Above The Crowd

Court got a call last week and they said that Kam had been nominated for an award at the school. They would be having an assembly and we were welcome to come and watch. So, today we headed over to the school for the assembly.

She got the "Above the Crowd" award. We already knew she was amazing but she was so surprised and excited. She was nominated by her teacher for being such a hard worker and trying her best at everything. That is exactly how Kam is and she does such a good job. She loves her teacher and we are so pleased that she is doing so well!

Halloween

No, I am not behind even a little bit...

At Courtney's work the theme was "medical". So he went with "construction accident". He cut off a huge nail and we gauzed it on to his head and then put some red for blood. It worked well for his job.
For Halloween this year we went over to the church to their fall festival and trunk or treat. The Fall Festival was way fun and the kids had a ball. We played all sorts of carnival games and the kids earned tickets that they traded in for prizes. The kids loved all of their candy from the trunk or treat, of course. We then headed over to the house of a lady that Court works with where the kids got a lot more candy (she seriously gave them handfuls). After that we decided we were still hungry, so we headed to Taco Bell and got free black jack tacos for Halloween.

The kids were so funny about their costumes this year. Kam knew what she wanted to be clear sense last year. She wanted to be a witch and wear an old dance costume (for some reason this dance costume seems to be glued to her body. she wears it a couple of times a week.) We sprayed her hair purple/pink which she thought was pretty cool.

Jaxon and Rylan both went as Batman. This was a large improvement over their previous ideas. Jaxon had decided he was going to be a pillow. I will admit a pillow would have been easy to make but, wow, we aren't sure where that one came from. Rylan had then decide3d he would be mashed potatoes...with a gun. Umm...yeah. So when the batman idea arrived I ran with it. The only problem was that while I was in the middle of their hats (on Halloween day) my sewing machine broke and I was trying to pice the hats together by hand and quickly. Ry's hat never did get finished. He didn't seem to mind once we got to the festivities. He still wears his shirt and cape around. We just have to watch him because he seems to believe he can fly if he has his batman suit on.

And sweet Ave was our little lady bug. Isn't she adorable?

Happy Birthday Rylan

So, today Rylan turned 3! He is just the funniest kid. Where would we be without our Ry guy? A couple of days ago I was leaving Walmart and Rylan had been super good. (He has been struggling at the stores recently.) Rylan informed me that he would take his doughnut reward now. (Bribery-yes I stoop that low!) I told him we had one more store to go to. He looked at me and said, "I don't think so brewster." I was laughing so hard. I mean really...where does he come up with some of this stuff? I ended up giving him the doughnut before we went to the other store. The other thing he has been funny about is Batman. He has decided that that is what he wants to be for Halloween. So, the other day, he informed me that he was going to jump off the balcony. Minus the physics lesson, I told him I didn't think that would be a good idea. He told me, "Duh, I am going to have my batman suit on..." Well then, by all means jump away. I guess I didn't fully understand. (Disclaimer: of course I am not going to let my child jump off the balcony. Don't worry.)

The other day at Walmart a guy turned to Rylan and said, "Wow, you sure are a redhead." Rylan answered back, "No I'm not. I'm a coppertop." He will fight with anyone who says otherwise. So here is our coppertop on his birthday.

He got his Handy Manny motorcycle. He has been wanting it and mom has been trying to ignore that...but it is his birthday. I figure he and the other kids have probably played with it enough in just this one day that it is good.

And here he is blowing the candles out. -I know the cake is super amazing. I don't need anyone to tell me about that. Really, we have a great track record of some pretty hideous cakes at our house.-

We are so blessed to have Rylan in our family. Love you buddy!

Just call me "Danger"

This is the conversation we woke up to this morning. (Everyone is home sick so we are all just lounging around.)

Kambree to Jaxon, "No your middle name is Courtney."
Jaxon, "No, dad said its danger."
This goes back and forth a few times. And of course is getting louder and louder.
Kambree comes running in and says, "Mom, Jaxon says his middle name is danger and I told him it is Courtney. Which is it?"
We ask, "On his birth certificate or just what we call him."
She thinks about it a second and chooses birth certificate.
We answer, "His middle name is Courtney."
She runs off all vindicated to tell Jaxon that his middle name is indeed Courtney not "Danger".

