for punishment and a stubborn holder of tradition because despite being insanely busy at the end of last semester, I still insisted on dressing the kids up for official Christmas pictures. I couldn’t help it. We do them every year! To not do them would have been entirely too sad!

We took hundreds of pictures (May God bless the inventor of digital cameras!) and once we weeded through all the ones where someone is looking the wrong direction, or jumping, or lying down, or poking a sibling, or making a silly face, or smiling creepy, or has his eyes closed, etc. (and most of those were Thomas) we ended up with this little gem:

And a couple honorable mentions (not many, it’s really hard to get good pictures of all four kids at once!):

Honestly, despite the frustration, I love taking Christmas pictures! Once you get a good one, it’s all worth it!

After the picture came the hardest part for me…turning over the Christmas card creation duty to Jim. I really wanted Christmas cards, but I just didn’t have the time to do them myself, so I asked Jim to, and he did a FANTASTIC job! I did carve out time to do the addresses, but I didn’t write a single thing in any of them. Okay, that was even harder than letting Jim make the card. I hate sending out cards without writing in them. Sorry everyone! I just didn’t have time! It doesn’t mean I don’t love you!

Belated Christmas Posts Begin!

2011-01-10T16:09:00.002-05:00

This is the scene from my front window today, just one of several days of snow we’ve had so far this winter! You can barely tell where the road is. So maybe I can get a post or two done, maybe! And if school is closed tomorrow too, then I’ll try to get a couple more!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

2010-12-18T21:40:00.002-05:00

Although our time has been more limited this year, we are doing our best to keep up with past traditions.

We put up my vintage aluminum tree first and spent plenty of time staring at the color wheel as it lit up the room with changing colors.

The following weekend we put up the tree and the rest of the decorations. We had planned on getting a live tree this year, but the weather was not cooperative, and we decided we just couldn’t wait any longer! It was a little chaotic (okay, a lot chaotic) and I may have had a small OCD moment when I went a little crazy because the kids were unpacking ornaments without putting the wrappings back in their appropriate boxes, but other than that it went pretty well. We did have to stop at one point to back up from the tree and point out to the kids the thick four-year-old eye-level ring of ornaments they were creating (leaving the tree otherwise empty on the top half and very bottom) and encourage them to spread the ornaments out a little better!

And this year it was Zachary’s turn to put the star on top of the tree!

Last weekend, we went to Bass Pro Shops to see Santa, but had to postpone the visit when we realized there was a THREE AND A HALF HOUR wait!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me?!?!?!? At least the store is fun to walk around in, so the kids weren’t too disappointed! We’ll try again soon!

Other than that, we’ve just been madly scrambling to get the shopping done or at least partly done. God bless the man that invented Amazon! The crazy weather hasn’t helped! We missed school three days this past week because of snow and ice! Before Christmas! That’s unheard of! It has certainly thrown a kink in the final exam schedules!

Oh, well! Somehow we will manage to get everything done! And it will be great! I’m looking forward to every minute of it! Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving in a Nutshell

2010-12-18T18:26:00.002-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving in Memphis this year and had a blast! It was a quick visit since I needed to get back to prepare for going back to work that coming Monday. Here are the best shots from our visit:

I know, it’s not much. Apparently, we didn’t take many shots on the trip. I think Jim and I were both a little preoccupied with all the changes our lives were about to take! Oh, well! They’re cute anyway!

Thanks to everyone who made our visit a great one! It was especially nice to get to visit a little with the Perkins clan and share an absolutely delicious Thanksgiving meal with them!

Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving!

Learning to Write

2010-12-18T18:01:00.002-05:00

The kids are learning to write, which means they write their names a lot since those are the best words to write! Here’s a few shots of how they are doing these days:

Obviously, there’s lots of room for improvement, but I think they’re doing pretty well so far!

Christmas is Coming!!!

2010-12-18T17:48:00.002-05:00

AND WE ARE NOT READY!!!!!!

I’m sure that comes as a surprise to no one! It certainly is no surprise to me! We have been crazy busy since I went back to work, but it’s been a good kind of busy!

I’m really enjoying working again, although I DON’T love getting up before the sun every morning! I’ll be glad when I no longer have to drive to work in the dark!

The kids are LOVING preschool! There’s always so much for them to do and so many other kids to play with! They are so social; it’s really been great for them to be back in a classroom!

Cute preschool-related story: Reagan and Zachary lucked out and got in the same preschool class as a little girl they went to preschool with last year! Since she already knew them, she (and her mom most importantly) also knew Thomas and Jonathan even though they are in a different class. So when this little girl had a birthday party last weekend and invited all the other kids in her preschool class, she also invited T and J from the other class! (Yea! No explaining why Z and R get to go to a birthday party, but T and J don’t! We dread that day!) Anyway, we went to the party, and everyone had a great time, but Jim and I were MOST entertained by Zachary who spent almost the entire party following another little girl around! It was SO CUTE! He kept chasing after her, yelling her name. Luckily, she didn’t seem to mind!

Now, I’m going to attempt to shoot out a quick series of posts that will likely be heavy on pictures and short on words! Enjoy!

Drum Roll, Please

2010-11-26T21:25:00.002-05:00

After months of debating and weighing all the options and lots of waiting…

I’m going back to work!

You thought I was going to say I was pregnant, didn’t you!

No, no new baby. At least, not for me! There is a new baby on the way for my friend whose teaching position I am taking over. I’m so excited for her and so excited for this new chapter in our lives!

I start work on Monday teaching senior and sophomore English and will finish out the school year. The kids start all-day preschool on Monday, and they are super-excited too! I think they have really missed preschool this year. I know Reagan has especially missed having other little girls to play with!

So our lives are about to change DRAMATICALLY, probably in ways we haven’t even thought of yet (and believe me, we’ve thought about this A LOT!)

So please keep us all in your prayers as we adjust to this new phase in our lives. I will continue to update the blog as best I can, but don’t be surprised if large chunks of time go by without a new post. We’re going to be SO BUSY!

Cousins, Take Two

2010-11-17T08:29:00.002-05:00

The day after Jonathan got his stitches, Jojo and Co. arrived. This group included Aunt Jojo, Cousins Kinley and Kallen, and Bud and KayKay. It was a big group!

We returned to the Fruit and Berry Patch, and Kinley and Kallen got to enjoy their first corn maze!

Zachary, Kallen, Reagan, Kinley, Jonathan, Thomas

After the corn maze, we went to the pumpkin patch, but the lure of pumpkins was nothing compared to the lure of animals. The sheep were out in the pen opposite the patch, and the kids had a BLAST feeding them spilled corn from the ground. Thanks KayKay for picking up so much corn for all the kiddos!

Jojo and her girls (and her soon-to-be boy!)

Since the pumpkin patch did not provide exactly the pumpkins we were looking for, we stopped at the other pumpkin patch on the way home. (It did, however, provide some really delicious apples!)

The next day we went to the East TN Discovery Center. We had never been there before, but had some free passes, so we decided to check it out. It wasn’t quite as fancy as I expected from looking at their website, but the kids had fun! There were lots of science experiments, all very hands-on.

There was even a planetarium there! Unfortunately, the presentation was a bit over the heads of our crew.

Is it love or a need for extra body heat? Could easily have been both! It was FREEZING in the planetarium!

Then we went out for ICE CREAM!!!!! Yum!

Another quick and busy visit, but so much fun! Thanks for coming you guys! We love you!

Next post? BIG NEWS!

This Time We Stopped at Three, So Far

2010-11-15T22:05:00.002-05:00

The week after our Indiana cousins left, we immediately began getting ready for the next set of cousins…and promptly we got sick.

Reagan started running a high fever. When she complained that her ear hurt, I thought for sure that she had an ear infection. Not wanting to put that off another day, I called the dr immediately. It was late in the afternoon, and they could only work us in if we came RIGHT THEN, so I packed up ALL THE KIDS and headed for the dr’s office. As it turned out, Reagan didn’t have an ear infection, BUT she did have strep! So it turned out to be a good thing that I had to bring all the kids with me because then they could ALL be checked for strep.

Jim met us at the office and took this picture with his phone. Four throat checks=four popsicles!

So that was Thursday. Aunt Jojo and Co. were set to arrive on Sunday, so Saturday was a big cleaning day. At least, it was SUPPOSED to be!

Jim headed out that morning with a friend of his, hoping to FINALLY get into the woods. This trip had been postponed twice already. The kids were playing. I was cleaning. And then, there it was…the piercing cry of a child who is actually really hurt. I rushed from the kids’ room where I’d been putting away laundry and found Jonathan in tears, crying out something about his head. Apparently, he was spinning in circles in the living room and fell, hitting his head on the coffee table.

Do you have any idea how many times a day my kids hit their heads on stuff? ALL THE TIME. So I thought, okay, he’s hit his head. Hold him. Make soothing noises. Comfort him until he stops crying.

But wait…What is all over the back of Jonathan’s shirt?!?

And then I saw it drip…the blood…from the back of his head.

My kids have had a lot of bumps on their heads, but never any that bled, so I have to admit that now I was the one who needed comforting because I started to get a little panicky. But I sucked it up and forced my voice to stay calm as I explained to Jonathan that he had a booboo on his head and I wanted to take him into my bathroom to get a better look at it.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t a large cut, but it looked deep, and I didn’t know what to do. Did he need stitches? I don’t know anything about stitches! I never in my life had an injury that required stitches! But I was pretty sure he needed stitches.

