"Look Mommy, It's Jewelia!"

Today Jewelia ran up to me with a picture and said "Look Mommy, it's Jewelia!" I said, "No, that's a picture of Mommy when she was a little girl." She says, "No, it's Little Jewelia!" I think it is funny because in the picture my hair was styled almost exactly the same as Jewelia's today, and it really did look like her.

See, judge for yourself:

Look Who Can Sit Up!

Look at our little Macey! She is sitting up all by herself at only 5 months old! What a big girl she is! And you'd think this would help to entertain her better? NO! She still needs every ounce of attention all focused on her! What a DIVA!

Thank Goodness for Micah!

Things get pretty crazy around here sometimes. My days are pretty scheduled.....every day I'm driving to and from school, preschool, cub scouts, lessons, and sometimes work, and then I'm babysitting on Mondays and Wednesdays, and it seems like I hardly have any time to clean the house or take care of the yard. Macey isn't hardly taking ANY naps during the day anymore, and when it comes around dinner time things are CRAZY!

It always seems like when I need to get dinner done that Macey is tired and hungry and screaming and the house is a disaster and I just can't get it all under control. I'm counting the minutes to when Troy might come home and help, so I can just get something cleaned up or cooked.

BUT--Thank goodness for my Micah boy! He will always help me out when I need to have BOTH hands to make dinner or wash dishes, or even if I just need to go the bathroom!! HA! Micah will come hold Macey and entertain her for a short while--just long enough that I can get things ready before Troy comes home. Thanks Micah! I owe you!

We've Created Another Blog!

OK, so many of you know how we have struggled over the past 4 years in trying to figure out what to do with our kids for school. Micah didn't really fit in anywhere at first, and we even thought about online schooling for him. Caleb isn't much different. My boys are so smart! I'm proud of them although I take very little credit. But anyway, we have now been trying to figure out what Caleb needs to do for school. We've been doing a lot of research and trying to decide what is right and wrong, and I decided that we'd make up a blog to maybe help others see what we ended up doing and if it worked or whatever---kind of like a journal. I know a lot of comments and websites made by others across the internet has helped me in trying to figure things out, so maybe it'll help others, or just help us to be able to look back and see what was best. Anyway--it's at www.parentingthegiftedchild.blogspot.com. And please please don't think we are snobby bragging parents to do this by any means. We just know our kids are a little different and they weren't fitting into the standard school curriculum, so we had to look into something different too.

Straight or Curly?

So, I have been having this debate with Troy for sometime about how I should leave my hair. Yes, my hair is actually naturally curly as above, but then I tend to always be straightening it. I get a lot more compliments on my hair when it is straightened than when I just let it go wild, but Troy and the kids all say they like it curly better.

So, what do you think?

I don't know. They both take effort. To straighten it I have to blow dry forever, then flat iron forever, but for curly I have to scrunch and dry and spray and scrunch.....Also, it's about 4 inches longer when I straighten it.

I suppose I can just switch off. It's funny, I often leave my hair curly when I work, but the last little while I straightened it and this one lady came in and asked if I was wearing a WIG! (She meant it as a compliment, but that was a weird way of saying it!)

I know, I know....we're never happy with what we have. Anyway, look at the cute picture Micah took of Macey and me. My boys are quite the photographers! Any pictures with me in them are always taken by my 5 or 8 year old!

Troy's Boring Blog!

Hey--Troy finally got up a blog to put all of his boring stuff on! You can go to http://www.troyrambles.blogspot.com/ to see, or click on it down there on the other blogs link.

It's About Time!

Soooo, I've been one of those Moms that have tormented my boys by giving them the "home haircut", but gee, I'm really really lousy. And if I'm not just giving them a buzz in the summer, then it's really not that good. Well, actually if you can believe it, I used to be a lot worse. But, anyway, I decided my little Caleb needed some help. I finally broke down and took him to the haircut place. Oh, wasn't he amazed when it didn't take an hour and there wasn't hair all over him! He deserves to be a handsome boy! I don't want his life to be traumatized because his hair was always mop-head!

Don't worry Micah and even poor poor Daddy--I feel the worst for you that you have lived through all my Edward Scissorhands nightmares, but I think you guys can go get a REAL haircut now. We will post some nice pictures later.

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Meanwhile, us girls had a fun girls day out just browsing around ShopKo at GIRL things! Yeah, I bet you boys are jealous. (You could care less, couldn't you?)

Oh, and my friend Jenn inspired me to try and take some candid shots, but I don't think I am as good as she is. Anyway, here's some interesting ones of Jewelia:

Woohoo! Nothing beats shakes after school!

Well, when I was growing up I didn't get surprises too much, but I do remember how much I enjoyed it when my mom would take us for special "on the way home treats". I remember if I had an orthodontist appointment or something going on, or if my mom picked me up from school sometimes on the way home we would drive through Dairy Queen and I would get a blizzard. (Of course it often was just me, and she would tell me to hurry and eat it so the other kids wouldn't know. And of course, I would purposely eat it really SLOW so that the other kids WOULD HAVE TO see and they would be so jealous.) I'm sure my brothers and sister were getting special treats sometimes too. (Or were you? HA HAAA!)

Thanks, Mom, it may not have seemed like much, but I always remember how happy it made me!

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Anyway, every once in a while I surprise the kids when I pick up Micah from school by driving through McDonalds and getting shakes. (Of course then I tell them that since I was so nice that they are going to go home and help me clean up.)

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Well, here's to after school shakes and bribery!!!

Don't worry, Macey, your time will come too when you get to share in the after school treat! But for right now, you won't even keep that rice cereal in your mouth!

EYES

Ok, so I suppose I was in an interesting mood today and didn't really have anything exciting to blog about today, and I didn't want to take any more pictures because then I might actually like them, and I am so far behind on my scrapbooking, that my pictures are piling up and I'm not even remembering when I last ordered pictures from my digital file etc...etc...etc...,

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So, I'm sure I wouldn't care to actually order prints from pictures of our eyes.

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I thought this was neat to see that in our family, the boys get Daddy's eyes, and the girls get Mommy's eyes. And it's interesting too, because when it comes to hair color, they are mix and match. We've got one boy with Daddy's dark hair, yet one with Mommy's light hair. And then the same with the girls--one with dark and one with light.

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Daddy: & Mommy:

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Micah: & Jewelia:
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Caleb: & Macey:

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Of course, what's most depressing here is to see how bloodshot, tired, and baggy Mommy and Daddy's eyes are. And what up with those crows feet!???

I will call them LAUGH lines.