So, I know you all are curious how this all ends. Jaxon is all upset that his middle name isn't danger. He is sure that we need to officially change it. Oh, and Kambree has informed us that it is just not fair that she doesn't have a middle name. She has asked us to come up with one and then, of course, legally change it. Which actually got us thinking, why did we not give the girls middle names? I don't have a middle name, my sister and mom didn't have middle names. Even Courtney's sisters and mom didn't have middle names. But I always hated not having a middle name. So...maybe we will have to consider her request.

Trash Talker

So Rylan has decide to hone his vocabulary skills using the fine art of "talking junk." Unfortunately, he is exceptional with his skills (I mean for a nearly three year old). Kellee gets a little upset at me because I egg him on a bit but he has quit copying me and now comes up with his own original stuff. Here is some of his best stuff.

"I'n gonna fro you in a boat an sink it. You goin down babe." (just happened tonight, Kellee nearly choked on a bow tie pasta)

"I'n goin rip you head off and poop down you neck." (I am going to use this in real life situations.)

"I'n goin trade you for boots." (Pretty fair trade when it boils right down to it.)

"I'n goinna jump on your face." (Right before our every other Wed. night family wrestling event. Everyone brings their game face. Gets pretty rowdy.)

There is more, but sometimes he is a bit more than PG rated. Can't even tell where he has heard that stuff before.

If anyone needs some material for co-workers or rec league trash talk, drop me a line and I will have him work up some material. There will be a nominal fee of course.

Courtney turns 30

In August we celebrated Courtney's 30th birthday. We didn't have anything big planned but we did have fun. When Courtney got to work on his birthday, he was surprised to find his office completely filled with....all sorts of stuff. Seriously, it was pretty funny. There was all sorts of stereotypical "hillbilly/country" stuff.
The picture with the hand and the pen on the string is Court's new "palm pilot". The one you can't see the writing on is a sign showing off Courtney's retirement account, aka, the plastic container holding all of the coins. There was hay, saddles, sign, and all sorts of goodies everywhere (even a box of cow turd). The one picture is Court holding his new flyswapper. It is the kids favorite-unfortunatley, they already broke it. The whole family was able to go to Courtney's work for cake and ice cream. It was the first time that the kids had been so they got to meet everyone.

Later that night we had Jeremy, David (Courtney's boss') family, and Alan (guy Court works with) family over for a barbecue. We had Court's famous hamburgers, pasta salad, and fruit. It was all delicious. The kids made him some amazing things. He of course got a birthday crown, that is the most important part, and numerous other crafts. And finally, on Saturday we were able to go and find him some boots. Yep. It is official, he can now live in Texas. (We do laugh at this because he did grow up on a farm and have a lot of boots in his life but apparently you have to have boots in Texas.) We had a lot of fun and can't wait to celebrate many more.

The Show

My kids are pretty funny and they keep putting on these "shows". They all get in costume and out on some kind of production. They cut up all of these little papers and hand them out as tickets to the show. You have to bring the ticket or you don't get in. They have had some pretty amazing shows and then they have also had some...well, not so amazing shows. Sometimes they even have a script that they have written (those are usually the better shows). But no matter what, we know we will laugh.

In this next picture Jaxon is a mouse...or something. Whatever it is it is mighty cute!
This is all of them participating. It was mostly a wrestling match.
Rylan had decided that the costume was not for him. In the background you can see that Averi even gets in on the shows. They even helped her get dressed up.
This was their super secret spy...the racoon. It was one of the highlights of the evening.
I really am so glad that they are using their imaginations and creating such super fun memories.

4th of July and Grandma

It has been a crazy month of July for us. My mom came to visit for a month. The kids couldn't wait (even the us big kids). We wanted visitors since we haven't seen anyone since we moved! So we did all sorts of fun stuff. It really has been a partying summer for my kids. We hung out, went swimming, had barbecues, and even went to the zoo. These pictures are all from the fourth of July. We woke up and went to the parade here in town. To say the least, we were pretty disappointed. It was literally just a big line of cars that were advertising for different businesses. Not a band, or a marching group, or even a piece of candy to be found. Then later in the day Lynds, Jer, Zander, and my mom came down and the men went golfing. The rest of us were going to go swimming but the pool had closed early (who does that?), so we ended up at the splash pad. Then we grilled up some hamburgers, which Courtney makes the best in the whole world (for real). We then proceeded to go watch the fireworks. Here they let them off from the dam, so they are seen over the lake. It is really pretty. It was pretty fun because we didn't have to wait forever for a spot...we cruised right up to the city's water treatment plant where a group of people from Courtney's work let us in the gates and we had front row seats. Their assistant even made homemade ice cream for everyone. The fireworks were going off right by us and it was an amazing show.