So I called Jim. He was about two miles from his exit to the woods. I made him turn around. I didn’t really have a plan at that point, just a vague idea that I needed to take Jonathan to Children’s and I would have to do something with the other kids and I needed Jim. Luckily, since he wasn’t standing in our bathroom looking at our son and his bloody shirt, he could be a little more rational. He suggested I make some phone calls and see if someone could come over and watch the kids until he got home and I could go ahead and take Jonathan to Children’s. Brilliant! In the end our wonderful neighbor Scott drug himself out of bed (he had just gotten back in town about 4:00 that morning) and came over to watch the kids while I left with J.

All this time, Jonathan had been GREAT. Since he couldn’t see the blood himself, he didn’t freak out about the injury, and he was really good about holding the rag to his head to help with the bleeding.

I managed to get him to Children’s (bloody shirt and all), and THEY WERE WONERFUL! All of the doctors and nurses, and there were strangely a lot of them, were so nice and helpful and so sweet to Jonathan.

They put a numbing cream on his cut so he barely noticed at all when they did the stitches. And since they called them “string band-aids,” he didn’t even know he got stitches!

It’s kind of hard to see, but his stitched-up cut is right there in the middle of the picture.

Jojo and Co. arrived the next day (post coming next, I hope) and their visit continued without further medical needs for anyone, but then the day after they left, my ears were yet again assaulted by piercing cries of pain. This time it was Thomas.

The kids were playing in their bedroom. Thomas was in the closet. The door was open. The door was shut. Open. Shut. Open. Thomas stuck his fingers in the crack between the hinge side of the door and the door frame.

Shut.

He screamed and screamed. I was terrified his fingers were broken, but he would barely let me look at them. He just kept crying and screaming, “Put on a band-aid! Put on a band-aid!” Since that was the only way he would let me touch him, I did. His middle finger was already turning purple and there was a bad scrape along the cuticle on that finger and the next two. They didn’t seem to be swelling which I took as a good sign, but I was afraid they might, so I tried to make the band-aids loose since I anticipated having to remove them later when he was calmer. I gave him some pain medicine and an ice pack and put him down for a nap, since he practically begged me for naptime. I called Jim and the dr’s office. They said to keep an eye on it and let them know if it got worse instead of better.

Thankfully, it didn’t get worse. Here’s a picture I took of his fingers a couple of days later. It’s been a couple of weeks now, and his middle finger still has a dark purple area under the nail.

It’s been a couple of weeks now since Thomas hurt his fingers, and so far Zachary has not been injured or gotten sick enough to need to see a dr. Hopefully, in THIS instance, we can be content to stop at three.

Why isn’t the Other one Working?

2010-11-15T21:06:00.001-05:00

This is just to check and see if I can publish a post from LiveWriter to the blog because the program on my laptop is refusing to cooperate.

Cousins, Take One

2010-11-08T23:18:00.002-05:00

The weekend after the backyard camping trip, Uncle Clay and Co. came to visit. It was a BUSY weekend, but we had so much fun!

Saturday night we all went to the Kerbela Shrine Circus. It was JonZReaTom’s first circus! They loved it! And so did their Cousin Tyler! (Cousin Avery was another matter entirely. Poor thing, she was SO tired!)

Sunday afternoon we hit a couple of pumpkin patches. First we went to The Fruit and Berry Patch, a JonZReaTom tradition. It felt a little weird to be there without Michelle, David, and Abby, but it was pretty nice to get to go with Daddy!

Daddy and the kiddos headed to the corn maze.

Reagan is REALLY excited to be there!

Jonathan, Thomas, Reagan, Zachary, Avery, Tyler—at the beginning of the corn maze

The corn maze is always my favorite part. David was always leader before, but this time the kids took turns choosing which paths to take through the maze…that is until the adults got tired of walking around in circles, and then Uncle Clay led!

We lucked out when we came out of the maze and were able to hitch a ride on the tractor.

Daddy with Thomas and Jonathan

Reagan

Avery and Tyler

Zachary (and you can just barely see Aunt Carey behind him)

Unfortunately, the actual pumpkin patch was kind of sad this year. So on our way home we stopped at the “pumpkin patch” at the Methodist Church across the street from our neighborhood.

Reagan LOVED this bumpy pumpkin!

WHY??

Jonathan, Reagan, Zachary, Avery, Thomas, Tyler

And we still found time to just play, play, play in the backyard!

I love this picture!

Avery

Tyler

I love this one too!

It was a packed weekend, but we loved every minute of it! Love you guys!

Halloween for All and All for Halloween!

2010-10-31T13:27:00.002-04:00

When the fair Princess Reagan finds herself in peril, who can she call on for help? Who will always come to her aid, no matter the danger to themselves? Who are those brave young men, so gallant, so handsome, so adorably costumed?

It can only be…

The Three Musketeers!

All for one and one for all! Happy Halloween!

Camping!!

2010-10-27T17:08:00.002-04:00

We promised the kids months and months ago that we would take them camping this summer, but we put it off at the beginning because Zachary wasn’t potty trained yet. Then we put it off because this summer was hot as blazes and who wants to sit around a campfire in that kind of heat? And then before we knew what had happened, it was October!

The first weekend of the month was plenty warm in the daytime, but nighttime temperatures were pretty chilly. Jim and I went back and forth about whether to camp out in the backyard that weekend. We spent Friday night setting up for Saturday’s garage sale and still didn’t make a decision. All day Saturday we discussed it. Finally about 6:00 Sat. evening, we finally decided to just do it! If we got too cold, we could always go inside. If we didn’t do it that weekend, we wouldn’t have another chance until the end of the month.

So we, mostly Jim, went to work. I put the kids in warmer clothes, and they went out to help Jim put up the tent.

Daddy built a fire and we ate dinner outside. We roasted marshmallows to make s’mores and just had a blast! The kids LOVED it! They especially loved getting to use the Coleman LED Quad Lantern Bud and KayKay gave them for their birthday! It’s the perfect lantern for a set of quads because each of the four lighted sections detaches from the base as an individual lantern too.

It was no hardship to get them to go to bed either. They were thrilled to get to sleep in their sleeping bags in the tent and had been begging to “go to bed” all night. Luckily, they had had no nap that day and really were exhausted, so they fell asleep in no time!

Reagan and Jonathan on one air mattress

Zachary and Thomas passed out on the other one

It’s a pretty sight, isn’t it? After the kids fell asleep, Jim and I stayed up awhile talking around the campfire. It was a fun night for us too! Then we crawled under the blankets on our own air mattress, and it was sleepytime for all!

Now, it really was cold that night, but since we were right in our backyard, we hooked up a couple of electric heaters and kept them in the tent all night, so it was quite comfortable in there. Still, Daddy worried that the kids would get cold and constantly got up to check on them and cover them up. Me? I’m not the worrier. I figured if they got cold, they’d start whining, and I’d deal with it then. As it was, the kids slept great! Thomas was the only one that made a sound all night. At one point, he sat up and said, “Daddy?” Daddy answered. “Momma?” I answered. He was satisfied we were both there and laid back down and went to sleep. Poor Daddy hardly slept at all. I slept somewhere in between.

It was a great experience, but kind of bittersweet. My kids slept in a tent in the backyard. We CAMPED with our kids! That means…MY KIDS ARE OLD ENOUGH TO CAMP! It’s just one more example of how they’re growing up, which is both joyous and sad at the same time. I don’t have to explain it. All you parents know exactly what I’m talking about.

Next time…the woods!

GOAL!!!

2010-10-23T15:29:00.002-04:00

Well, like all things blog-related, this is late making it, but we have successfully completed our first season of organized sports! This fall the kids played soccer, and they really enjoyed it!

We signed them up with AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization). Their “team” was really just a huge group of boys and girls in our area who were all 4 or 5 years old. Every week we had one practice/game night. When we arrived for practice, the kids were split up boys and girls. They would practice for the first half of the evening and then be split up into teams of four to play a game. The four-person teams were different from one week to the next. The main goal of the season was not to teach the kids all that much about soccer, but rather to have them out on the field having fun.

Here are a few shots (okay, a LOT of shots) of the kiddos having fun:

Jonathan #14

Can you tell how much the uniforms swallowed my kids? Especially Jonathan! The shirts hung down to their knees and the shorts hung almost to their ankles.

Thomas #13

Thomas was always falling down, but he often seemed to be doing it on purpose. I know many of you and not surprised to hear that!

Zachary #16

By the end of the season, the boys had really made some progress. In the final game, all three of them scored at least one goal!

Thomas

Reagan #3

Reagan had a lot of fun, but I think she enjoyed the social aspect of it more than anything. She just liked running around and playing with girls for a change!

Zachary and Thomas

Reagan

Water break!

Reagan

Don’t forget Coach Daddy!

Carter played too! (In fact, it was Josh and Cris’ idea in the first place!)

Kennedy wanted to play too, but she’s just not old enough!

Jonathan, Thomas, Zachary, Carter, Reagan

(Notice where Carter and Reagan are sitting!)

At the end of the season, all the kids got a medal for participation. I think that might have been their favorite part!

