Happy Birthday Tommy!

Tommy turned 4 on June 7th. Can you believe it? He has become such a big boy!

Our New Piano!

As you can see, it looks pretty from the outside, but it needs a lot of work on the inside! Danny has been reading up on how to do the repairs and is ready to get to work. The bench had an accident with one of the legs and they had to replace one and it looks way different from the others, but it's not too bad. Danny was exhausted on Saturday from moving it, and he couldn't have done it without Jared's help! THANK YOU JARED!

Playing Catch-Up

Okay, I realize that I haven't blogged in a long time, and I haven't posted pictures in an even longer time. So, here are some pictures I took when we went to the Dallas Zoo in March at the end of Spring Break. We only saw half of the zoo because it was SUPER crowded! We've been back since then and saw the other half and the kids can't wait to go back!

Okay, so this is what's been going on lately:

• I actually got to go out an trim my shrubs this morning! My front lawn was starting to look like a jungle and I've been afraid to go out because of that stupid bird! We have not seen him in about a week, so we think he's gone. Thank goodness!
• Eddie has slept completely through the night two times in a row! He's eating really well, and goes to bed around 9pm and wakes up around 6:30. We're hoping this lasts!
• Tommy's last day of PALS was last Thursday. We are both really sad! Tommy just cries each morning he wakes up and discovers that he's NOT going to PALS ! He loves Mrs. Richey and we both can't wait for it to start up again in September!
• Tommy had his ARD last week and we discovered that he went from having a score of 205 last July, meaning he was in the High Profound category of speech impairment, to a score of 65 in May putting him in the Moderate category! Tommy's teachers have done a GREAT job this year! I don't know what I would have done without them!
• Tuesday was my last full day of teaching this semester! I have 2 more students on Friday and I'm done! I will start summer lessons the second week of June. I don't mind those at all because I teach from home
• I found Anna's Webkinz code for Pearl. I was organizing all of her million papers in her desk and found it in a plastic baggie with about a hundred stickers in it! I was happy I found it, but mad because of the enormous mess! It's STILL messy and something will be done about it before the Birthday Bash this Saturday or Anna will be a very sad little girl.
• I will be singing in Relief Society on Sunday and I'm super nervous! I'm fine singing with the choir, but I'll be singing with only 2 other women and the first part of the song will be a solo for me. Yikes!
• Danny has a lead for a job in Lewisville, but can't even be considered for an interview until all of his paperwork is complete. We'll just have to wait and see. Keep him in your prayers!

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to do better about posting! And I'll take more pictures! Are you happy now Missy? By the way, my blog wouldn't look so sad if you would make me a new blog header!

I NEED a piano!

I have been finding life a little bit hard lately without a piano! I lived my entire married life without one in my home and have done just fine, until now! I need it to play through stuff for choir, and even listen to chords in accompianment lines in solos I give to my students! I have looked for a cheap piano, but as soon as they are posted on Craig's List, they're gone! Grrrr! I realize that as soon as I get one, Tommy and Anna will be banging on it day and night, but the pros outweigh the cons and I am willing to live with it. Yeah, and it will be JUST my luck that as soon as I plunk down the cash to buy one, I'll be released from my calling and I won't need it as much!

My Cleaning Habits are Costing Me!

As you all know, I love to clean and de-junk my house. Well, just days before Eddie was born, I was cleaning my room and I had a Babies R Us gift card in a card from Danny's school. I distinctly remember throwing away the card, but I was certain that the gift card wasn't in it. Or was it? It's been almost 9 months and there's no sign of the gift card! I swore that I was going to be more careful, until Anna and I discovered that her webkinz UNUSED code for Pearl (her white poodle) was missing. Good grief! We looked all throughout ther messy room, and there's no sign of it. The only thing I can come up with is that I threw it away in a fit of cleaning! So, Anna can't play with Pearl online which is most of the point of webkinz! I feel so bad, but not bad enough to go on Ebay and buy a code, which usually ends up costing as much as the webkinz itself!

Living in Fear

Yes, it's true. I am living in constant fear. Well, when I need to go out to the front yard, that is. There is a black bird that is protecting its nest that just happens to be in our bradford pear out front. It will follow you around the yard and even accross the street! It flies dangerously close to your head when you are out too long, or get too close to the tree! Danny thought I was crazy, but Ella Mae witnessed it this afternoon! Sigh...What am I going to do? I'm tempted to ask my cop neighbor to come over with his gun and do some target practice, but I'm not sure that's legal. If it is, anyone game? This stupid bird freaks me out! You can see it perched on the roof waiting for anyone to come out of the house!

