Playing Catch-up

Thought I would try to play a little catch up on things around here...not a lot has been going on but we've been keeping busy with school and work and life in general. After school on Friday my sisters and I took the kids to get pumpkins and they had fun painting them. Here is a quick picture of them showing off their pumpkins...Cavan was gone and Rorri (as you can tell) was not all that cracked up about the picture - at least she's in this one! With this many kids, it is on a V E R Y rare occasion that we get all of them looking and smiling and looking like the perfect little angels that they all are. lol :)



Saturday would have been my brother, Carl's, 26th birthday and also the day that Liberty and Shaun's little Lilli passed away 4 years ago. I still miss both Carl and Lilli every single day. I can't even imagine Carl being 26 and watching Reegan get so big is a constant reminder that her cousin Lilli should be right along side her and the rest of her cousins. Mom and Dad took us girls and our guys out and it was nice to be together. We found sitters for all of the kids and went to dinner and a movie. We watched Fireproof and really liked it - the guys were definitely hesitant that we were even going to see it but I think they all liked it a lot more than they thought they would.

Well, right now, I am getting ready to watch Brothers & Sisters and work on some homework so I'd better run. Have a great week!

Reece's Pirate

Reece s PIRATE

I haven't posted anything for a little while and while erasing some of my old text messages I came across this picture that Randy had sent me one day. Reece had drawn a pirate in the dirt...maybe we are a little biased, but we were pretty impressed. :) Anyway, thought I would share it.

I'm the Prettiest!

Ok, so my friend Jamie pointed out that I have been slacking a bit on the blogging...Labor Day weekend was a busy one for us. We definitely enjoyed our three day weekend! Randy and I played in a softball tourney...not one of our brightest ideas since neither one of us has played for at least two years. :) LOTS of stretching going on...muscles don't recover quite as quickly as they used to! But it was a lot of fun. The kids had fun playing at the park. We went to the annual pancake breakfast on Saturday morning, visited the fundraising foodstands and, of course, went to the parade on Monday. A very looong weekend but a very fun one!

The rest of the week has went quickly. Reece lost another tooth so he can't wait to write another letter to the tooth fairy. Today was my Thursday with Reegan. We ate lunch with Randy at my parents' restaurant. After lunch, my dad came over and sat with us a little bit and we were talking with Reegan. Randy always likes to tease her with questions like, "Do I know you?" and "Who's number one?" She just laughs. So, he is asking her "Who's number one?" and she says, "Mommy!"- of course, we both want to be her number 1, so he asks, "Who's the smartest?" She says, "Mommy!" So, he says "Who's the funniest?" and she says "Daddy!" (I guess I don't do funny:) So, then he says "Who's the prettiest?" This will be the deciding factor - is mommy the big winner or is it going to be a tie? She looks at me and then she looks at him and says, "I am!" Oh, silly girl, you sure can make me laugh. :)

I thought I'd spare you the photo of Randy and I in our ball gear and instead share one of Miss Reegan during one of her tee ball games this summer. Enjoy!

Ok, I can't resist...I'd better share a couple of all of the kids from ball this summer. Have a great day! :)

Laundry and Cleanin' and....

In all the talks and excitement of the first day of school and kindergarten and a first lost tooth, Reegan sometimes gets a little lost in the shuffle of things. Reece and the girls are loving school but what that means for Reegan is that she is home without her playmates. But she is loving the time that she gets to spend with me and Randy "all by mine-self!" Since I don't have class on Tuesday or Thursday, those are "her" days with mom and she seems to love it - no matter what we do. The other night when I was tucking her into bed and told her that we got to spend the next day together, she asked what we were going to do. I said, "Well, we'll probably do a little laundry and..." before I could say anything else that I thought would sound more 'fun' she piped up, "and cleanin'!? and sweepin'!?" - she could hardly contain her excitement. I thought of that again today as she 'helped' me load the washing machine with such joy and look forward to all the fun things we'll get to do on these special days when it's just the two of us hanging out and doing laundry and cleanin' and...

