Christmas!!!

We had so much fun for Christmas! First, on Christmas Eve, we celebrated with my dad. He came over, and we went to eat at IHOP (our Christmas Eve tradition), and that would've been wonderful, but Dustin CHOKED on a piece of bacon!!! It was SO scary- but luckily it came out before I did the heimlich. It was awful--I was in tears and totally freaked out! But, he was fine, and we finished our dinner and went back to our house to exchange gifts. My dad completely surprised us with a Wii! We are SO excited to have one!!! Thanks Dad! The kiddos had fun with Grandpa, and it was a great night.

Here is Dustin on Christmas morning--he looks a little sleepy, but I think he's blinking:
And Jodee, yes, they are holding up candy from their stockings...nevermind the cool ramp and rollerblades, they LOVE the candy! haha!

Here is Dylan with a cool phone he can record his voice with:

After opening presents at our house that morning, we went to my Grandma's house in OKC to celebrate with my family. It was a FUN day! We had a big dinner, played games, and exchanged presents. It was so nice to spend a whole day together!

Having fun with the new spider man skates and pink roller blades, in the garage because it was cold and rainy outside:
This is on Christmas morning--trying out the new ramp--he did it!
Jodee and Momma outside:Dylan roller skating on the ramp--bad combination!

Moon sand!

Well, one more Christmas celebration to go--down in Austin. We are looking forward to it! Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Happy 8th, Dustin!

Well, we have an 8 year old!!! It's so hard to believe that he's 8--the time has flown by! He had a great birthday--Friday night with just a few friends (we had to downsize the party this year) and a Blazer's hockey game (thanks Grandpa!), and Saturday with our family in Oklahoma. He is playing basketball now, so that's what he wanted for his cake and decorations: I was still sick that day, so the cake isn't really up to my standards, but it was okay.
Here is Dustin with his new Texas blanket sent to him from his Mimi and Paw Paw in Texas. He loves it! (Look at his matching shirt!) He's enjoying a new Dinosaur drawing book:
Here's Dustin in his new robe, and Jodee with her robe--too cute!
He had a great birthday--I think he got everything he could possibly want!
One last pic--here's Dustin and Grandpa at the Blazer's game---they were having fun!

Santa picture 2007

Dylan would NOT sit on his lap or even by him!!! Too funny--at least he smiled!

What they do when we're not watching...

On Sunday--while I was sick in bed and Josh was either doing housework or watching sports (take your pick!), here is what our wonderful children did:

Yes, those are stickers!!! On Jodee's door, and Dustin's toy box. They thought they'd display their huge sticker collection so that everyone can see them! We quickly had Jodee move hers off of her door and to the side of her dresser--now they're not so "in your face" when you walk in her room, and we left Dustin's on the toy box. It cracked me up! I love their sense of style!!

**Wintertime and Gingerbread men**

Whew--what a fun couple of days! The kids here in Edmond went back to school today, but most of the surrounding school districts are still out because of electricity problems. CRAZY! We went sledding Monday afternoon with some friends from down the street--it was really hard climbing up an icy hill! Josh was off work early that day, so he got to go with us!

We decided after a day of cold rain we'd go to the movies last night. It was nice to get away from the house! We saw the Bee Movie--it was cute! Once again, Josh was off early (yay!), so we even got the matinee price--always a good thing!

Today, we decided to try something new--making gingerbread men! Let me just say, I have never done this before--and I wanted to do it from scratch, so I had to buy molasses! What in the world--I had NO idea where to find it, but we finally did (by the syrup, fyi), and got all the ingredients home, and I made the dough while Jodee and Dustin were at school. Okay--I'll be honest--it is STINKY stuff! But, we baked them, and they taste just fine! (Thankfully!) They had fun using the cookie cutters and decorating, but Dylan had more fun eating the decorations.

Here is the tree from across the street--it is completely split in half! So sad--luckily it didn't fall on anything.

Ice storm = no school = fun!

Check out this ice! The one in Dustin's hand is a blade of grass covered with ice!

