From the mouth of Matt...

Here's some recent Matthew comments:

*He hops out of the truck after being pick up from school and starts whizzing right then and there. I say "Matthew!!!" (which that was to be interpreted as...go inside and use the bathroom) Matthew's reply "Mom, it's ok...were in the country now..."

*He hops into my lap and pats me on the stomach and says "it's agood thing your not having another baby in that big ole belly. Cause you've got a lot less blubber now..." And anyone who know Matt, this was a compliment...not a derogatory statement :) Now in the future, Jim And I might need to help him refine his compliments towards women. But for now, we know what his intents are.

*He sees a boy coming out of Nat's school wearing a pink shirt and just out of the blus says "...it's ok, he's a reall man!" I'm reading my book and look up and say "huh? Why'd you say that?" He replys "..ugh Mom, REAL men wear pink!"

There have been so many that I forget...but those are some that stick in my mind. Enjoy :)

Lucky Penny

Sad to say Nat's day got worse before getting better. As she walked out of school to get in the truck yesterday, she looked like Beetle Bailey (newpaper cartoon) after he'd been magled by Sarge. I asked her if she was still upset about the sentances. She cam back with "...not really, but Mom..this was a BAD day.." She was being very strong and was trying to hold back the tears as she filled me in on the rest of her day. She was in Math class and was the 1st to turn her paper in. At the end of class the teacher tells Nat to turn in her paper and Nat tells her that she was the 1st to turn it in and the teacher argues and says that Tyler was the 1st to turn it in. Nat said that she and the teacher looked for her paper nad couldn't find it. Nat flipped! Then to make matters worse, she went to her locker and got knocked over by a boy pushing another girl. When she went to stand up that boys locker was still open and the sharp point of the locker cut up her back in 2 places. She did tell me that the teacher who assigned the sentances came to her in Eagle Period (study hall) and asked her how many sentances she'd written and Nat told her 98, and she told Nat that, that was enough.

On the way home that teacher called me back and told me that this was Nat's 1st offense and she'd been lumped together in this punishment with repeat offenders. She said she feel REALLY bad once she saw Nat's reaction. And that she felt even worse cause she's such an excellent student and will do anything you tell her to do. I explained to her that Nat just takes everything to heart and stresses when she felts that she hasn't pleased someone. And the teacher and I discussed that if she does wrong that she needs to be disiplined (sp?), but not exactly like you would the others...or the repeat offenders. I also called the Math teacher and had the same discussion with her. The 1st thing out of her mouth was "I know why you're calling and I told Nat not to worry about it." I stopped her right there and explained to her that Nat worried and stressed about anyway. And that, that was just her nature. so I think we are all on the same page now. I have one more teacher to talk to, but he was out and I really don't have an issue with him, but I'll just fill him in on what I told the other 2.

At supper last night we went to Subway. While in line, Nat finds a heads up penny. She came over to me (I was feeding the baby) and says "Oh Mom, I really needed this penny today"!! So my little broken bird is all healed now and I just hope that when I pick her up today I have my bouncy baby girl back.

What to do.....

I'm at a loss. I don't know how to handle this situation and I need some "unbiased" (sp?) opinions.

As most of you might know, we are slowly weaning Nat off of her Dystonia meds. The doctor feels that it has gone into remission. Which is wonderful news. He said that it may come back, it may stay in remission forever. Anyway... she has been doing wonderfully and has been managing her stress quite well. (In case I hadn't mentioned it before, Dystonia is not caused from stress. Stress can "irritate" the symptoms.) Well, I got a call from the nurse today. Trust me, I was hoping for her to tell me she had a stomach ache or somthing along those lines. But no... Nat supposedly got into trouble this morning and was stressed the "f" out! The nurse told me she was all locked up and what should she do. I said I wanted to talk to her. Nat told me that she was trying to get her stuff together before class and forgot her book in her locker. The teacher punished her (and 4-5 others) with 200 sentances. "I will always bring my materials to class each and every day".

Ok, here's the hard part for me...besides the fact that she's crying while she's telling me this and trying to say that she just forgot cause she was trying to get eveything else together before the bell rang. It's hard cause I know (#1) how she stresses about being late. BUT, on the flip side...was she chatting while doing this? Was there 5th grade drama happening in the hall? She says "no", but what else is she supposed to say. It's also hard (#2) to know the whole story. Nat's gonna tell me her side and the teacher's gonna tell her side... (haven't gotten to talk to the teacher yet). I want to OF COURSE side with Nat, but I also have to be an adult and realize that I don't know all the details.

