Hands

Daddy's and Makenna's

Family Fun Day

We went to a park today called Sawyer Point. It was downtown Cincinnati....lots of fun! There were basically three parks in one; well, two and a huge sand pit for volleyball. Got lots of fun pics! I got some funny ones of Luke chasing some girls, and Jakeb digging in the dirt! Check them out!

We SPLIT up!

Now before you go jumping to any conclusions.....and spreading any rumors....I'm simply talking about tonight. Eric got free tickets to a Reds' game and took the three older boys. Kaleb, Makenna, and I went shopping....yay!!!! Of course, since Eric was taking three boys, there was no convincing him to tote my camera around too, so I took pics of them before they left. Blake and Luke were absolutely thrilled to be going. Jakeb was a little leery since he had never gone before.
Kaleb, Makenna, and I headed off to Toys R' Us to check out some good sales that they were having. They had Geotrax train sets....buy 2 get one free!!! Who-heee!!! Almost done with our Christmas shopping! Plus I really needed to find something for Luke's birthday too. Afterwards, we went to Build-A-Bear....seriously... I love that place. If they would have had one of those when I was a kid...I would have gone there all the time! I had Kaleb make Makenna an animal there. Anyways, after much debating, he decided to go with the hippo. Her name is Lily. Pretty cute, huh? It's her first stuffed animal. I loved stuffed animals as a kid. (We, once again, had a coupon...the $18 hippo cost us...$3 something.)
After doing a little more running around to a few other places, I promised Kaleb that we would stop and get some coffee. You should have seen his face light up! He was thrilled. We stopped at Mickey D's and picked up their Iced Coffee (with a coupon again. Man, I'm like the coupon queen, huh?). I can't believe that he actually liked it. (however, Betsy, I agree....Burger King's is much better!)

Dancing with the Alma's

Move over Dancing with the Stars, cause here comes Dancing with the Alma's.I'm not sure who's bright idea this was, but well, it definitely wasn't mine. I have about as much hand-eye-feet coordination as an elephant (hence the reason I never made the cheer leading squad in high school). I think it all started when Blake said he was gonna show his dad some kind of crazy dance, and then it escalated into the first ever Alma dance contest. So picture...in the background..Bob and Larry (Veggie Tales) singing....either..."do Lord," "I'll Fly Away," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," or some other old faithful song like that, and this is what you get: some people who have absolutely no rhythm making fools of themselves. Eric got lucky because the flash decided to be "busy" when he was doing his best moves...think the q-tip move...talk about a great dancer! Then we have Blake who is a regular little break dancer....And I'm not sure what the Kleenex thing is about....Then we have me who's doing my rendition of Swan Lake. ha! Seriously, not the most flattering pictures of me, but they are pretty funny. The kids were loving me.

OH YEAH, the winner was...drumroll please......Blake Alma!!!!!!

(For those of you wondering where the fifth kid is...well, he wanted no part in this, so he got sent to his room to pout.)

Sleeping Beauty, I mean...Bouncy

I just recently put this together, and while I know she's not quite big enough for it...well....she's just so cute in it. I only put her in it for a few minutes at a time. Today, she was sitting there sucking on the fabric of the swivel chair...it was such a funny noise...then the next time I looked at her...well, she was zonked out!

Look what Kaleb wore tonight..

...to church. Hilarious!! What's even funnier is that the preacher preached on the ARMOR of GOD!!!!! Oh, and I think it's funny that Kaleb is the only child in our family that has been able to put this helmet on his head this way...everyone else's head is way to big!

New Albums

I made these in the past two nights. They are accordion albums. They were pretty easy. One is made in an Altoid tin box, and the other is in my old Fossil Watch box. My goal was to make them very quick and simple. One is a gift.....(even though she's probably reading this now...just pretend you don't see it) and the other is for Moi! I've never really made anything like this before, at least not this small, so it was kinda fun trying something new.

