Can you guess who this is?

Can you tell who this handsome little fella is?
He is the girls' bio-brother! The girls hadn't seen him in quite a while, so they had a blast with him!

I love S's expression in this one.

I am telling you.....these are 5 GOOD LOOKING kids! They really are! W is a sweet boy and loves his sisters. They were happy to see him, and luckily, there really hasn't been any traumatic aftermath in their behavior like we thought there might be. Thank you Lord! I am so thankful that He had done such a mighty work in their lives.

I absolutely LOVE this picture! You can see the love and tenderness in both of their eyes...brings me to tears. You can see the mix of emotions in their eyes too. We know there are a lot of emotions that go along with our situation, so we let the girls express those. W and M are the oldest, so they have always had a very close connection...you can totally see that in this picture.

And you know how I love real pictures much better than posed ones! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture! Cousin B and Bethany came to go bowling with us and visit with W. Cousin B likes to do his own thing and usually doesn't stop to get his picture taken, so I just have to take what I get...typical 2 year old. But today, the day I wanted to get pics of the 5 siblings, B wanted to be in all of them! Of course! Turned out really cute.

B and S are cracking up at each other, A is pouting about who knows what, M and W are being silly, and I think H is trying to keep up with everything. I think this picture totally defines birth order personalities!

We had a great day and wonderful visit!

In a hurry

Sorry I haven't written in a while. The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. I feel like I am constantly in a hurry. I have been taking several people's pictures lately, so it seems that when I am on my computer, I am editing pictures. I LOVE taking pictures. I like editing pictures, but I easily get overwhelmed when I edit them. SO....all of that to say...I have a lot of pictures and stories to post, but after I edit all of those photos, I really don't feel like uploading them to my blog, so you get a little picture-less post here.

So we had A's birthday party a few weeks ago, and I do have pictures to post later, but I will tell you that we got her a hermit crab cage for her birthday, and she got to go pick out her crabs. She was SO excited when we actually got to go to the store to pick the little fellas out. She immediately picked the biggest little guy in the cage, and then found a little one as well. The little guy never peeked out of his shell while we were at the store, so Autumn and I were a little worried about it. We tried to get her to pick a more active one, but she was set on this one and we decided it wasn't worth the battle. I had determined the little one was dead when we bought it, but it did eventually show it's face at home.

A decided to name her little fellas Herman the hermit crab (the big one) and Shelly (the little one). Shelly is a girl's name, but A called it a boy. Now remember that we have 4 girls in our home...it is NEVER quiet at our home...and I guess I'm not the quietest girl ever. Anyway, between our loudness and the fact that the girls drop the poor little things on the ground, it took a few days before Shelly would come out very much. Shelly did decide to come out of his shell and the girls loved holding him as well as Herman.

One morning, S decided to hold Shelly, so Autumn put him in her hand. As SOON as Shelly got in S's hand, Shelly PINCHED her! He pinched and S's harm went a flinging. Autumn said that if she hadn't put Shelly right in her hand, she would have thought that S did something wrong to Shelly. Really though, animals just don't like S. I don't know what it is about her, and I really didn't think that hermit crabs could pick up on this, but they really don't like S. Our dogs will growl at S more than any of the other girls.

Anyway, back to the story. A's favorite part of her day has been holding those nasty hermit crabs. I do not know why weird little creatures bring her such joy, but they really do! Yesterday, we came home from school and A wanted to hold the crabs...no big deal...sure A, you can hold the crabs! She was SO happy! I soon heard crying coming from the room, which didn't surprise me a great deal. The crying did not sound urgent, but it didn't sound mad either. It just sounded sad. Well, I soon found out why there was sad crying....A was holding Shelly, and Shelly was half out of his shell, but he didn't move...at all! A was crying that he was dead, and do you know what my first reaction was? To laugh! I know......I laugh at the most inappropriate times. I don't know what is so funny to me, but it always is. I did hug her and laugh while she was not looking at me...I know....doesn't justify it!

