Our Life In Cell Phone Pictures......Part 1

I got an iphone. It's pretty fancy (a 4, not a 5). I was due for an upgrade, etc etc point is, I feel pretty high tech now. Unfortunately, I never blog, and never take pictures on my camera. A month ago Kris and I were sitting looking at the blog and cracking up at things we had forgotten, etc, and I felt guilty about not blogging. I mean, so what if blogger is jacked up and somehow lost my list of my friend's blogs, so what if I can't figure out how to get my old settings back. I need to catch up......since November. So I am doing it the easy way and giving snipits....

Abram got pnemonia in November. He was SO pitiful. He has always wanted to be x-rayed (weird, I know) and he got his wish, but was so sick he couldn't enjoy the experience. He fell asleep while we waited for results...

We had a really nice day in November and the boys and I went to the zoo by ourselves. It was such an amazing day. I find that lately in the craziness of it all,  sometimes we just need to get away and have a day-just us. It's so nice just to focus on what's really important.

 We went to the new Lion exhibit and were literally the only ones around. The boys were playing on a statue and Reese was squealing running back and forth, and caught the attention of a certain female..

So much that she started crawling his direction and wouldn't take her eyes off of him. Reese would run in a direction, her head would follow-can you say cree-py?
Proof:

 

We went to the petting zoo, and Reese was nervous so he would only pet/brush the animal if I was holding his hand



 

Abram was thankful at school...



We celebrated Thanksgiving and only got one picture of me and the kiddos making treats...

I had a master plan of Black Friday shopping that worked a little too well for me and Susan....

We couldn't stand it any longer and immediately got a tree the next day, our eyes were a little bigger than our living room...

It was enormous and we laughed so hard. We loved it though. Kris and I watched movies til late and did our traditional stringing popcorn and cranberries (Kris hates it, but loves me). The next day was Sunday and I couldn't stand it any longer and voted we should decorate it before church. I turned to get an ornament and heard Abram yell "Whoooooooa!" and turned around to see the tree mid fall Abram jumped out of the way and the top of the tree landed on Reese's legs. I pulled Reese out, and we all stood there shocked.

And then we rigged it to the wall with hooks and fishing line. Yes we did, we still have big holes in the corner to prove it. Again, worth it...

( Before the star) below is one of my all time favorite pictures, of my all time favorite people....

There have been a lot of "best friend" moments around here lately. One of which was when the boys (on their own) got their white church shirts out of the closet and pretended they were scientists and built a Frankenstein of their own.....

We went to see Santa as well, I thought Reese would be a little scared. I laughed so hard when he ran up to Santa and started rattling off his list and then asked Santa to feel his muscles...the picture is blurry because he was so excited-he was jumping up and down while he was talking....

Abram got mad at me one day, I can't remember why. But he went straight to the table and drew this, and then showed it to me. I bit the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing....

Abram was, in my opinion, the cutest of the three Kings in the Christmas play.....

Santa came to Reese's preschool and read to them...

Reese got sick, as in super sad, crawl in your lap and passed out sick....

He got better before Christmas....

and then Santa came and the boys LOVED their toys....

These snakes were hilarious. They went to the zoo with Aunt Natalie and fell in love with stuffed animal snakes. For THREE MONTHS they talked about them, and wrote Santa about them. Abram thought for sure that he would walk down and find the snake hanging out of his stocking. Santa couldn't find the exact one he wanted, but luckily Santa knew that Abram had an obession with cobras. I thought Abram was going to cry he was so happy. And wouldn't you know that Santa did have it hanging out of his stocking just like Abram said he would.

The Lego obsession began before Christmas. Some kid brought a Toys R Us Toy Book to school (what the?) and Abram had found that they had dinosaur legos-he put it on his list....

 

Abram is so happy in the picture above. Kris is loving this obsession too. Reese likes to take hi favorite part and play with it, while supporting the building that is going on...

 

And we partied it up on New Year's Eve with a little Mouse Trap....

 

A little fireworks...

 

Some Just Dance and costumes....

Until Midnight....











RAGNAR!!

