Iron Woman

Let's just assume that I'm always a week or two behind on blogging, shall we?

I have been working like a MAD WOMAN the past couple of weeks.  In addition to overtime at the ER, earlier this month I volunteered in the medical tent at the finish line of the Ironman Triathalon that was held here one Saturday.  Ummm, that was FUN.  Why would anyone sign up, much less pay to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, then run a 26.2 mile marathon?  400 or so athletes that ended up in the main medical tent at some point on Saturday, which was fun for this girl who got to stick big needles in lots of exceptionally nice "patients" throughout the evening.  Severe electrolyte imbalances (aka extremely low sodium levels) can cause people to act a little confused and "out of it", and I'm not ashamed to say that it was borderline entertaining to see these world-class athletes giggling at each other over cups of chicken broth and asking me questions like "am I in Texas?"

We're not sponsoring Guatemalan Aidan anymore.  Two people were accidently assigned the same child, so someone else has Guatemalan Aidan.  We have another little boy now.

We went to Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend.  It will probably be July before I get around to editing pictures and blogging about it.  But I loved it.  Every second.

Pinterest is an awesome place for finding ideas for end-of-school year teacher gifts.  I'll have to take a picture of our teacher gifts this year and share it with you.  You know, so you can pin it.

Over the next few days I will be attending a rehearsal dinner, wedding, swim meet, baby shower, birthday party for a 3-year old where Brandon will be dressing up as Thor (I am not even kidding) and probably a couple of graduation parties.  Basically a lot of opportunities to eat cake.

I have a couple of more posts in progress that will hopefully make a little more sense than this jumbled mess.  Can I blame it on the last day of school?

In the last Couple of Weeks...

...we celebrated Mother's Day!  Yay for Mommies!  On Sunday our church service focused on adoption and orphan care, and we had the opportunity to sponsor a child in Guatemala who attends a church we have worked with in the past.  We are in the midst of a children's building campaign at our church right now, and are simultaneously raising money to also build a childrens' building at the Guatemalan church.  When we saw Johann's face, we knew he was ours to sponsor.  He's a little kindergarten boy in Guatemala.  The description?  "Yohan is one of two boys in his family.  Yohan is an extremely energetic boy and sometimes has a hard time paying attention in class.  His school has a history of teaching "active" children like Yohan to focus their energy in a constructive manner."  We thought his description sounded a little...familiar.  Like another kindergarten boy we know.

Meet Yohan.

Y'all.  He's the Guatemalan Aidan.

Do you see it?

...That grey tooth finally fell out of Dane's mouth.  The grey tooth that has been staring at us lopsided and loose for the better part of two months.  Fell out into a slice of pizza that Dane was chomping on, with the permanent tooth already peeking through behind it.  We are celebrating Dane's hillbilly look for a little while, until the loose tooth next to it falls out sometime next year.

...we have decided to use a portion of our tax refund to redecorate the upstairs playroom a little bit.  Since we moved into the house 9 years ago, the walls have been a red color that I  LOVE, but I'm ready for a change.  I think we're going with light grey walls and some sort of yellow curtains to start with.  I've barely been able to get off Pinterest lately, what with all the IDEAS and such.

This is the type of color scheme I am going for...

Mine won't be exactly like the pictures, of course, because it will still be covered with all sorts of baby dolls and princess dress up clothes and a play kitchen.  And we're not buying any new furniture, so we're just going to slipcover and paint and work with what we got.  Also Brandon may have talked me into transferring the TV and cabinet from downstairs into this upstairs room, replacing the 800 pound television with one of those new-fangled flat screen TV's that are so so fancy now.  Have you seen these new TVs? They're BRAND NEW.  And yes, we bought the last 800 pound television of its' kind 9 years ago when we moved in.

...we are in the midst of swim team season.  The kids love practicing, and if Aidan would let go of the rope long enough to swim, he may actually be pretty fast.  Dane has become a speedy little swimmer, the fastest in his age group right now.  Emerson spends her time during swim practice practicing her "big kicks" on the kick board with her coach.  She's still pretty sure everyone else is there just to watch her swim.