She cried (still holding Shelly) while I examined Shelly to see if he was dead...my conclusions were that Shelly was indeed dead. A turned around to walk down the hall. I 'm not exactly sure where she was going, but off she went. Her sad cries suddenly turned hysterical and I jumped up to figure out why. You would just not believe this...Shelly FELL out of his shell!!! He was indeed dead and hanging out of the shell. It looked like he oooozed out of the shell, but I didn't look too much. A just held him right in front of her face and stared at her friend and screamed. It was awful! I loved on her for a while, which made S a little jealous so she needed a little attention too. A finally settled down. When she got out of bed this morning, she informed me that she was over it.

Yep, our days sometimes get a little dramatic! I wouldn't trade it for the world! LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend at G-ma's part 7

My uncle Scott is the youngest of the 4 kids. He has always made an effort to make each of his nieces and one nephew to feel special. The tradition continues....he loves to spend time with the new generation of nieces and nephews and they love to spend time with him.
It was fun to get some special "uncle Scott" pictures!

I took these pictures (I actually took like 50 of them in this pose) and I couldn't get everyone to look at me and smile. Everyone was doing their own thing. I turned around and said, "Well, that will have to do. I guess you just can't get them perfect all the time."

My aunt Deborah looked at me and said, "It is perfect. Just like they are....perfect."

I think my aunt Deborah is right!

I love this one....screaming, bored, smiling, pouting, confused, ready to go play........PERFECT!

Weekend at G-ma's part 6

My grandma has 2 trees in front of their house that are the perfect trees for climbing. We have had so many fun memories on these trees throughout the years. Not only are the trees great for climbing, but they are absolutely the best for photos! It's kind of a tradition to get the girls' pictures here each time we go.

I love this family picture! Grandma and Grandpa and cousin J got to come in for the weekend. It was so much fun to see them!
The tree isn't her absolute favorite place to be. You can kind of see the nervousness in her face.

EVERY year, A asks to take a picture "sleeping" on this same branch. The funny thing is she doesn't ask to take a picture of her pretending to sleep. She asks to take a picture of her sleeping...like I really do believe it takes her 2 seconds to fall asleep on a branch!

Cousin B is getting a little more brave with the tree....not totally brave, but getting there.

Love the expression on his face!

Miss Model!

Cousin Emily! We have so much fun with Emily....she is always fun to be around and great help with the girls!

How dinosaurs became extinct

Well, I have more pictures from the weekend at g-ma's and I will put them up, but I want to take a break from uploading all of those pictures for a while....or for this post anyway. The girls are all very creative and it is so fun to see them express themselves in different ways. A, for instance, wore her converse type high-top checkered shoes with her skirt to church. I am always told to pick my battles, and that was not a battle worth picking to me, so she wore them, and she pulled it off beautifully. She kind of made me want to wear shoes like that with a skirt! Anyway, that is NOT what this post is about....don't where all of that came from....back to the point. The older two girls, M and H, have been writing stories a lot lately. It is so funny to see their personalities come out in their writing...I LOVE it! M likes to write stories that she already knows, like Jack in the Bean Stock. She does a great job of telling the stories, but has a hard time coming up with ideas on her own. She loves facts and really does tell them in a nice way. H, however, is much more like me. She loves to be creative...it just ooooooooozes out of her. She loves to express herself in her writing. H can take the most boring fact and tie emotion to it somehow.
I love writing and always have. I actually think about things throughout the day and "write" it in my head. I was always very excited to write creative stories in high school rather than just facts. When I was in the 4th grade, my teacher, Mrs. Bush gave us a creative writing assignment. I, however, did not understand the assignment at first and thought we had to tell how dinosaurs became extinct. You can just imagine my excitement when I found out that we could MAKE UP the story! I really can remember how excited I was about this. The next day I was pretty embarrassed when Mrs. Bush started reading every one's stories and they all pretty much told the encyclopedia's version of how dinosaurs became extinct. I was extremely nervous for mine to be read because mine was so different. Well, ends up that this assignment was a competition and guess who won first place..............the kid that sat next to me.......JUST KIDDING! I did! I was thrilled. I kept that paper for a long time and finally decided to throw it away when I was in college. Luckily, Bethany saved my paper and gave it to me a few years ago.
So I decided that since the girls are so into writing right now, I gave them the same directions my teacher gave me in fourth grade. (I don't have a good memory, but I remember those directions really well. Kind of a weird thing for me to remember so well.) I did not read them my paper and they could not discuss what they were writing. M is in the fourth grade and H in the third, so both of them are right about the same age that I was. Here are our papers:
(I corrected the spelling for the most part, but in H's I left the way she emphasized things. My girls just aren't the best spellers in town!)