But the one thing I do know is that Nat will now stress all day about these sentances and will stress the whole time she does these sentances. AND her arm will physically stress from all the writing. UGH! I told her that just cause her arm acts up isn't a reason to get out of trouble. But in my mind I thinking the punishment is a bit much!! I do not want her to get special treatment, but on the other hand...she needs to be addressed with a little different approach. When you have a child who stresses easily and you know that this stress can cause her Dystonia to act up... there's got to be a different way to handle this.

Grrr... I'm just so tore up over this! I don't want to be one of "those Moms" who thinks their child does no wrong. But... Thoughts?

I'll hopefully talk to the teacher today, if not..I'll have to wait till her conference period tomorrow.

25!

Yup, that's right...25! I'm offically 25 lbs lighter than I was at the 1st of January. I've lost more than that, but the other 6 lbs came off not by my efforts. I met my 1st Weight Watchers goal last week...WOO HOO! I got a key chain?!? Any way, I'm still 36 lbs from my goal, but for the 1st time in a LONG time I know I can do it!

Jim's doing awesome also. I think as of last night he's lost 31 lbs!! I'm very proud of him too cause he's not only losing weight, he's changing some very hard to break eating habits.

And hats off to my parents and Kim and Gary. They are all being equally as successful. I know all the women get discuraged cause it does seem a bit slow at times...but it's coming off...slowly but surely. Funny thing is, I was quite discouraged before we left to go to Abilene on Friday cause it appeared that I was only going to lose 1lb ( I hate to say "only"...but...). So this weekend I'd planned to eat "good" and TRY to get another pound off. Well, I got into a pissy mood when I saw how diffiuclt that was gonna be and I threw in the towel...so did Jim :) Dang, that actually worked in our favor. I knew that throwing a little junk in your "engine" can help jumpstart your metabolizm (sp?)...but I was acutally thinking that if I was SUPER good that it'd work just the same...WRONG! The junk in the engine worked. Jim and I both dropped pretty good amounts this week. Won't say I'll make this a routine, but it's nice to know that I can look forward to it everyone in a while :)

Good luck to all of you who are on this weight loss journey! I wish you all the best and can't stress wnought...DON'T GIVE UP!!!

Say a Prayer for Tina, Billy, and Family

Today Tina (my sister in law) lost her Grandma. She lost her struggle with cancer after a very hard fight. If you've read Billy's recent blog you'll see that things have been quite hard and stressful lately.

So I just ask that you think of them and say a prayer for them today and the days ahead as they morn Betty. She was very loved and charished by her family.

I love you Tina, Billy, Taylor, and Tyler and I'm sorry for your sadness. I wish I could give you all a hug right now, but since I can't..please hug each other for me :)

Weekend stuff

As I've mentioned before, this was Matt's last basketball game this past weekend. He made 4 points for us, but we were unable to pull off another win. It didn't matter to Matt cause he got to show off his stuff to Granny and James. They came to watch his last game and to visit for most all day on Saturday. It was a nice visit and we loved having them here! Here's some shots from the game. Nat did the filming for me this time


Matt has just taken a shot. It was a close one, but not a point maker :)



Brayden found a comfy seat in Papa's lap and had a good time flirting with Granny.



Matt is a very controlled dribbler and he took the ball down court numerous times!



After the game we all headed to Walmart. We had groceries to buy and Granny needed a new TV. Granny and James left about 6pm. Jim and Matt headed to the haircut part and me, Nat, and Brayden went to the groceries. Last weekend Nat got to have her haircut like she did last year. It was a hole in the wall place that I took her, but the lady did a nice job.



We are finally having winter here and it's been nice to bundle up and light a fire...and find an excuse to put Brayden in this CUTE hat from Mason (Skidmore)!!



And here's just a cute shot to wrap up today's blog...



Dad and Billy - Sure would love to hear from you guys again! Even if it's just a one liner :)

If you have the chance, drop by Wes's blog and offer him some congrats! I'm sure he'd love to hear from more of us :)

Sorry guys...

I had a HUGE post written up for tonight and I just lost it ALL! Stinking Blogger's made me angry so I won't write it all again. Maybe tomorrow...

Happy Valentines Day!

I wanted to share the sweet Valentine that Matt made last night. He said it's raining hearts :) Hope you all have a wonderful day!!

Catching up...