We had a lot of fun playing soccer this fall. I’m sure it won’t be the last season we play. Thanks to all of you who were able to come out and watch! The kids loved having an audience they actually knew!

Love Blooms at the Beach

2010-10-20T15:32:00.002-04:00

Just when you think I might actually write about something else, here comes the beach again!

I just wanted to mention what fun we had that week watching Carter and Reagan together. Carter was not shy about sharing his preference for being with Reagan. He regularly wanted to hold her hand or sit beside her, and she was generally accepting of his attentions. So we, especially Cris and I, had fun imagining ourselves as future in-laws and planning to use some of the following pictures in the wedding video when our kids get married.

Of course, I’m fully aware that the likelihood of these two becoming future sweethearts is pretty slim, especially since Reagan informed me a few days ago that she’s going to marry David when she grows up.

Ah, young love!

Our Trip Comes to an End

2010-10-13T16:49:00.002-04:00

Gracious, it takes me too long to do things! I hope to finish off the beach trip here. There will probably be a lot of pictures and not so many words!

These first pictures came from Josh and Cris and would have gone on previous posts if I’d had them at the time.

Jonathan, Reagan, Kennedy, Carter, Zachary, Thomas—outside the Old Oyster Factory, our first dining adventure of the vacation. The 5 big kids all got free shirts and had to wear them immediately!

Kennedy

Reagan, in her beach bed

Me and my girl

Go Vols! Josh puts the finishing touches on his and Jim's masterpiece, the Power T!

All our little Volunteers! If only we’d had orange sand!

Carter and Kennedy

JonZReaTom at the water’s edge

Me and Kennedy

The rest of the pictures are all from our last night in Hilton Head. I forced everyone to participate in formal beach pictures! :)

Thomas

Josh and Cris with Carter and Kennedy

Me and Jim with Jonathan, Zachary, Thomas, and Reagan

all the kiddos

Everybody!

After the formal pics, we just ran around and enjoyed our last evening on the beach.

Our beautiful daughter

Our handsome sons

Our wonderful friends

And that ends the beach trip! We spent the rest of the evening packing all our things back up, then got up at the crack of dawn and hit the road.

But the fun times didn’t stop when we left Hilton Head! We’ve been super busy ever since with all sorts of other exciting adventures! Stay tuned!

On the Town

2010-09-28T15:33:00.002-04:00

We did venture into Hilton Head a time or two while on vacation (I know, you thought I was done talking about the beach trip, but HA!! I fooled you!)

So we left the Palmetto Dunes area where our “beach house” was and went to see the marina and lighthouse in Sea Pines.

As we were walking along, we came across a statue (below) of a man eating a sandwich while reading a book. How cute! Let’s have all the kids sit around the statue like they’re being read to! It was a great idea, but in the process there was a tragic collision between Jim's tennis shoe and one of my toenails.

So we finished the picture, and then I hobbled my bleeding foot over to the nearest bench to assess the damages.

I managed to find ONE tissue in my purse, which I used to mop up the blood as best I could. The toenail on my right big toe had ripped up in an unfortunate way, but not off, luckily. I was able to stop the bleeding, but not really clean it off much. My bloody toe was not a pretty sight, so I went digging in my purse yet again and discovered ONE band-aid.

That’s right. Lightning McQueen.

Oh, well. I’m a trooper, and although my toe really hurt and I basically limped the rest of the evening, I tried not to complain (at least most of the time) or ruin any of our plans.

Kennedy

We had lots to look at and do in Sea Pines. We enjoyed just walking around and looking at the huge boats, and there was a great big stage for the kids to dance on!

Thomas learned all his best moved from his dad!

We even climbed to the top of the lighthouse! I was really impressed by how well the kids did walking up all those stairs. They were troopers too!

Zachary, Thomas, Reagan, Carter, Jonathan, and Kennedy

After the lighthouse, we needed AIR CONDITIONING, so we decided it was time to eat! We were hot and thirsty, so it was really nice to get inside and sit down and have something to drink.

Our little diva

Later we visited a second marina beside the Salty Dog Cafe. There the kids got to play on the playground, we bought them some shirts, and everybody had ice cream!

After this, I must admit that my patience was wearing thin. My toe was throbbing, we had walked and walked and walked, and I was SO HOT. I was ready for this day to be done.

Goodbye, Salty Dog!

Bathing Beauties

2010-09-19T15:43:00.002-04:00

We loved the beach, but we also loved the pool! With the Puddle Jumpers, the kids felt comfortable enough to float all over the pool. They loved that freedom!

Beautiful baby Kennedy

Mama and her ducklings

I told Jonathan that he was my little water bug because he LOVED the water so much! He was the only one to voluntarily (and happily) put his whole head under water. I even coaxed him out of his floats for some real swimming. I hope the kids can take swimming lessons next summer!

Do I look like a bug to you?

Reagan

Zachary, loving life away from the stairs

Zachary and Daddy

My COLD little water bug

Heading back to “the beach house”

More to come! I hope to get finished soon!

Makin’ Waves

2010-09-16T15:46:00.002-04:00

One of the purchases we made in preparation for this trip was buying Stearns Puddle Jumpers for each of the kids. Carter already had one and loved his, and I was interested in having different floats from the ones we had last year. Last year’s floats weren’t certified as lifejackets. They were to aid in floating while gradually teaching to swim, or something like that. Anyway, mostly they were good at flipping the kids on their stomachs and plunging their faces in the water. I didn’t want to use them again. The Puddle Jumpers were FABULOUS! Coast Guard certified, adorable, comfortable. The kids loved wearing them! We highly recommend them!

The floats made the kids really comfortable in the water, both at the ocean and the pool! Here are a few shots of them enjoying those ocean waves!

Jonathan

Thomas

I couldn’t get enough of watching Zachary enjoy the ocean! I’m SO GLAD he loved it this year!

Reagan

Well, I’m out of time! More soon!

To The BEACH!!

2010-09-14T15:59:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned before, we’ve just returned home from our trip to the beach! We had so much fun, and what a difference a year made in the kids and their enjoyment of the beach too!

We had a blast in Ft. Morgan, AL last year (read about it here and here and here) with my family, but four (not quite) three-year-olds at the beach did present its problems. Getting them ready was a HASSLE since none of them could put on their own swimsuits well, all of them had to have swim diapers, and they fought tooth and nail against sunscreen applications. Plus, Zachary wouldn’t go within ten feet of the ocean after being knocked down by it the first night and wouldn’t come off the stairs in the pool. A fun trip, but with its share of headaches.

BUT THIS YEAR! Oh, so different! No swim diapers. They dressed themselves. They only mildly protested sunscreen because it was cold. They ALL, even Zachary, loved the ocean and the pool!

This year we went with our good friends Josh and Cris and their kids Carter and Kennedy to Hilton Head, SC. We stayed in the Palmetto Dunes area of Hilton Head, at the Windsor II. It was quite different from having a whole house to ourselves like we did last year. Our condo had 4 bedrooms and 4 baths, plus a living room and fully-equipped kitchen. It was a perfect space that worked really well for us. In the picture below, you can see our balcony. It’s the one with all the towels!

the grounds

the boardwalk to the beach

It was a beautiful area, and our condo was really nice. I think we really lucked out on the time of year that we went because it wasn’t too crowded. At the height of the summer season, with the Windsor II full, and all the other developments around it full, I imagine the beach can get pretty crowded. I don’t think we would've enjoyed our time there as much if it had been really crowded.

Here are a few quick shots of the kids enjoying the beach one evening after dinner.

Jonathan, Thomas, Reagan, Carter, and Zachary testing out the water’s edge (How far can we go before our parents yell at us for getting our clothes wet?)

Thomas

Jonathan

Zachary

Well, that will have to do for now! Don’t worry, there are tons more pictures and stories to share! More soon!

Missed us?

2010-09-12T14:10:00.001-04:00

Well, as much as we love you, we have not missed you! We've been at the beach! Woohoo! And we had a blast!

So I promise to post beach pics soon. And after that, SOCCER!!!

The Potty Plan of God

2010-08-23T22:57:00.002-04:00

It is with great joy that I write these words:

My children are officially completely potty-trained!! ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m ecstatic! I’m giddy!

The potty-training chapter of our life is now over, and it was hands-down the hardest thing we’ve ever done. I know the future holds more challenges for us, but I can’t imagine another developmental stage that could even come close to matching this. It’s been AWFUL.

And because it’s been so awful, I have A LOT to say about it, so I’m warning you now. The rest of this (really long) post is pretty much going to detail the struggle we’ve had in potty-training Zachary and how it all finally turned out well, thanks to GOD! So if you don’t care about potty training, feel free to move on to the next blog on your reading list! BUT if you DO care about potty training, if you are struggling to train your own child(ren), read on and find hope!

My first attempt to potty train the kids began early November 2008 (2008!!!! That’s almost 2 whole years ago!!!!) It was a failure. As the months have passed by, training in its different incarnations has continued. You can read through the different posts here, if you want: April 2009, May 2009, July 2009, October 2009. By Feb 2010, Jonathan, Reagan, and Thomas were all fully trained both day and night.

But not Zachary.