...my last d-group is tomorrow night.  Can't remember if I've mentioned this or not, but throughout this entire school year, I have been meeting with a group of high school girls every Wednesday night.  There's usually about 10 girls and me, and we do a Bible study or read a book, and we spend time sharing prayer requests and praying for each other and they keep me up to date on current music and weird abbreviations (YOLO!) and teach me how to tie a scarf and tell me which mascaras are good.  I still haven't figured out why some "cute boys" are considered "cute boys".  But that's okay.  I'm 34 years old, and it would be creepity-creepy if I did think 16 year old boys were cute.  Eww.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post again before this weekend...

Cinco De Mayo

Woo hoo!  I'm only running a couple of weeks behind on blogging...

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with 5k run for Brandon and Dane, and a 1k run for Aidan.  

Us girls cheered for the boys from the sidelines.  I am not a runner.  I only run if something big and scary is chasing me.

Like this Chic-Fil-A cow.  I don't know why I'm just a bit freaked out by the CFA cow, and other "mascot" style costumes.  Maybe it's because I can't see their eyes or facial expressions.  But I'm not a fan of big furry costumes.

23 minutes later...

and 4 minutes after that...

Dane came in first place in the 9-and under age group, and won a $25 gift card at a frozen yogurt place.

While the boys ran, Emerson...flirted?  She and her friend from church got matching scorpions painted on their faces.

Yeah, life is going to be real interesting in about 10 years.  

And April

I'm sure our little family did lots and lots of fun things in April.  I'm fairly certain the highlight of the month was not manicure day:

However, when I went through my camera, very few pictures represented the super fun month that I AM SURE we had. 

I know we went swimming a couple of times, and played outside and went to the park a bunch.  I know for sure that I spent no small part of the month mentally obsessing about what on earth I am going to do with four kids at home all summer, since we're not planning any big fun vacations.  I know I spent lots of time on Pinterest, planning my next room redecoration/craft project/scripture memorization plan/baby shower menu.  And I know I co-hosted not one, but two bridal showers over a single weekend.  (Sidenote:  Why do I always think cake balls are such a good idea?  They take 6 hours to make.  6 HOURS TO MAKE.  Never again, cake balls.  Never again.)
So what did I get pictures of instead?

Brandon took the kids for a weekend to see  his family and surprise his mom for her birthday.  I had to work the whole weekend, so I didn't get to go.

Which I realized was probably for the best when I saw these pictures:

Dane with a microphone.  Aidan with a trumpet.  A trumpet.  As parents, Brandon and I dread the day when our kids will utter the fateful phrase, "Can I be in band this year?"  We will support them in any endeavor they want to undertake, of course, as supportive, encouraging parents who want the best for our children.  Unless that involves band, baseball, or tennis.  Or some sort of select ice hockey league.  Those are all out.

On an unrelated note, Emerson wore this cute outfit and green shirt on this trip, and I have not seen this outfit since then.  So if anyone sees it, please send it back.  Girlfriend looks cute in green :)

The girls and I spent a weekend at my parents' house, in town for a big 50th anniversary celebration at the church I grew up in.  We had a great time, seeing friends I haven't seen anywhere (except on Facebook, of course) in 15 years.  How is it possible that I'm old enough to say "I haven't seen you in 15 years!"?  What I should have done was take pictures of the people I got to see and catch up with, of their beautiful babies and hair that is graying.  Instead, I took pictures of my kids watering Momo's tomatoes.

 And some of girls looking for bugs with their cousins.  Of course.

Harper's newest thing is to grab your face with both hands, and move in for a big, dramatic smooch on the lips for 5-10 seconds.  She calls it a "princess kiss".  We're going to be monitoring her Disney watching habits a little more closely :)  It's really pretty awkward when she does it to her friends at church.  Speaking of church, Emerson is coming to church service with us Sunday because they're talking about her (well, not her, but adoption and orphans) and we all get to wear cute matching shirts and she'll be so sassy, except that she fell out of her bed two nights ago and has a big purple bruise right by her lip.  Awesome.  Parents of the Year.