Matthew came home with a letter from school saying he'd been picked to do a UIL event. Can anyone guess the event? Story telling!!! I tried so hard to not just bust out laughing. I guess I was smirking pretty bad cause Matt asked "Why's that funny?" I just simply replied "Well it's just your teachers know you well baby :)" He wasn't thinking he wanted to do it, but I told him to just go try it out and see what he thinks. HE LOVES IT...go figure!?! I'm very proud of him and so glad he can have a event that suits him so well! They have a couple of afterschool practices, and then they get to "compete" for the Story Telling "team". Only 3 out of 7 will be picked. And ya know what??? He's really pumped to make it. I told him to just do his best and that all we could ask for.

He has 2 more games left. And these boys are just doing awesome (see Jim's blog about last weeks game if you haven't already). They play this Saturday @ 1:30 and next Saturday @ 3:30pm and then that's it. And let me tell you, these aren't boring games. They'll keep you on the edge of your seat. If you can make it to one of these, you'll be glad you did...and Matt would too :)

Was just got the paper work to sign Nat up for softball. Her and Daddy are READY! The draft will be on the 27th and games will start on March 25th (I think).

She's still loving everything about art. I haven't seen her latest creation, but I know it'll be wonderful!!

She watched "the film" yesterday and I must say she was very mature about it. Some of her friends were dingbats...but that's to be expected. She said the boys said it was distrubing :) We talked a little about it and she made it very easy on me. I was sooo not anticipating this talk. But I feel I pulled thru ok :)

Brayden had his 3 month eye check up today and the doctor said he's looking great!! We can wait for 6 months before going back again...YEA! He's hoping that since the drifting has become so minimal that this is something that will be gone by the time he's 2. SO HAPPY!!

Brayden's started a sport also...pass the ball. He will play as long as you roll it to him. By far the funnest thing yet!! I've also moved several toys out of the living room and into his room and he's really enjoying the "independance" of his room. And I'm loving less clutter :)

Jim and I are still amazing ourselves over our weight loss. I personally have a long way to go, but I'll get there and I know Jim will too! This has been a very gratifying experience and I'm shocked at how easy Weight Watchers is to do! To date Jim's lost 23 lbs (I think) and I've lost 18. Woo Hoo...

Hope you all have a great (work-free) weekend!

The Birthday Party

The birthday party was GREAT! I think everyone had a good time...I know I did! We had it at Main Event in Grapevine. We started off doing Laser Tag. Natalie, Matthew, Jim, Bailey, Bobby, Krista, Laura, Cheryl, Brianna (from softball) and her brother Dillon all played and from listening to them afterward...they had a BLAST! Since Chloe was too little to play, I gave her her game cards early and her, Chanda, and DeLaynee went and played games. Chloe was so cute..she went to go play a virtual soccer game and you kick a real soccer ball towards a "virtual" goalie (it's an image projected up on a wall). She was doing so awesome and wanted a "grandpa" to see...so she went an grabbed my Dad. He really thought that was pretty neat. He'll take all the grandkids he can get :)

After Laser Tag was over, the sweaty taggers and the reast of us headed to the party room for pizza, soda, and cakes. Brayden was being kinda of a grump when when all the kids we eating pizza. But then it was cake time and he was about to experience something he'd never had....C-A-K-E!!









Here's a picture of Nat's brownie cake.














Here's the cake that Walmart gives free to a baby's first b-day.
















This is the cake we ordered.















Happy birthday to you, cha-cha-cha....
















Nat was very pleased with all the she got...of course :)















Matt and Dillon had a great time with tag and all the games!















Last but not least...."Oh Boy, is this for ME???"















"This is the BEST stuff EVER!!!" I thought it was pretty fantastic too since I haven't cheated for 4 weeks...OH MY!














All in all it was a GREAT time. Thank you to everyone who came. And we missed all those who couldn't.

It's a GIRL!

...and that's what we said 11 years and 15 hours ago :) Here's some pictures of Nat opening presents yesterday and showing off her birthday outfit (not suit). Would LOVE to have ANYONE comment. Sure makes blogging more fun when people reply :)


Matt was sweet enough to make his sister a card...on his own free will (which I thought made it even sweeter!). You might be able to mak it out, but it says "...to an awesome sister..." Nat didn't see just how sweet that was, but maybe one day she will.







Here she is in all her beauty showing off her birthday outfit.



She wanted to make sure you knew that she could twirl in this skirt! She VERY proud of this outfit...if you couldn't tell!


Brayden recognized the wrapping paper right off and had no clue that it wasn't his. But sister said she wanted his help...and so away he tore!



Where'd the baby go?



