Luke is a graduate!!

It's almost official - Luke is almost in KINDERGARTEN!!

He had his fourth and final graduation from The Grace Place tonight and is ready for the big school!! Landry also "graduated," but isn't quite ready for real school yet!!

They both had great years this year. Luke had the amazing Mrs. Leigh as his teacher and she did such a great job!! He also had the amazing Mrs. Kelly until baby Jackson came along around Christmas time.

(Kelly - I'm SO sorry I forgot you were Luke's teacher!! I have slept so much since then and honestly, there have been quite a few teacher changes, so forgive my poor memory!! Those pictures in the slide show brought it all back to me!! You and Leigh were great together!!)

Here's Luke with Mrs. Leigh --

And here's Luke getting his diploma --

Here's Landry with Mrs. Marlana --

Here's Landry getting his diploma --

Still celebrating!

Parker's big day just about did me in, but Monday morning found everyone happy and pretty well rested. Good thing, since it was a holiday!!

We headed down to Granbury for a little pool fun and for Parker to have a little family birthday love!! I wasn't feeling totally up to par so the pics are a little limited!

Meagan and Luke

Lexie, Luke, Ryan, and Landry

From the fam, Parker got a little cash, a gift card to Petsmart to buy some stuff for Rocky, and these two really cool presents from Nana and Poppy:

This is a Hot Wheels track that does all kinds of crazy things!! Parker put this together by himself and was very excited about what it could do!! Lots o' fun!!

Then came the triple Slip n' Slide!! This will hopefully, provide hours of summer fun for the boys!! They love it! Check out the looks on their faces!!

All in all, a great holiday and a very busy weekend!!

Happy #9 to Parker!!

As much as I like to wish my kids a happy birthday on their actual day, I have failed this time!!

We had such a big day on Sunday, Parker's 9th birthday, that I ended up in bed at 9:00 with horrible stomach pain, while we had company at our house!! Nothing says "welcome to our house; we're so glad you came; let's have a great time together" like "I think I'm sick - excuse me while I go to bed!!"

Anyway, the day started out at church, followed by a Memorial Day picnic outside. From there we went to Parker's place to party - Tornado Terry's!! Yes, it sounds corny but it was actually a lot of fun!! We paid a flat fee and the boys played video games until their hearts' content. It was pretty cool to just go up to a video game and push "play" and it just start playing!! There were plenty of games to choose from, but I found myself returning over and over to Pacman and Galaga!! Blast from the past, for sure!! Sadly, I couldn't figure out Donkey Kong to save my life!! Parker had a great time gaming with his friends!!

Parker and his friends - Corey, Cameron, and Adrian

Parker got lots of great gifts -

And maybe the best gift of all, according to Parker, a new addition to our family:

Meet Parker's new parakeet - Rocky!!

Parker brings so much life and laughter to our family. He sees the world in a way that is unique and gives the phrase "never a dull moment" new layers of meaning!! Parker is thoughtful, caring, kind, and loving most of the time!! He is super smart and is always amazing me with new facts that he's learned. Parker's got a bright future ahead and I can't wait to see the paths that God leads him down!! Love you, Parker!!

The beginning of a busy weekend!!

Today was the longest day of baseball ever!!

All three played - all three lost!! I realized I haven't posted any baseball pics all season, so here are some from today.

Alex pitching (warming up - which is why the left fielder is sitting down!!)

Parker had a great game today!

Luke always has a good time!!

We spent a little time in between games at the duck pond -

Finally, we planted a little garden tonight. Not really sure how it's going to turn out, but it might be a fun little summer project. We planted corn and pumpkins and threw in some sunflowers just for fun! After it was all planted nice and neatly, I came inside and found the cucumber seeds I had forgotten about!!

If there's any growth, I'll try to document it here. If you never see the garden again, you'll know what happened!!

The coolest pool in the neighborhood

All that talk about going swimming and we got to go today!!

Our good friends and neighbors, Kris and Casey, just finished putting in an amazing pool in their backyard!! Luke is good buddies with their son, Kaleb, so he's been going over a little bit to get some swimming in. This has been a great source of jealousy for the older boys who are still in school every day while these little boys aren't!!