At that point, when all the other kids had moved on to full-time underwear, he was still in Pull-ups, only using the potty if you MADE him, and mostly doing his business wherever he happened to be. I feel certain he was the only child in preschool who wasn’t potty trained, and every day that went by with him making no progress toward BECOMING potty trained, the more guilty I felt about him being in preschool at all.

But Zachary didn’t care. He didn’t care one bit, and I couldn’t find anything to make him care. None of the incentives that had enticed the other kids were good enough for Zachary. I mean, he loved getting stickers or candy or whatever for using the potty, but not enough to actually motivate him to do it on his own.

It was a very discouraging time, as friends and family with much younger children announced their pottying successes, while Z continued to make no progress at all.

I told myself it would be fine. No child starts Kindergarten without being potty trained, right? I just needed to get through preschool. When it was summer, we could stay home every day, all day, for lots of consistent potty training efforts, and Z would have it figured out in NO TIME!

Plan Z for Zachary began on June 8. My unofficial goal was a potty trained child by his 4th birthday on the 20th. My plan failed.

The first few days were promising. I let him wear underwear all the time if we were home which he LOVED. We only wore Pull-ups if we were going somewhere. I reminded him frequently to use the potty, and when he did he got candy and heaps of praise. Those first days I devoted nearly every waking minute to him and he had very few pee accidents. However, as soon as I didn’t devote every waking minute to him, the accidents began to increase.

On June 22, I lost it! After playing outside, Zachary came in the living room, laid down in the chair, and just peed all over himself and the chair, WITH A LITTLE POTTY SITTING RIGHT THERE IN THE SAME ROOM. I lost my ever-loving mind! All of my frustration with Z’s potty habits spilled out in a loud, angry tirade centered around how that was completely unacceptable behavior and it would not continue for a single minute more. I made him clean the chair and I sent him to his room. After calming down, we had a very firm discussion about the CHOICES he was making about pottying and how they were absolutely going to change or there would be consequences. And for the first time, I began punishing him for his accidents (the #1 ones). His punishment was that he had to clean it up, he got a 15-min time-out, and he was banned from all TV viewing for the rest of the day.

This worked for about 3 days, and then he didn’t care about missing TV anymore and went back to having accidents.

I was completely discouraged. I was a failure. I was failing my child. What was I doing wrong? What was wrong with my child? What else could I possibly do to help him learn to use the potty? It was all I could think about. I searched and searched the internet for answers, but could find NOTHING that I had not already tried with no success.

And then it hit me. All my plans had failed. MY plans.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

I had to face the truth and admit that I couldn’t do it. I WAS NOT CAPABLE OF POTTY TRAINING ZACHARY. I JUST WASN’T. I had to let God do it. That may sound ridiculous, but it isn’t.

And so I began to pray continuously for God to teach Zachary to use the potty, for Him to help Zachary want to use the potty, for Him to guide me to His plan so I could do what He needed me to do too.

And He did.

The very next day it struck me like lightning. All of the internet searching I had done looking for help, I had always searched for “potty training problems” and I found nothing that helped. What I needed to search for was “potty training OLDER CHILDREN”!! You can think whatever you want, but I know that God put that thought in my head as an answer to my prayers. I did the search and almost immediately I found this article:

“Toilet Training Problems” by Dr. Barton Schmitt, MD

It was a gift directly from heaven. The article is written specifically about older children who struggle to use the potty and outlined the plan that this pediatrician gives to his parents when their children struggle.

I put the plan into action that very day. Here’s the simple version: focus just on peeing in the potty at first, give the child full responsibility for using the potty (that meant I no longer reminded him constantly to do it), and use the perfect incentive, which turned out to be TV.

Every time Z peed in the potty, he got to watch a show. If he didn’t pee in the potty, he didn’t get to watch a show. It was that simple. After explaining the plan to him the first day, I only mentioned it when he would ask to watch TV. “Only if you pee in the potty!” And I never reminded him to go.

AND IT WORKED!

Zachary went 9 days straight without a pee accident, nights included. This also included our trip to IN to visit Uncle Clay and family, even the car ride! I was amazed!

Praise the Lord for He is good!

I decided it was time to add poop to the equation. I was anxious. VBS was coming, and I wanted him to be done before VBS. I,I,I.

I used the same plan as I had done with pee. If you poop in the potty, you get to watch TV. If you don’t, you don’t.

It didn’t work. Again, it was my plan, not God’s. And I will honestly admit that when I made the decision to do it, I really didn’t feel peace about it. God knew it was too soon. He tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen.

Zachary did not poop in the potty, and after a couple of days with no TV, he quit peeing in the potty too.

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Start over. Be patient. Trust in Me.

So I started over. I made a chart and hung it up in the playroom. The chart had 28 blank squares, 4 rows of 7. We went back to watching TV every time Z peed in the potty, and at the end of every accident-free day he got to write a letter of his name in a square. Luckily Zachary has 7 letters in his name! When his name was spelled, we had completed a week with no accidents. I wouldn’t even think about poop until we had completed 4 accident-free weeks IN A ROW. I felt that that was a decent amount of time for peeing in the potty to become a habit.

Of course, I couldn’t HELP thinking about poop. I talked to Z all the time about how he needed to put his poop in the potty. Jim talked to him. I tried not to get on him too much for his poop accidents, but some days my frustration was higher than I could handle. I was not always as encouraging as I should have been. But I did my very best and continued praying for God’s guidance (and deliverance!).

One Sat was one of those frustrating days. Z had gone 3 weeks straight with no pee accidents, but continued to poop in his underwear EVERY TIME. That morning when he pooped in his underwear AGAIN, that was it. I had had it! I reached my limit of poopy underwear! I WAS NOT GOING TO CLEAN ONE MORE PAIR OF POOPY UNDERWEAR!!!! So I took the underwear away.

Zachary was now half-naked. He went bare bottom the rest of the day and didn’t poop anymore. Sunday he wore a Pull-up to church, but we went back to bare bottom when we got home. No poop all day. I let him have some underwear to sleep in that night. He pooped in them.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Monday we went back to the bare bottom. Around 10:30 he told me he needed to poop. (He had said this before, but never actually pooped. He did, however, get to spend a lot of alone time with mom listening to stories while sitting on the potty) I didn’t really believe him. I told him to go ahead to the potty, and I’d “be right there.” You know, in a couple of minutes when it’s more convenient for me. He went, sat on the potty AND POOPED!!!!!!!!!!!

“Mom! Come and see!” he shouted from the bathroom. He was so excited! I was so excited! The other kids were so excited! I gave him back his underwear! We called Daddy at work! I gave him a present! I gave him another present! I gave him brand new underwear! Daddy left work and came home just to hug him and say how proud he was! We danced and cheered and gave him candy!

I was so excited I couldn’t stop giving him things!

That was Aug.16. He hasn’t had an accident of any kind since then! Yesterday I let him wear underwear to church AND HE POOPED IN THE POTTY AT CHURCH! That meant he actually had to SIT on the big potty which was another thing he had never done!

I’m just so proud of him I can hardly wipe the smile from my face! (Unless it’s cleaning time. I smile very little then) And I’m proud of me too! But not so proud that I don’t remember who really deserves the credit here. I fully believe that if I had not surrendered the responsibility of potty training Zachary to God, he would not be pooping in the potty today. And I’d be crying in a corner. Yes, I did it too. Yes, I found a plan that worked. But it was not without God’s guidance. Thank you, Lord, for potty training my son.

Whew! I know, that was horrendously long! Kudos to you if you read the whole thing! Now, get up and stretch and do a little victory dance with me!

They’re on the Shelf

2010-08-20T22:59:00.003-04:00

The kids, that is.

These are just a couple of cute pictures I came across that somehow missed getting posted a couple of months ago when they were taken. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

We won’t discuss the mess that was created to clear off the shelves so each child could have his own…or the battle that was waged to get said mess cleaned up after the kids tired of playing on the shelves. We will merely focus on how cute they are in their teeny bunk beds.

There are Never TOO MANY BUNNIES!

2010-08-17T15:52:00.002-04:00

I have to give great big thanks to my friend Michelle for introducing me to the book Too Many Bunnies by Tomie dePaola.

In this adorable story, Mommy and Daddy Hopkins give the children the task of readying the radish garden while they go to the store to buy carrot seeds. Each bunny has his own task, but they all try to do their jobs at the same time, creating a big mess. When the parents return, they straighten everything out by teaching the kids the importance of organization and taking turns.

But here’s the best part!!!!! The bunny children include a set of quintuplets, a set of QUADRUPLETS, a set of triplets, AND a set of twins, plus one singleton! This is the first children’s story I’ve come across that actually has characters in it who are quadruplets! My kids love it! Thanks, Michelle!

Things We Love #5

2010-08-13T22:58:00.002-04:00

We LOVE Crayola Paint Brush Pens!

Let’s just be honest. I don’t like messes. Why? Well… they’re messy! And guess who usually has to clean them up? ME!!! So letting the kids paint indoors is not something I like to do, but it’s been so hot outside this summer that painting OUTSIDE is impossible. Luckily, Crayola has rescued my kids from a paint-free summer.

These brushes are FANTASTIC! They are just like painting with watercolors but without the mess! And with four mess-prone little ones, that makes me really happy! They don’t drip. There’s no cup of brown rinse water to knock over. And there’s practically nothing to clean up! Just put the caps on, hang up the masterpieces, fold up the tablecloth if you used one, and DONE!

