Another Day in the trenches...of acting that is

We spent most of the day today in Topeka again letting Brooke and Kenzie glow in the spotlight of being actresses. Ok so they were just extras but their face...or arm or foot or something just may be shown on TV so that makes them super star actresses right??!!! They really got a taste of the sitting and waiting and nothing being on time part of acting today but they still loved it!

Brooke ready for her scene.


Brooke and Kenzie


Brooke and Kenzie being "real" actors...sitting and waiting


Although it was great to see the girls loving life so much doing the extra work, I am kinda glad it was only for two days! The long drive there and back both days and then sitting around waiting has made me one tired mama...I think Robin would agree!

Now back to regularly scheduled programming...and NO Brooke and Kenzie you will not be getting the star treatment!!!! I think there's some trash to be taken out and dishes to be done...oh is your rooms clean??????!!!

Papa & Grammy

We are thinking about you today as you get your MRI and Scan Papa & Grammy!

All about Brooke

The past four days have been all about Brooke.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all spent giving her room a makeover (her Christmas gift)...we painted, tiled, decorated...you should have seen the sweat and tears :-) She wouldn't let us quit until every detail was just right! There's one more piece for the room that we are waiting for (in the mail) before the big reveal. Brooke said I could share a couple of pictures so here they are...

Brooke & Daddy painting


Brooke's entire room in our bedroom (wow! who would have thought a 12 year old would have SO much junk...I mean stuff!)


Then today we went to a shoot for a television show that is being filmed in Topeka, Broken Road. Brooke and Mackenzie were cast as extras in the show so we took them up there today and we'll go back tomorrow. They did some hallway scenes today, I'm not sure what they'll do tomorrow. They were a little nervous at first but after their first scene they both were hooked! They loved getting to experience the whole exciting life of actresses. These will be the last two days of shooting (for extras) for the first (6) episodes so they'll have to see if the show is contracted for more episodes before they know if they'll get to do more acting. You can see a little about the show at www.brokenroadtv.com Here's a picture of Brooke all decked out for her day...



Lexy has been learning about supporting family members (and being happy for them) and taking turns (in games and time) the past few days and she's doing great with her learning...I was so proud of her today! We did stop working on Brooke's room Sat. evening and had a Family Fun Game Night. We played Don't Break the Ice, Memory, Operation and Pictureka (which is a GREAT game!!). Here's a cute pic of Lexy just 'cause...

Christmas Day

Another GREAT day! Reasons I loved the day...

*The girls didn't get up until 8am
*We leisurely opened our presents
*Everyone was grateful for what they received
*We continued our tradition by sharing a wonderful Christmas breakfast
*Mamaw & Grandpa Tom visited (and brought presents!)
*We visited with Norma, Willie, Crissy and Raylee
*We ordered pizza for dinner 'cause Mama didn't want to cook after hearing that the local convenience store was open and taking orders for pizza!
*Everyone is happy and healthy!

Here's a scrapbook of our day...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

The only down side to the day was when daddy spent WAY too many hours putting the toy below together to only find out that it just wasn't easy or sturdy enough for Lexy to play with. She told us "I'm not disappointed, we can just take it back and get something better"...what a girl!

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas to all from our family to yours!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve today visiting with Uncle C.J., Jessi, Ashley, Tori and Sheila and then going up to Papa & Grammy's house for the afternoon. Take a look at our scrapbook of the day...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We feel so blessed that we have a wonderful family to celebrate the holidays with...tomorrow will be a visit from Mamaw and Grandpa Tom and going to Norma & Willie's.

Weekend fun

We weren't able to go to Papa & Grammy's this weekend, Grammy was still sick and Papa fell on the ice and hurt his shoulder...get better Papa & Grammy!!! So instead we went up shopping with the crazy people on Sat. (I can't believe Mike went for this!) and then went to K&M Bar-Be-Q for dinner (YUMMY!!!). We did come home with a new addition to the family...

His name is "T" or "Rexy" and he is the love of Lexy's life! Lexy must have felt that he had some halitosis as she got an old toothbrush and went to work...And then the next morning "T" demanded his own bowl of cereal. Mike says "that 3rd kid sure isn't as pretty as the first two!!"