Tommy in the Ward Choir - AGAIN

Okay, so the ward choir sang on Sunday, and I thought, although I am extremely biased being the director, that the choir sounded REALLY great. My soloist was amazing (thanks Cleave!) and the 5 men who sing in the choir somehow balanced well against the 10 women! Right before the choir was to sing, Eddie decided he was hungry, so Danny was feeding him. Well, Tommy wanted to come up with me to sing, and Danny couldn't stop him or else Eddie would start wailing. What was I going to do? There was Tommy, on the stand, running around like the crazy kid he is, so I grabbed him, and looked frantically around for someone, ANYONE to take him! A member of the Bishopric came and saved me! I can't remember his name, but I am SO grateful! He took Tommy out to the hall and stayed with him until the choir was finished, even though he was supposed to be conducting! I will be forever in his debt! I didn't get many comments about the performance, but I usually don't. It's hard to gage how well we did if no one tells me how we sounded and Danny's usually too busy with the kids to really give me a good critique! I don't want to sound needy, but it's nice to know if the people in the congregation liked the choir! So, I wasn't having a good day on Wednesday until I got this note in the mail. It said:

I wanted to drop you a note to say thank you for the job you do with our ward choir. I realize it is not always easy but every time the choir sings I am impressed. I just wanted you to know that I am grateful for what you do. May God bless you for your faithful service. Bishop Rogers

Nursery rhymes - as told by Tommy

Tommy came home from school today repeating this over and over:

Hunky Dunky sat on a wall
Hunky Dunky great fall
king horses no put Hunky Dunky together

Hunky Dunky! What a funny kid!

Anna's Tantrums

As some of you know, I've had a rough time with Anna this week. I'm trying to be sensitive to the fact that she's just not feeling well, but this morning was AWFUL!!! It began at 6:45 when Anna came into the living room and announced that she was hungry. When I asked what she wanted, she replied "corn chex." Corn Chex? We haven't had corn chex in MONTHS! I told her that we didn't have any and she just started crying and throwing a fit! She REALLY wanted corn chex! I promptly ignored her and got Tommy in the shower, and as I was getting him out, I found Anna in my room looking through my jewlery box. When I asked her what she was doing, she said that she wanted her gold and silver dollars back. Let me back up a day and tell you about yesterday. She wanted to go to the bookfair and had $4, but 2 of those dollars were her gold and silver dollars that she got from the tooth fairy. She didn't want to spend them, but she really wanted to get a book from the book fair, so I offered up a trade. I would take the gold and silver dollars and trade them for paper dollars, and she could work to earn her dollars back. She was happy, and bought her book at the book fair. Okay, fast forward to today. She accused me of STEALING her gold and silver dollars and she wanted them back RIGHT NOW! I tried to calmly remind her of our deal yesterday, but she would scream and refuse to listen! She continued to scream for 10 minutes! She was actually ON THE FLOOR kicking and screaming like a 2-year-old! Yeesh. She's almost 7-years-old for crying out loud! Eddie came in and found her highly ammusing, and Tommy was looking at her like she had just come from Mars, and he kept on asking me why she was crying. I dressed Tommy quickly and left Anna to her tantrum. It was nearly time for school and I loaded Tommy and Eddie in the car. Anna had gone to her room and was quite calm and was actually cleaning it up! ( I think she was trying to earn her money back. ) Well, I told her it was time to go, and she immediately began to cry and say that she was hungry, and she began the whole corn chex fit AGAIN. She had her chance to eat and didn't take it, so I was going to let her go to school hungry. Lunch is at 10:45, so she wouldn't be hungry for long, but the only way to get her physically out the door was to give her SOMETHING to eat. She refused everything from toaster streudels to pop tarts, so I handed her some fruit gushers and said "take it or leave it." She took it, shut up and got in the car. I have never been so happy to drop her off at school! She gets this way when she's hungry, and she just can't be reasoned with! I started reading this Love and Logic book that Mandie bought me and I think it helped a little with this morning. I didn't raise my voice a single time! I was calm, even though I wanted to scream at her, and I think the situation would have been MUCH worse if I had. Thanks Mandie!

The Older Woman

Tommy came home with this today! It's from Malorie, a 7-year old who's first grade class is accross the hall from Tommy's. He has proudly displayed it on the refrigerator!

