Trick-or-Lousy Trick

The trick was using John's drill to carve out the teeny-tiny spaces of the pug pumpkin.

Here it is with the flash:

The lousy trick was spilling the guts out.

ALL.

OVER.

THE PLACE.

Words of Wisdom

Oh the whining and complaining heard at our house. It's just something I don't handle well at all. Neither John nor I puts up with it, and we've started introducing the age-old phrase, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I'm reluctant to use phrases like that, but after all, it's right, isn't it?

So today John was talking to Johnathan and offered another one of these seemingly appropriate truisms, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." Johnathan said, "Yeah, I know that AND, 'If you can't say anything right, just don't say anything.'"

I'd say that's valid. :)

Favorite Video

Just thought I'd share my kids' favorite YouTube video right now. It always brings a smile to my face, too. :)

Pumpkin Punks

Johnathan's class, the Green Room, took a field trip to the pumpkin patch. Jonas and I tagged along. Kalleigh's class, the Blue Room, is too young to go on field trips, so she missed out this year.

And now, 12 of my favorite pictures from the pumpkin patch.

One more so that the middle child isn't totally left out:

Photo Tag

Sorry, Britney, for taking so long to do this!

This one is definitely a random tag. All you do is post the sixth picture from your sixth picture file. I think I'll change it a bit and post the first from the first, the second from the second ... all the way up to 10. So here goes, my random assortment of pictures--no cropping or cheating of any kind:

First from the first:

From the "2006" folder, "April," Dad's wedding: Kreg, the best man.

Second from the second:

From the "2007" folder, "April" (because it's alphabetically first, of course), our family Easter picture.

Third from the third:

From the "2008" folder, "April," the percussion set used by one of the bands at the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival that John and I attended. We wanted to get a good idea of what one looked like so we would know what to get for Group Therapy. We have and use ours now. :)

Fourth from the fourth:

From the "Adobe" folder, outgoing email attachments, Kalleigh's first Sunday.

Fifth from the fifth:

From the "Attachments" folder, Abby, Kalleigh's best friend. (Taken last November.)

Sixth from the sixth:

From the "Bread Making" folder, Mamaw rolling out the dough for cinnamon rolls. Not sure why I didn't put this file in the May 2006 folder. I think I'll move it. :)

Seventh from the seventh:

From the "Clearly Vocal" folder, the original four.

Eighth from the eighth:

**Removed ... just to be safe. :) **

LOL ... this was from a series of pictures from a company called Healthy Figures. They hired me to scrap some before and after pictures of people. This was a before (obviously!). I'm sure I don't have permission to post this. Anyway, it's from the "Healthy Figures" folder.

Ninth from the ninth:

From the "Horses" folder, Gallant. Yeah, I sold him.

Tenth from the tenth:

From the "John and Kim" folder, Harding Academy, one of the many pictures I scanned for our Harding Academy Class of '97 Facebook group. Matt Milligan and I on the KAT hayride, fall '96, I think.

Feel free to shuffle through your photos and do the same thing!

Nominated

This tag, uh ... nomination, is from Deborah who nominated me among others for the I *heart* your blog award. Thanks!

To accept this nomination, I must answer the following questions with one word answers and nominate 10 other blogs for the "I heart your blog" award.

1. Where is your cell phone? unsure
2. Where is your significant other? work
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? strong
5. Your father? generous
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? intense
8. Your dream/goal? faithful
9. The room you're in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? scrapping
11. Your fear? snakes
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Tyler
13. Where were you last night? rehearsal
14. What you're not? stacker
15. One of your wish-list items? sweater
16. Where you grew up? Searcy
17. The last thing you did? Facebooked
18. What are you wearing? short-sleeves
19. Your TV? off
20. Your pet? pugs
21. Your computer? laptop
22. Your mood? content
23. Missing someone? Mom
24. Your car? mini-van
25. Something you're not wearing? socks
26. Favorite store? Kohl's
27. Your summer? pregnant
28. Love someone? John
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? August (?)

Okay, here are my 10 nominees:

Amanda R.
Amanda M.
Britney
Chelsea
Daisha
Heather
Kira
Kisti
Reagan
Sandi

Feelin' Groovy

I take no credit for this whatsoever. Kristi did it first on Facebook, and I totally copied her. But if you have a couple of extra minutes to put off whatever else you need to be doing, you should check out yearbookyourself.com. It's just pretty fun. Here's me from 1960:

Tagged ...

