Chinese Conspiracy???

The evolution of toy packaging is absolutely out of control. My grandpa, who is very much into conspiracy theories, once said he thought it was all a conspiracy by the Chinese to frustrate the Americans. We just laughed at the time. But now I'm wondering. Has anyone else noticed it just keeps getting worse? A couple of weeks ago I took this picture. This was a remote control car for a little child. It was held captive not only by the dreaded twisty tie things, but with hot glue on top of the ties as well! China, we surrender. We are officially frustrated......

I Have To Brag

We're back in town but I only have time for a quick post right now. I'll do more next week. I just had to take a moment to brag on my man! When I pulled into the driveway yesterday, I immediately noticed the freshly mowed lawn. Inside the house, the sweet smell of clean met me at the door. The bed was made (even with the throw pillows!), the laundry all picked up, the dishes washed, the trash taken out, and the dog fed. Whoa! It was incredible! It's taken almost 8 years but I think he's almost trained. Just kidding.....He is such a great husband and father. I tease him all the time that he tricked me into marrying him, but secretly, I'm glad. =) I love you, John Clays!!!

Vacation!

My blog will be on vacation for the next week as I will be visiting family in Dallas. Woohoo! I'm exhausted just thinking about this trip, but it will be nice. Even though my extended family only lives 4 hours away, I hardly ever get to see them. We have lots of visiting to fit into 4 days!

We went to see Shrek 3 today. It was funny, but the first one is still my favorite. The kids enjoyed it alot though.

When I get back in town I will have lots and lots to post. So enjoy the calm before the storm of blog entries arrive......

Almost Over

One hour and 16 minutes. That's how much longer my little boy will be in kindergarten......

A Special "Good Morning!"

This morning, the coolest thing happened. When John David and I were getting in the van to drive to school, a butterfly flew in with us. We closed the doors and kept an eye on it. Within a few moments, the butterfly landed on John David's shoe. He was so excited! We decided the butterfly was telling him congratulations on his last full day of kindergarten. (Yes! Today is his last full day of school!) That pretty butterfly stayed on his shoe all the way to school. John David tried to be very careful getting out of the car and walking to class, but before he could get in the building, the butterfly flew away.

Thank you, Jesus, for sending us a pretty little butterfly today. What a special way to start our day!

Big Eyes

This past weekend, while John was gone and I had the kids all by myself, I suddenly realized we really needed some house rules. Of course, we have always taught our kids certain things, but we've never actually written them all down. A long Saturday spent being outnumbered 3 to 1 certainly motivated me though.

One of our rules is "No Calling Names". This isn't a serious problem since it's normally just silly, made-up names (like Julia-Gulia or foo-dog) when we're playing. But lately they get their little feelings hurt so I thought it best just to bann it altogether.

So yesterday when John David and Julia were eating dinner and acting like their normal silly selves, I heard Julia laughing real hard. John David came to the laundry room and told me Julia had just called him big eyes. Now it definitely wasn't a big deal, but I had made the rule so I needed to enforce it. I called Julia and told her to apologize. She said, "Ok." I could only laugh when she ran back to the dining room and in the sweetest voice imagineable said, "Sorry, Big Eyes."

Aulora AND Julia AND John David (At Walmart), Oh My!

I don't know why I keep trying to go grocery shopping with 3 children. It is an impossible feat. Either they go in the basket and there is no room for food and they bug each other (and me) the whole time OR they walk beside the basket. In that case, there is no time to get food as I am so busy trying to keep track of them. Either way, it's a bust. Last Friday night, we had to go pick up a few things and John was at Fine Arts so off we went. You would laugh if you saw the things we bought. I think almost everything was either some type of frozen meal or from the Little Debbie section. I also spent about 5 minutes trying to explain to a 6 year old why I didn't want to spend $2 on a cool looking kid cuisine meal when the boring looking adult meal was exactly the same (minus a penguin) and only cost $.75. That didn't go over too well, but in the end I won. He finally understood when I told him we wouldn't have money left for any fruit rollups if we paid for the kid cuisine. hehehehe

Anyway, I had my camera with me so I decided to take a few shots to remember the time I was stupid enough to once again go to Walmart with 3 children.....

Friends

Here's Julia with Jaron and Avery - 2 of her best friends. They were here for a baby shower I hosted last week. (Their mom is Angela, my best friend here.)

