Be back shortly!

We are enjoying family time on our stay-cation this week. We are also in the midst of a playroom makeover. I'll be posting pics shortly!

Writer's Workshop - Poem to my boys

Over at Mama's Losin' It, Mama Kat hosts a writer's workshop where we choose one of the prompts listed and write a story/poem about that prompt.

My prompt for the day is...3.) Write a poem for the little boy in your life...

TO MY BOYS...

Your names and birthstones on my mother's bracelet remind me
of the things that I thought could be.
You were my little boys in every way
I think about, pray for and wish you were still here every day.
I cherished each moment we had
thoughts of when I had to hand you over still make me sad.
I loved you as my own
and I hope that you felt that as you have grown.

This poem was written for two of our foster babies that were truly "our boys" in every way. Alex was our third placement, he came to us at 2 days old and left at 12 1/2 mos. old. Isaiah was our sixth placement, he came to us at 3 mos. old and left at 18 mos. old. I'll have to write their stories sometime, both stories are lengthy, sad and hard for me to think about still.

Way Back When-esday & Wordful Wednesday

December 2007

Lexy (3) & Mike

Lexy and Daddy playing in the snow!

I went back looking for the coldest looking picture I could find this morning! It has been 95+ degrees here for the past several days with heat indexes between 105 and 110...I'm tired of hot!! We're headed to the pool today to try to get some relief from this heat.

To check out who else is playing along join Cheryl for Way Back When-esday and Angie at Wordful Wednesday !

Ronald McDonald

Last week we saw on the sign at our local McDonald's that Ronald would be visiting today at 1pm. When I told Lexy she got super excited and couldn't stop talking about it! At 6:30 am this morning I woke up to her in her bedroom saying "today is Ronald McDonald day, I get to see him, I get to see him". After convincing Lexy to go back to bed for a while, we headed out at 9:30am with Robin and kids to see a movie and then we headed to McDonalds. We arrived at about 12:15pm and after eating (and the restaurant filling up fast), Ronald showed up at 1pm. He did a magic show for everyone and then stayed for pictures and they handed out goodie bags and the smallest ice cream cones I have ever seen :-) Robin and I even got in on the picture fun (while all the other parents thought we were crazy)!

And no Brooke he didn't drive his shoe car...Lexy looked for you!!

Father's Day 2009

We had a great father's day weekend! It started out Friday night with dinner with Grandpa Tom and Mammaw (the pictures I took are not coming out so I'll have to work on them and see if I can fix them, see below). Then we went up to Papa & Grammy's for the weekend where we spent lots of time together and ate WAY too much good food including a fish cake that I made for Papa (payback for all the times Papa tries to buy me fish things which I do not like!).

Brooke made plans to stay at Papa & Grammy's this week so the rest of us had to come home without her. My baby is growing up, I can remember when not long ago she wouldn't go anywhere without her Mama ;-( Right now Lexy is crying in her bed because she misses Brooke and wants her to come home and read her a bedtime story...see you're missed Brooke :-) We love you!!!!

_____________________________

The sun must have been too bright coming thru the window in the background, these were the only ones I could salvage :(

Grandpa Tom, Brooke & Lexy

Grandpa Tom "making things" out of tissue paper with Lexy :-)

Focus Friday

Ellen over at Thrifty & Chic Mom has this great weekly challenge. Focus Friday is where you list a couple of small and/or large projects that you want to focus on for the week and then the next week you tell how you did at getting those projects done.

Last weeks goals...
1.) Find out the when/where's of a craft festival this summer and call to reserve a booth for Brooke & I. I have done some research on this and it's amazing how early you have to reserve and how much some of these are! But I have found a couple that I think will work for us!
2.) Make two more monsters. Done!
3.) Enjoy the annual parade on Thurs. (Brooke will be in it with her cheer squad!). The parade last night was great, pics on the post below!

This weeks goals...
1.) Make two more monsters for the craft fairs.
2.) Search for somewhere to go/something to do for vacation the next week.
3.) Do fun things with Lexy (Brooke will be at Papa & Grammy's house all week).

Parade Time

Last night we went to our town's annual parade, what a beautiful night for it! Brooke walked/cheered in it with her cheer squad and Lexy had fun picking up all the candy that was thrown her way!

A Funny: While Daddy & Papa went to pick Brooke up fsrom the end of the parade route, Grammy, Lexy and I walked home. While walking Lexy said "I love summer and winter but not spring" when Grammy & I asked why not spring Lexy said "because that's BEE season and I DO NOT like bees!". Grammy and I were laughing so hard and Lexy said "NO, I'm serious don't laugh at me"...which made us laugh even harder! :-)

Way Back When-esday & Wordful Wednesday

July 2008

Mike (44), Lexy (4) & Brooke (12)

Daddy and his girls relaxing, watching fireworks after a fun day at World's of Fun. Happy Father's Day daddy!

To check out who else is playing along join Cheryl for Way Back When-esday and Angie at Wordful Wednesday !