10 minutes in a closet

I was startled awake at 4 am by some monster wind and thunder, but it sounded a lot scarier than the storms last week. I went and turned on the TV to check the radar and see what was going on. As soon as Pete Delkus popped up on the screen, our tornado sirens went off! Pete was saying that there was major rotation aloft and a tornado could drop at any minute right over our house! Anna was in the living room in less than a minute with her blankets, and I ran and grabbed Tommy and Danny got Eddie. We went to the closet and stayed for about 10 minutes until we heard the storm dying down. Thank goodness there was no tornado! Anna was totally freaked out and Tommy was confused, so it took a good 30 minutes to get them settled. Then Eddie woke up. Yeesh. I was awake until about 5:30 AND I had to teach today! Tommy was a little traumatized by the whole experience, I think, because he talked about going into the closet all day today!
***UPDATE***
It turns out that there was actually a REAL tornado, and it hit less than 3 miles south of our house! Scary!

No News

Danny job update: The interview panel has not been able to give its reccomendations to the Fine Arts Director, yet, so we don't know who will get a second interview. Hopefully we'll know by the end of the week. I'll let you know as soon as I know. Danny also has UIL tomorrow, so he's been really nervous this week waiting for news and preparing his band for UIL. More prayers wouldn't hurt.

Poor Baby!

Eddie has not been feeling well since yesterday. He has a low grade fever, stuffy nose, and three monster teeth coming in up top! Poor baby! He just wants to sit with me or Danny, and he really has no interest in crawling! It's so sad! He wouldn't even smile for me! It was just on Thursday that he was all over the house showing off his crawling skills to abuela!

This is one of my favorite parts of my day! He gets SO excited when I walk in his room! If his rail were a little higher, he would have pulled himself up to a standing position! What a cutie! This picture was taken on Tuesday when he was still feeling great. What a difference a couple of days makes! Hopefully he'll feel better soon, so I can see that smile more!

Waiting Game

Danny's interview went fairly well on Friday, and he was told that there would be a second round of interviews with the principal sometime this week. So, now we wait for the call or e-mail and see if he made the cut. This part sucks. They want to have the position filled by the end of this week, so we won't be waiting for long. Please pray that Danny gets a second interview! It was a miracle that he got a first, though. This position was posted EVERYWHERE, so there were more than 100 that applied for the job! Danny made the top 7, which is great, but he really wants the job, and I do too! This school is less than 10 minutes from home!
***UPDATE***
There will be 2 inter-district interviews for the position this Friday. Those get priority, so if they don't hire one of those 2, then Danny has a pretty good chance. He was one of only 2 of the 7 that they e-mailed and asked for recordings of his band. So, Danny made the top 2. Let's cross our fingers that they don't hire within the district, then he'll get a second interview for sure!

Fossil Rim

Last Wednesday, Tommy, Anna, and I went to Fossil Rim with my mom, my niece Randi, her daughter Mary, my sister Missy, her husband and son Ben, and my other sister Mandie and her huband and son Carter and daughter Abby. My mom is awesome and paid for us all to go. We had a great time, except when my gas light came on halfway through! It was a miracle that we made it to a gas station without running out of gas! My mom, Randi, and Mary were in my car with my kids. Let me tell you, Randi is superwoman. She somehow changed Tommy in the van while we were driving through Fossil Rim and she killed two bees that made their way into the car. Tommy swatted at one and got stung on the finger, but the bee survived and fell into his shirt. Randi fished it out, and killed it, and hunted down the other bee and calmly grabbed it with a tissue. Of course I was freaking out the whole time, and Anna was cowering in the back under her blanket! Oh, did I mention that she's pregnant, too? Tommy's favorite animal was the zebra, but he didn't like it sticking it's head into the car, and he loved sitting on my lap while I drove and pretending to drive! I felt a little like Brittney Spears, though. Anna was in charge of the animal guide and pointing out the names of the of animals that we saw, and she did a great job! We also went to Dinosaur Valley State Park for a couple of minutes to let the kids check out the huge dinosaur statues! Hopefully we'll get to spend more time there this summer and check out the dino footprints! Thanks for the great day mom!

Pray for Danny!

Hello, everyone! Please pray for Danny! He has a job interview here in McKinney tomorrow morning at 8am. He REALLY wants to be a head band director, but so far he's been passed over for 4 positions. He's getting a little discouraged at this point, and could use all the help he can get!

Introducing....The Amazing Eduard!

I put Eddie in his seat, the one you see behind him, and left the room to put something away. I heard him crying, but he quickly stopped, so I continued what I was doing. I came back and found him just like this!! The only thing that Danny and I can come up with is, he fell out of his seat, although I have NO IDEA how he did it, and was happy with the mess that he found on the floor!

Clorox Clean-Up, I love you!