Yup, he went into the bag. You never know...there could've been more goodies in there :)







Thank you for all the birthday cards, calls, emails, and wishes for our VERY special little girl that has indeed touched our lives in so many wonderful ways!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!!!

**if you wanted to know how the sleepover went...see the blog below**

The Sleepover

Well, we survived Nat's first real sleepover. We had 3 girls over. These are Nat's closest friends. I'd originally thought we could get away with one, but it's for her birthday and she didn't want to leave anyone out. Which I thought was sweet.

So I picked them all up on Friday after school and we headed to the house till Jim got home. Then we headed back to town for pizza (not for me though..I had a salad) and a movie. We saw Big Momma's House 2. It was just as cute/funny as the 1st one. 2 of the girls were up and down a lot with trips to the concessions and the restroom. Nat and Daneilla (sp?) sat thoughout the whole movie. Partway through the movie I got a sweet surprise. I was sitting at the end of the row so no one would be by the girls. So there were 2 seats inbetween me and the rest of them...I wanted to let them have their own space. Well Nat gets up and comes sits by me and takes my arm to snuggle!! I asked her if everything was ok and she said that everything was fine. She just thought I looked all lonely and wanted to sit with me. And she did for the rest of the movies while her friends did their own thing. I was so touched. I still mean something to her...even in front of friends. I must say it felt good.

After the movies we headed home and the girls got into everything they could think of. They played video games, did crafts, and makeovers...of course! I told them that I wanted them in bed around 10pm since we were gonna have to wake up early so we could go to Matt's game. Well even though I got a positive reply to that...it was after 11pm before they were actually in pjs and in the beds. Who really knows when they went to bed? But I wouldn't have expected them to do anything other than stay up talking, laughing, horsing around.

We got them up and out of the house only 15 mins behind schedule. I know Nat had fun, but it was nice to get our house back to "normal".'

This weekend we will have Nat's party (and a small cake for the baby). That should be more fun cause no kids other than mine and "maybe" some family will be coming home with us. We are looking forward to it. Today's her birthday and we'll do presents once Jim gets home. I KNOW she's ready to tear in!!

Hope you all had a great weekend and great weight loss!

It's a BOY!

Well...that's what we said one year ago yesterday. This went by way too fast for Momma! I JUST had him....didn't I? This one was supposed to take his time growing up...wasn't he? He is a sweetie and we all feel so blessed to have him in our lives!

He got to go for his 1 year check up yesterday. He got a shot, but he was a tough guy and only squeezed out one tear. The doctor said we will now take him off the Zantac and see how he does. If that goes good we'll then take him off his formula with rice in it. The last step will be to take him off his Bathanacol that he takes at night. Hopefully this will be a smooth process.

Brayden got to open his present last night and he was much more into it than at Christmas. Probably wasn't as overwhelming. He got a ball pit that he loves! And a new Leap Frog toy from Cheryl and family and he's really into that (Thank you Cheryl. I wanted to get him this toy at Christmas, but had already gone overboard so I had to stop. It is such a cool toy and has tons of activities! THANK YOU!) We also got him a pop up toy and some bath toys. Brayden was quite pleased! Here's some pictures of him in all his cuteness.



Here he is in his ball pit.



He's just so delighted that he's gonna be allowed to shred!



Nat's helped him get started on some of his presents. But it didn't take long for him to figure it out:)



Matt didn't admit it, but I think he was having as much fun as Brayden was with the new toys!



Overall...one big happy baby!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom!!

Happy Birthday Mom! I would've posted this yesterday (on her actual birthday), but we had the pleasent suprise of having Mom and Dad stay with us this weekend.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a blog to let Mom know that we are all just so blessed to have you in our lives. You are one amazing, incredible, loving, compassionate woman. And you know this about her within the 1st 5 mins (or less) of meeting her.

We love you Mom and thank you for everything that you do and have done for all of us...thank you for being YOU!

Love you bunches, heaps, and piles :)

Basketball, walking, and a curl

Matt had his first game yesterday and he (and all the boys) did great. It was a complete blow out. The final score was 48 to 30 and I think we actually had more points than 48, but the score keepers arm was getting tired :) I'll let Jim tell the rest of the story in his blog.

























It's offical, he's got a curl :)






















Here's a shot of him walking to Nat. Like I said, he's just everywhere now!


























Here's a cute shot of the boys just hanging out today.























Hope you all had a great weekend and welcome home Mom and Dad :)

So proud!

