ChEeKs aNd 4-WhEeleRs

So we are driving home from the nitro drag races last night (pictures to come, maybe) and eating our yummy Carl's Jr. burgers in the car (at 10PM) when Abbey comes up with another of her brilliant theories! Had to write this one down before I forgot.

"Cheeks are a very important part of your body."

Now as she says this I'm thinking okay whatever, they are just flabby skin on the side of your face. How important can they be?

"Without cheeks you would just have your mouth and when you ate all your
food would fall out!"

Well now when you put it that way they are pretty important little things these cheeks we have. amazing how those little minds work! So we came to the conclusion that without cheeks we would die because we wouldn't be able to get any nutrition to our bodies.

Porter

walking out of church he looks up at me and says

"Jesus made my 4-wheeler!?!?!"

"No" I said, as I was laughing.

"You made it?" he asked.

"No, some guy made it."

"oh"

that just wasn't as exciting to him. I wish I could have had this on film he was so excited at the thought that Jesus would make him a 4-wheeler. At least I know he heard something in church, they must have talked about Jesus either making everything or giving us everything.

Little Dancer

Abbey had her little dance recital a few Saturday's ago. She was a palace maid in the production of Cinderella. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures during the actual performance because they were making a DVD of it. This picture in the parking lot is the best we got. We were going to do some outside after we got home but as with our June weather it was down pouring by the time we got home. 

Abbey really loved going to dance, but….apparently not enough to do it again. After her recital she said “and now I never have to see my dance teacher again!” So apparently she doesn’t want to take them anymore, that’s okay we’ll do art lessons instead, that is her love!

Here are her 2 pictures from art lessons, that she did all on her own!

Porter is 4!

My baby is 4, He is the cutest little 4 year old I’ve ever seen. He is our little miracle man he started out in this world at a whopping 3 pounds 1 ounce and only 14 inches long. That didn’t stop him from flourishing and coming home after only 20 days in the NICU he grew 3 inches and gained a whole pound before he came home, still so very little.

I remember the week leading up to his birth and I remember thinking that I was going to have this baby on Friday and that I should pack my bags, but I thought I was being a silly pregnant lady, why would I have him 6 weeks early? But somehow I just knew, the Lord seems to prepare us and it isn’t until after that we truly can see that. I never worried that I wouldn’t bring my baby home I knew he would be fine, I don’t know how I just did. I wish I had knowledge like that more often.

I

I think he was so excited and embarrassed to have everyone singing to just him.

 

Porter wanted more dinosaurs for his birthday again this year. I didn’t know there could be such a need for so many dinosaurs.  We had a wonderful little party for him and Grandma’s house on Sunday and I’m so very grateful that we did, the rest of the week just didn’t exactly go as planned. Tim came home from work early and took the kids swimming and made me come along to just sit out in the sun, the kids had so much fun they just LOVE to swim and the weather was finally good enough to go.

 

 

  I finally finished a new “gankie” (blankie) for Porter he has been dragging around his haggard little gankie from when he was a baby, I know he will still love it, but maybe he will grow to love this one before that one turns to complete shreds.

I love that grin!!!

I love you my little man and I hope you had a happy birthday!!!

Warning, honest ramblings.