Harper Lo, Zane, and Jack have the exact same hair color.  It's called "almost the same color as these bricks".  Apparently it's a dominant family trait.

And here's to being officially (almost) caught up on blogging!  Just a week behind now!  Woo hoo!

February and March

At one point I had big plans to get all caught up on the blog, post about 10 posts about every little thing that has happened in the past few months, and edit about 90 pictures.

Well.  That didn't happen.  But I am going to go ahead and post a handful of pictures from some fun things from February and March and call it a day.  I'm sure there's a million little stories I'm going to forget because I never wrote it out anywhere, but life will go on.  Hopefully I can be a better blogger this month, because May promises to be a fun one!

At the end of February, we hopped up to my parents' house for a quick visit to go to a wedding.  The littles made cookies with MoMo,


looked for bugs with "Zane cousin",

and "held" baby Nora.

Baby Nora is going to be a big sister in September.  Have I mentioned that?  She'll just be a mere 14 months older than her little sister.  More babies for me to hold :)

The next morning, we loaded up and headed out to Laurel's first birthday party!

Laurel, who will also be a big sister very soon.  Her baby sister will be born in July.  And even more babies for me to hold :)

This past Spring Break, (yes, two months ago) Brandon took a group of high school and junior high students to Memphis for some mission work and BBQ. Thanks to a bunch of people who got the flu/fish hooks caught in their scalp/had car accidents/ruptured their appendixes, I had the privilege of working in the ER several days over Spring Break. Other people's misfortunes ensure my job security. And a small part of me gets EXCITED when someone has a heart attack.  It's a weird job.  As tradition has now dictated, Dane and Aidan spent a few days with my dad over their Spring Break. Before heading out to the Lazy S Ranch, they helped my dad take pictures of a baseball team.

And this picture of Aidan was taken which is one of my new favorite pictures ever.

I'd love to tell you about everything they did on the ranch,

but since it involved turtles, pond swimming, guns, candy,

bows and arrows, and Diet Dr. Pepper, I probably don't want to know.

A couple other little tidbits from recently...

Dane's front top tooth has been loose for about two months.  It has now turned grey, and sits at a crooked angle, yet he refuses to let us pull it.  At 8 1/2 years old, I think he's just determined to be the oldest kid ever to lose a front tooth.

Aidan had mono back in February.  We thought he had strep throat.  Then we thought he didn't have strep, but just bad tonsillitis.  Then we finally learned he had mono, and he ended up missing over a week of school.  Poor guy just felt so sick for about a week or so, then he was back to his normal Aidan-y self, but still had to sit out of PE and recess for a solid month.

I went to sign Emerson up for kindergarten (kindergarten!!) last week, and realized I have lost her social security card.  Of course.  The one kid that actually NEEDS her social security card, and it is no where to be found.  So I get to spend my day off this week at the social security office.  Fun times!  She started on swim team a couple of weeks ago and LOVES it.

Harper is still, well, Harper.  And the reason we have had to enforce the "no more boys peeing in the backyard" rule.  The other day Harper was playing outside while I was doing dishes in the kitchen.  After a few minutes, she comes inside and tells me "poo poo on the back porch!"  I think to myself, "silly girl.  There's no poo poo on the back porch.  It's probably just a squished bug or dirt or something."  Upon further investigation, as it turns out, there WAS poo poo on the back porch.  Poo poo that Harper had then STOMPED AROUND IN while wearing her pretty pink glittery shoes, then proceeded to track into the FRESHLY MOPPED kitchen.  Just so you know, there's no chapter in the "What to Expect" books titled "What To Do When Your Toddler Defecates On The Back Porch Then Stomps Around In It Wearing $9 Walmart Glittery Shoes Before Tracking It On A Freshly Mopped Kitchen Floor".  And because there is no chapter, I will tell you that it involves this:  a bathtub, bleach spray, a hose with a spray nozzle, and just THROWING AWAY the pink glittery shoes.  Trust me, they're not worth cleaning.  So now, Harper has a pair of hand-me-down pink sparkly sandals that she calls her "pink sparkle shoes without the poo poo."  This. Girl.

Hopefully will be back before the end of the month,