Sledding

The one benefit of a good six inch snowstorm - sledding at Wal-Mart. We headed out to the Wal-Mart hill today about noon. I was surprised that there weren't a lot of people out there and the snow was still pretty much untouched. We did a few runs - maybe out there a total of 15 minutes - but the kids were having a great time. Reid declared it "totally awesome."

This isn't the greatest snowball snow, but Reid found a couple of clumps of snow to throw.

We came home and went out the backyard to let Lucy enjoy the snow. She ate snowballs we threw at her, ate mouthfuls of snow, and ran and ran and ran. She just losses her doggy mind when it snows - that is her element. She absolutely loves it.

Class Assignment

Okay, Heather and JoLynne....here is my week #1 assignment. I also posted it out to the Big Picture Scrapbooking gallery.

After getting online, last night, and reading through all of the assignments, I realized I am now taking three Big Picture classes at the same time. Ugh..how did that happen? I am taking the Point of View, Library of Memories Alumni, and Going Manual. Damon signed me up for Going Manual and just told me last night. Luckily, that one won't start until Point of View is almost over.

Okay, girls, where are your pages?

Laid Back Weekend

I don't remember the last time we had a weekend like this - we had no where to go, no place anyone had to be, no commitments, nothing that had to be accomplished. It was heavenly. Reid was a bit confused. She kept asking, "Where are we going?" "Where are we going?" Absolutely nowhere.

Friday, the garage repair continued. The interior wall is now done and we are waiting on the mason to come and put the brick back on the outside. The part of the wall I hit used to be a washer/dryer closet and we chose not to put that wall back. Just by taking out that wall, we have opened up so much space in the garage. We will need to paint this summer, but the garage needed a fresh coat anyway.

Saturday we slept in. The kids had a movie day and watched a Pixar marathon of Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Bugs Life. Damon worked on his Design Your Life scrapbooking class and I worked on some old pages that I started years ago, threw in an album and never finished. I finished up pages on Our First House, Damon's 30th Birthday, Welcoming Jackson to the Family, and our first two pets. It felt good to get those pages finally finished - they drained me every time I looked at that album - and it gave me a chance to play/learn my new Cricut Expression. I needed to get it figured out since my tech support won't be coming with me to the Crop in a two weeks. I also figured out how to make some gift boxes with my Cricut. They turned out really cute and I think Reid took off with all of them. But, I now have some ideas/projects for class Valentine parties.

Friday night I cooked a porkloin with parsley/shallot sauce....oh my, it turned out good. I found the recipe in Ellie Kreiger's The Food You Crave. The last year, I have tried to cook better meals and actually learn to cook outside the box (yes, pun intended). I think I am making progress. More of my meals turn out decent, rather than nasty, and I have learned yeast is my friend and I can make to-die-for cinnamon rolls. The one exception this week - I made a four cheese penne and Jackson said, "Mom, could you put real meat in this next time?" Can't win them all.

Today, we went to church, stopped for Chinese food after church, and came home for a lazy afternoon. Jackson and I cleaned his room - my word - why did it take us an hour-and-a-half to clean his room? It is like 12x12 feet, but it took over an hour and produced one full trash bag. I took a mid-cleaning nap and then headed for Reid's room. Her room wasn't as bad, since it was the Allen Family guestroom last weekend, but it still was wall to wall toys.

Now, on to the week - work tomorrow, funeral on Tuesday, and then Damon has the rest of the week off. He can babysit the dogs while I work!

Misc. Updates

It has been a busy month...just haven't gotten around to blogging about it.

Damon and I were able to have a night away on January 2. The kids spent the night with their Nana, so Damon and I went to see The Blind Side (best movie I have seen in a long time), went to a very nice dinner, and spent the night at the Doubletree in Tulsa. It was so nice to have some time away and a night to ourselves.

The kids are FINALLY back to school. They were supposed to go back January 4, but a snow day was called after we had 1-2 inches on January 2 and 3. They went to school two days and then school was cancelled because of aburdly cold weather (-2 degrees in the a.m., without the wind chill). They finally went back on January 11, went for a week, and then were out for Martin Luther King Jr. day on January 18. I hope they are back in school for a while, as do the dogs. Reid keeps the dogs from taking their daily 6-7 hour naps.

January 9 and 10, we were back in Tulsa for Jackson to swim in the Swim Tulsa Meet. He took 20 seconds off of his 100 IM, but got disqualified for using the wrong kick on his Breast stroke. Bummer! On his other races, we couldn't figure out why he was swimming so slow - he was adding 15-20 seconds to all of his races. We didn't really say anything to him, but we were thinking, "Dude, what is the deal?" On Sunday, he did the same thing on his first race of the day. One of the other parents then pointed out that the Tulsa pool was a 25 meter pool, not a 25 yard pool. Oh! He was swimming further, that's why his times were longer. Sorry, dude! We spent the rest of the morning converting his times and he was swimming his usual times.

At the Tulsa meet, there were 4, 5 and 6 year-olds swimming. Reid wanted to be them and she wants to swim like her Bubba. We decided to take her out of gymnastics and put her back in swimming lessons. She was more than fine with it. When I told her it was time to get ready for her swimming lesson, she went in the laundry room and got Jackson's smaller SplashClub bag (we bought him a larger one). She packed it with a towel, her swimsuit, and a bottle of water. She also found his swim cap and was wearing that around. She loves her lessons and seems to be listening and following directions much better this time. We have told her, she has to pass Lionfish (what she is in now) and Dolphin (the next class), and then she can take Splashers, the intro group to SplashClub. I am guessing she will be swimming in SplashClub in a year or year and a half.

This past weekend, the Allen family came for a visit. We love the Allen family! We headed down to Kalediscope, the children's museum, went to church, and hung around the house the rest of the weekend. I think everyone had a good time. My kids were tired...sign of a good weekend!

Happy 5th Reid!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby Girl! 

You are now officially 5, after a couple of false starts (1. You thought you turned 5 in October when we took you to American Girl and 2. You thought you were 5 when you received your birthday pencil at school before the Christmas break.)

Who you are at 5...

• You are in Pre-K at Will Rogers Early Childhood Center. Your teacher is Miss Hamilton and she is assisted by Ms. Albritton and Ms. Quinn. You love all three. At the beginning of the school year, you only knew one or two letters. Now, you know most of your letters and can write your first name.
• Your favorite show is SpongeBob, followed closely by iCarly, Hannah Tanna (Hannah Montana), and Scooby Doo.
• You are taking gymnastics lessons and LOVE IT!
• You also like swimming and watching Bubba at swim meets. You try to "practice" your swimming in the bath tub, complete with backstroke starts off of the facets.
• Your favorite playmate is your Bubba and you get concerned when he isn't home.
• You are very LOUD! Silence isn't loss on you, Sissy Bear. When in doubt, you must sing, talk, anything to make noise.
• When you are tired, you start to rub one of your ears. We know you are just about to fall asleep at night when you start to rub your ear. And, when you are tired, upset or overwhelmed, you rub your ear.
• Your laugh is contagious.
• You still love to paper, pens, markers (especially sharpies), scissors, stampler (stapler), and stickers. Most of the time you color on things appropriate; sometimes you do not.
• You still have to have your chocolate milk before bed. Dr. Bumpus told us to limit you to one and you remind us of that almost nightly.
• You are growing up entirely too fast.