Mr. Happy

Ok, this is kind of a repeat, but by that night Tracen started feeling a little better, so we had our too late at night, "Will you make me blueberry muffins for my birthday?" celebration. Here are some pictures of him with a few prizes and blowing out the muffin candle. Who asks for that for their birthday? Mr. Happy himself.

Today I am really 4

Well, this, on the other hand, is Tracen's actual birthday. He is 4 at this exact moment. My computer clock says 9:28am. I know this blog will not say the right time, but I have no idea how to fix it...still. His day will not be as exciting as Makenna's was. He is way sick. Tracen has been sick sooo many times since he was born. Mostly bronchitis, and this sounds like it. So for his day we are going to the doctor. He has been sick 2 out of the 4 birthdays, so I guess we are even at this point. Poor little man. He keeps saying he is, "Better a wittle, but my heart is reawwy hurtin." (We are working on our l sounds.) Here he is in all his 4 year old glory. Crazy Nemo shirt from Wesley's collection of hand-me-downs we could not live with out, crunched up boxers, and the hairs...enough said. But just as always, he is smiling. A pretty happy dude that is sick. Sad he is used to it and simply deals. Happy Birthday, big man.

I am really 7...

Today....ahem....yesterday was Makenna's "real" birthday. She had to know the exact time...September 21, 2001, 2:38pm. Birthdays on Sundays are alright, but going to church, and for us, meetings all day, made yesterday kinda sad. So we had her little celebration in the morning before church. She ordered Ooey Gooey for breakfast, and we saved some gifts from last week for her to open. Who knew Barbie Tricky Triplets would be so very hard to find???
Along with some sweat/work out pants she was satisfied! She also begged for, I know, just condemn me now, a Hannah Montana shirt. I am not really into wearing things like that all the time as some of her age kids do, but I was ok with her having one that did not say anything weird. It says, "Be your own star!" Hmmm, that was as good as I could do. I also encourage her to wear it to sleep in or to gymnastics...so she thinks it is a gym shirt to go with her gym pants. Aren't I sneaky? I really cannot believe she is 7. To me this is the last year of childhood before all the tweenishness begins at 8.

I am not ready.

I have not taught her enough.

I am hyperventillating.

I want more time with her.

I am scared.

I love how she still lets me hold her.

I am sad.

I am excited.

I am a mom of a 7 year old.

Broken, Stinky, and Sweet

Well, pictures cannot convey stench or not working, so I am only posting some of the sweet section of the post. Sometime over the past week of the "Flood of the Century" and "Birthday Carnival of Craziness," our refrigerator, which is only 4 years old, decided to get hot on the top shelf. I thought I was just imagining things when the milk I had just bought and poured into a cup wasn't crisply cold like I like for it to be. Then the orange juice box did not feel cold when I picked it up. But when frost grew all over the freezer walls, I knew, and then was able to convince my husband, that something was wrong. The fridge is under a 5 yr warranty, but they said that if they come out and it is something not internal that we have to pay $75 just for the visit and then whatever repairs cost on top of that. Joy! Sounds like a stinky 5 yr warranty to me...and speaking of stinky, during the flood a mouse seems to have died inside the walls of our bathroom. Exact location would be the potty room of our bathroom. So not much pottying is going on in there. Last night Makenna decided that her throat was dry, and she needed to go to the potty. Instead of just getting some water and using her stinkless bathroom, she comes into our bedroom, wakes us up, opens the bathroom doors, and then opens the potty room door. She uses the restroom and never even says it stinks. While we, on the other hand, were hiding under the covers immediately upon the opening of the doors because it was horrendous!!!!! She never said a word about it, and just said her throat was hurting. Did you not smell that stench, lady???? I am thinking not. We are currently discussing our options. I vividly remember my Mom and Dad cutting holes into our walls to find dead rodents as I was growing up. We lived by a field and when they began to build houses, all the mice came to us. If you look in our gameroom you will see about 4 socket covers on the wall where such an adventure occurred. So we are trying to figure out another way to do the, um, surgery, to remove the STINKY mouse. If you were planning on visiting, I would definitely wait. As for the sweet, here are some pictures of Aussie, Makenna's dog. I swear she is the most loving dog I have ever seen. If you are anywhere near her she insists upon laying on you, putting her head on your shoulder, and just staring into your eyes. She was loving on Tyson the other afternoon while we were laying on the trampoline. Tracen wanted Tyson to jump him, and Aussie would not move from right beside him. She is hilarious. Such a super dog....we will have puppies in about a year if anyone wants one ; ).