Today, everything lined up perfectly and everyone enjoyed the great pool. Wyatt came home with Alex today so he got to enjoy it too!

I'm not sure how Kaleb and Alex really didn't get into the action shots, but I'm sure I'll get them at some point this summer! I'm hoping Casey and I will still be friends after this summer! The boys are going to be driving me crazy to go swimming a lot! But it is a great pool and I'm sure we'll have loads of fun there! Thanks Casey for letting us hang out!!

Onto other things . . . Parker had a fun day at school today called Crazy O (Crazy Olympics). The kids did all kind of crazy outdoor activities and we went up and kind of helped with it. I snapped this picture of two of the coolest cats I saw today - Parker and his good buddy, Abbee.

Hurry up, Summer!!

When will Summer come??

We are so ready!!

Ready to stay up late ...

Ready to sleep in late ...

Ready to swim and play and do nothing at all!!

I'm sure I will be eating these words by the second day of summer, but for now, we can't wait!!

Since I really don't have anything else to blog about, I found a couple of pictures from last summer that remind me of what we'll be doing soon!!

Bring it on!!

Take me out to the ballgame ...

On Friday night, a friend of Scott's hooked us up with some great tickets for the Rangers game. We sat 13 rows kind of behind 1st base and enjoyed a great game!! The final score was 16-8 (I think) and the Rangers hit at least 6 home runs!! The offense was amazing!! Baseball can sometimes be a boring sport to watch, but this was one exciting game!!

We went early and did a little tailgating!!

Here we are all settled into our seats! (Notice the sheer excitement on Alex's face!)

Of course, Luke was in full uniform and he was so funny to watch when music started playing. He jerked off his glove as fast as he could and concentrated so hard at clapping at just the right time!! It was so funny to watch!

Here's our attempt at the wave!! (I'm a pretty amazing photographer, aren't I???)

Here's Landry doing the wave!!

And here's Landry a few minutes later!!

All in all, a great time for the fam!! Go Rangers!!

Mommy Dearest!

While we were in New York, Mother's Day came!!

It was kind of strange to be away from the kids on this day! But I know that they really missed me and I'm sure they just felt out of sorts all day without me!!

Oh - I jest!!

Emily asked the boys if they wanted to call me on Sunday to wish me a Happy Mother's Day and Landry informed her that his Mom was already happy!!

The boys did make me some pretty cute things and I wanted to document them here!! That way if I can't remember where I put them, I can always look here!!

Most of this was made at school and now that Alex is in the 5th grade, they really don't encourage them to appreciate their moms through crafts. So, I got nothing from Alex!!

Parker made me a really neat calendar that is on the fridge. The words say -

"Mom, Mom - You're like a trillion, but you're one in a million"

"Mom, Mom - You're the one - You're the one that's best of a ton!"

The top says "Mom you are:" and the flowers say:

Our ruler

The boss

The chef

Awesome

The artist (which he admitted he just couldn't think of anything else so he put this!! I can appreciate his honesty!!)

Luke made me a few things at school - a card, a bookmark, some notecards that he painted himself, and a little paper that tested how well he knows his mom!!

His school does this every year and it is always so funny to see how the kids answer these questions. Here's what Luke had to say: (his answers are in italics) (can't make blogger do the spacing right!)

My mom's name is Kristy.

She has brown hair and blue eyes.

She is 36 feet tall and weighs 430 pounds!!

She is 36 years old.

She loves to eat spaghetti and pizza.
Her favorite thing to do is work and play the Wii.

She smiles when I win a baseball game.
I love her because she plays with me.

One of the neatest gifts was the little flower pot. The flower is acutally a pen that you stick down into the little jar. The jar is filled with little rocks and hold the "flower" up very nicely! It is very cute and functional, since I can never seem to find a pen when I need one. Luke made this at church, so Shellee/Deneise - great idea!!

Finally, Landry made many of the same presents as Luke since they go to the same school!

Here's what Landry has to say about me!

My mom's name is Momma.
She has gray hair and black eyes.
She is big feet tall and weighs 29 pounds!!
She is 5 years old.
She loves to eat chicken and rice.
Her favorite thing to do is work outside.
She smiles when I because I love her.
I love her because she plays outside with me.