I really don’t feel like I’m very prepared for the road I’m on right now. I had such hopes that this baby would stay and yet another one has been taken away. I know it’s not “proper” to talk about such things but I don’t care anymore.  I didn’t talk about it much after the last one and I know that wasn’t any good for me so I’m trying this out this time. If one of my other children had died it would be fine to talk about it, but there seems to be this unwritten rule about talking about miscarriages in society. I personally don’t understand it, you aren’t supposed to tell people you are expecting until after 12 weeks because then the fear of miscarriage has passed. well what do those women do when they do miscarry, who do they talk to, who do they cry to, who brings them dinner or a loaf of bread and jam, who folds their laundry for them. Who hugs them and tells them “I’m so sorry”, who takes their kids home with them so they can spend the afternoon crying all by themselves.  Who sends them little notes just saying they are thought of and loved. I know I’m having a hard enough time with all the wonderful things people have done, I don’t feel so alone, how would I be handling it without all of that. Yes I didn’t like having to go tell everyone that my baby is gone, but at the same time it is so nice knowing I’m not alone and that I’m so loved.  So i guess the reason I’m writing this for anyone to read is to say thank you for all your love and support. I KNOW I can’t do this on my own and I don’t want to either. I’m not handling it very well at all. I’ll walk pass a mirror and see my fat belly that is just plain fat now, it was fine 3 days ago knowing it was for a reason but now it’s just plain fat, fat that I never lost from the last one and now more added to it, or I’ll see my puffy eyes and there is another reminder. Or one of my little ones will wrap their arms around me and tell me they love my and I know I’m so blessed and so I cry because I feel I’m acting ungrateful for the 3 wonderful little kids that i do have. Poter has informed me “we’ll get a new one, we will” I know I’m so very blessed to have them and that so many people can’t have any at all, but it doesn’t lessen the hurt of the ones that I have lost. I know I’m not the only one in the world who has gone through something like this but thinking about that just makes me sadder to think that things could be so much worse, you would think it would make me feel better but it just makes me sad for them too. and  I really am so very grateful for what I do have, a wonderful family and wonderful friends and neighbors. I’m just hurting right now and wish it was easy to just move on and forget about it but it’s not possible. It would be nice to do that but it just won’t happen. I must say even just writing this has been very therapeutic, so thanks for the free therapy!

Vegas

We took off to Vegas on Thursday night of the last week of school. Our kids did have school on Friday but it was only for 1 1/2 hours, how crazy is that? So we decided to leave the night before so we would have a FULL day there on Friday. We stayed at Allen’s house (Tim’s brother) There is an awesome pool in his backyard and the kids couldn’t get enough of the water!!!  

 

Tucker loved to climb up the rocks and jump off the waterfall!

On Saturday we got to ride around in this

little car Every time we’ve been to Vegas We’ve taken our picture in the Bellagio gardens. So we have quite of few picture of different kids at different stages taken there. This is Porter’s first time in one of those pictures.

Windows Live Writer

This program ROCKS!!!! If you haven’t tried it out yet you HAVE to!!! Why? you ask. because I said so!!!

you can edit your picture right in the program, move them, crop them, put boarders on them. You can change the font. and I’m a sucker for fonts, I have oh tooooo many on my computer!!! The 2 previous posts were done using Live writer. It made them so much easier to put the pictures exactly where I wanted them. And when you are done you simply press publish and it does it for you, so you can do it while you are not connected to the internet, which can also be helpful.

And you can set it to publish in the future so if you want to do a lot of posts at once and have them publish on different days. it’s in the bottom right corner it says “set publish date” Okay thought I’d share my new find. Hope you try it and like it!

I resized this picture and did sepia and then color pop to make it look this way. If you want your picture to fill in the whole width I’ve done it at 360 wide with the box that says lock ratio clicked. Hope all of this made sense!

Smart Boy

Our smart little tyke FINALLY (well I’m sure he feels that way) has been able to open up the fridge and the freezer. Well what kid wouldn’t be happy with ice cream right in the door of the freezer, eye level, and in their eyes ready to EAT!

Mantua

We went to Mantua on our way home from Nibley to visit Tim’s sister Alice Ann. She wasn't home yet so we stopped at the reservoir and played in the water. The kids were just putting their feet at first………………….

and then……………. they went in deeper knowing they could put on their clothes from the day before. And before long they were just plain swimming!! Porter had stripped down to just his underwear!

 

Tucker was dying to try out Tim’s fly rod, he’s a bit bummed that he’s not big enough to go along fly fishing.

Abbey is our little fish. She is truly soooo happy in the water. I love all these pictures of pure JOY on her little toothless face!!!

I took over a hundred photos in the few minutes that we were there. A HUGE storm rolled in very fast and we high tailed it out of there. I think if only rained for about 10 minutes but it really RAINED.

WE had spaghetti and the yummiest zucchini chocolate chip bread at Alice Ann’s house. She lives very close to the reservoir, the kids want to go on vacation to her house this summer. We stayed and played games for awhile and it was really fun!