Well, it was a real ice storm! There was actual thunder and lightening with ice falling from the sky this weekend--pretty cool! The kids are home from school today, so we're having all kinds of fun being stuck at the house (I didn't stay "in" the house!!). We had family in town over the weekend, so the ice caused some problems for their travelling--they all had to leave early and cut the visit short, but we'd rather them be safe driving home! We got to see Josh's grandparents, Poppop and KK, and his Uncle Mitch and Aunt Dorothy, and some cousins. One of his cousin's, Cara, had her senior piano recital for Oklahoma Christian-it was BEAUTIFUL! Jodee eyes were glued to Cara the entire time she was playing--Jodee is really excited to start piano lessons! She talked about it all weekend--hopefully we'll get Cara to be her teacher!

Here is Cara:

Dustin also had his first-ever basketball game this past weekend! He scored the first basket of the game--VERY COOL! We are so proud of him!!Eating icicles:

Christmas is coming!

We are so excited for Christmas--we love everything from decorating our tree, to decorating the house, to shopping and wrapping the presents. Here are a few pics from the past few weeks:

Here is Dustin with his new ornament--a Tony Stewart (NASCAR) ornament:And Jodee with a polar bear with ice:And Dylan with his spiderman!

Here they are with our snowman--we had to get a new one this year, and yes it looks like he's holding a football, thanks to Dustin! haha!

Dining at Lottinvilles

Let me preface this post with this: we love Lottinvilles restaurant, it has great food and a great atmosphere! Now to the entertaining part: we went to eat there last Friday night and had planned ahead to have the kids eat at home and get them the yummy dessert of "s'mores" at Lottinvilles. When you order s'mores, they bring a little campfire on a plate to your table, and you toast your own marshmallows and everything---very fun! SO..to start off, we waited a good 30 minutes before sitting down, no big deal, but we were ready to eat! We ordered our drinks, and as the waitress brought them out, she gave all the kids their drinks, and was setting my water in front of me, and it slipped out of her hand, and poured into my lap (and Dylan's because he was sitting on my lap at the time!!!). I was FREEZING and trying to console Dylan who wasn't handling it very well, and finally got back in the seat, with a nice big wet spot all over my jeans. I really was okay at this point, it was just water, no big deal, right? Well, we got our food, and were enjoying each other's company, and right after I had refilled Dustin's sprite, it gets knocked over towards me--again! It mostly went on the floor and in my purse --lovely! At this point, I'm wondering (and I think I said it out loud) why do we go out to eat???? It's such a hassle--it's so much easier to stay home! BUT, then I was nicely reminded that we went there especially for the s'mores, so chill out and we'll enjoy the dessert. Okay, okay, Josh was right! SO, we ordered the s'mores, and they came out, and the kids were VERY excited! Around the little fire, they had sticks for you to put the marshmallows on, so we dug in. It was yummy! Then...as we are loving the s'mores, the middle of our table lights up! One of the sticks caught on fire!!!! (One that we were NOT holding) The waitress came running around the table trying to grab it, and it finally broke off, and got put out. It was actually a little scary for a second, then Josh and I busted out laughing!! Here we are in this nice, expensive restaurant, and we have a fire on our table! I asked him, "What else could possibly happen?" We were still laughing about the fire, when Dylan, trying to get off of his chair, totally falls flat on his back onto the floor! Luckily he was fine, he still had his winter coat on, and it was a carpeted floor, so it wasn't a bad fall, but poor guy! We decided it was probably time for us to go before anything else had a chance to happen. It was a delicious dinner and dessert, but I think we'll be staying home for a while!!