Reagan

Jonathan

I’m pretty sure we got these pens from Gammy and Granny Kat a couple of Christmases ago, and they are still hanging in there! If you don’t have any for your little ones, you might want to consider adding them to your art supply!

By the way, Crayola did not pay me to write this lovely review of their paint pens. They did not provide me with the paint pens. I don’t get anything if you buy their paint pens, except the satisfaction of knowing I influenced someone else’s purchasing decision. And that’s only if you tell me.

Happy painting!

This Is How You Stand When You’re Cool

2010-08-09T22:58:00.002-04:00

I was in the kitchen the other day, and the kids were playing in the living room, when I heard Reagan ask Jonathan, “Why are you standing like that?” His answer:

“This is how you stand when you’re cool.”

Well, that was something I needed to see! After all, I want to be cool, so I need to know how to stand! Apparently, you need to stand like this:

I think the look on your face is just as important as the way you actually stand, as is the presence of your blankie! All the cool boys are carrying them these days. Aty least, they are at my house.

And in case this look is too difficult, the other kids were quick to offer their own equally cool stances. You’re sure to find one that works for you!

Zachary rocked his now-classic Superman pose. He doesn’t need the costume to be a super-cool superkid!

Reagan has achieved a level of coolness that is not for beginners. The foot placement is definitely only for those with advanced degrees in cool. And please note Jonathan in the background, still cool.

When I asked Thomas how he “stands cool,” he just started jumping around like a crazy person, and then wanted to see the picture. I told him he had to be still for me to take a picture, although I kind of wish I had just done a video. Here he is standing still AND cool.

And yes, he picked out his own clothes that day. He’s not just cool. He knows fashion too.

So I hope this has been of help to you. Check back often for more ideas on how to be cool the JonZReaTom way!

Nature Nook: Garden Update

2010-08-02T22:56:00.002-04:00

We have really enjoyed our garden this summer. The kids have loved going out with Daddy to harvest the vegetables, even if they don’t like eating any of them! Here’s a shot of our garden in its prime, before some sort of pest killed off our squash plants. Sigh.

Our plants got much bigger than we expected. The okra plants are taller than the kids! And our harvest has been bountiful indeed! I think we’ve collected our weight in cherry tomatoes! (To see our baby garden, click HERE)

But growing a garden has also been incredibly interesting! Most of you probably know that this flower turns into a squash…

…but do you know what this one turns into?

It’s an okra blossom!

Hmmm…maybe the okra growing beside the blossom sort of gives that away. Well, I found it fascinating! Isn’t it gorgeous?

And our mystery bean? Look! It actually grew a bean!

Unfortunately, I didn’t pick it at the time, and the next time I went out, I couldn’t find it because there was too much cherry tomato in the way. So it’s still a mystery. What kind of bean is that? Anyone? I’m just glad I got a picture of it! I’m amazed it grew at all!

What fun the garden has been! If you didn’t plant a garden this year, make an effort next year! It doesn’t have to be much! You’ll be amazed too!

The Rest of the Fourth

2010-08-02T22:16:00.002-04:00

After our fun at the park, we headed down to the river. It didn’t smell very good, but it was pretty and very windy which was nice because it was HOT!

Waving at the barge—we were disappointed it didn’t honk at them, but convinced ourselves there must have been a law against it! Who wouldn’t honk at these adorable children waving on the riverbank!?!

We took a walk down the riverside to a little memorial park, but discovered on the way that Zachary’s shoes were giving him blisters. I carried him the rest of the way to the park, and he is HEAVY! So that kind of hindered our walk, and we headed back pretty quick. Lucky for me, Jim carried Zachary on the way back. Too bad for Daddy, Reagan wanted to be carried too. Thank goodness Daddy is super-strong!

Down by the river was also a museum that had a train engine that you could actually get in and climb around. It was a highpoint for the kids who LOVED getting to see a train so close-up, especially Zachary who LOVES trains! But it was also a low point since we went to great lengths to be there at noon when it opened only to wait around and discover that it was closed for the 4th. THERE WAS NO SIGN ANYWHERE TO TELL US THIS!!!!! We just waited and waited and finally Clay went to the main museum to figure out what was going on and found out they were closed. It was such a disappointment!

Oh, well. We’ll try again the next time we visit! We had so much fun, the next time can’t come too soon! Thanks Uncle Clay and Aunt Carey for letting us come and overtake your home! Love you guys!

The Next Big Trip

2010-07-30T23:50:00.002-04:00

Memphis was not the only super fun trip we’ve taken recently. We went to visit Uncle Clay and Aunt Carey for the Fourth of July. It was our first trip ever to their house, and we had a wonderful time!

Uncle Clay set up a water-filled wonderland in the back yard, and the kids had a blast! The sprinkler was going so that it sprayed the bounce house, and the kids couldn’t get enough of it!

Cousin Avery, cutie pie

The kids loved Cousin Tyler’s tee ball game!

The next day we went to a local park. It was an amazing park with these fancy wooden playsets shaped like ships and things. They were beautiful! But probably not designed by parents because it was impossible to see the kids running around behind those lovely, artistic walls. So Jim and I were a little stressed trying to keep up with all of them, but Clay and Carey were great help, and at the end of the day, the kids LOVED IT!

Can you find the children hiding in this playset?

I love this picture!

Avery, Tyler, Jonathan, Thomas, Zachary, Reagan

So fun! More to come! Have a great weekend! Go do something fun! Preferably someplace air-conditioned or watery because I don’t know about you, but it’s way too hot outside for anything that doesn’t involve one of the aforementioned items!

Nature Nook: the Birdfeeder?

2010-07-24T23:29:00.002-04:00

The kids received a birdfeeder for their birthday, and we were all so excited to fill it up and hang it up and wait for the birds to come! We hung it from a tree limb we could see from the playroom. Then we waited…

In the days to come we spotted robins and cardinals and a couple of birds I couldn’t identify, but the most frequent visitor to our birdfeeder wasn’t a bird at all. He was, however, lots of fun to watch!

Every time we scoot the birdfeeder out along the limb, the squirrel(s) come along and scoot it back to the trunk so they can get at it better. It’s fascinating to watch them hang upside down the way they do, as if hanging on by a single toenail! They’re so entertaining I find myself not minding too much that they’re eating all the birdfeed!

The End, Really

2010-07-24T00:14:00.002-04:00

That’s the plan anyway! It’s taken me longer to write these posts than we were even IN Memphis!

Our last day was Sunday, Kinley’s actual birthday, so we had some fun making this day special for all the kids.

First, the carousel! My kids had never ridden one before, and at least half of them loved it! (The Z/R half was afraid to ride any of the animals, and the bench is not nearly as fun)

And then, the train!

Next, an ear piercing! Kinley was SO brave. I hope Reagan doesn’t want her ears pierced next year. I’m pretty sure I’ll tell her no.

Zachary, Thomas, Jonathan, KayKay, Reagan, Kinley, Kallen

Feel the love!

After dinner at the food court and Daddy’s surprise arrival (Yea! We missed you, Daddy!), we went back to Bud and KayKay’s for a birthday party for ALL the cousins (all 6 of them have summer birthdays).

We had cake and opened presents and just had a blast. It was a great trip! Thank you to ALL our Memphis fam for all the fun times and new experiences! You guys are such a blessing to us! Love you!

Arty Party

2010-07-21T21:51:00.002-04:00

Our trip to Memphis also happened to coincide with Cousin Kinley’s birthday party! The kids were so excited when they found out that they would get to go to Kinley’s party! Every day they asked if we were going yet!

Kinley’s party was art-themed because the girl LOVES art!

All the kids at the party (and there were a LOT of kids) got their own apron to wear. Such a cute idea! Then they all got a paper bag and some markers to decorate it for goodies later.

The BIG art activity of the day was finger-painting!

Super messy, but oh-so-fun!

Well, for most of the kids…

Poor Zachary. Art is not his favorite thing, and this is not the first time he has refused to participate in a painting activity.

Check out my talented sister’s adorable cake:

After cake and presents, it was piñata time!

The kids used the the bags they decorated at the beginning of the party to hold all the goods that fell from the piñatas. It was a great party, and we had so much fun!

After the party, all the family stayed to hang out some more. Before we got our evening going, Jodie wanted a group pic of all the cousins. All ten cousins piled up, and we started snapping pictures…

…then Jodie interrupted, insisting that Kinley hold this balloon in the picture…but, wait, what does that balloon say?

Wow! Aunt Jojo and Uncle Jeff are going to have another baby! Yea! (I’m assuming that it’s okay to make this announcement here, since she already made it on her own blog!)

The rest of the evening was just fun and relaxing, that is except when my kids were driving Kinley and Kallen’s motorized vehicles! They couldn’t get the hang of WATCHING WHERE THEY WERE GOING!!! Too busy looking at the wheels or each other or me or whatever!

Look! A kite!

I’m so glad Jodie had us all stay that night. It was so nice to get to talk to Jeff’s family and watch all their beautiful kids play with mine.

Jodie, KayKay, Adam, Connie

Julie, Sandra, Bud, Jack, Ken

Thanks for letting us come to your birthday, Kinley! We LOVED it! But it made it hard when the kids wanted to know when we were going to Kallen’s party!

Get Me Outta Here!!