... by Chelsea, so here goes.

1. Where was I ten years ago?
In October, 1998 I was a sophomore at Harding singing with Good News, planning the Shantih Spring Sing show, changing my major from biology to accounting, living on the third floor of Harding Place, making frequent runs to the Fina for chili-cheese fries, driving my first car, and terribly missing my boyfriend of six months, John, who was working on his masters at ACU.

2. What was on my to-do list today?
Tanna's voice lesson at 2:30. Check.
Download two Point of Grace songs. Check.
Continue catching up on life at home. Check.

3. What would I do if I were a billionaire?
Pay off all our debt, fully fund the kid's college accounts, pour money into cancer research, give generously at church, build a house on a working ranch with a massive scrap room so I could have scrap retreats at my house and ride good horses.

4. Five places I have lived:
Ft. Worth, Texas
Memphis, TN
Searcy, AR
Colorado Springs, CO
Tyler, TX

5. Bad habits:
procrastinating
over-committing
late-night snacking
yelling at the kids
being too critical

Feel free to consider yourself tagged, even if you've done this one before!

So typical

I just thought I'd give you a glimpse into our lives on the rare occasion that we have the day at home. These are the most common sights these days:

Johnathan, in underwear, jumping around playing the Wii; Jonas's containment gear scattered around.

Kalleigh, in diaper, throwing a fit on the floor. This one happened to be as a result of me telling her not to touch the camera lens, resulting in this blurry picture.

And poor Jonas is STILL in the swing ... not buckled up.

I suppose I could've taken a picture of myself at the computer with no makeup and a bed-head, but who wants to see that? Please don't answer.

All that being said, I LOVE staying at home when I can. It would totally drive me nuts to do it for more than a couple days in a row, but when it's about once a week, it's perfect!

I'm alive.

Don't worry faithful readers, I'm alive and well. We went out of town that first weekend in October and only just today do I feel caught up. It was just a weekend, but man! We pretty much all felt like this:


Finally today I feel caught up ... mostly. It just took us a while to get back into our life groove!

I'll try to go over the highlights of the past few weeks.

While John was in Nashville at the ZOE Conference that weekend, the kids and I stayed in Searcy. Thursday was Kalleigh's birthday, so Mom had made her a princess cake. I'm hoping Mom will send a picture to me since I didn't get any of the cake! We spent some good time with Momo Friday morning before heading out to the farm to see Mamaw and Papaw. Rachel also came over with Abby, so that was fun! On Saturday, Mom and I (and Jonas) got a lot of important shopping in while Kreg and Keleigh did a marvelous job on "kid-duty" keeping Johnathan and Kalleigh. If you're "friends" with Keleigh on Facebook, you should look at her pics from the day. We celebrated Kreg's birthday after church at IHOP and then we headed home.

Jonas & Abby -- just one day apart!

Namesake

Kalleigh started "Little People's School" the Monday after we got home. She goes Monday and Wednesday mornings while Johnathan is also in school. Those are fabulous mornings for Jonas and me!

Kalleigh and Ms. Carys on the first day.

"The Blessing," our five-voice ladies group from church, was invited to and sang at the Hawkins Oil Festival last weekend. We were one of five groups/bands/dance teams (!) to perform! (Hawkins is a little town just north of Tyler.) We even got a thank-you letter from the city of Hawkins!

The five of us ... at least this time. We've never sung with the same five ladies twice!

Clearly Vocal is performing twice over the next two weeks, and anyone can come hear us at these! Friday the 16th we're singing at the Azalea Trails assisted living center at 5 pm. Then Next Thursday the 22nd we'll sing at KE Cellars at 7pm. Again, anyone can come to either one of these.

And for those who have asked, and you're so kind, the rest of Johnathan's soccer schedule:

10/18 -- 10 am
10/25 -- 8 am
11/1 -- 10 am

All games are played at the Colonial Hills Baptist Church on S Broadway across from Target.

And here's what today is like:


And now you're caught up. There you have it. :)

Happy Birthday, John!

The man I love is 34 today! It's a special number to us. Kind of one of those silly dating "things." While we were dating it just seemed like we saw the number 34 everywhere. If a book fell open, it would be to page 34. If we looked at the clock it would be Whatever:34. The inspection number on a new shirt ... you got it. So, it's kind of a silly thing, but it does remind us of those fun dating times when we got all excited when we saw "our number."

Love you, Honey!