"How Dinosaurs Became Extinct" by M
Some people wonder how dinosaurs got extinct. So I got the answer. This is how dinosaurs got extinct. The dinosaurs lived in New York. Then the world went black. The dinosaurs were saying, "What is going on here?" They were frightened. A big star was going right toward them! It landed on the earth. It only killed half of the dinosaurs. And the others were safe. Then the light went toward them. They were frightened too! Then all of the dinosaurs were extinct. The End

"How Dinosaurs Became Extinct" by H
Do you know how dinosaurs were extinct? Well I can tell you this. There were different kinds of d-i-n-o-s-a-u-r-s on the earth. There was the duck d-i-n-o-s-a-u-r-s and many many other d-i-n-o-s-a-u-r-s. Onnnnnnne day there was a sound. It was a w-e-i-r-d weird sound. None of the weird dinosaurs knew what it was. It was a rumbling sound. The ground was shaking crazy. The dinosaurs were out of their minds! They had no no no clue! They were just crazy! Then a big rock hit the earth and all the dinosaurs ran. But the earth exploded and all the dinosaurs were dead. That is how the dinosaurs were extinct.

"What Happened to Dinosaurs?" by Trinity
Different people say different things that happened to the dinosaurs. Some people say they just plopped over and died. But I don't think that is true, do you? Well, anyway, one dark dark night all the dinosaurs were going to have a dinosaur reunion. They came from China, Japan, and even Africa. Some dinosaurs waited over 20 days to get there. Finally, everyone was there. When everyone was ready, the dinosaurs went out to get moondrops. Moondrops were candy that dinosaurs loved. One morning the dinosaurs were picking moondrops, but they were not picking them where they usually do. They were picking the moondrops far far away from the cabin. There was nothing but trees around. Rain started pouring down. The dinosaurs were running to a tree when a bunch of rainbows came down and stuck every one of them. Now when you see a rainbow, it makes you think about the dinosaurs and how they became extinct.

Weekend at G-ma's part 5

I'm keeping the words short in this post and mainly showing pictures because if I write everything I really want to write about all of the pictures, I would have to stay up even later each night and I would never get through these pictures and I have other posts to go up, so I better get through these! We always love to play outside at g-ma's and she always has lots of fun things to play with. Luckily the weather was great!

T and S pushing the grownups on the roller racers.

Sweet cousins

This one cracks me up. Cousin B is two and he likes to do things by himself, as you can tell. Obviously it really didn't bother S very much! I really love this picture!!!!

B and H playing ball with our cousin Emily's fella

I LOVE this one! He is such a cutie and looks so so so cute on his roller racer!

Weekend at G-ma's part 4

My grandma has always liked to knit. When we were little, there were always baskets of yarn and she always had a knitting bag where ever she went. She would knit all of the cousins matching or coordinating sweaters. Sometimes they even had themes like Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes they were the same style and different colors. She is amazing! I know I did not appreciate her sweaters back then like I do now.
Lucky for us, G-ma has continued the tradition and still likes to knit the youngest generation of cousins sweaters! We love love love her sweaters! About 25 years ago she made everyone Christmas sweaters that had music notes on them and if you stood in age order (I think it was age order) it played The First Noel. Last year, g-ma did those same sweaters for the youngest cousin generation. Needless to say we were thrilled! G-ma gave us the sweaters while we were there and they did not disappoint us! They are beautiful and she did a perfect job of picking out the perfect color for each child. They are priceless!!!

