back from vacay…

and the bags are waiting to be unpacked.  i really don’t like the unpacking process. sigh…

we had fun getting our beach on, and spending time with family.

i love the ocean. it’s so therapeutic. i don’t know why we don’t go more often…it’s not like it’s a far drive for us.

anyway.

my nieces Haleigh and Michaela were able to come, and they’ll be staying at my parents’ house this week. i’m happy we’ve been able to spend time with them. they go back home to Georgia on Friday.

here are some random pics from the week…

 

 …the ocean

 

  

 …the laughs

 

 

 …the fun

 

 

 …the togetherness

 

 

 …the love

 

 

 …the cousins

 

 

 …the moments

 

 

  …the memories

 

 

*fun times*

…and check out the FSU Seminole my brother Eric made…

yes. he’s got some mad sand sculpting skills…

now i have lots of unpacking to do…some laundry…some house cleaning…and some grocery shopping…

which will be done tomorrow after i rest some more…

i’m still in vacation mode.

summah

Oh summertime. I really do like you…

vacations. swimming. the beach. sleeping in.

it’s all so nice and lovely.
 

But I can’t help the fact that I’m looking forward to fall already.

I mean…I have a caramel-apple-scented-air-freshener plugged in my wall and a fall scented candle burning as we speak.

But the boys are enjoying the slip-n-slide, going to the pool, running through the sprinkler, and are looking forward to the beach next week. We’ve gotten to sleep in every morning and we can even wear our pajamas all day if we want to. Not that I’ve done that or anything. just sayin’…

So…I’ll enjoy you summer.

I will.

I’ll make the best of your scorching heat and your high humidity that frizzes my hair.

And I’ll be patiently waiting for fall to come along. (even though the humidity frizzes my hair during fall, too because I live in Florida…but whatever!)

until then…I’ll splash at the beach…fry in the heat…build sandcastles with my kids…sleep in most mornings…run through a sprinkler…

…and inhale the scent of caramel apple as I relax in my air conditioned house.

it’s all good.

potty time

We finally did it.

Barrett is now officially potty trained.

I can’t explain how relieved I am about this…

Seriously.

I though it would never happen. He’s still 3 years old so I guess it didn’t seem that bad when people knew he wasn’t trained yet. A little embarrassing though. But he’ll be 4 next month and I was hoping he would be out of those dang pull-ups by then.

And he is. So yay!

It was a long, frustrating journey but I guess those doctors do know what they’re talking about when they say “they’ll be potty trained when they’re ready”

I’m just glad he was ready now and not in kindergarten.

So now we’re working on proper aim…

oh my.

Any of you who have little boys know what I’m talkin’ about.

Anyway. He’s always called his pull-ups “dipuhs.” And now he goes around the house saying…”no more dipuhs. no more dipuhs”…

and I say…”my life just got a little easier”…

I can’t believe he’s almost 4 years old though. He’s growing up way. too. fast. And I don’t like it one. single. bit.

i love it when…

we sing this song in church…

somewhere in la-la land…

…is where I’ve been lingering. I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged but I can’t focus on anything. Especially when it comes to writing something that sounds at least half way intelligent.

frustrating.

But here are some things that have been going on in the past few weeks…

- The job hunting process has begun for John since he got laid off. We’re taking it one day at a time. He’s been able to fill out a lot of applications on-line which is good because it makes the process a little easier. He’ll continue to fill out apps as we wait and pray.

- I got a call from Adam’s teacher the other day telling me that she was concerned about him. He’s starting to regress in some areas in school, and with his speech. It’s very concerning for us because he’ll be starting 3rd grade next year and the work will just keep getting more difficult. We’re gonna do whatever we can to help him get through all of this. This is something I’ll blog more about at another time.

- My nephew Connor who was staying at The Center for Drug Free Living, ran away from the facility on Monday. Since he was court ordered by a judge to stay at this place, he’ll have to go before a judge again when he’s found. Which means there’s a very high chance that he could go to jail. Nobody has any idea where he is or what he’s doing. We’re all very worried about him.

wow. that was just a big clump of bad news.   But they’re my prayer requests so I thought I needed to get them out there. A huge thank you to those of you who are already praying. 

I promise I won’t write anything else depressing…

- The last day of school was Wednesday. So summer has officially started and the boys are already getting on each others nerves. They love each other but dang they fight a lot! OK, so maybe that’s a little depressing for me.

- Speaking of the boys fighting… They’ve shared a room for awhile now, and it worked out good because we were able to make the other room into a playroom. BUT, they were in bunk beds and it took them forever to fall asleep at night because they would talk to each other. Sometimes it would be 3 to 4 hours until they finally zonked out. So we figured it would be best to take apart the bunk beds and let them have their own rooms. I think since they’re so far apart in age that they really need their separate spaces.

Oh and as we were pulling out the bed to gather the random things behind it…we found a chicken nugget with a small bite taken out of it. A chicken MCnugget to be exact. Sneaky little boys, I tell ya.

- I’ve been doing a lot of projects around the house. Like cleaning out closets and drawers. Its been going alright except for the fact that I  have a very bad habit of starting something and not finishing it. And then I just get mad at myself for being such a scatter brain.

