Monkey

My little monkey Alexis can go all the way across the monkey bars! It has been something that she has wanted to be able to do for a long time and now she is doing it!



I thought this was a cute picture of the girls washing there hands at the school. I remember having a sink like this back in the day when I was in school.
Alexis is doing really well in school, and is having so much fun. If you ask her what her favorite thing about school is it is hard for her to name just one thing. She might say recess and lunch first, but she also loves her teacher, and learning. She is reading books all by herself now, and can sound out most words. It is so hard to let her go every morning and wonder if she is doing everything she should be doing, and I can't wait to talk to her after she gets home, and see who she played with, and what she learned about in class. There has been a few days that she has had someone be mean to her, and it is so hard for me. I want to go and protect her, and make them be nice to her.
I have a little video at the bottom of Alexis going across the monkey bars, and it is so cute!

Injun Joe's Cave

This Sunday we went out to see grandma and grandpa. Grandpa wanted to take all the grand kids to see Indian Joe's Cave.... (we had all the grand kids but two) The kids were so excited to see the Cave!


We had to hike a little ways up the mountain but all the kids did great!
Grandpa said that the cave used to be a lot taller, and that it has caved in in some places. They climbed into a smaller cave and most of the kids liked that.
I forgot to get Brytlee some shoes, so I held her for most of the trip, but some how she still got sooo dirty.

There were a few holes that people are digging to find arrow heads and who knows what else.... they were kinda deep

such a pretty view!
There was a ton of pigeons living in the cave, and the kids picked up there feathers and thought they were Indian feathers. Alexis has them in her hair!
By the time we were done, and home... we looked at how dirty the kids were and told them to go and play out in the sand pile to try and get cleaned off....

Thanks grandpa for taking ALL the kids! You are the best!

Mary Kay Party

Today one of my bff's from high school, Sharie came to see me and brought her Mary Kay bags!!!! Yea!
Tiffany M. Vail was able to make it also, and it was so fun to see her and catch up. We also went to school together, and have not seen each other sense our Jr year in high school.
After our facial and makeover we went to lunch and had some yummy pork salads. Then made a trip to the mall and bought some boots for ourselves.... (the same pair) and then back to my house for a nap. (what a great day) If you have the chance to have a party with Mary Kay for Sharie, you should for sure do it!!! It was a lot of fun, and she has a lot of great tips for putting on your makeup and making you feel beautiful.
Thank you Sharie for making the trip to see me and hanging out with me. I had such a great time and think that you are so so so beautiful, and you are so perfect for Mary Kay. 143
And thank you Ryan for being such a great husband and dad and taking the girls ALL day.

My Buddy

Elizabeth and Brytlee have had a lot of time together now that Alexis is at school all day, and they are really starting to play together and like each other a little better. Elizabeth is always wanting to play with Alexis and is always doing things that she didn't think Brytlee was big enough for. But now that it is just the two of them... things are starting to change.

Elizabeth was so happy that she could be twiners with her sister. They are playing in an apple tree that has a bunch of apples that are ready, and I love it. The girls will eat so many apples when they can just go outside and pick one themselves.
I love how the sun beams are shinning down on Brytlee while she is in deep thought.
Our garden this year has been so great! I love having a garden and our kids love it just as much as we do. It is so neat for them to be apart of it, and they love to watch it grow. They have helped out with all the watering, and pulling weeds, and they love to pick the corn of and shuck it, and same with the pea's and any thing else that is ready to eat.
Our corn this year has been soooooooooooooooo yummy! We have been cooking almost a dozen every night, and I can eat so much of it. The girls all eat two or three themselves. I don't think we could ever get sick of it. It is so so so good!
Brytlee really likes the pumpkins. She started to say PUNKIN a couple of weeks ago, and it is the cutest thing you have ever heard.
I am so excited to decorate our front porch with all of our pumpkins... we have three huge ones that I doubt we can even lift, and then several others. Alexis calls the big ones "Big Bessy's"
We have some watermelons that are just about ready to eat. I don't know what it is about food fresh from a garden, but it just always seems to taste so much better. Last year we had a couple of watermelons that were the best that I have ever had in my life. Same with our strawberries and raspberries. They are sooooooooooo sweet and yummy! We have picked a ton of raspberries this year and I was able to make jam with it, ( Ryan and Alexis are going through it very fast)!
We also were able to pick our first batch of pea's and freeze all of them, and then pull them out and plant fall peas. They should be ready soon I hope.