Have a happy day!

The Case of the Missing Tooth

It happened today...Reece lost his very first tooth! He lost it at school during center time while he was, in his words, "wiggling it around with my tongue and it just fell out!" I, of course, had to get pictures. At first he questioned why I wanted to take a picture and then he said, "Oh, I get it, so you can scrapbook it, right?" Then he said, "How about you call it "The Case of the Missing Tooth" and you can make a "mystery mark" (I think he meant a ?) on it!" So, has the poor kid been the target of too many pictures and scrapbook plans or what?! :) Anyway, here are the pics of my big boy...he is so proud! Hopefully, I'll get around to scrappin' this soon. ;)




Isn't my little man so handsome?! I really can't believe how big he is getting. :)

Ok, I just wanted to share Reece's happy news so I will close for now - hope everyone has a great week!

Cardinal's Game

This is the picture Randy sent the kids before they went to bed from the Cardinal's game he went to last night. They thought it was pretty cool to see. Randy stayed in St. Louis after the game and then came home this afternoon. I think he had a pretty good time...I guess they left in the 7th inning since the Cardinals were ahead by so much (14-1 maybe?) but then went to a couple of casinos. I'm thinking he must have stayed out late (or early, depending on how you want to look at it!) since he came home and has been "napping" for a while now. He did say he'd take us all out for dinner this evening. :)

Since Randy was gone, the kids and I spent the evening hanging out at home....they watched a movie and I scrapped a little while watching some Lipstick Jungle episodes on-line from last season. Rebecca and Erica watch it and like it so I thought I'd see if I liked it. I finished all of last season's episodes so I am ready for the new season to start on Sept. 24. :) I finished a layout of me and Randy too.

me & you
Journaling: Some things were simply meant to be...me for you & you for me

This morning the kids and I got the house cleaned a bit. Not our favorite thing to do on Saturday mornings by any means, but it does feel nice to get things clean though. :) This afternoon Rylee and Reeva worked on these altered keychain albums to hang on their backpacks.

I suppose that is enough for now....Have a great weekend!

Little Friends

Erica called last night to see if it would be ok for Cora and Carlton to come over today while she was at work. Reegan and Cora were, of course, delighted. They have been busy all morning - playing dress-up, coloring, making sure they were dressed the same, getting their hair done (they insisted on 3 ponytails!), watering my flowers for me (I'm sure the flowers are thankful!) and playing outside. I had to snap a few photos to share:



Carlton is taking a nap, the girls are playing, and I have a few minutes before I need to get lunch started so I thought I'd ramble a little.

I'm almost finished with my first week of my last year of school. :) I only have 3 classes this semester! That is such a relief - especially since I have Tuesdays and Thursdays off and only go for an hour on Friday mornings. Next semester I will student teach so that will be every day but I am enjoying this semester. I think Reegan is enjoying getting to have some one-on-one time with me too. Being the youngest, she sometimes just gets swept along in whatever everyone else is doing and it doesn't seem to bother her one bit but I can tell she is lovin' the time she gets by herself with me too. She's always asking what we're going to do...usually laundry or cleaning..and she gets so excited like it's the best idea she has ever heard! We were going to go to the park for lunch today but I think she got a little sidetracked with Cora here so we may have to do that next week.

The other three seem to be loving school. Rylee is back into her Chuck Taylor and jump roping phase...gotta wear her Chucks and has rarely been without a jumprope in her hand for the past couple of days. She gets up, eats breakfast and then starts jumping....crazy girl! Reeva is doing good too. She is the one who is ready to study anything extra that Miss S. asks them to read - I don't think Rylee would ever even mention it! But, Reeva is all over it. :)

Reece got to be the Student of the Day this week. They learned about the letters and sounds of his name and everyone drew a picture of him.

This is the picture that Reece drew of himself:



Ok, I'd better get busy. Hope you are having a great day!