Near Miss with a Royal Ripoff

We picked up our van today from the shop - Rudy's Automotive downtown. We had to get the a/c fixed. While it was there, I asked if they could look at the automatic sliding doors which are quite the opposite of automatic these days - they are stuck. The driver side one hasn't worked in a really long time. (Try arranging 3 carseats when only ONE of your doors work SOME of the time - ha!) I had previously spoken to the Ford dealership and they wanted $300 PER door just to see what was wrong. That wasn't even to fix it! Well, lo and behold, my man Rudy fixed both doors for $20. The locks needed to be lubricated. The door motor is fine. Tomorrow I will be giving my newly madeover van a good cleaning and an oil change. Woohoo! I am happy.....

(as happy as one can be after spending $420 on the air conditioning)

A Happy Week in San Angelo!

This week is kindergarten graduation and we couldn't be more excited! Of course, the range of emotions that I'm feeling is almost overwhelming but I'm mostly excited for my Little. He's worked so hard and learned so much and I can't wait to see him in his little cap and gown up on the stage. What a night it will be! And to top it off, all our family is coming to see. My parents from Denver, my brother from Austin, and John's parents (and maybe some other family) from Wichita Falls. Oh, I'm happy! This picture is one I took of him wearing his daddy's Biola graduation cap. His actual cap and gown pictures won't be in until after graduation.

Even the horrible mud tracked all over my white carpet by the terminex man this morning cannot put a frown on my face this week. My smile is unstoppable. =) My baby boy is graduating from kindergarten with flying colors!

Mother Daughter Tea

Last weekend was our Mother Daughter Tea at the church. I'm late in getting the pictures on here but I'm sure they'll still be appreciated. Notice the lack of manners Julia is displaying in the last couple of pictures! At least by this time, the tea party was over. =) The little girl with Julia in most of the pictures is Anna, Julia's best friend. Anna's mom is Esther, one of my close friends. The baby sitting by Aulora is Marina, Esther's other daughter. Aulora and Marina are only 3 months apart so maybe they too will be best friends......As long as they don't move away like they are talking about. =(

Hopefully, I will soon have a picture of myself with the girls posted. (hint, hint, Lana!)

Happy Mother's Day!

As always, Mother's Day was somewhat hijacked by fine arts but that's ok. John got home at about 4:00 this morning and he still found time somehow to get 3 red roses and put them in a vase on the bar for me this morning. We went to church and afterwards to lunch at Henry's Diner - not our favorite place but it's good and we had a gift certificate we had never used. We came home to enjoy the rest of the day since there is no service tonight. John is now asleep on the couch (where he will probably be for quite some time since he is so sleep deprived right now) and the kids are watching Mickey Mouse and eating grapes in their tent. Exciting, I know.

John David shared with me the picture book he made for me and it made my heart so happy. He had worked very hard on it and he was so proud to give it to me. The pictures he drew were so good and I told him I would put it with all my "treasures".

A little later Julia came and snuggled beside me on the bed. She nuzzled into my neck as she kissed me and told me happy mother's day. My heart melted.

So, although not too exciting of a day, it is a wonderful, relaxing, special day. I love my babies and I love my man and all of them are here with me. I'm a happy momma.......

(And I guess I should mention that our teenagers did great at fine arts. Our top team advanced to nationals with their human video and 2 of our girls who wrote short stories also advanced. Some other things were close but didn't quite make it for various reasons. John does think that perhaps he has "cracked the code" for what it takes to win or get merit round in our district. I'll guess we'll see if he's right when fine arts rolls around next year!)

Oh, and I have to say Happy Mother's Day to both my mom and John's mom. We love you both and are so incredibly thankful for all you have done for us, given us, taught us, and protected us from. Your strength and your love helped make us into the wonderful and perfect people we are today. (haha - just kidding!) But really, our awesome moms made all the difference in our lives! We love you!!!

He Remembered.....

Every day as I take John David to school we have our little routine we follow. We review memory verses or poems he has to know, we go over the rules he needs to follow, we pray and then we give hugs and kisses. By then we are there and he gets out. I'm always sad as he excitedly runs down the sidewalk to the door until he turns and smiles real big at me, waves, and hollers, "Bye!!!" It always makes me smile as I drive back home by myself.

On Thursday he forgot to turn around and say bye. I was so sad and thought about how he was growing up and wouldn't do sweet little boy things like that as much. I wiped away a few tears and went on with my day. Yesterday, after we did all the things we always do during our drive to school, he got out and began to run up the walk. I watched and waited for him to turn around but he kept going. I dejectedly put the car in drive and started to pull away when I heard his little voice call out, "Mommy!" I stopped and looked over and there he was running back and smiling his sweet smile, waving, and saying, "Bye!" Oh, I felt so good. My baby will be my baby for a little bit longer after all.......