Thanksgiving 2007

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone--I still can't believe it! The year always seems to go so fast as we get closer to Christmas. We had a great Thanksgiving down in Texas at Josh's parents' house. Josh's dad built an amazing tree house in their back yard, and it was a hit! Even though it was cold and sometimes rainy, the kids were begging to go out to the tree house.
Well, I'm officially "one of those", that gets up at 4:30 or so Friday morning after Thanksgiving and goes shopping! I've never done it before, never saw a deal I couldn't live without, but both of my sister-in-laws and my mom-in-law were going, so I thought it'd be fun. And it was! I was WAY tired the rest of the day, but it was a good time, and I think I'll plan ahead for next year and have some money saved up to spend. Saturday we went to a big parade in downtown Austin--it has the big floats and everything, the only problem this year is that it was about 40 degrees outside and raining!! YUCK! We went with Josh's brother and his family--and had a blast! We only stayed for about an hour, but saw some cool floats, and santa, and some other neat things, and decided we'd had enough. Luckily we found a great parking space (thanks Casey!) and were able to use the back of our van for the kids so they didn't get soaking wet.


Here are the girls (the only girls out of 10 grandkids!)


Dustin and Quentin:Dylan--can you tell it's cold?Here are all 6 packed into our van (yes, the van is on with heater on high!)Here are the girls in front of Strawberry Shortcake: And Bob the Builder:And the Coca-Cola bear:
Here are most of the grandkids and Mimi celebrating Darrin's 2nd birthday:
Our trip home took an extra 2 hours--because of traffic and lots of rain...but we made it! It's always good to be home. We have started decorating for Christmas--the kids are loving it!

Happy 100th Birthday, Oklahoma!

Friday, Novemer 16th, was Oklahoma's 1ooth Birthday! The kids were out of school, so we went to a HUGE parade up in Guthrie (the first capital of Oklahoma). We took my cousin, Taylor, and my aunt Karen met us up there, because my cousin Brian was in the parade! He plays in the drumline for OSU, and it was so exciting to see him marching.

Here he is (his back, that is), 4th from the left:

Here are our kiddos with Taylor:

That night we went to an OC basketball game--we won! Yay!--and we went to downtown OKC to watch a big fireworks show after the Centennial Celebration. It was great--the kids loved the fireworks!

Route 66 Marathon

What an eventful weekend! Josh has been training for a marathon relay with 4 other guys that he works with, and they did it! This past Sunday in Tulsa they ran the marathon relay--and one of Josh's coworkers ran the whole marathon! WOW--let me just say, that is SO not for me! I don't understand wanting to run 26.2 miles!

We got to Tulsa late Saturday night (I had to judge gymnatics all day in Yukon, so they waited for me), and the kids got to enjoy the pool and hot tub at the hotel. Then, early Sunday morning, we got up, and tried to find the race, and where we needed to be. That was interesting..they were supposed to have a shuttle to take the runners to their part of the relay, but they were missing 2 of the 5 buses, so it was going to be too long for Josh to wait...so what does he do? He jogs to his relay station! He got there in time, and in the meantime, I was waiting with our 3 kids, wondering what to do, because we wanted to see him run. So, I asked the guy in charge how to get to the 2nd relay station, and he gave me some sketchy directions, and somehow, Dustin remembered the numbers of the highways and streets, and I found it....how?? I am still not sure! But we were so happy that we found it--just in time to get a spot on the street to see Josh run by. We were SO excited! He did a great job (with a hurt knee and all!). It was really cool...we made it back to the start/finish line later in the morning to get some food and see his teammates come in and get a picture. One other funny note: the back of their shirts say "Shortcut?"...too funny!

Fall!

The kids have been (impatiently) waiting for "fall"--the real fall, when the leaves actually fall off the trees. We have 2 big trees, with TONS of leaves, so the day finally came and we had a bunch of leaves in our front yard! We raked them up so they could jump in them...

Action shot of Jodee, and enjoying the pile of leaves:

Dylan jumping in, and smiling for the camera:

Dustin "superman"! ~and where is his body?

We had fun!

We also went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for their last free day of the year, and waited for Dustin to get out of school so he could go too. Here are the three kids in front of the big statue:
This was Dustin's favorite statue:
Dressing up as cowboys and cowgirls--look at how they stood for the pic--too funny!
Sitting on saddles, and of course, Dylan wanted to be touching the longhorn for the picture!
Our friends were their with us, that's the extra kiddo to the left:

I'm glad Dustin and his friend got to go with us this time. Being in 2nd grade is tough, when mom takes the other kids to do fun things in the mornings!