2010-07-15T11:08:00.005-04:00

Since the kids recently turned four, we also recently had our four-year checkups. Now, my kids have been LOOKING FORWARD to these checkups for ages, begging me to take them TODAY to get their shots. Can I get my shots NOW? PLEEEEASE? I'm not kidding. BEGGING FOR SHOTS.

Why in the world are my kids begging for shots? Two reasons: the treasure box and a convenient forgetting of how much shots hurt. Mostly the treasure box.

Finally the kids turned four. Time for checkups and shots! Yea! Jonathan and Zachary went first. (I may be a supermom, but I'm not super enough to take all four at the same time, especially if shots are involved. They may not remember that shots hurt, but I do!) Most of the checkup was great! The kids are healthy, etc, etc, I'll post more about the checkups later. This post is about SHOTS. Zachary got his first, and when the first needle went into his leg (there were three total BTW) he looked at me with total shock. He DID NOT expect the shots to HURT!!! And then he started wailing. Jonathan, in the meantime, scrunched himself as far into the corner as he could go and refused to come out. After consoling and calming Zachary, I literally had to pry Jonathan out of the corner with him begging me the whole time not to make him get the shots.

But as awful as it was, it was nothing compared to taking Reagan and Thomas. Reagan cheerfully volunteered to go first. (Yea, shots!) I really tried to prepare her for the fact that the shots WOULD hurt. She was undeterred. And then she got poked and started crying. I don't want the shots! I don't want the shots! Too late. But the worst part was that she wouldn't stop crying. Thomas was so scared that I had to hold both of them after her shots, and she starts begging me, "Don't do it to Thomas! Don't do it to Thomas, Mommy!" So sweet of her to be thinking about her brother, but NOT HELPING TO CALM THOMAS. She continues to beg for Thomas' life while I help the poor nurse prepare for T's shots. As soon as the first needle goes in, he starts screaming, "Get me outta here! Get me outta here!"

I had to turn my head away. Not because I couldn't bear to look at the fear and pain on his face, but because I was afraid I was going to start laughing. Isn't that awful? Now don't get me wrong. I do not enjoy seeing my kids scared and in pain. IT WAS AWFUL. The whole experience was excruciating for all of us. But Get me outta here! was just too much for me. I composed myself quickly and turned back to him with a face full of concern, and was overjoyed when the experience was over, but the memory remains, and I think I will enjoy telling him all about it when he's old enough to understand the humor of it.

Get me outta here!

Wet and Wild

2010-07-15T11:00:00.002-04:00

Of course, we didn’t have to go anywhere to have fun in Memphis. We had tons of fun just staying home!

The kids got to eat nearly every meal in front of the TV, always a treat!

There was always SOMEBODY willing to read a story!

KayKay is MUCH MORE willing to make time for playing games on the computer than Momma!

And don’t forget the Slip ‘n Slide and pool! The kids had SO MUCH fun! Bud and KayKay have a great hill in their back yard, not much fun to mow but PERFECT for a Slip ‘n Slide! I was really surprised by how much the kids liked it this year. They were not quite the fans last year! Check out the fun times!

Aren’t the girls adorable in their matching ballerina swimsuits? Such a cute present from Aunt Nancy! And yes, despite being a year younger than Reagan, Kallen IS taller! The cousins will be tall like their mom! No such luck for JonZReaTom!

Even Zachary, who is typically leery of any activities involving water, had a blast sliding through the sprinklers!

Thomas, cheesing for the camera

Zachary, thoroughly enjoying himself

Cousin Kinley, ready to take off down the hill

Reagan, relaxing in the pool

Jonathan couldn’t slow down long enough to look at the camera!

Kallen was right there with the rest of them! She didn’t let being the youngest keep her from anything!

Making it look easy!

Cousin Kallen, what a cutie!

We Didn’t Know What We Were Missing

2010-07-13T12:00:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of the summer we paid a super-fun visit to Memphis. The news is over a month old, but I just recently got the pictures my sister took and really needed them to do the trip justice. There’s a lot more than I can put in one post at a single sitting, so there may be a series of posts. It’s hard to say at this point.

One of the first things we did on this trip was visit the Children’s Museum in Memphis. Although the cousins had been there before, my kids and I had not, and WOW! What an impressive museum! If you’re ever in Memphis, definitely check it out! You won’t be disappointed! You know how much I love taking the kids to the Children’s Museum in Oak Ridge, but it really can’t even be compared to the one in Memphis. They are in two COMPLETELY different leagues!

The first area we entered was all about airplanes. When you turned on the activity pictures below, all the fans in the back came to life, generating enough air speed that the plane would lift off the ground. Then you could steer the plane with the controls and watch it fly!

There was also the front part of AN ACTUAL JET that the kids could climb all through and push buttons and flip switches.

The next area had a “stream” for the kids to “fish” with magnetic poles. They LOVED it!

Next there was a little grocery store for the kids to go shopping, with working cash registers that even printed receipts if you followed the directions!

There was also a green screen area (two actually) where the kids could watch themselves on the big screen while they ran and danced around. The backgrounds on the screen kept changing, so they might be underwater or in the desert or at a castle. There were costumes too!

Another area had a real-life motorcycle, police car, and fire truck to play on.

Other areas had art projects, fake teeth to brush, houses to play in with plenty of light switches to flip on and off all you wanted, AND SO MUCH MORE!!!! Really, it was incredible!

There are so many more pictures, but time is short. Lots more to say about our Memphis trip too, plus all our other activities, hopefully coming SOON!!

Gone Fishin’

2010-06-30T23:21:00.002-04:00

Father’s Day was also JonZReaTom’s actual birthday. We had already had the party, but shouldn’t the actual birthday be special too? OF COURSE!! And it was!

PawPaw and NeNe and Aunt Jayne came for a visit that day, and as the grand finale to the giftapalooza, PawPaw pulled out four brand-new fishing poles and said, “Let’s go fishing!” This suggestion was met with shrieks of excitement from the kiddos, so off we went! Of course, mom and dad were expecting this trip, so Jim had already scouted the area for a good (and convenient) spot to fish. We took the kids to Ned McWherter Park downtown on the river.

PawPaw helped Zachary cast his first line and within minutes he had a bite. It was SO FAST! Daddy stepped in quickly and helped Zachary land his first fish!

Daddy and Zachary with the prize fish (I’m told it’s a sun perch) before we let it go.

But wait! We didn’t catch just ONE fish! Minutes later, Zachary caught a second fish! Then Reagan managed to get into Zachary’s honey spot and she caught a fish too!

Thomas got a bite too, but lost it…or so we thought! Zachary wandered over to Thomas’ spot and Thomas, thinking his fish had gotten away, let Zachary have his seat. Zachary picked up the pole and reeled in fish #4!!

Poor Jonathan tried patiently the whole time and never caught a thing. I don’t think he even had a nibble. But he was a trooper and never complained!

After fishing we made our way over to the playground to drain every last bit of remaining energy from the birthday boys and girl.

It’s never occurred to me before, but in THIS picture, Reagan looks A LOT like my sister when she was little!

Jonathan and Reagan both wanted to climb this swirly pole, but then when they got halfway up, they didn’t know what to do and had to be helped back down!

Happy Fourth Birthday to Jonathan, Zachary, Thomas, and Reagan!!

And Happy Father’s Day too!

Our first fishing trip was so much more successful than I expected. I really thought we’d sit around in the sweltering heat for 10, maybe 15, minutes without a single nibble and then pack up four whining children and leave. I didn’t expect us to catch a fish. I certainly didn’t expect us to catch FOUR!! It was still sweltering, but at least it was shady, and the excitement of catching fish kept us from focusing on the heat.

Thank you PawPaw, NeNe, and Aunt Jayne for coming to visit and helping us have a fantastic birthday! We’re ready to go fishing again, so come back anytime!

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s…

2010-06-23T08:30:00.002-04:00

…the Superquads!!!

This was the first year that we had a REAL birthday party! By that, I mean we had a party that we invited children to, with actual invitations and party games and goody bags, not just family and MOM and DAD’S friends who happen to also have kids. It was a lot more work, BUT IT WAS SO FUN!!

We had a Superhero party. I found the cutest invitations to download FREE here along with some great ideas. The invitations invited our guests to Superhero Training. We started out by making our own capes. I had them all cut out and ready to decorate. I decided the easiest way for the kids to personalize their capes was to sponge paint some stencils. Unfortunately for me, I had the make the stencils myself. The boys each have their own favorite hero (Batman for Jonathan, Superman for Zachary, and Spiderman for Thomas) and Reagan made her own hero, Princess Reagan (think Princess Presto from SuperWhy). I was able to buy a crown stencil, but the others I cut myself. Luckily, I have a little artistic ability and they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself! Below are th samples that I made so the kids could choose which one they wanted.

After capes it was time for Superhero training. I had devised a series of games to test the kids’ superpowers: knock down the bad guys (super strength), race (super speed), balance beam (super agility), jumping contest (super…ummm…distance jumping). I think knocking down the bad guys may have been the favorite. It was certainly a fav of my kids who have continued to play the game every day since the party. I found some coloring pages online of some famous super villains, colored them, and taped them to empty plastic jugs. Then kids got to throw bean bags at them and knock them down.