I'm a Smart One!

Last night Julia came into the living room where I was and held out her Hello Kitty stuffed toy to me. She had the saddest little face and her lip was quivering as she told me that Hello Kitty's bow had fallen off and Hello Kitty really needed her bow. "Can you fix her, Mommy?" I reached out and took Hello Kitty and tried to comfort Julia, since I really didn't think I could attach the bow very easily. She was somewhat consoled and began to play with something else. I looked at Hello Kitty and saw that with a little effort I could probably fix her. Within a couple minutes I did it and called Julia over to me. I held up Hello Kitty for her to see and she immediately hugged her and expressed her great love for Hello Kitty. After their little reunion Julia looked at me and said, "I knew you could do it, Mommy! Oh, thank you, thank you! Oh! You did it! I knew you could do it 'cause [here she reaches up and touches my nose] you're a smart one!" That one moment made my day. I was smiling from ear to ear because my little girl was proud of me. I'm still smiling now. What a great feeling.....

I hope my little girl will always be proud of me. I hope that on her first day of school she will proudly look back and blow me a kiss. I hope that when she reaches jr. high she won't be embarrassed to introduce me to her friends. And I hope that when she's all grown up we will be the best of friends. Now that would put a smile on my face!

Sleeping Baby Update

After sleeping all night in her bed, Aulora took a 3 hour nap today. I finally had to wake her up so we could pick up Little fom school. What a doll! I think I hit the baby jackpot!!! =)

The Time of His Life

Here's what John David had to say about his day today:

"At recess after lunch Megan was selling snails and I got a snail and I thought to myself, 'I'm having the time of my life!' And then Megan and her friends took the snail back and I was very sad and I said to myself 'I was just having the time of my life with that snail. I wish I still had it.' That's all"

E-L-E-V-E-N!!!

Yep, that's right. Eleven. That's how many hours Aulora slept in her bed last night! 9:30 until 8:30 this morning. She is most definitely the most perfect baby!

I should add that she also just finished a 1 1/2 hour nap too. =)

She Grew Up In A Week!

In just the last 7 days Aulora has learned to sit up, hold her own bottle, say da-da, and sleep in her own bed. Wow! I'm scared to think about what she may be doing by next week! =)

On a different note.....this was not too great of a day. Julia was not so very obedient and although John David did get a happy face at school, he did not put a happy face on me while I had him the rest of the day! I made the mistake of taking all three kids to Walmart (which I've said before that I would never do again) and that did not go so well. And right now I'm just too worn out from all the other things to even type about them! It's not even that they did any one thing that was so horrible. They just managed to systematically wear me down all day.

Maybe it's just the rain. Yeah, that's it. It's the rain.....

I wonder if it's raining tomorrow???

(As soon as they are asleep I'm going in to kiss their cheeks - and whisper a prayer of thanks that I get a break for the next 10 hours!)

Beautiful Baby!

Here's a few shots we took last night. Notice the one where she's sitting up all by herself! There would be more sitting up pictures, but I learned that naked sitting up pictures are not too modest! We'll try some with clothes on soon. =)

Aulora's New Exersaucer

Last night I got a great deal on an exersaucer for Aulora. We got it home and Julia and I cleaned it up and got it ready. Julia was so excited about this new toy for her baby sister. We put Aulora in it and she loved it! She uses her feet to turn around and play with all the different things. It's a nice change from her swing and this will give her lots more exercise. She's sitting in it as we speak playing and watching Sesame Street. =)

I'm learning to share

Just so everyone knows - my entries may become more sporadic because I now have to share my computer even more. I already shared with John David, but at least he was at school during the day. But now Julia has learned how to play some preschool learning games and she thinks it should be her turn whenever I sit down to do something on the computer.

Please do not send any parenting lectures regarding small children and "screen time" or anything else along those lines. I just count it a blessing that my house is a little quieter now. =)

Oh man, it's catching up..

I've been staying up past my bedtime (yes, I have a bedtime!) and getting up to get John David for school every day and I have been just fine. But it hit me this morning. I am T-I-R-E-D! I went back to sleep after taking Little to school but it didn't help. A trip to Starbucks would be very handy right now.

Oh, where is my Starbucks?

Oh, where is my Starbucks?

Oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh whe---------re


is my Starbucks?

(That was to the tune of "Where is my hairbrush" for all of you non-Veggie Tale fans.

Finally.....

Aulora is finally sitting up! She can't be left by herself yet since there is still some toppling, but she's getting the hang of it. I'll get some pictures soon.....