Rough Riders Game

Here's the great view of the outfield that we had. If we would have stayed longer, we might have been able to catch a homer!

We had fun, despite the fact that we had to leave early. Next time, though, will be alot better! Tommy has gone an entire week without an accident!

I LOVE IT!

Thanks to "So You Think You Can Dance?", I now LOVE Michael Buble. This guy rocks! My new favorite song is, "Feeling Good." Check him out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F2Q8oYMUBw

What do you think?

Long-time friends

My friend Beverly is in town, and last week she stopped by so we could visit. It was so much fun to see her and let our kids play together! I've known Beverly since we lived in Plano, which was about 5 years ago. She baby-sat for me while I worked and I baby-sat for her while she was at school, but she has moved out state, and we rarely get to see each other. Funny thing though, her mom is in my ward, and she always keeps me updated on Beverly and the kids. Anna and Miranda are about 2 years apart, but they love to play with each other! Beverly also has an almost 3-year-old son named William and the last time I saw him he was a tiny baby!

Below is a picture of Anna and Miranda soon after we moved to McKinney. They both loved to dress like ballerinas and dance all over the backyard! They've both grown-up so fast!

I'm a slacker

Yep, that's what I am. There's been so much going on lately, and I haven't blogged about ANY of it! Well, on Tuesday it was me and Danny's 8th Anniversary! Can you believe it? 8 years already! And yesterday we took the kids to the Frisco Rough Riders game. It was a lot of fun for the entire HOUR that we were there! They have this great playground that the kids loved to play in and they enjoyed watching the game, although they didn't understand what was going on! We had okay seats, although I won't complain because they were free, and we all got free hats. Well, after an hour there, Tommy and Anna were on the playground when Tommy decided it was time for a potty break. IN HIS PANTS! Oh, the humiliation! He POOPED and peed in his pants and I had no changes of clothes, so we had to go home. We parked about 1/4 of a mile away, so it was a LONG walk to the car! I will post pictures from the game as soon as I can.

Dreams

Those of you who know me well, know that I have VERY vivid and many times, crazy dreams. Well, last night, shortly before midnight, Tommy came into my room sobbing. As I consoled him and took him back to bed, he told me over and over, "Mommy, I don't like my dreams!" I didn't prod him to tell me about his dream, and I tucked him in and said goodnight. But, without prompting this evening, as we played together on the computer, he proceeded to tell me all about his dream. It went like this:
"Mommy, I was in a haunted house and a ghost came and got me. A bad ghost. He took me and put me in a big pumpkin. It had hot laba (how he says lava) in it. I couldn't get out mommy. There was laba. It was hot. Then a good ghost came and got me. He got me out of the pumpkin, mommy. Then he got the got the bad ghost. He put the bad ghost in the pumpkin with the hot laba in it. It was scary mommy. I don't like the scary dreams!"
Isn't that interesting? I can see where the haunted house, ghosts and hot lava came from because he was playing Mario Kart last night, but the pumpkin? I don't know about that! Poor kid! He's plagued with my crazy dream gene!

Pictures from our vacation

We took a pit stop in Huntsville to see the Sam Houston statue. We were going to wait until Sunday to do that, but we're glad we didn't! It was raining on Sunday! I think this is our only family picture that we took from our trip, and of course, Tommy and I are being really mature and picking Sam's nose! The kids thought the statue was cool, but, of course, they thought the gift shop was even better!
Here we are on Galveston Island at a park that houses an old submarine. Anna was too scared to go on the sub, so we just went to the observation deck. The kids thought it was really cool, especially when a cruise ship passed by! Oh, and do you know what's in Tommy's backpack that we carried around EVERYWHERE? It's his potty seat! Can you believe it? He didn't have a single accident the ENTIRE trip! But, as soon as we got home, he squatted in front of the TV and peed and pooped. I think he had been holding in the poop the whole trip! I know too much information.

Our 34 Hour Vacation

I would love to post some pictures of our very FIRST family vacation! But, Blogger is not letting me at the moment. Check back for pics later. We took a trip with Anna when she was about two, but this is our first trip with all 3 kids, and it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be! We left at around 8am Saturday morning and came back around 6pm Sunday evening. It was a lot of fun! We all voted and everyone's favorite stop was the Russell Stover factory store that we went to on a whim! The beach was a close second, though. The kids love the water, so I was sure that they would love the beach, and they did. Missy took some GREAT pics of the kids that I hope to post soon. All in all, it was fun, and we're looking forward to taking another family trip! Um, just not this year. We're exhausted!

From bad to worse

Yep. That's how my day went. Tommy has been sick with a stomach bug for the past two days. Well, after 2 days of not much throwing up, and a lot of writhing around in pain, I decided to take him to the doctor. Well, my fabulous pediatrician is out of town this week, so we had to see another doctor. I took her first available appointment, and rushed to get there in time. Yeah. A lot of good that did me! I got my FIRST EVER speeding ticket! EVER. I've never recieved one in all my 28 years of life! And of all days! Good grief! So, I cried. Yep. I have not been able to sleep much these past two days because of Tommy, so I was extremely stressed and tired. My cop took no pity on me and gave me the ticket. I got to the doctor and she said that she was concerned with what she was seeing and wanted to take a sono of Tommy's tummy area, and a blood test to make sure that he didn't have appendicitis. YIKES!!! I was so freaked out. So, I dropped Anna and Eddie off with Danny at band camp, and went back to the hospital to get the tests done. Tommy was a champ during the blood test and the nurse was so fast! Tommy was in a lot of pain and had trouble walking, so I carried him EVERYWHERE. This kid is built like a tank, so my poor shoulders and back are not happy tonight. The woman who was filing my insurance at the sonogram place saw what Tommy was in for and launched her horrific tale of her daughter's burst appendix and almost dying! Great. Thanks for making me feel better lady! The sonogram took a while, and when we were done we had to wait to hear what my pediatrician thought. Well, the sonogram was inconclusive, so they had to take an X-ray of his abdomen to make sure there were no obstructions. Yeah, guess what? There was. It's called an insanely gassy tummy. Yep. 4 hours of tests and torture for my poor Tommy and $600 later, they came up with the prognosis of really bad gas caused by a viral infection. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!

Ghost Baby, Naked Spaghetti, and Mud Baths

I watched Mandie's kids yesterday, for 12 hours, and the kids had a lot of fun! While Carter napped for 3 hours, Anna, Abby, and Tommy went outside to play in the baby pool. They found the muddy yard more fun to play in though!
We had spaghetti for dinner and instead of trying to keep the kids clean with bibs, I took their shirts off so they could get as messy as they wanted!
Anna calls Eddie and Carter baby best friends. They had a lot of fun playing together! Funny thing, though, while Eddie was napping, Carter went into his room to play with some toys. Carter was doing his cute little sing-song babble while he was playing and woke up Eddie. Eddie WAS NOT expecting to find another baby in his room when he woke up, so he freaked out! When I got to him, he was screaming at the top of his lungs, beet red, and shaking! He was SO scared! Anna, of course, thought it was hilarious, so she called Carter "Ghost Baby" and it just stuck. We called him that for the rest of the day!

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!