As I wax philosophically about Mother's Day, I can honestly say that I would have never seen me as a mother of four boys. It is definitely an adventure like no other. While I often hear others lamenting my fate (usually moms of only girls), I know God has gifted me with these little boys to guide during this life. They each have so much to offer and add to my life!

New York, New York

OK - so we didn't actually go to NEW YORK, New York, but we still went to New York!!

Scott and I had a great time spending time with his family and seeing the beautiful countryside of upstate NY. While some may see it as a disadvantage to be 30 minutes away from the nearest Walmart, you don't see this kind of beauty in my neighborhood!!

Most of this may not be that interesting if you don't know Scott's family, but I'm going to try to document as much as I can remember for the future. Rumor has it that Scott's parents may not be in New York forever so I want the boys to remember this stuff!! I have had a lot of neat memories here, but this house is where the family came together when Scott was a boy. Grandma Rachel lived there for many years before Scott's parents moved in, so it holds many, many memories for their family. Here's the house - all 3 stories, plus basement, plus garage, plus barn, plus two trailer homes, plus 10 acres of beautiful land -

You don't see this kind of detail in houses nowadays -

This is one my favorite features - the staircase to the second floor. It is extremely steep, long, and red!! The stairs are so narrow that I can't fit my whole foot on a single step! I know I have big feet, but it is very easy to get tripped up on theses stairs!!

This is the view from the top! That little white spot down at the bottom is the house!! The red bard is to the left of the house and the first trailer home is on the left side of the pic. It's pretty amazing!!

A part of the trip that I especially enjoyed was getting to spend some time with my sister-in-law, Kathy and their kids.

They have four great kids - Kelsey (7) Lauren (6) Ella (2) Elijah (6 mo.) and we went to the park one afternoon to have a little fun. I haven't seen the big girls since they were like 3 and 4 and I've never seen Ella and Eli so it was so neat to get to see how they've grown up and have such great little personalities. The older girls remind me very much of some other nieces I have!! Here are my observations of them at this point in their lives -

Kelsey - self-described tomboy, but still likes pink! Very competitive, asks lots of questions, needs to see the big picture at all time!! (sounds like someone who lives here!!)

Lauren - self-described "girly-girl" - not really into competition, always has a quick smile, usually followed with a cute giggle, maybe followed with a loud, long laugh!! Is always having a good time!

Ella - where do I begin?? This girl is a ball of energy, always into things, curious, inquisitive, and is not the kind of child you want to go missing! More than once I saw Kathy go into almost panic mode when Ella couldn't be accounted for, probably because she knew the possibilities! This is one of my favorite pictures of Ella. I think it's right before she started licking the rocks!!

This girl has no fear - at all - none!!

Then there's Eli - quite possibly THE happiest baby on the planet. He probably doesn't realize yet that he has 4 mothers!! He's a great baby!!

Here a couple of other cute pics from the park -

Finally, onto the point of the trip. Scott's dad has retired from 40 years with Word of Life and a dinner/program/reception was held to honor him. Here are the happy couple:

David, Melodie, Bernadine, Tim, Doug, Scott, and Nathan

Nathan, Heather, Rachael, and Madeline

This is Monty and Gail. Monty is Bernadine's brother and I really enjoyed getting reacquainted with them. I got to spend a little time at their house and see their beautiful property. If my memory serves me correctly, they have 35 acres of sprawling hills, trees, and a really neat pond. I kept thinking as I was taking it all in about how much the boys would absolutely love that place, with all the creatures and their natural habitats. Monty is a builder and is in the middle of an adding a new addition onto their house so they can enjoy the land a little more from the inside. It's going to be a really nice touch when it is finished.

All in all, it was a very nice trip. It was good to get away from the normal busy life that we lead. Life is definitely a little slower in this part of the world. And it was nice to see Doug get a little reward here on Earth for all of his years of hard work!! Congratulations!!

Thanks to Deneise, my mom, and Emily for handling the kids while we were gone!! They had a great time and quite possibly, didn't miss us at all!! Thanks a million!!