I love this stuff. Not just in a, I-think-it's-great-it-cleans-my-bathroom way, but in a, I-could-never-live-my-life-without-you way. Danny and I discovered its magical properties one day when we were desperate to get an ugly stain out of the carpet. I had tried EVERYTHING, even the Clorox Bleach Pen, but nothing worked! So, Danny grabbed the Clorox Clean-Up and gave it a try. I was horrified. I thought there would be a large discolored spot on my carpet, but nope, the stain was gone and the carpet looked GREAT. Well, today, Tommy decided to help himself to some Jell-O while I was in the shower. And you can see what happened below. There was Jell-O splattered all accross abot half of the living room!

Tommy was sad because all of his beloved snack was all over the floor, and I was so mad that he had made such a huge mess! I scooped it all up, soaked the carpet with warm water and grabbed my Clorox Clean-Up. It had worked before, but I had never done it on such a large area of carpet, so I was nervous. I sprayed it on, and like magic, the red was GONE! I used my steamer to get the excess water and Clorox out of the carpet, and....
Ta da! The carpet is fabulously clean! Can you believe it? I LOVE this stuff!

Peter Barr

If you remember a few months ago, I posted about Peter and his wonderful family, well Peter's battle with a brain tumor has ended and he died yesterday. I just sat at my computer and cried when I read that journal entry. Although I didn't know Peter well, I know his parents and brothers and they are an amazing family. As I read their journal detailing his final days, I was taken back 8 years to when dad was in a similar situation. I've been thinking about dad a lot lately, and I think it's interesting that they had such similar final days and Peter died only 4 days after the anniversary of dad's death. I know Peter is in a better place and I'm grateful that his earthly sufferings are through, but I grieve for his family and the tremendous loss that they have suffered. Please say a little prayer for the Barr family this week to help them through this difficult time.

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Second Chance

When it snowed on Monday night, the kids only got to play in it for a little while on Tuesday morning before school, and it melted before Anna got home. But yesterday, it started snowing at 3pm and when I got home from teaching there was already an inch of snow on the ground! Tommy and Anna immediately went out to play when Anna got home from school, and they loved being outside while the HUGE flakes were falling! All after school activities were cancelled and Danny was able to come home early! We ate an early dinner and went outside to play in the almost 4 inches of snow! Danny didn't get a chance to play in the snow earlier in the week, so this was a treat for him and for us! It was a lot of fun playing in the snow as a family and building a snowman together and having a snowball fight! Tommy makes a mean snowball, by the way! I am glad for this second chance so that we could enjoy the snow together! Oh, and for you die-hard soccer fans out there, our snow girl (yes, it's a girl, according to Anna who helped design her) is an AC Milan (if you couldn't read the hat and scarf) snow girl with fake flowers for the eyes and beads for buttons. The carrot nose had a hard time staying on!

Lots of Pictures!

Here are the kids on Saturday night playing in the backyard in their summer clothes! They were making sand soup and pretending to eat it. It was getting dark, but they were begging to stay outside!
This is a bad picture of Eddie, I know, but it does show his yucky eye. He had pink eye this weekend but is all better now, thanks to some eye drops from the doctor. Have you ever tried to put eye drops in a wiggly baby? It's really hard!


Ahh...and our backyard this morning. It's amazing what a few days will do!
I took this one late last night. I just love how the flash catches the falling snow!
Tommy actually LOVED the snow today! He wanted to go out at 6am, but he had to wait until the sun came up. The last time it snowed Tommy cried and cried because it was so cold. He didn't want to come in for breakfast this morning, and he's ready go out again! He also had a bad accident yesterday. The sword that he has in his hand was in his mouth yesterday while he was playing, and he fell. I know, scary, right? The sword went to the roof of his mouth and hit the back of his throat. I was freaking out. At first I thought that he couldn't breathe, but then he started screaming. He had A LOT of trouble swallowing, but after he calmed down he seemed to be fine. I checked out his mouth and the roof is pretty bruised and there's a mark on the back of his throat. I am so glad that nothing worse happened!!

Anna's school is delayed this morning, so she doesn't have to go for another hour. She cried when she found out that Tommy doesn't have to go to school. She didn't think that was fair. Tommy won't go to class today because his class usually ends when school is supposed to start! I didn't get to teach today because of the school delay. I could have because Plano didn't have a delay, but I have to take Anna to school, and Ella Mae was afraid to drive this morning. I don't blame her. I'd rather be safe than sorry, so I'll teach on Thursday instead. Right now, though, we're going to go out and play some more in the snow!

Big News!

Okay, it's just big news to me and Danny, you guys may not even care, but we paid off our Honda 20 months early!! That's almost 2 years! It's SO nice to only have one car payment now and we're working really hard to get that paid off early as well. It's really hard to not go out and buy that new couch that we're wanting, but it's a wonderful feeling to have that car debt gone forever!