The girls and I had to get out this morning for a follow up appt. for Lexy (dr.) so we went to one of the junk stores that the girls enjoy and then out to lunch. After that we came home and made one of papa & grammy's and mamaw & grandpa Tom's gifts (I'll post picture and how to's after Christmas) and we wrapped Mike's presents. Brooke and I also went online and found a solution for her jewelry in her new room...pictures of that to come after we get it all done!!

I'm getting a little worried that we may not get to make the trip up to Papa & Grammy's house for Christmas Eve since they are calling for sleet, freezing rain & snow on Tues/Wed. but hopefully the forecast will change before then!

Well, I need to go finish up some peanut butter fudge and make the girls some hot cocoa since they've been begging for it!

The crazy girls

To start off I'll give you something to laugh about...this is Brooke "trying" to set herself free from the sweatshirt monster!! She eventually won the battle but the shirt sure gave her quite a fight!

Lexy asked to get her own gift for Brooke so we went to Wal-Mart and she chose Brooke's gift and then wanted to wrap it "all by herself". Brooke already has bought Lexy's gift. Now that is sisterly love!

Lexy had her preschool winter party today. They were all so cute and excited (and wild!!). Lexy made gift bags for her friends/classmates...

One of the other mothers brought a craft for them to do, aren't these cute using their hands and feet?!!!...

And here they are all wild and crazy!...

We're hoping to spend the weekend (weather permitting) with Papa & Grammy. There's a play that I think the girls would enjoy that we could go see on Saturday and we haven't had a chance to go to the the drive-thru lights display yet this year so that would be a fun time for all!

Choir and more yucky weather

Can I just say that I am WAY tired of this yucky weather! We have had every kind of weather in the last week and it has been COLD!!! Today we are looking at getting freezing rain. I had hoped that school would be cancelled for the girls even though it hadn't started yet but OH NO I get to try to get out this afternoon in the middle of the yuck and pick Brooke up from school...ugh!

Last night Brooke had her choir concert. Papa and Grammy came down and had dinner (go to my other blog to see what we had) and then to the concert. The concert consisted of the 6th grade choir and 6th grade band and then the 7/8th grade choir and 7/8th grade band performing...they all did great!

Papa and Grammy brought us a present. This ornament that has our little family on it. Grammy said that they had a hard time finding one with only two kid (snowmen) on it, they all had three. I told her that maybe they should have gotten one with three kids...maybe it would be a sign that we needed another one!

Thank you Papa and Grammy! And thank you for coming to share the evening with us, even though Grammy felt icky!

A COLD Day!

Yep the girls had school and none of us were too happy to have to get out this morning! It has been SO cold all day!

Today I had this on the stove can you guess what it will be???

Nope not these, although I did make these (no bake cookies) for Mike and the girls today too!

It was this...

Yep, PEANUT BUTTER FUDGE! Is your mouth watering yet???? And no this batch is not for you dad!! This batch is actually for Lexy's teachers but I promise I'll be making more in the coming days for the family!!!

Now for the the bad Mommy moment...while doing all the above, I forgot to pick Brooke up from school!!!!! Yes it is only a 5 block walk and she does it often but it is FREEZING outside! I felt SO bad when she showed up at the door :-(

So I covered her with blankets...

and made her some hot cocoa...

Sorry Brooke!!!!!

The weekend

Here's a *new* post for the junkies...yes I'm talking to you Dad!!! haha!

This weekend on Sat. the girls and I had "mommy and me" time as Mike was on call and stayed home working on some of Brooke's Christmas presents for her room. The girls and I went shopping at a few stores, walked around the mall and then headed to Chuck E. Cheeses for dinner and fun. We all had a fabulous time but we were all wore out by the time we got home from all the walking, fun and jostling from the crowds! We sat down and watched a Christmas movie as a family after getting home.

Here's Lexy after our outing...

Brooke with Lexy's new "friend" that she had to have! I know Mom, I wouldn't let you buy her a big stuffed dog for Christmas b/c we don't have room...this one was ONLY $5 (I have no better excuse!)

Lexy talked me into a Happy Birthday balloon yesterday too...one of those poor parenting moments when I bought it just to apease her so we could get out of the store :-) She decided to dress it in her pajama shirt (and we ALL thought this was hilarious, must have been the tiredness)...