Summer Fun

Lots of summer fun going on around here!! The girls and I went to Zonkers (an indoor amusement park), our family went to the local drive in with friends to see Night at the Museum 2 and Seventeen Again and we spent time as a family cleaning up the backyard and installing a tetherball game and a net for volleyball/badmitton!

The girls and I also went bowling with Robin and her kiddos...Lexy's first time!

Focus Friday

Ellen over at Thrifty & Chic Mom has this great weekly challenge. Focus Friday is where you list a couple of small and/or large projects that you want to focus on for the week and then the next week you tell how you did at getting those projects done.

Last weeks goals...
1.) Get the front porch toys straightened up and gone thru. Hmm, this one STILL did not get done...can anyone say procrastination????!!!
2.) Make two monsters for Brooke and my craft booth adventure. Two done and another one ready to stuff!
3.) Do at least three fun activities with Brooke and Lexy this week. We went to Zonkers on Monday, had a couple of lazy days, went to Robin's yesterday, today we'll do something maybe bowling and then tomorrow night we're going to the drive in!

This weeks goals...
1.) Find out the when/where's of a craft festival this summer and call to reserve a booth for Brooke & I.
2.) Make two more monsters.
3.) Enjoy the annual parade on Thurs. (Brooke will be in it with her cheer squad!).

Writer's Workshop - Where I want to be

Over at Mama's Losin' It, Mama Kat hosts a writer's workshop where we choose one of the prompts listed and write a story/poem about that prompt.

My prompt for the day... 5.) Where would you like to be?

There are two places that I would like to be right now, the first is on vacation. My number one spot would be here...

HAWAII

Looking at this...

Although Brooke and Lexy saw a commercial on TV yesterday for Atlantis (Bahamas) and both said at the same time they wanted to go there. So Hawaii or the Bahamas either one would be fine :-)

Second, I would like to be here...

NEW YORK

Picking up one of these...

The special needs adoption agency that we would like to work with (when we get enough money together for a homestudy) is in New York. We would love to be in New York picking up a new son or daughter!

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE RIGHT NOW????

Way Back When-esday and Wordful Wednesday

Summer 2007

Papa & Lexy (3)

Lexy is enjoying a bedtime story from Papa. Papa has his own unique way of telling stories...never reading the story but instead making up his own silly version from the pictures. Both the girls have always loved having stories read to them by Papa. This was about the time that every time we would read a story Lexy would beg for us to read it "Papa's way". We love you Papa!

To check out who else is playing along join Cheryl for Way Back When-esday and Angie at Wordful Wednesday !

Focus Friday

Ellen over at Thrifty & Chic Mom has this great weekly challenge. Focus Friday is where you list a couple of small and/or large projects that you want to focus on for the week and then the next week you tell how you did at getting those projects done.

Last weeks goals...
1.) Continue to work on getting the summer morning routine down. I want to make a chore chart for the girls and I to help get things done in the morning. Hmm, I didn't exercise this week but seemed to get a lot around the house done even with going on lots of outings...seems I have trouble doing both but will try this week!

2.) Make Lexy's "silly monster" that we bought material for. I did make Lexy's "silly monster" named Silly and Brooke begged for one of her own so I made her one too (She named hers Pretty)! I think Brooke and I have decided to try doing a craft booth sometime soon (her with her duct tape/juice pouch purses and me with my monsters.

3.) Straighten the front porch and figure out a way to store the summer toys so we can get to them better. This one didn't get done this week.

This weeks goals...

1.) Get the front porch toys straightened up and gone thru.

2.) Make two monsters for Brooke and my craft booth adventure.

3.) Do at least three fun activities with Brooke and Lexy this week.

Way Back When-esday and Wordful Wednesday

Lexy (2) & Brooke (10)

June 2006

I went back looking for a picture of the girls swimming from the past for today to see how much they've changed. This was taken on our vacation in Wichita, I love looking back on our fun times!

Here's a picture of the girls taken a couple of days ago at the pool, wow what a difference!!

Brooke (13) & Lexy (5) - June 2009

To check out who else is playing along join Cheryl for Way Back When-esday and Angie at Wordful Wednesday !

Swimming Fun

To break in my new look this month (and no we are not going someplace exotic for vacation, we just wish we were), I have pictures of our first swimming outing of the summer.

We decided to venture to a pool in a town about 45 min. away (the same one we went to the park at). It was a beautiful day (90's) for the pool so we packed up and got there when they opened at 1pm. Robin and her kiddos (Kenzie, Molly & Ryan) and Brooke's friend , Cassie, all joined us. We had a great time until about 3:20pm when we hear over the loud speaker "everyone must exit the pool NOW, we have had an incident". A few minutes later we found out that someone had gotten sick (YUCK!) in the water and they would need to close the pool for about an hour to clean, disinfect and shock the water. Robin and her two little ones decided to leave but Brooke, Lexy, Kenzie, Cassie and I waited and entertained ourselves by dancing to the music and gossiping about the people that SHOULD NOT have been wearing bikinis in a public place! By the way, just because it is in the 90's does NOT mean that the water will be warm...we about froze!