Here is Averi right before the fireworks. She was so proud because she got her shoe off for the hundredth time. The girl hates shoes.Rylan was playing and having a great time running around with the other kids...but...all of that changed as soon as the fireworks started. He HATED them. He cried and cried and had to just sit in the truck until it was time to go home. I think it was just too loud for him. (which is silly considering how loud he is on a regular basis)
Kambree and Jaxon are looking quite patriotic. Who knows what they are doing exactly??? But it makes for a pretty good 4th of July picture.
Here is a picture, that my mom took, of one of the fireworks.
And this is where the two oldest watched the fireworks. They were being so silly. But at least we got a picture of them with grandma.
We really are so blessed to live in a free country. The kids are always asking me if such and such a place is free. I am always pleased to tell them that most of the places they are asking about are part of the U.S., so yes they are. They even asked us when we were moving if Texas was free. They were concerned. I also feel such gratitude to all of those people and families that help us keep the freedoms that we enjoy.

Baseball...

My sister and brother-in-law called and asked if we wanted to go to a Texas Rangers baseball game. Jeremy was going to get cheap tickets for us at the school so we decided to give it a try. On the day of the game it was raining like crazy but we headed up to the stadium anyway. We payed, we parked, we walked, and walked. Once we got to the stadium we found out that there was a rain delay but that they should play. Luckily the delay was only about an hour and a half. Nothing that a lot of junk food can't cure. So then we ate, and ate, and ate.
My kids favorite part of the whole experience was jumping in all of the rain puddles until they lokked like this....
Our seats only cost us ten bucks each so we figured that they would be horrible. But they turned out to be pretty good. We were on about the 24th row. Here is a picture during the national anthem. Rylan was so funny the whole time because he refused to let us get a picture of him. So instead I ended up with this amazing picture of me. Beautiful, I know.
The kids got their hot dogs and that is really all that matters to them. Here they are scarfing them down by Aunt Lyndsey.
It was really a pretty good time...until the kids decided to have a break down. Can any of you guess when that was? The fourth inning. We left in the bottom of the fourth and went home. How pathetic is that? In our defense I will say that there were more pitches thrown in the fourth inning than the rest of the game combined. So when you add that with the rain delay and also the other teams pitcher getting thrown out the second pitch of the game, it equaled a little too much for my fam.

End of school

Really my kids had such a weird end of school. When we first got here in mid April we didn't make them start school for a week. Once they started they went to about a week and a half and then the school systems were shut down for a week and a half because of all the swine flu stuff. The part that was pretty sad is that both of the kids had field trips canceled because they were during the swine flu-cation. It was especially hard for Jaxon because he had moved right before his field trip in Utah. When they finally started school again it seemed like they just played.It was actually pretty fun. This is how Averi spent the last few weeks of school. We were over at the school a lot so she had to stay in the stroller.
Here is Kambree and a friend at the park on a day. They were so cute dragging Rylan around...helping him play. He thought he was pretty neat stuff. ....And of course he was. I thought it was such a smart idea that they make the whole class wear the same color of shirt while they were at the activities away from the school. It seemed way easier to keep track of everyone.
Here is Kambree's class at field day.
So, Kambree decided that her favorite part of field day was bouncing with her friends in the bounce house. (of course, I don't have a picture for that.) Here she is getting ready for an obstacle course.
This is Jaxon's teacher, Mrs. Porter. He was receiving his certificate of completion for Kindergarten.
This is at his Luau on one of the last days. They had a lot of fun limboing, making visors, blowing bubbles, and eating ice cream. Jaxon was actually really good at limbo.Here they are doing their coconut race at field day. I thought it was pretty funny that little Jaxon would choose to be paired up with the tallest kid in class.
They really had so much fun. I hope they understand that that is not what school will be like the whole time down here. They are actually going to have to do something. I guess it was a good way to get thrown in to a new school.