I decided I needed to do something hard. And lucky for me I have a friend named Lori, and she does hard things. She won me over with a video she made. It was 20 weeks of training. The first day of training was to run for 15 minutes......and I almost died. I'm not even kidding, it was emabarrassing. I told her if I could run the least amount of miles I was in. Long story short, it was a lot of awesome and a little bit of miserable. Kris did it too!! Running approximately 196 miles in roughly 36 hours. We had two teams of 12, in 4 vans. My van had to be in Chattanooga at 5:30am, I think we slept a total of maybe an hour and a half. We had a baby in our van, I was worried, but honestly he couldn't have been better. I ran 10.5 miles total. First and second legs were awesome, I ran faster than I trained, felt great. The last one I cried, and wanted to quit, and wondered why in the heck I was doing this. It was the lack of sleep talking. Luckily for me, I have an awesome husband. I rounded that last corner thinking, "I just need to go in the parking lot, have a good cry by myself and I'll be fine." instead I was greeted with my hubs and my friends making a tunnel for me to run through cheering for me. I cried different tears. It was so hard for me. I need to do hard things. I need to push myself. i worked so hard, and I felt so proud. i didn't even mind that every single person in my van was A LOT faster than me. They didn't care either, they were so supportive and enthusiastic and positive. I love them.

Kris was a BEAST!! I was really worried because between work and school he had no time to train, and he was running 17.9 miles!! The longest he had ever run in his life was 4 miles. I was relieved every time I saw him. He had so much fun too. We are planning on doing it again. Probably because we're crazy.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 or maybe it was the video......

Turning 6 Part 2

 

So I am finally able to upload photos from 6 months ago and while trying to redo somethings, I have lost my blog list, and nothing is how I want. I am about over blogger, and you know when you are angry to tears? I am there. But alas, I need to print this all out before I lose it-so here it goes.

 

 

We made it to the pumpkin patch...

..and that night we went to see "Hotel Transylvania" after having some Angry Bird Pizza/Cake with some buds.

Abram declared it the best birthday ever. It was oddly laid back. We have had each boy over for playdates and they are running up and down the stairs yelling, being loud boys. Abram had got an Angry Bird game that you build and play. The boys just sat around quietly building and playing-it was really bizarre, but they had fun. I would talk about how hard it is to believe that my baby is 6, however, it has taken so long to get this all down he is almost 6 1/2! I love that boy though, I tell you what he is the sweetest, mopt tender hearted kid you'll ever meet. He is completely obsessed with animals, Angry Birds, and video games. Most days his brother is his best friend. He tells me I am the prettiest girl in the world. He is smart as a whip and says the wittiest things. I am proud to be his Mom.

Problem?

I have been having issues with Blogger lately, which is why I haven't had the patience to post things. My pictures on my posts have been mixing up, I haven't been able to upload pictures, (sigh). Is anyone else experiencing this???

My First Born Son Turned SIX!

I can't believe my sweet boy turned 6 a couple weeks ago. He was counting down the days since the middle of Summer (no, I am not kidding). Every other day we would go to the calendar and count the days. This year Abram was out of school for Fall Break. Kris took off work on Friday so we could go to the Pumpkin Patch-have I ever mentioned that I love pumpkin patches, Halloween, and all things October? Because I do. It seemed to take forever to get out of the house, but before we knew it, we were there and the boys (all of them) raced to the slide...

They all had a good time...

Kris might kill me a little for that picture, but I'm just proving that he's a good sport.

Then we headed over to the "open tube" slides where the boys got a little creative...

Then to the "tractor races". Last year, Reese rode on Kris's lap. I don't know why-but it was hysterical. Maybe because Kris was almost too big for the tractor, and then had Reese on his knee. So when he tried to pedal fast to race us, Reese would go up and down so fast and so high, I almost peed my pants watching them I was laughing so hard. In fact, when I think about it, I start laughing. Had to be there? I guess so. This year my three and a half year old was determined to ride by himself (they had smaller ones this year). And "by himself" looked a lot like this....



I couldn't get many pictures because I was laughing, trash talking, and trying to keep up with the birthday boy....

I was going to bounce on the pillow with the kiddos, I had my shoes off and everything. Then the lady said they don't really allow adults on there because a couple years ago the pillow busted. I decided I didn't need that for my self esteem, so I passed.

Abram did a lot of this...

Reese did a lot of this.....



which is funny because last year he was too little to keep his balance, so he just sat there. This year he thought it was funny, so he just laid down and laughed while others bounced him.
Then we saw the animals. I think Abram might work with animals one day...

Reese, not so much....

Unless it's with bunnies....

We found out which animals were stealing Farmer Joe's pies by following clues in the corn maze. (Hand holding un-staged. LOVE when I capture tender moments)

Found the sandbox...

Did the hamster wheel races. Abram and I rocked our wheel, we went really fast-but it's hard to run in a wheel and take self pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it...