Birthday Weekend of Craziness!

WHEW! The birthday party is over, and everything went great! We had a carnival with about 25 kids and played games all in the backyard. They loved getting their faces painted, racing on the slides, and especially the snowball fighting! I put a slideshow up on the right of the pictures, but here are some of my favorites. I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all my family who helped out with the games. They all had a station and without their help I could have never done any of this. We have the greatest family...they spend their money to fly/drive up here, help out in a million ways, and most importantly love on my kids. I think we could have a blast just sitting around and staring at each other. I love, love, love you all!

A Day of Weeping

Today it is flooding here. It seems like it is flooding all over the place. I was going to post about the flooding, and then I checked my email. My dad sent me a slideshow of 9/11 pictures, and my perspective changed a bit. I remember exactly where I was when I heard of a plane flying into the tower...driving to help Tyson out with his new business. Right when I got to Brownfield Hwy and the West Loop, it came on the radio. I was also 10 days away from having Makenna. Instead of complaining about the weather and our little party on Saturday, I have decided that our gray day should remind me of the very sky that was filled gray with the remains of buildings and thousands of people not so very long ago. My girl is turning 7, and I am grateful for these 7 years I have had with her and the 4 with Tracen. So thank you to all the men and women who are serving our country all over the world to keep us safe and able to have a life where we can enjoy our children. Thank you Justin Coleman, Ian Fraser, Luke Fraser, and Gloria and Kirby Enser...the ones I know and love in the military. Where were you when you heard? Who do you need to thank?

Olympics...or the Hospital....Here We Come!

Had to post on the girlie...she began gymnastics, and has really done alright. They are amazed at how flexible she is. But how much does it take to backbend 39 lbs. that are stretched out over about 4 ft? She is like a skinny, long rope that bends every which way. When she does a backbend her head sometimes touches her butt. I will try and get a picture of that soon. For now we have a far away, not-so-great, zoomed in shot. Maybe next week I will do better.

Big Man on Campus

Yesterday was Tracen's first day of his 3 year old Pre-K class. He did great and went right in. He is so level-headed and literal that drama rarely occurs. When I picked him up he informed me, "We didn't eat lunch in there, and a kid hit me on my back." Since he is almost 4 it has been challenging for him to understand that some of these kids have just turned 3 and are not as old as he is. His teacher said that he just stared at everyone crying and went to every center to play by himself. The joys of having a September birthday kid, or kids in my case. Everyone tells me one day it will be so worth it for them to be the oldest ones....when??? I know from teaching that I loved having older ones in my class, so maybe it is just teachers telling me it is good for my kid to be old? Here he is with his camo backpack. He might be obsessed with camo and surfer clothes. I had to hide the camo shorts in the summer or he would wear them every day. This weekend the fam is coming for the b-day carnival bash. We are doing the kiddos b-days a week early because it was better for a lot of people. Pray for no rain...and that God would enlighten me with a back-up plan.

...ness

This post is to be full of randomness, happiness, sadness, and newness.

Randomness: Kids dancing like fools to music at Sheridans.

Happiness: Mary Ann and I having so much fun...no comments on how we might not look exactly like the previously posted picture at my wedding.


Sadness: Mary Ann's Big Daddy just went to heaven. Pray for them...



Newness: I got new hairs. (HATE taking pics of myself like an idiot, but people wanted to see. bleh) We will see if it looks like this after I do it today.


Thanks for listening to my -ness.


~sidenote~the times on this blog are not right, so do not ever believe that I am up at such wee hours in the morning. one more thing I don't know how to fix on here. :)

List

Gmail chat with Marc today...he was inquiring as to what Tracen wanted for his birthday. This is what Tracen said:

"a cowboy hat...

real keys...

a phone...

and a tv...

and a...

ummmmmm...

and....

and....

I want....

I want....

two...

uh.....

two sticks.

And one remote for my tv."

What a list! Marc is off to work on the cowboy hat, along with the measurement of 21" for Tracen's head...monster head as Marc put it. I think we can handle the sticks.