Weekend at G-ma's part 3

One of the things that I love about going to my grandma's house is that things just don't change too much there. I love that! I love it that the house looks pretty much the same. It makes me feel good to go there and things be just like they were when I was a kid. That brings me to one of the most fun things we did when we were at Grandma's.......SCOOTER SCHOOL!!! One summer our grandpa, Papa, bought 5 scooters, 3 roller racers, and 2 taxi scooters. I cannot even tell you how many hours we spent on those scooters. We would have routines with the scooters...I mean really, we almost made scooters a new sport for the Olympics cause we were so good! We played and played and played on those. And THEN we had scooter school. We had some old checks and old tablets they use at restaurants to take orders and we were off! Because the oldest cousin Sarah is a major type A personality, we had the most organized scooter school around! We would enroll our students, put them into a group for lessons.....I mean it was a great school! If only we could have really made some money with it! We were kind of like those books the Baby Sitter's Club! Anyway, those scooters sat with flat tires for years and years after we finally stopped scooter school until a couple of years back when Grandma got them all fixed up. Well, needless to say, the scooters are a huge hit. I don't think scooter school has come up yet, but watch out world because this new generation really might make it to the Olympics with their brave scooter tricks and synchronized scootering!

Here they are...pausing just a moment for a picture, but then back to scooters!
Yes...the gold-medal worthy performance of synchronized scootering from A and H.

This is a very brave trick ladies and gentlemen.....it is the triple twist jump, which actually just means jumping on the scooter. Oh, and I made up the name, not A...I guess I still really really like the scooters!

For some reason M just looks really old in this picture. she has really gotten taller.

Tricky tricky! Perfect routine girls!

You can see the concentration in her face!

Love this! cousin H getting a little help from his Issy (grandma)

Can't wait to go back!!

Weekend at G-ma's part 2

I love my cousins. On my dad's side, I have 3 girl cousins and a boy cousins, and on my mom's side it's the same. I am very close to them. When some people talk about their cousins, it sounds as if they don't even know them and I get very sad for them. It makes me really really happy that I have so many great cousins. And they are all great. Each cousin is doing awesome things with their lives. The girls also love having cousins. They love having that family connection with people, so pretty much anyone that we love a whole lot...the girls will call them their cousin. You know, those people that you just have a special-heart connection with? As Anne from Anne of Green Gables would say....kindred spirits. Anyway, those people are our cousins in the girls' eyes. The girls love playing with their real cousins too. We get to see Bethany's son quite a bit, but we don't get to Amarillo real often to see the other cousins. We do, however, get to see some of my cousins' children quite a bit. My cousin Sarah lives in Colorado, so we don't get to see her and her kiddos very often, and we miss them every time we get together. Anyway....enough of my family history! On to the pictures and the fun weekend!

I have tons of pictures and I have other pictures that show the closeness of the girls to their cousins, but I love these.
T and S are only a few weeks apart in age, and they LOVE to play together. The thing is, they are so much alike it is pretty funny. They play so well together....and they then they like their own space too! Their friendship reminds me so much of me and Macy, T's mom.

Macy and I have SO many hugging pictures like this. We were just two peas in a pod! I LOVE it that tradition carries on! When Macy and her crew were leaving, S climbed into their vehicle and hid so she could go with them....JUST like we used to do when we were little!

Even though the rest of the girls and the rest of the cousins aren't in these pictures, I think they tell the story of the love of cousins, and you KNOW that I LOVE that!!!!!

More weekend at G-ma pictures to come!

Weekend at G-ma's part 1

We went to my grandma's house this weekend for the annual chili cookoff. This has become quite the tradition for our family. We have gone for several years now, and each year more and more of the family gets to come. Autumn and I took a class a couple of years ago to learn to make tamales, so last year at the chili cookoff weekend, we all made tamales. It was so much fun that we officially added tamale making to our annual weekend. We had so much fun and made so many memories and took so many pictures, that I could not begin to put everything in one post, so I will do this post in parts--how ever many parts it takes. I will say that the worst part of the weekend was that not everyone was able to be there. We missed several of the husbands, but most of all we missed Connie, Sarah, and cousins N and A. It was so much fun but would have been so much more fun with them there. Keep watching the blog...pictures and stories to come!!!