Contribute 2009: Big help for Small Business

Turning 9

Brennon turns 9 in a couple of days, but we had his party before school was over for the year.

He is quite the chocolate lover.... in fact I think all my kids are ;)

Here he is playing the hot and cold game... looking for his presents. The thing I like about playing this is all the kids have a blast helping the birthday boy find his presents.

A silly family pic for daddy!

We miss you lots!

Maine~ first pitstop

Here is a link to the airport James flew into yesterday. They took lots of pictures and posted them for the families to see. I found him on #27, 97, & 153.

Enjoy!

http://mainetroopgreeters.smugmug.com/gallery/8000656_QZg8r#520260343_fErSx

365 days to go... more or less who knows ;)

I just got off the phone with James. He is in Bangor Maine, waiting for his next flight. He was telling me how there were people waiting for his airplane to land so they could shake all the soldiers hands. I knew they did things like when the war first started, but didn't realize it still happened. I am so grateful for those people! I am grateful that they went out of their way just to say "Thanks". It really does make a difference for the soldier and their families, to know how much people care.

Before James left, we took a family day at the Zoo. I let the boys take turns with the camera. We had a wonderful day together!

Aiden

Brennon

Conor

Finn

We had such a great time!

For anyone who wants to know James' address in Iraq, just let me know. I will email it to you once I get it.

Easter

Easter has always been one of my least favorite holidays, only because of how commercialized it has become. It's like a mini Christmas in most homes it seems.

Anyway, this year with James leaving I wanted to make something for the boys that would keep "DAD" close to them. So I cut up old BDU's and made them into Sunday tote bags & filled them with items they can use while at church. Oh and of course they had chocolate bunnies and jelly beans as well.

Now I'm not the best seamstress but here is a picture of the bags. I used old Jeans for the lining, so they are reversible if the boys choose to turn them inside out.

Family Prayer

We have family prayer every night and the boys are always wanting to say it. Our new thing is to pick whomever is the most reverent to say our prayer. Its amazing how quickly they get quiet, just because they want to say the prayer.

Well Conor was saying the prayer last night and he says some of the same things every time...

• Bless me to be good
  
• Bless our house to sell

• Bless all the boxes to be gone (guess he is tired of his toys being packed away still)
  
• Bless me to have good dreams

And then sometimes there are the things they pray about that totally catch you off guard!!

• Bless mommy to get pregnant (this is where everyone started laughing)

Where the heck did that come from? And why does he want me to be pregnant?

His answer: I want a sister.

I am not sure I can let him pray again any time soon. And NO! I am not pregnant ;).

Spring Break!

Our Spring Break started out a bit rocky but ended with a blast!

Our original plan was to do some fun stuff the first part of the week, while we waited for James to start his leave and then hit Sea World on Thursday and then camping with our Ward on Friday. However, I am sure you can guess that nothing goes as planned! Conor and Finn both came down with some 24 hour bug. So we canceled our Sea World trip for Thursday and moved it to the next week. It worked out pretty good that way too. James was still busy Thursday with his job at work and couldn't start his leave till the job was 100% done. Everyone was pretty healthy on Friday so we decided that the ward camp out was still on.

I have been very leery to do any camping here in TX, and only because it's not the GREAT NW. Central TX doesn't have too many trees and well that just doesn't make for good camping... so I thought. We had an absolute BLAST! With rain from the previous week, the area we were camping in was nice and green. There was a small pond that had a little creek flowing into it so of course all the kids were trying their best to not get muddy (haha yeah right).

Aiden and Conor helped James get our tent up and they did a great job. After set up and playing we cooked up some hot dogs for dinner and then joined the ward in a camp fire program. All the families had to do a skit of some kind and ours did the Star Wars Gangsta Rap. Aiden and Brennon were the main rappers since they know the song and after a verse or so they had a disagreement on what line was next. It was quite comical and I think the ward enjoyed it. One of my favorite's was the impression of a Rain Drop. After all the skits we headed back to our tents and had SMORES. Finn wanted a smore soo much that when he finally saw what it was, he decided that all he wanted was the chocolate.

With spring break over we are back to daily life. I am still staying up too late so 6:30 am is not my favorite hour of the day. The kids are counting the days down till we go to Sea World this week, so I should have some new pics and adventures later this weekend.

click to enlarge

Has it really been 3 months?

From the last time I posted till now, lots of things have been happening. So we are going to play catch up today!

When James left to get set up in TX, I pretty much did what I had to do just because I knew the kids had to eat and get to school. Oh and they needed clean clothes... ha ha! James left before Thanksgiving so we made a trip to Grandmas and Granddad's in GA. It was very nice to be with family. The boys had a great time playing with their cousin Bianca. I really wish I would have taken some pictures while we were there. :(

With Christmas we were not sure if James was going to be able to get back to AL, so we headed to Mississippi to hang out with Dave and Amy. We got lucky and James made it Christmas eve morning. The boys were very excited to see him.

Finn turned 3 January 8th.

This is Finn playing the Hot and Cold game to find is Birthday presents. James was in Texas so we had him on speakerphone.

The boys got a couple of games from Aunt Angie for Christmas. One was Scene It Disney and the other was Twister. It was hilarious watching them play twister.

Well we are now in Texas with James. Nope the house hasn't sold yet but with a deployment heading our way, we decided that being together as a family was very important. James found us a house to rent. It is a 2 story so I'm sure you can imagine the boys running up and down the stairs, and claiming this room or that room. We are living pretty close to our old house here in Killeen. The kids are in a different school but seem to like it and their teachers. The school here doesn't give out as much homework, which is something I like! We are in the same ward for church, and James has already received a calling to the Young Men's program. I am sure one will be coming my way soon.

The scout program here is great as well. Aiden and James got to go on a 2 mile hike and camp out last weekend. It got pretty cold during the night but overall they had a great time. Brennon got to build his first pinewood derby car. They had only a week to get it ready for the race but they did it... of course they were installing the wheels about 10 min before we had to leave. Brennon was pretty optimistic about his car and was hoping that it would do well in the race. To all our surprise he came in 1st place.

After we got home Brennon told James : Dad this is the best day of my life as a kid.