HALO 3

Why??? Can someone please explain to me all the hype and buzz about this new video game. I mean, seriously, how much "cooler" can it get? It's the third one for crying out loud! But yet there is my dear husband with his friend Tim, the first people in line at Micro Center to pick up their game. They've been looking forward to this moment for a year and a half. And well....it's finally here. The day that they've been anticipating. I just hope it's everything that they have ever hoped for. Geeks! (I love you, honey!)

Blake's 7th birthday

Man, did this kid ever luck out. Since he had a party on Saturday, we didn't really make plans for today. However, his dad came home at 1:00 to surprise him and take him out. He took him to Johnny's Toys to get his free toy, and then it was off to Berean Christian to get him a Bible and his David action figure. This was definitely the action figure birthday this year. He got Supermans, Transformers, Star Wars stuff, Planet Heroes, and who knows what else! Funny thing is...I spent less than $15 on his presents (well, unless you count the stuff Eric bought for him today....) . I got these Star wars figures for really cheap at a garage sale along with the spaceship.
So what I'm saying is thanks to everyone who helped to make Blake's birthday great because he certainly did have a great one.

7 years ago tonight

Seven years ago today, I went into labor.
Seven years ago today I began to experience my first contractions.
Seven years ago today my water tore/broke inside a scrapbook store...(go figure!)
Seven years ago today my husband drove like a maniac through the rain on the interstate to the hospital.
Seven years ago today, I was less than twenty-four hours away from receiving one of the most precious gifts from God in my arms.

It's Party Time!!!!

Blake had a birthday party tonight. We had a cook-out at a nearby park. Here's some pics from the night! Good times!!!



This picture is my favorite. I love the excitement on all of their faces as Blake is opening....get this...a build-you-own-solar-system kit.

Good Deals!

I went to a great kid's sale today. In fact, I think it was my favorite one yet...(next the stuff a bag for $10 sale.) Usually, if the sale starts at 8:00, I'll get there at 7:30 and wait in line. No lie, people are there that early. Today's sale was at the YMCA and it started at 8, and we got there at about 7:45. There was 8 or so people in front of us. And then they even let us in early!! Whooo-hee!!!! So off I went in search of winter baby girl clothes and husky boy clothes. God really must have wanted me to go to this sale because I got tons of stuff for CHEAP!! I counted it up. I got a total of 57 things for only $51.35, and most of it was name brand stuff. Lovin it! I got a total of: 18 pairs of pants, 5 pairs of pajamas, 1 jacket, 1 sweater, 14 shirts, 11 pairs of name brand socks, 3 puzzles (to bribe Kaleb to go potty), 2 one piece outfits for Makenna, 1 dress..obviously for Makenna, and 1 pair of shoes. (and if that doesn't add up to 57...oh well...I woke up pretty early....so my math skills are not in the best shape.)

Oh, and get this all the pants I bought for Luke...they actually fit him including the Husky pair of jeans I got him!!! Yay!!!!!!

I just can't help it!

I just can't help taking pictures of this baby. What's sad is that I did this to all of my children especially at this age, but you know what....this is the only age that I can somewhat control. There's no where for her to go. They have to let me take the pictures at this age. What are they gonna do...get up and walk away?? I could seriously enter a contest for having the most photographed children ever. Andthese are just from the past couple days. She's really smiley....

she loves to eat that fist of hers...as if I don't feed her enough!!

Look she can life her head a little!! and look at that drool!! I had her lying across my legs yesterday, and no lie...I had drool running down my entire leg like a waterfall into a lake on the floor!

Just an ordinary day

Let's see...laundry, potty training, school, diapers, naps, school work, a little TV watching (Gummi Bears), picture taking, email writing, thoughts of scrapbooking, food making, pajama wearing, phone chatting, toy playing, piano practicing, dishwashing, cleaning, and diapers. Yup. just an ordinary day in our house today.

Three months old today!!!

Here's the 3 month old pic next to the doll. Man, she's growing fast!!! She's so much more alert these days. Look at those big blue eyes. She's smiling and cooing, and I'm positive the other day that I heard her laugh. She's sleeping through the night, so life is good. And pretty much the only time she really cries is if she's tired or hungry. She's so much fun!!!! (If you want to see how much she's grown, click on the months here: June, July,and August.)