After games it was time for cake and ice cream. I made the birthday kiddos each their own cake with the choice of chocolate cake or Funfetti (because Jonathan doesn’t eat chocolate) and did the leftover batter in cupcakes.

Poor Reagan, her pink crown is really sad. Sorry, Reagan! I’m kind of proud of the others though, especially the spider!

Then it was present time! Thank you again everybody for the really great gifts! The kids LOVE them and fight equally over EVERYTHING!!

As party time drew to a close, I announced that I was going after the goody bags, then returned to inform the kids that THEY HAD BEEN STOLEN by our greatest enemy, Spankin’ Man. (He’s the bad guy at our house, anyway!) Then I sent all the kids to the back yard to find the missing goody bags. I wish I had a picture of the kids’ faces when I said the goody bags were gone! Eyes wide like saucers! They TOOK OFF to go save those goody bags!

Okay, I’m really proud of my bags. Each guest got a a bag with their super initial on it.

Whew, the party was lots of fun, but when it was over, I CRASHED! I was so tired! I curled up in a chair in the living room and would easily have gone to sleep if the kids had left me alone for 30 seconds straight. Instead they kept climbing on me or poking me to LOOK AT THIS! WATCH THIS! HELP ME PUT ON POLLY POCKET’S PANTS! The noise I could have slept through, but not the constant jostling. That’s okay, though, the kids had a blast! I hope all our guests had as much fun as my kids did! Thank you to everyone who came and made this day so apecial for my children, especially those that had to drive all the way across town to get to us!

And the capes, they turned out pretty good too:

Have a Super Day!

We Have Now Entered the Fourth Dimension

2010-06-22T16:31:00.002-04:00

That’s right. JonZReaTom has turned four. FOUR!! I just can’t believe it. My little babies are long gone. Sigh. Let’s not even talk about how I started to tear up telling them each good night the night of their birthday. It’s going by so fast! And all I can think about is that we are one short year away from FIVE and KINDERGARTEN. Sniffle, sniffle.

But enough of that! I have all year to cry about my babies growing up. No need to do it now while the blog is so quad-deprived. There is so much to write about. We have been SO BUSY!! But my time is limited, so I’ll just share some pics from their actual birthday, which also happened to be Father’s Day!

Jim made his traditional birthday pancakes. Yum! Pretty good, huh? He’s getting quite talented at writing with pancake batter!

We got the kids their first bikes, and they were SO excited! The boys, especially Zachary, are naturals on them (with the training wheels, of course). Like with the tricycles, Reagan has been a little slower to fall in love with her bike, but she’s catching on much faster than she did with the trike and is doing pretty good herself. Zachary looks like he’s been riding a bike for months! The hardest thing for them all to get used to is the brake system. On the tricycles, they pedaled backwards to GO backwards, now they must pedal backwards to stop, and there is no GOING backwards. But they’re catching on!

Here’s a few pics of the kids riding their bikes for the first time:

It was hard to get good pictures of them because they kept looking down at their feet and the wheels. Jim and I kept yelling, “Watch where you’re going!” I’ll get more pictures soon!

Well, here was a little taste to keep you going! Coming soon: the PARTY, our first fishing trip, garden update, Memphis, and probably so much more that I can’t even think of right now!

Nature Nook: The Mystery Bean

2010-05-31T15:55:00.002-04:00

Once upon a time, there were four children who came home from preschool with mystery beans. The beans were a mystery because they were hidden inside damp paper towels sealed within Ziploc bags, and you couldn’t see them at all. Now I know I could have opened the bags, unfolded the paper towels , and looked at the beans, but at the time, it didn’t occur to me to do so.

There were no instructions.

I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so like any busy mom of quads, I piled them on the kitchen counter and told myself I’d figure it out later.

Weeks later.

Finally, I decided I was tired enough of moving them from one spot on the counter to another and I was going to throw them away. After all, they’d been sealed away from air FOREVER so they must be dead by now, right? But before I tossed them in the trash, my curiosity forced me to open them up and take a look.

THEY WERE ALIVE! THEY HAD SPROUTED! THERE WERE ROOTS!!

So they were saved from the trash can and planted instead. I was so excited they had actually grown that I didn’t pay any attention to whatever remnants there were of the original beans. Were they green? White? Who knows?

Zachary’s bean was the only one that survived the first planting. It had grown the most and had the most roots in the bag. So when the garden was built, the mystery bean went from houseplant to potential garden veggie.

I don’t know if we’ll actually get any beans from it, but it is flowering!

We’ll be sure to keep you posted!

Nature Nook: Little Green Thumbs

2010-05-28T16:04:00.002-04:00

Okay, it’s taken me forever, but I’m finally getting to the gardening post! I mentioned before that we planted our very first Harris Family Garden on Mother’s Day weekend! I didn’t include it in the Mother’s Day post because it wasn’t really for Mother’s Day. We just happened to do it that weekend.

Jim built a raised bed off the side of the house in the sunniest part of our back yard on Sat. Then on Sun his four little helpers were ready to start planting! First, they helped bring all the tools to the garden.

I don’t think we really needed all those tools, but if one child is going to carry something, they ALL have to carry something!

After spreading the dirt out, it was time to decide where each plant should go. We had 3 tomato plants, 1 cherry tomato plant, 3 squash plants, 2 okra plants, and 1 mystery bean. (Mystery bean story coming soon!)

After much deliberation…

What do you think, Zachary, a little more to the right?

…JonZReaTom decided all the plants should go together on the right side to keep each other company. They would have plenty of room to grow as long as they grew up or left.

Fortunately, they were overruled by Daddy, and the plants were placed more appropriately across the whole bed. It was now time to get panting! Each of the kids got to have a turn planting and watering.

And here’s how it looked in the end!

Already we are producing lots of tiny tomatoes! I’ll have to get a picture soon! I have to admit that I find the garden very exciting! If I had done more of the actual work, I might find it even more exciting! JonZReaTom’s favorite part so far has been that it attracts butterflies! I’d like to get some pics of them too! There’s so much going on these days and never enough time to tell you all about it! Have a great weekend!

Being a Mom

2010-05-14T10:28:00.002-04:00

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I have to say that this was one of the best yet! I realize I haven’t had that many to compare to, and maybe I feel this way every year, but this Mother’s Day was just really wonderful!

It was really more like Mother’s Weekend because the festivities kicked off on Friday when the kids came home from preschool with armloads of treasures for mom! They had grown some morning glories, baked heart-shaped cakes, made cards, and also made these cute crafts:

Jonathan shows his loving arms

Saturday, the kids went ahead and gave me their presents: wind chimes, a precious Willow Tree figurine of a mom and little boy that literally made me tear up, the book Bringing Up Girls (James Dobson’s companion book to Bringing Up Boys which I’ve been reading for awhile now), and a make-your-own stepping stone craft which I look forward to doing with the kids this summer.

And as if this wasn’t enough, Sunday was really special, too! Jim volunteered to get the kids ready for church so I got to sleep a little later than normal and take a nice leisurely shower. Then I was treated to a delicious big breakfast, so much better than the waffles we usually have on Sunday morning!

At church the kids made the most adorable presents! (Thank you so much Heidi and everyone else involved!) From each child I received a ceramic plate and collection of holiday themed handprint pictures (and one footprint). There’s a close-up of the flag.

Each picture velcros to the plate so you can change them out with the seasons! Aren’t they great! What an investment of time and money these must have been! You’d be even more impressed if you saw the size of their Sunday School class! (You can start off with enough singleton kids to make a normal class size, then throw in my quads and two sets of twins! It’s a humongous class! That’s a WHOLE LOT OF HANDPRINTS!!!)

After church we went to lunch at Gondolier. This was a special treat since we almost never go to restaurants with the kids! They did really good though, so maybe we can start doing this more! Then it was time to go home and make pictures!

Share the love!

Me and my *sniff* almost-four-year-olds!

There was also some gardening fun this day, but I’m saving those pics for another post!

Being a mom is amazing, and I love it, but it is so much harder than I expected! The wonderful moments are really hard to hold onto sometimes when you’re surrounded by whining and crying and screaming. I feel so much pressure on behalf of my kids. Their behavior, intelligence, and development all sit heavily on my shoulders. But I know that I’m not alone! I know that every mom feels the same way! It makes me appreciate my own mom so much more because I know she felt this same way about me and my sister. And I know my sister and I drove her nuts with our petty fighting and whining just like my kids do to me (She’s touching me! I had it first! But she did it too! She’s copying me!)

So even though we shouldn’t judge a mom by her children, we do it anyway! And although I’m NOT perfect, not even close, God certainly thought highly enough of me to entrust His precious JonZReaTom to my mothering skills, which means, Mom, you must have done a pretty awesome job raising me! And Jodie too! Thanks for everything! I love you!

Happy Mother’s Day to every mom!

Netflix+Wii=Woohoo!

2010-05-11T11:31:00.002-04:00

We have been renting movies through Netflix for a couple of years now and love it! I am a movie person, and Netflix is so much cheaper than renting from a store! I highly recommend Netflix if you rent movies regularly!