Lets Walk

Look how cute Averi is. We really think she could walk if she wanted to...she just sits down if we even acknowledge that we see her walking. She is getting so big!

Time

So, I got a new camera and have yet to figure out hooking it up to the computer so no pictures yet. But I do have a story from Jaxon.

Yesterday when I was taking the kids to school I was asking them if they were testing that day (a lot of the other classes are taking their end of level tests, etc.). Jaxon told me he didn't think so, so I asked him what the deal was with him needing to learn how to tell time? (He didn't know how and the rest of the kindergarten here already worked on it.)

He told me very matter of factly, "I already know how to tell time mom. It is just that the big hand has to stay at the twelve. If the big hand moves I don't have a clue what it is trying to say."

I was laughing a bit that he thought it would be sufficient to only know the straight up hours. And can you believe the nerve of that big hand...it moves!

Here at last

This post will be all over the place. First, I would like to say that Courtney made it back to us at last. Seriously six weeks was quite a long time. I really don't know how people in the military, etc. do it. I have new appreciation of that part of the sacrifice they make for our country. Anyway, Courtney thought I was silly because as soon as we got in the car I took a picture of him just to document the fact that he had made it. I love you babe and am glad we are all back together.
The thing is .... Courtney coming home meant that the move was taking place. Now I know I have expressed in previous posts that I dislike moving...but really i HATE it. We did finally get packed and moved out but you should see the disaster I left for my in-laws and mom to take care of. We just didn't have time to clean and get everything we left behind hauled off. I would say they deserve a big raise for having to deal with it all. Hopefully the blessings will pour down from heaven on them.

Now here is part of the craziness of the move. We loaded the trailer that had been borrowed (and I mean loaded). My father-in-law drove it back over to their house and we discovered that it was way to heavy and we would never make it to Texas. So on Easter Saturday my amazing uncle (Thanks Uncle Ron) went bright and early and talked to some people and got us a U-Haul truck for a great deal. The thing is that meant that after the Easter fun was over Courtney, my father-in-law, and all of my brother-in-laws had to go and unload the trailer and reload it all in the U-Haul. Now talk about a fun holiday. (You see, they really do deserve a metal.) Then Sunday morning we began the drive, without stops it is about 19 hours. The kids actually did way better than I would have thought. And amazingly we arrived and got unloaded Monday night.

So now we are busy settling into a new house, school, and town. I will say that the kids are really enjoying their big backyard. Our landlords left their trampoline for us, which is perfect beacuse ours had broken, and the kids are loving it.

Here is Averi watching the kids play outside. She tries to eat all the sticks, leaves, grass, and dirt she can get her hands on so she doesn't get outside as much as she would like. I love how the windows are so low. It entertains Ave to be able to watch everything outside.
Here are Kam and Jax jumping on the tramp. Courtney bought a rope and put it in the tree so they can swing and land on the tramp.

Rylan is pretty silly because he can't really figure out the pedaling of the bike but he could push it around all day long.

Krissi is digging the new yard too. She will go out there and run laps around the edge of the yard.

We sure do miss everyone back home but we are happy to be together and be here.

Time Out!

So, I will admit that this is a quite sad. Rylan has been having a few issues recently and so I put him in the laundry room for a time out. Well the other day he got quiet real quick and so I went to check on him and this is what I found.

He had barricated the door with a laundry basket and fell asleep just like that. All in a matter of a couple of minutes. Take note of the shirt on backwards...more evidence of an independent 2 year old.

The Countdown

This will be my no pictures post. Seriously, I hate moving. There are so many levels of dislike and I really feel like I have experienced most all of them. I am a horrible packer (thank heavens for my mother in law)...I have been packing for days and I don't think I will ever be done. On a brighter note, we are counting down the days until we see Courtney again. He has been gone for 6 weeks and we just can't wait to all be together again. Also, even though I am being a complainer I know I am beyond blessed. (Sometimes it just takes a little conference to put it all in perspective.) So... just 4 more days until we get to see you again babe!

Rental House

Kellee,
Here are the pictures of the house. There are quite a few.