Sunday was spent cleaning the house, putting some of the presents under the tree (see Brooke I DO listen to you), playing and having the girls help me cook dinner (Brooke's favorite, popcorn chicken kabobs) and make dessert (Lexy helped make peanut butter cup blizzards!).

Poor Lexy had a rough evening tonight when she fell off of her chair she was sitting in and hit her upper lip and then her forehead on the TV cabinet. Then somehow the icepack that she was using for her boo boos busted open all over her new favorite jammies so she had to change...poor baby!

Hmm, I wonder if the girls will have school in the morning. We have ice and some snow AND the wind chills (on the news just now) for tomorrow are suppose to be -10 to -20 BBBRRRR!!! They probably will have school just because that will make me have to get out and drive them to school and I HATE to drive in this kind of weather! The girls have five more days of school (if they go tomorrow) until the beginning of Christmas (I mean Winter) break. Lexy's party is on Friday morning. Brooke is having a choir concert on Wed. night and then her cheer squad is having a little Christmas party/gift exchange sometime this week.

ENT visit and a funny!

Lexy's visit to the ENT for a hearing test (since she failed hers at preschool) went well. They did find a small hearing loss in her right ear but think that maybe that is due to the bronchitis that she has. She will be going back in 6 weeks for a follow up test.

Since Lexy's three days off of school it has been terribly hard to get her motivated to get up every morning. She tells me she is still sick and/or that she just simply doesn't want to go to school to do work...wow I can only imagine how difficult it will be to start back after Christmas break!

Speaking of Christmas, Lexy and Brooke are keeping me on my toes! Lexy keeps asking "how many sleeps until Christmas?" and when I answer she'll say "ahh, that's a lot!". Brooke keeps mentioning the fact that we have NO presents under the tree as of yet and gently (ha!) reminding me that I need to get to work!

I got the following in an e-mail this morning and my first thought was oh my gosh that would totally happen at my house!!!!

Cup of Tea

One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge of me. I was maybe 2 1/2 years old and had just recovered from an accident. Someone had given me a little 'tea set' as a get-well gift and it was one of my favorite toys. Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought Daddy a little cup of 'tea', which was just water. After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mom came home. My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup oftea, because it was "just the cutest thing!"

My Mom waited, and sure enough, here I come down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy and she watches him drink it up.

Then she says, (as only a mother would know.. :) "Did it ever occur to you that the only place she can reach to get water is the toilet?"

Lexy sickies and dinner gone good

Lexy stayed home from school for the third day today, her cough has continued to get worse. When I mentioned that she would be missing the fun at school she informed me that "I would prefer not to do school work mommy". I took her to the doctor (in the worst of the ice and snow) and thankfully it wasn't quite as bad as what the dr. thought when he first heard her cough. He made the comment "I think I know where I'll be sending you" (hospital) but after listening to her he said that it wasn't as bad as he thought and put her on steriods and a strong antibiotic.

After planning on having stew for dinner tonight...and realizing this morning that I had forgotten to buy the stew meat (duh!) we had chicken enchiladas...

Put frozen chicken in crock pot on low for 6-8 hrs.

Debone chicken and heat in pan with a can of cream of chicken soup, a few green chiles and about a cup of shredded cheese

Pour 1/2 can of enchilada sauce and a few green chiles on bottom of 13x9 pan. Dip flour tortillas in sauce and then fill with chicken mixture and roll. Pour remaining sauce, chiles and some cheese on top. Heat in 350 oven for about 15 min.

Serve with salad, fruit and...

Have beautiful daughter bake cinammon roll squares!

Even Brooke loved the enchiladas (she went back for seconds) so those of you that know how picky she can be knows that these must be YUMMY!!

Oh, Mrs. Claus made another visit this afternoon while Lexy and I picked Brooke up from school. She left each girl a plastic candy cane filled with chocolates. Lexy was so excited when she found them on the table upon returning home!

Brooke as "Maeve Donovan"

For our family fun this weekend we attended Brooke's acting debut. Papa & Grammy joined us for Friday nights performance and Mamaw & Tom joined us on Saturday. I can't believe how good (and funny!) the play was...I would have never guessed these were 12/13 yr. olds if I didn't know!


Enjoy a little piece of the fun (Brooke is in blue)...