Memorial weekend

We went up to Nibley to John and Bev's on Sunday night (John is my OLDest brother). Tim and John were planning on going fly fishing Monday morning. They came home soon after leaving and told us the river was running 4 feet higher than was safe. They decided we would rather them come home alive then fish and die. I guess they were right.  We had fun anyway just hanging out and eating at the yummy Indian restaurant, which used to be a laundry mat, where I did my laundry  in college. It makes me laugh.

John teaching Tucker to tie a fly

Porter thought their dog would eat his chips so he kept them safe on his head! what he didn't realize is if she wanted them bad enough she could take him down in a heart beat!!!

lucky for him she is not that kind of dog or horse oh wait i mean dog.

Abbey and Maddi drawing

Porter thought the big fire Jake and his friends made was pretty cool!

it was much bigger than the camera captured.

white trash

Yes you read that right, and this post may disgust some of you and well....to bad ;)

So we've had a little power wheels barbie jeep for about 5 years that was a hand-me-down from cousin Holly so it's pretty old for a power wheels. well it finally died! We've had more batteries that Tim has gotten from work than i can count! Long story short 3 weeks before it had died Tim and I had been at a garage sale in a VERY nice neighborhood and there was a dumpster in front of one of the houses with the above seen 4-wheeler in it. Tim thought about getting it out but we decided we had enough of our own crap. Well when the jeep died he asked me if i though the 4-wheeler would still be there. UM NO. it was 3 weeks ago. well he and Tuck and a friend who was over hopped in the truck to go see. And well they brought it home....we cleaned it up....put new back wheels on it.....put in the battery from the jeep and we have happy kids!!! $24 is better than the $300 it retails for. Tucker is bummed cuz that was the last time he got to ride it, (or should I say allowed) he's just getting to big!

 Here's a pic of them in our backyard. So I guess if you don't have landscapping you CAN ride 4-wheeler's around your yard instead. Personally I 'd rather have grass.

Bus ride!!! May 12th

When it was my week to pick up from the bus stop I would try and walk if the weather was good enough and if Porter was in a good mood. Most of the time Porter would try to climb right on in the bus. It is the last stop he makes so the bus would be empty, he let Porter climb on more than once to check it out. One day he told me "come to the bus stop before and you can ride to the last stop!" So we did, that was one thing we almost missed on but I knew Porter would LOVE it and he did. You'll see in the pics that his face says it all!!!!! he was one happy camper. He didn't stop talking about it for days!!!

I love how you see the red of a car bluring by, it looks so cool.

soccer

okay I'm sooo behind when it comes to blogging!

My pictures taken to bogged pictures ratio is really bad, I'm hoping to get caught up some, but I know I will just have to not blog some. Oh I know wipe away your tears it will all be okay ;)

We've done lots of soccer games so far this year with 3 more to go.

Tucker just loves it and he seems to be built for it like his daddy.

For those of you who don't know I used to go watch Tim play soccer way back when we were still in high school. 

I like this action shot of Tuck, he almost scored a goal that time too!

He actually did score a goal that game.....the unfortunate part is Tim and I BOTH missed it. Here is the story of why.

Poor little Porter was playing with Abbey in the sand which is 2 soccer fields away. I thought I should go check on them and waited just to long. on my way there Abbey was walking back to tell me Porter needed to go potty. By the time I got to him it was too late, poor kid thought he was in so much trouble. so Tim and I consoled him that it truly was an accident and Tucker came running over and said "I scored a goal did you see it?" 

"you scored a goal?" we said in unison

"yeah didn't you see it?" his eyes pleading that we had

"um yeah it was awesome" as if we had been teasing him the whole time.

when he walked away we looked at each other, did you see it? nope, me either.

CRAP

oh well he was happy and does it really matter that he thinks we saw it, I think this is one of those "it's okay to lie to your kids" moments. I sure hope so!

Love that little grin of his!!! it's a good thing to, he's a little stink these days, he's not sure how to act with everyone home all the time, it's been quite and adjustment the last week. Yes we have already had a WHOLE week of summer!!! And I'm TIRED!!!