Judge Not

Cute Poem! I was shocked, confused, bewildered As I entered Heaven's door, Not by the beauty of it all, Nor the lights or its decor. But it was the folks in Heaven Who made me sputter and gasp-- The thieves, the liars, the sinners, The alcoholics and the trash. There stood the kid from seventh grade Who swiped my lunch money twice. Next to him was my old neighbor Who never said anything nice. Herb, who I always thought Was rotting away in hell, Was sitting pretty on cloud nine, Looking incredibly well. I nudged Jesus, 'What's the deal? I would love to hear Your take. How'd all these sinners get up here? God must've made a mistake. 'And why's everyone so quiet, So somber - give me a clue.' 'Hush, child,' He said, 'they're all in shock. No one thought they'd be seeing you.' JUDGE NOT. Remember...Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian no more than standing in your garage makes you a car!

My Sweet Little Elizabeth

I can't believe my little Elizabeth is already four years old. I can remember the day she was born as if it were yesterday...
I had so many problems with miscarriages, that I didn't let myself get attached to her while I was pregnant. So as soon as she was born, I felt a huge rush of emotions, feelings, and so much love, that I felt like my heart could explode. I loved her from the very second I saw her, and I never wanted to let her go.
She was such a good sleeper, and could sleep through anything. Alexis was a really loud girl at this time, so it was a good thing she was a deep sleeper....
She also made so many sounds when she slept it would keep us up at nights... She couldn't go a minute without gowning, or grunting, farting and all that cute baby stuff....

Her hair was so long and so crazy that I had to use so much stuff on her hair to get it to lay down. I have some funny pictures of her hair standing straight up. Elizabeth would also grab her hair and pull it as hard as she could and then look at me like I was the one doing it... She would get so mad and couldn't figure out that she was the one doing it. When we had our ultra sound, she was also doing the same thing. It was crazy to watch the video of it after she was born and figure out why her head was going to the side, and why her hand was on the top of her head..... After a while she finally stopped pulling her hair.
As soon as she learned how to smile, it was very rare to see her without one on her face. She was the happiest baby I have ever seen.
We took her to Hawaii with us when she was only three months old, and she was wonderful. She only had one day that it was really windy, and the had a belly full of air from it. After we got her out of the wind, she let the biggest burp out, and then went back to being the perfect little angel!

Her hair started to go blond around five months old. It looked so weird at first because she was so dark to began with.
Happy little girl
We went back and fourth to Florida while Ryan had a job going on there, and we just loved it. We are all beach bums and had so much fun there. We had a great zoo that was so close, and we walked to the beach every day! It was part of our daily routein. (I don't know how to spell that) We would wake up and eat, head to the beach, and play for two hours, and then go home for the girls naps, and then we would go to a playground when they woke up. I loved it there and would love to go back again. We also bought Disney World passes, and would go as much as we could. Both of the girls loved it, and so did I!
Elizabeth has always loved her sister from day one. They are still best of friends and have so much fun together. I loved how if she was ever sad, Alexis could just say hi to her, and she would smile so big, or even start to laugh.
Little beach baby
She loved the beach and would just hang out and play in the sand and usually eat it. She loved the water, and would laugh so hard when she got hit by the waves.
She would not crawl while we were in Florida because all the floors in our place were hard and cold. So she started to just scoot everywhere she went. It looked like a monkey!
She has always loved to dress up!
her first birthday! She was so excited about all her presents, and so cute about everything. I love how excited my girls get about the littlest things.

She was such a drooler. She was also a messy eater. Brytlee didn't get very many hand-me-downs from Elizabeth because she would wear her clothes out or just stain them.
I love my little Elizabeth so much, and I always love to look back and see how the time has flown. I can't say enough great things about her, and can't say just how much I love her.
When she was a baby, I had such a rush of emotions, and so many feelings going through me that I wanted to write a book. I started it, and it turned out to be more of a love book for her. I have kept it and hope that she will read it some day, and know how much I do care about her, and just want her to do what is right, and never get hurt.
I will have to find the book I wrote, and read it again, and maybe even post it... we will see how crazy I sounded....
so to be continued..... (maybe)

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

We had a birthday party for Elizabeth a couple day's early so that we could make sure everyone could make it. She was so excited she could hardly stand it. I was so glad she had preschool because waiting at home was so hard for her. She kept asking every minute when people were going to show up for her party.She wanted a castle for her cake, and I did my best..... It looked good for a couple of hours, and then after a few bumps and pokes from the girls, it cracked, and started to fall apart.
I let the girls help me do a lot of the decorating, and we are not the best at frosting, so we use candy on our cakes...
Elizabeth loved it and that is all that matters... right


Blow out the candles.... she has four of them now. That is so crazy that she is getting so big.
Elizabeth did a fashion show of all the cute clothes that she got from her Grandma Judy. She was doing the twirls and so happy to put them on for us to see how cute they looked on her.



She was so happy to get a tea set. I have never bought one because they have to have real water or juice in them, and can't pretend like there is stuff in them, so it is a little messy, but she has really been wanting one... so our friend Stephanie and her girls found this one for her. She got a ton of great presents and was so excited about them all. She was very spoiled!
We also had a fish to smack around and get candy and little goodies from. The kids all took a turn, and then Ryan broke it open for them.