- I had to say bye-bye-for-now to some of my favorite shows that had their finales. The Office, 24, and LOST. But the premiere of  So You Think You Can Dance came on so I’m a happy camper. And oh. my. gosh. the LOST finale was amazing. I can’t wait for next year. I’m glad that my brain has time to recover as I wait for the last and final season. Maybe they’ll finally explain why Richard wears eye-liner. hmm…

- We decided to look at some old home movies of when the boys were babies. I have like 20 videos of Adam….most of which are 15 minute segments of him eating an ice cream cone or just staring at the camera. Then as we were gonna look at the ones of Barrett, we could only find one. Yes ONE. All the little moments of baby Barrett wrapped into one video. I feel like such a loser!!!!

I do have tons of pictures of him though. (that I still have to put in scrapbooks)

Anyway. 

I’ve rambled on long enough. I feel somewhat caught up now.

I guess I need to go bust out the video camera so I can redeem myself.

adios.

Family night #9 dinosaur night

So…Adam got a dinosaur skeleton for Christmas, but we’ve been waiting to put it together because…well…

it has a lot of parts to it.

Here’s a picture of the diagram…

Since this looked like a fun-but-complicated process, I thought it would be a good idea to make a dinosaur night out of it. And let’s face it…boys love dinosaurs, so it was perfect.

I started out by placing some of their dinosaurs on the table so they could play with them…and fight over who gets what…because they only have 2 baskets filled with just about every dinosaur that roamed the earth…and it’s just so hard to share when you have so many, ya know… *rolls eyes*

I also found some eggs that have dinosaurs inside of them that grow when you put them in water. I found them at the dollar store…which is thee place to go when stocking up for family night supplies. I like the dollar section at Target, too.

The prehistoric menu consisted of dinosaur chicken nuggets and dinosaur bones. I made the bones out of crescent rolls. They look more like dog treats then dino bones…but that was the best I could do. Adam asked me if the juice was supposed to be dinosaur blood. um. ok. sure. 

I always search the web for printables that go with each theme I’m doing. There are so many sites that have print-outs of coloring pages and activities. I found some dinosaur word searches that we could all do. Well, not so much Barrett…he was just satisfied to color and scribble on his.

John and I had a little competition going to see who could finish first…and John won. I’m a slow word searcher. But Adam gave me an A+A++A++A++…so I guess that’s good.

So when it was time to put the dinosaur together, we buried some of the bones outside so the boys could dig for them. We have a lot of dirt in our backyard so it wasn’t too hard finding a good spot for this.

Btw…I’m always complaining about this dirt. Because it does not make a momma happy when her boys come inside after playing, and all that stands before her are two children that resemble something like a swamp creature. 

nope. not happy. 

But…at least we put it to good use for once. I will have grass again there someday. I will.

We put all the pieces on the floor and started our dinosaur making process. Did I mention there were a lot of pieces?

John did most of the work. The only thing the boys and I can take credit for is handing him the pieces. Oh, and Barrett can take credit for taking the pieces and running away with them…so John could go crazy searching for the missing ones…and Adam could yell and get upset that “Barrett was ruining everything.”

Yeah…sometimes family night ain’t so pretty.

Anyway. I think John has some sweet dino making skills…

Notice we put him way up high so a certain 3 year old couldn’t get a hold of him. That would definitely be an “oh no he di’nt” post in the making.

happy mother’s day

Motherhood is the greatest potential influence in human society. Her caress first awakens in the child a sense of security; her kiss, the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world. Thus in infancy and childhood she implants ever-directing and restraining influences that remain through life.

-David McKay

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mommies out there.

as time goes by

So this past week I’ve taken on a task. A task that has seemed endless at times. But I’m making huge progress so far and that makes me happy.

A few weeks ago I took 2 large containers full of old pictures from my mom’s house. I wanted to look through all of them because I love going through old pics. It was such a jumbled up mess though, that I felt led to organize it.

 hmm. It sounded like a good idea in my head…but soon turned into a long, time consuming process.

Not to mention the fact that I don’t know who some of these people are, and therefore can’t put them into any category except random.

I’ve been using ziplocs to organize different events, holidays, etc. And along with all of these photos, there were newspaper clippings, documents and cards in the mix. As I was organizing, I came across this…

A scratch off game with the expiration date, September 30, 1988. And it was never scratched off. So out of curiosity I did it just to see, but there was no $100,000 prize money left unclaimed.  (and I’m sure my dad was just certain that my mom had thrown this away )

Anyway.

During this picture sorting process, I’ve laughed and I’ve cried…and I’ve said to myself…who the heck is that and what the heck are they wearing?

I’ve laughed at all of the crazy hairdos and wardrobe choices. (oh my)  I’ve cried over our loved ones who are no longer with us. There are so many. And the pictures of a smiling, happy toddler got me really choked up…because he’s all grown up now and struggling hard through life as a teen. Where did that happy little boy go?

Talk about a roller coaster of emotions.

So many stages of life. So many memories. All captured in these photos that were tucked away in boxes.

I’m so thankful that I have these to look at. The fact that I can show my children pictures from my past and tell the stories behind them, is so special to me. I started to think about people who have lost their pictures in fires or in floods and it rips my heart out. Pictures are irreplaceable. You can never get back those moments in time.

And as I was looking through them, the phrase, time goes by so fast…

…really sunk in.

On a random note: the shorts that boys used to wear were way too short! oh. my. gosh. (Rex and Eric, if you’re reading this…be glad that my scanner is broke…be very glad )

Oh and checkered Vans were just as cool then as they are now. Puffy, teased hair…not so much.

I gotta go finish organizing now.

So…

Go make some beautiful memories, and take lots of pictures.