And I'll leave you with this one.... don't you just want to squeeze those cheeks???

Makenna's 1 & 2 month pictures

I have always been one of those moms that refuses to let the first child in the family have all the pictures. I've always said that all of my kids will have the same amount of pictures. You see, I was the 3rd kid, and while my oldest brother has album after album filled to the brim with pictures, I only inherited one album, and very few of those are from my early babyhood. I know, I should be thankful for what I have...and I am, but I told myself that it wasn't gonna be that way in my family. Now that I have 5 kids....well, believe it or not, so far I have held strong to that. So far...so good....and that includes professional portraits too. I almost missed it by a day, but I squeezed Makenna's two month picture in today. Whew!!! Here's her one month (taken two days before she turned 2 months) and her two month (taken today). I might be cutting it close, but hey, at least I'm getting it done. You should see me going to these places with all my kids...these tiny little studios. (oh, and I've gotten these both free.)
Now the first one is well, a typical baby picture. She's in this cute little outfit from Niki. However, the second one is not your typical baby picture pose. I was gonna get the cutesy one that every other person probably would have picked out, but this one....well, this one just made me laugh. I mean..it shows personality! The lady thought I was crazy passing up all those cute poses for this one, but well.....I'll take fun and crazy any day over cutesy-wootesy.

(oh, and if you want to see the rest of the pics from today, email me and I'll send you the password to see them. They are pretty cute.)

Marshan = evil wife

That would be me...the evil wife! You see, Eric's X-box broke about a month ago....(wah-wah!!!) Anyways, he sent it in to get fixed, and it came back fixed.....last week. I promptly took it and put it in the closet to hide it conveniently forgetting to tell Eric about it. (Whoops!) Now fast-forward to today. Eric calls and tells me to go check the front porch to see if his X-box is there. I tell him that it's not there because I just got the mail and didn't see anything. He then asks me if I kidding him. After much going back and forth, and mind you...I never lied once.....he comes to accept the fact that it is not on our front porch even though the UPS website is saying that it was delivered and signed for by an "Alma," and hangs up.

He calls me back about 20 minutes later...chuckling on the phone....I knew that he had figured it out by then, but I still chose to play dumb. I thought he would have been upset, but he actually thought it was funny that I had kept it for almost a week without telling him. He said that he finally figured it out after he was on the phone with the x-box people for 10 minutes and realized that the date that it said it was delivered was the twelfth. Of course, then he wanted me to tell him where it was....(yeah, right!) He had to go on his own search to find that silly toy!! (Did I mention that I've been watching my season one of I Love Lucy.....I think Lucy has been a bad influence on me....This is sooooo what Lucy would have done to Ricky!)

Gummi Bears

Did anyone use to watch this cartoon on Saturday mornings as a kid??? I LOVED IT! It was one of my favorites. The other day we went to the library, and this was sitting there on the rack saying....."Check me out!!! Check me out!! Your kids will love me!" So, I got it, and well, the kids love it as much as I did as a child. It's awesome!! And there's about 40 something episodes on the 3 disc collection!!! How great is that! I check it out on Amazon.com and it's not too expensive, so Santa might be bringing it for Christmas too!! "Gummi Bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere...high adventures are beyond compare, We are the Gummi Bears!!!"

Makenna's pout

Jakeb

Some of you might remember when Jakeb got his pictures taken last at the studio, he wore this jacket. I don't think he's worn it since, but last night for church we got it out. He's so cute in it. I love it! Here's some pics that I took of him before we left for church.

church anniversary

Our church had their four year anniversary on Sunday. Pretty exciting, huh? We had a potluck at church and then moved to our new property for our evening service. We are trying to raise money to build soon!!! Can't wait.

Miscellaneous pics

Here's a few cute pics of my kids from the past couple of months. I felt a little bad only posting about how cute Makenna is, so I have to remind everyone that I don't just have one cute kid, but FIVE!!

Blake Luke
Jake

Kaleb
and the Princess