Lexy started feeling ill last night and got worse today so she and Mike had to miss the performance tonight. Here's a picture of us last night!

And Brooke with Papa & Grammy...
And with Mamaw & Grandpa Tom...

Brooke just got home from the cast party (at 11:30pm) and she said that she had a great time...but she's really sad for it to be all over!

Brooke & Lexy the actresses...

Not sure why the picture keeps rotating sideways but it's a picture of the newspaper article about Brooke's play performance. She had her first performance yesterday. She said it went well and she only forgot one line, everyone helped out with forgotten lines by adlibbing! They will perform today for the other middle school students (this makes Brooke more nervous than anything!) and then tonight and tomorrow at 7pm they will be performing for the public.


Lexy wanted to get in on the acting so last night she acted like a doggy!



Lexy took a sick day today. She had done some coughing last night and this morning she woke up complaining of a sore throat so I kept her home. She doesn't seem to be sick...no fever, throat really not red, etc. but I think she just needed the day off because after dropping Brooke off at school and driving back home Lexy said "yeah, now I don't have to do all that school work!!"

BTW, did you see that Elf dance above??? I thought it was SO cute!!!

The lights and other news...

Mike got the lights finished, it looks great hon!!





Mike did mention that we need to get another big snowman so we have a mom & dad and we need to add five more kids to the family since we have seven little snowmen!!


In other news...

A letter came home in Lexy's backpack today that she failed her hearing test. I called the school nurse to ask if she indeed failed (as in couldn't hear) or if she chose not to cooperate (therefore failing). The nurse said that she indeed failed as in couldn't hear, she said she tested her two different days to be sure of the results. She says that the problem seems to be mostly in the left ear. She said the test consisted of the child having a page of pictures in front of them and pointing to the picture when the "man in the headphones" said that word. The nurse said that Lexy did well on some and then on the others she would just give her a look like "what did that man just say??". So off to the audiologist we go, I have made an appt. for next Thurs. We had her hearing tested about 1 1/2 yrs. ago and all her tests were normal but after everything we went thru with her eyes/glasses we will definately do more testing if only for our own piece of mind!!


Brooke is getting excited and a little nervous about her upcoming acting debut! She will play "Maeve" one of the daughters in a play called "Donovan's Daughters". She has been very focused on the whole process of this play (to the point of forgetting about a cheerleading event this morning!) and I think she will do awesome! She has 4 performances beginning tomorrow to the grade school students, then Friday am to the other middle school students and then they will perform to the public on Friday and Saturday nights. I have really seen her grow and blossom as she has prepared for this...my baby is growing up ;-(

The paperwork that we had to fill out to change foster agencies got a late pick up so it will probably be closer to the first of the year before we fully switch. We haven't gotten any calls from our current agency lately but then again another couple we know with that agency hasn't gotten any calls either so there just must not be too many kiddos coming in to the system. I would love to have a little bitty one for Christmas but I'm trying to be patient and go with the flow!! Although I did see some little bitty oh-so-cute outfits on sale at Carters outlet yesterday when Lexy and I went to the mall and I SO wanted to buy some of them! Oh BTW they were all boys things, maybe a sign????!!!!

The Weekend, The Tree and Mrs. Claus's Visit

On Sat. Mike was invited by Mamaw and Tom to a wresting event so while he went to dinner & the event the girls (and Kenzie) and I had some "Mommy & Me time". We went to Zonkers and spent 3 hours riding rides, playing in the tubes and eating a not-so-healthy dinner. It was snowing pretty hard on our drive home but it didn't stick much to Lexy's dismay!

We got the Christmas Tree put up yesterday!! Brooke and Lexy had a good time putting on all the ornaments...


This morning, as per tradition in our home on Dec. 1st, Mrs. Claus left a note, ornaments and a small gift for the girls. She and the elves will leave small gifts/activities and notes throughout the season!

Brooke received a set of small "fashion" ornaments (a purse, cell phone, laptop & skirt) and two pair of knee socks that were pink and brown with monkeys. Lexy received a penguin ornament and knee socks that are navy/lt. blue with frogs.

Mike got some of our outside lights put up yesterday and hopes to finish up in the next couple of days, I'll post pictures of that when it's done. My project for this week is to organize my gift area downstairs and to get some of the wrapping done (so I don't put it off until the last minute).