Last, but not least-we went on our hayride and picked out pumpkins. Remember when I told you Reese doesn't smile for pictures? That he'll say "cheese" in the most monotone, unenthusiatic voice? Picture this (pun intended), we ask someone to take our picture and she says, "Say cheese!" Now grit your teeth, say this while trying hard not to move your mouth-in monotone voice, "pumpkin pie." And that is what Reese did. It use to bug me, now I think it's funny. Can't wait to see if our family Christmas pictures turn out this good (I don't know what Abram is doing either)....





Maybe they needed a smooch and a squeeze from their Mama...

The Big Three Five

I turned thirty five on the seventh.........Thirty. Five. Mid. Thirties. Remember when you would say when describing someone, "Oh, you know she's older, like mid thirties." And now mid thrities doesn't feel old, and yet-you say it outloud and it's like "Whoa Mama". I'm not going to lie, I felt a wee bit (maybe a wee bit more than wee) depressed over the whole thing. And to be honest this is the first time I havefelt that way about getting a year older. I guess it's because I pictured myself to be in a different place in life than I am now. I was pretty bummed during the week leading up-I know, why am I being super dramatic? I have no idea. Because honestly, it was one of the best birthdays I have ever had. It was a packed full weekend, and it wore me out, but I loved every. single. second.

I decided that 35 would be great and I want to do things that are hard for me. Some would say they are easy peasy, but like I said, this isn't about other people-this is about me. That is one of the reasons I started training for Ragnar. More on that later. I found a 5k called Color Me Rad and wanted to run it for fun, and it also happened to be the day before my birthday-you know, the one where I would turn 3-5. I asked my sister and two of my cousins to run with me....and we did. One of them drove down from Ohio so we could run.

Rewind many years back-to elementary school, fifth grade-ish. My sister and I spent the Summers in Ohio with my Grandparents and played with two of our cousins at least every other day it seemed. What do four girls do wen they get together at that age? Make a girl band of course! Complete with matching outfits bought at Meijer (think hot pink and black biker shorts) and dance routines. As you know, every good band has a name, and so did we. That is when CS4 was born (Cousins, Sisters, 4 of us) and we have referred to it ever since. When we all got married, our husbands got to be our "groupies", I know how it sounds, but I don't care. It is one of those fond memories fom childhood that we will remember forever (yes, we did performances). So what better shirts could we make to run through color in?





(C-S-4 exclamation point)

That's right, complete with 90's back to back pose. We have a picture

of us when we were little, in the exact same pose. Every time we
get together, my Aunt has a pose like this. On a random note, the only
part of this picture that is posed, is the "back to back" part, that being
said, isn't it funny how the sisters are posing the same.

How motivating are these cuties?

After showers, we went to Painting With a Twist. You pick out a painting and the instructor teaches you how to paint it, and you interpret what she teaches. It's really laid back, and you can bring snacks, drinks, etc. It was SO much fun! After we got in touch with our artistic side, the four of us went to dinner and came home to a wonderful surprise.....

Kris and the kids made this sunflower cake for me. He asked Lisa to bring the icing and he did some research and found the idea. I almost cried. Kris is not a fan of doing "creative" things with the kids. He doesn't like the stress, the mess, etc. Knowing this, made the cake even more special. He is pretty awesome if I do say so myself.

 

To top of the best weekend ever, it was also General Conference that weekend. Thanks to my trusty DVR, Sunday we watched it in our jammies, ate potato soup and did nothing else all day. A dear friend of mine brought me some delicious pumpkin cookies and promised not to look at me or my house (that's how "relaxed" we were being). It was an incredibly perfect weekend. I have decided that 35 is going to be amazing!



Busy Bees

We have been a little busy as of late. Summarized version? Okay, well this started up on Saturdays...

This is the only picture I have gotten so far. Mostly because I am yelling the whole time. Abram has gotten pretty good this season. His team is good, depending on the Saturday. Also depending on the team their playing- I swear, the other week the other team had a five year old that slide tackled-you could tell he from a long line of soccer players. Abram has scored in every game except the one where they played professional five and six year olds, he came SO close in that one. I can't hold and aim a camera while I am jumping up and down cheering for him, it's impossible.

 

Kris started back to school this semester. He's working full time and going to school three nights a week.

 

Reese and I joined a co-op preschool with some awesome ladies from church. Reese was on a waiting list for preschool and a couple weeks into September he got in...

he wasn't too thrilled at first for the first couple of weeks but now he likes it. And today, Reese demonstrated some sweet "yoga moves" he learned during circle time.

 

We also had family move here. It has been really fun getting together....(hilarious video will not not load-ugh). 

 

I am still working with the youth at Church, still awesome.

 

Kris and I have been training for RAGNAR.

 

And I turned 35, but more on that later......