I'm so proud of my kids for many reasons. For instance, both kids came home yestrerday with all A report cards! And even after have A-B report cards last 6 weeks (which I think is awesome also) they were both able to get their semester averages up to all A's also! Nat got a Chili's gift certificate and Matt got 2 award papers (All A's and perfect attendance) and he got to pick something from the award bucket. I just love it!!

Matt (and Jim) will have their 1st b-ball game tommorrow. I'm really excited since I don't get to go to his practices. I could go, but I'd just have to fight Brayden the whole time. I'll take picutres for sure and try to post by Monday.

Nat will be going to stay with Granny for a day or 2 in her new house. We'll be going up there tonight and she's gonna cook us dinner. She'd originally asked to come up to the local cafe and have fried catfish, but Jim told her of our semi restricted diet so she's gonna cook baked chicken.

Brayden's just walking so much now it almost unreal. I know it was time for him to do so, but I just can't believe he's almost a year. His new trick for the week is that he's learned to stack blocks. I am really impressed.

Hope you all have a great weekend and good luck to all those who are dieting/exercising. I hope we ALL drop in our wieght!

Jolie Update

I talked to Jolie's mommy today and she said that everything was going great! She said she was in surgury for less than 30 mins and she woke up really quick. She said that she was grumpy...can you blame her?!?

They will take her back for a check up in 2 weeks and that their main thing to watch for is infection. But eveything is good now and I thnak those who had her in your prayers!

Say a prayer for Jolie

If you are comfortable, please say a prayer for little Jolie today. Jolie is Jim's cousin's 3 month old (2 days shy anyway) baby girl. I won't elaborate about her medical condition in respect of her parents, but she has to have surgury today which means going under anesthia(sp?). The surgury (from what her Mom told me) should go very smoothly and she should recover just fine. But this is still a scary thing for parents to have to go thru, so I know your prayers would be appreciated.

When I hear from her parents I post a small segment about her recovery.

Thank you and love you all!

Big Walking and other stuff

I reported a while back that Brayden had taking some steps. Well he'd really lost interest since crawling is just so much faster. And he'd only ever walk to you if you had something of interest. Well now he's at the point where he'll just stand up and start walking...and it is so cool. If you're familiar with my living room...last night he walked from the edge of my ottoman to about 2 ft. from the tv. He was doing so good and then he looked back to see if we were watching (and of course I was with tears and all) and he started laughing and snorting...and bonk...Baby fall down. He laughed for a minute and then he was POed! And this sparked a very heated fit. Not sure who he was mad at or if it was the situation...but he was ticked. Arms and legs flailing to the point that he knocked himself over and...yup... that ticked him off some more. We are slowly finding out that Brayden (as sweet and cute as he is) has a short fuse. Hum?? WHERE could that come from :) Of course, he is cutting 2 molars and a cuspid right now so I can understand where some of the irritation is coming from.

Nat and Matt are still off for Christmas and will go back on Monday. Usually they are ready to go back, but Santa and everyone was so good to them that I don't think they're ready to leave all their goodies.

Nat started back to art class yesterday and she was very happy to go back. She was needing an outlet for all her artistic energy. She'd be making me something almost everyday...mosaic art, soap,...koolaid... what ever she thought she could make she was making it.

Matt will start back to basketball practice next week and I think their 1st game is the 14th. Jim says they only have 6 games. So if anyone who reads this was interested in going to a game, they'll be on Saturdays starting the 14th.

And also, here's an open invitation to ANYONE who'd like to come celebrate Brayden's 1st birthday and Nat's 11th. Don't know what we'll do...probably a party somewhere for Nat and something small at the house for the baby. But we'll do it Feb. 4th. More details later. ANY and EVERYONE is welcome and I have PLENTY of room for anyone to stay. We'd love to have ya!

Sh*ts & Giggles

Yup, that's right sh*ts and giggles..

Anyone who knows my parents, know this phrase. Well my parents are one day into their vacations and are already having their fair share of them :)

Yesterday Dad calls to tell me this story...
As they were ready to go to bed they kept hearing a radio. Nothing loud, but enough to bug them since the "rule" at the park was no noise after 10pm. ALL night this went on...even into the next morning. They were pretty ticked at this time and Dad was ready to lay into someone. Then when the went outside, the noise wasn't there...it was only when they were in the trailer...hummm. Then it became quite clear who the culprit was ;)~~ Dad said that over the weekend a little gremlin (quite possibly a grandchild) found a way to turn the display off on their camper's radio and had turned on the music just enough so they could hear it. This is when the had their sh*ts and giggles. After all night of getting ticked off...

Gotta love them pollacks (sp?)!