And if you have a Wii (or a PS3 or Xbox 360) then I recommend it EVEN MORE! I just recently found out from some friends (thanks Bryon and Darlene!) that you can instantly stream movies from Netflix through the Wii straight to the TV!! All you have to do is log into your Netflix account and request a free Wii disc. They send the disc, you put it in the Wii, follow the super-easy instructions, and you’re in business! (Assuming your Wii is hooked to the internet). Now, granted, you won’t be able to stream the first-run movies, but there are thousands of movies and TV shows you CAN stream! I’ve found it really great for kids’ entertainment. There are great kids’ movies and TV shows available for all ages! Thanks to this my kids have been introduced to both Shirley Temple and the Muppets! I am so happy!

For those of you interested in giving it a try, here’s a bonus for you: right now I can get you a free month trial of Netflix! The regular trial is only 2 weeks. Just let me know you’re interested and make sure I have your email address, and I’ll get the info to you!

By the way, neither Netflix nor any of its employees has anything to do with this post. I get nothing for writing it. No one asked me to. It’s all me! Happy streaming!

I Just Love Getting Behind!

2010-05-07T17:09:00.002-04:00

Well, not really. I hate it actually! I hate being so far behind that it seems silly to even write about a particular event because it happened so long ago, but I also don’t like leaving things out. What I’m trying to say is…

We had a great time over Easter! (I know, I know, bear with me, there are some cute pictures!)

To begin, the kids each had to take a dozen boiled eggs to preschool the week before Easter. That would be FOUR DOZEN eggs for me, so I baked them, rather than boiling them, like I did last year, and this time I remembered to take a picture! Yea! Click on the link if you want the directions for doing this yourself.

Luckily, the kids didn’t actually dye all 4 dozen, so we had enough for Easter weekend without having to bake or boil any more.

Uncle Clay and Aunt Carey came for the weekend with our cousins, Tyler and Avery. You know how much we love to visit with our cousins! On Sat, Gammy came to visit too, and we all dyed Easter eggs. It was a little chaotic, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures, but here are a couple.

Even Superman enjoyed dying Easter eggs!

Sunday we all went to church together. The kids all looked so cute in their clothes. I was especially excited that Tyler was wearing a white shirt with a sweater vest, just like Jonathan, Zachary, and Thomas. It looked like we planned it!

We tried getting pictures on the swing, but it was so sunny that we had trouble getting the kids to look up, especially Thomas.

We had better luck in the shaded grass, but it was hard to get all the faces to stay in view!

Jonathan, Thomas, Reagan, Zachary, Avery, Tyler

Sunday afternoon,we had an Easter egg hunt. The kids had been waiting all year for this!

It cracked me up when they all sat down here to start eating their treasures because this is exactly where they all sat last year! Without any prompting at all either time. I guess there’s something about this flowerbed ledge that says, “Here’s a good place to eat jelly beans!”

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Hmmm…I’ve never done the pictures like that before, so we’ll see how it works! The kids were all so cute sitting along the ledge that I snapped a shot of each of them, except Avery who got away before I could get to her.

Well, I was just looking for last year’s post on the Easter egg hunting to link it to this one, and I couldn’t find one, so this post may be late, but at least all the festivities are accounted for!

This visit was really great! The kids and Tyler played better than they ever have before and really enjoyed each other’s company. Tyler is only 6 months younger than JonZReaTom, but those 6 months have really made a difference in the past. The older they all get, the less those 6 months matter.

We can’t wait for them all to come back again!

I also enjoyed talking with the kids about why we celebrate Easter in the first place. It’s a heavy topic, and I wasn’t sure how much detail to go into with them. How much of Christ’s crucifixion can an almost-four-year-old understand? So I gave them a very softened version. They heard a slightly less softened, but still appropriate, version in Sunday school, and I was pleased by how well they understood the story. There’s something really special about talking to your kids about Jesus and what he did for us! Next year I think they’ll be ready to do Empty Tomb cookies. I’ll try to remember to post the recipe in time for any of you who might be interested in them too. Thanks, Kim, for sending me the recipe!

Happy Friday!

Things We Love #4

2010-04-30T11:26:00.003-04:00

We love BOOKS!!!!!

Okay, it is a well-established fact that I love to read, that I love lists, and that I especially love lists of books! But you know what? JonZReaTom loves books too! The kids can't read yet, but they LOVE to be read to, and they have some favorites as well. I won't even begin to list ALL the books I've read to them, but I will list their favorites here (with a link in the sidebar so you can check back often!) Some of the books will be baby books, others more recent favorites.

Anything by Sandra Boynton--Barnyard Dance, Pajama Time, Doggies, etc

Anything by Karen Katz--even NOW my kids love these books, and we come home with at least one nearly every time we leave the library! They especially like the Counting Kisses books where every page is a new number of kisses to wake baby up or put baby to sleep. These are really precious books!

Anything by Leslie Patricelli--Yes, YES, No, NO; Yucky, Yummy; Blankie--lots of books about opposites, all with the same endearing main character, Thomas is especially fond of these books

Dinotrux by Chris Gall--currently Jonathan's all-time favorite

Pinkalicious by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann--Reagan's fav, not such fans of the Purple version, haven't yet read the Gold version

Anna Dewdney's Llama, Llama books

Any of the Max and Ruby books by Rosemary Wells

The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper--a particular favorite of Zachary's because it's about a train. He loves trains!

Have I Mentioned My Children Are Brilliant?

2010-04-30T10:58:00.004-04:00

Heehee! Of course, I have! Okay, this is just a cute story that shows not necessarily that Zachary is brilliant, but that he has total confidence in his ability to be brilliant!

Zachary was out in the garage with Jim the other day, watching Jim work on whatever he was working on. It was a special time all to itself when things just happened to work out in such a way that the other kids went with Momma and Zachary stayed with Daddy and EVERYONE WAS OKAY WITH IT. That's really the miracle right there!

Anyway, Jim and Zachary were enjoying some together time, and somehow got to talking about the planets. Zachary casually mentioned that Saturn has rings. Jim was pleasantly surprised to discover that Zachary even knew about Saturn, even more surprised he knew about the rings! (He also knows that Mars is red, and we live on Earth. That is the full extent of my children's planetary knowledge. At least as far as I know!) He was surprised enough to wonder where Zachary had learned these things, so he asked him:

Jim: Did you learn about Saturn at preschool?

Zachary: Nooo, Dad!

Jim: Well, where DID you learn it?

Zachary: (arms spread wide) Right here!

Jim: Here at home? Did you learn that on TV?

Zachary: Noooo.

Jim: Did Mommy teach you?

Zachary: Nooo.

Jim: (desperate to get to the bottom of this mystery) Well, who DID teach you?

Zachary: I taught myself! (arms spread wide again) Right here!

If he had known to say "Duh!" he would have. That is definitely the attitude he had. He is brilliant and he taught himself all about Saturn and he did it RIGHT HERE! Anything less would be ridiculous! He is Zachary! He won't poop in the potty, but dadgummit he knows about Saturn! Duh!

Full Disclosure

2010-04-29T11:02:00.007-04:00

As you may or may not know, my friend Becky and I are having a Pulitzer-reading contest, despite the fact that she and I both know that she will win this contest. The number of books she reads in a year versus the number of books I read in a year just put the odds heavily in her favor, especially since she was ahead of me to begin with! Nevertheless, we compete!

So in a effort to keep up with it better myself and also to give her an idea of the competition she's up against (Ha! Not to mention the fact that I love lists and I love books and the idea of making yet another book list makes me supremely happy!) So, I'll be listing the Pulitzers I've read here, and I'll put a link to this post in the sidebar with my other reading info.

I'm using this list because it is the one Becky used in her original post on Pulitzers. It combines today's Pulitzer for Fiction with the winners of what used to be the Pulitzer for the Novel. By the way, our competition is who can read the most altogether, not just in one year, so I didn't read all of these this year!

Feel free to throw your hat in the ring and compete too! So far, I would recommend all the Pulitzers I've read. The ones in bold are my favorites.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
3. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
4. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
5. Beloved by Toni Morrison
6. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
7. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
8. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
9. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Sing Your Heart Out

2010-04-29T10:52:00.002-04:00

When we arrived at church this past Sunday, we were surprised to learn that the kids would be singing a song before the congregation that morning! (With their class, not just them!) Due to other engagements, we had not been at church the two previous Sundays, so we didn’t know this was happening and were a little concerned that the kids wouldn’t know the songs, and then what would they do when they got on stage in front of ALL THESE PEOPLE!!

Happily, our fears were unnecessary! The songs were unfamiliar to me, but very simple, so the kids must have picked up on them well enough to not be too nervous. Or maybe little kids just don’t know to be nervous when they are unprepared. I don’t know. Either way, JonZReaTom showed not a moment of hesitation when they marched up front with the other kids.

Thomas and Reagan led the line and stood at the far end of the group. Jonathan and Zachary were more in the middle. The teachers and song leader started the song, and all the kids joined in, and their sweet voices brought smiles to everyone!

But it wasn’t just the voices that we smiled at! The video system was on so that you could watch the kids up on the screen too, so everyone could see them as well as hear them. This allowed everyone to get a great view of our precious Reagan who was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She was singing away and swaying with the song, and ever now and then she’d do a little joyful jump into the air! It was so adorable!

Jim and I were so proud of the great job they all did! I wish I had it on video! Not shy, those kids! What a joy to see all those beautiful children singing about their best friend Jesus, with such joy and innocence! If only we could all live our lives with the joy of young children!