Touch a Truck

Sharonville, Ohio had a Touch-A-Truck day today. They had about 25 different types of vehicles ranging from Humvees to bulldozers from firetrucks to helicopters. My friend Barb and her kids went with us, and boy did the kids LOVE it. They were allowed to climb all over the vehicles, touch the buttons, and just have a good time! They went in the Mac truck, and after waiting awhile, I went in to check on them, and there they were- jumping on the bed in there! They even were allowed to put on pretend fires with the fire truck hose. Oh and they had military guns on the Humvees that the kids were allowed to pretend shoot. It was a little boy's dream spot!! Best of all - it was FREE!!!!

Guessing Game - just for fun

Okay, so can you tell who's who???
A. Here's all the kids at 1 year old...well, except for Luke who was 10 months because the jacket barely fit then, an would never had made it to one. I think these are the easiest because they all developed their own look by one. B. Here's the kids six months. This one's a little more difficult.
C. And here's the boys...no Makenna.... at 4 months.

Post a comment or shoot me an email if you want. I'll eventually post the right answers some time next week.

Kaleb's latest get-up

Just figured everyone might get a kick out of this!

The Addition

I'm sure most of you have been wondering about the addition. It's in the very final, almost done phase now. A couple of men from our church came and laid the carpet!!! yay!!! The kids love the room. I keep noticing that sometimes it's really quiet in the house, and when I start to wonder where they kids are, you can almost always guarantee that they are in our new room or in the new closet. Sneaky little kids. Shoot, yesterday we played "mother, may I?" and "red light, green light" in there. They are gonna be so bummed when we fill it up with our stuff.


We're hanging the curtains today, and probably bringing in the bed tonight too. FINALLY!!! YAY!!!

parky's barn

Yesterday a couple of friends and I went to Parky's barn. We'd been there before so I didn't take a lot of pictures. They did get a new outside park area, so that was really nice for the kids to play. We did see a couple of funny things:

1. a cannibal Chicken - Here's a picture of a chicken eating chicken (nuggets)
2. a chicken with a tail for a head. Seriously, the part that closest to the camera is his head.
3. A pretty flower bed
4. some crazy horses. Unfortunately I didn't get the horses going psycho on camera, but use your imagination.

SNAKE

Remember the snake from back here? Well, he had a friend who was still living in our yard. Eric decided to show it to us. See......This is exactly what the snake I killed looked like. Gross, huh?

What's funny it's alive right there, and Eric was planning on letting it go in the woods. However, when he was getting ready to let it go, it was dead.....he told me that it must have had some injuries or something already.....hmmm...maybe it was the one that I "THOUGHT" I killed. (although, I still think I killed it.) Eric made sure that it was finished off this time though..just in case it was the snake with nine lives!

Family Portraits

We got our family pictures taken today at Portraits Innovations. It wasn't a particularly great experience since we had to wait about 45 minutes past our appointment time, and then another 20 minutes past our pick-up time. Then some of the pictures were blurry, and I still think some of the pictures are a little dark, but oh well. Besides that, we got some good pictures, plus I love the brown and blue for everyone! (I forgot to get Makenna's picture in the brown dress, so I guess that means I'll have to go back!...just kidding!)PS. For every child's first birthday picture, we've always done the "biker dude" thing. This year we did the "Biker Girl." Oh my word, and when they pulled out the motorcycle to go along with it.....well, I'm sure you can imagine my excitement.

Happy Birthday, Makenna!

Baby girl turned one today! This year has completely flown by. I can't believe it. I know I just typed that below in a post, but it's true. It's unbelievable how fast it's gone by.
I video taped Makenna first thing when I heard stirring around in her crib.We met Daddy for lunch at Skyline. (Makenna likes their spaghetti and their crackers.) How cute is her little crown? (Thanks Jen, for the crown. She was adorable in it!)
After going to Skyline, the original plan was to go to Parky's Barn, but that got postponed until tomorrow, so some friends could go. So, when we got home, I let Makenna have one of her presents from us. I found this little doll house on clearance, and I had a coupon. WHo-hoo! We vegged until Daddy came home and Baba came over for dinner. We grilled out hamburgers and enjoyed dinner. Then we had cake. That was so funny because I gave Makenna a huge chunk of cake and she just picked it up and started eating it. She absolutely loved the cake. Of course, what kid doesn't like cake?

Then obviously it was present time. With four older brothers, she had plenty of help opening presents. The boys pretty much opened them and put them aside before she could even blink an eye. Poor Makenna!




Let's see, what did she get?
1. Doll house, doll, some shirts, shorts, and small turtle from us
2. Small cuddly doll, red dress, white shirt, orange and yellow outfit, and pink romper from T-Rex and Grandma Alma
3. Tractor, shorts, and pants from Baba
(Now, grant it, I know she doesn't need any of this stuff, and in all reality she could care less about it all. She's not gonna remember it...but well....I will, and I wanted to get her some girly toys...hence the reason for the doll and doll house!)

More Deals

Here's the loot that I got from the consignment shop that I was telling you guys about. The most I spent was $3 for the light-up pink Carter snow boots. The Nike's were $2, and the rest of the shoes were $1 each.
Then Wednesday night after church I ran into Walmart to get Makenna's birthday cake. I couldn't resist swinging by the baby section only to find clearance deals....$1 and $2 deals. Here's my loot from that.
And last, but definitely not least, I was in JC Penney's today, and I checked out the clearance racks and found these for Kaleb for $.6.97 plus I got 15% off that!!!! Pretty cute, huh? He liked them a lot.

Look Who's ONE today!

Can you believe it? She's one year old today! This will be her last time in a picture next to the doll unless she decides to play with it herself.

Here's more from today.:

Awww man, this doll thing again. I'm getting a little sick of this doll. Every month my mom pulls it out. Seriously, what' s the big deal?
I'm gonna smile a few times and try to patient, but I'm gonna get rid of this doll if it's the last thing I do.

Ah-ha! I got it. Now what should I do with it? See, Mom, not only am I bigger than the doll, I'm stronger too. This thing is going DOWN!

It's DOWN! It's DOWN!!!! I'm the champion!!!! I win!!! No more pictures with this doll!!!!! Yay!!!!!

Check out all the past months by clicking on each month: June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, and May.)

Check out my deals today.

A couple of months ago, I discovered a great thrift store. (Okay, Lisa actually discovered it, and told me about it.) Anyways, I went there today looking for a black skirt for Makenna, and came home with these little goodies along with some other things...books for the kids, shoes for Makenna. Anyways, the goodies right here cost me less than $3. Fun, huh? Who would have thought I'd find a stamp in the thrift store, and for only a quarter. Not even I could pass that up! It's a Christmas ornament stamp. The cute little basket will look awesome in my scrapbook room. It was only 80 cents. The blue organdy ribbon for 10 cents! Craziness! And silver utensil holder might never even hold utensils, but it was only $1, so it came home with me too. I know you are all trying to figure out what that brand new red and white thing is. It's called a Sizzix paddle punch. Basically you place it on a piece of paper with some kind of cutting mat under it. Then you hit it with a hammer, and the star appears. Come on, it was only a quarter too, so no matter how hokey it sounded, I figured for a quarter....who could pass that up. It's for scrapbooking.
Needless to say, I love that place! I think I like it better than Goodwill or as my family calls it "Willie's Boutique." Maybe tomorrow, I'll show you the rest of the stuff I got from there (I'm talking Nike, Talbots, Carters.......good stuff), and there's some great deals I found at Walmart tonight too that I need to post!

Still Standing Tall!

Did I mention that she's standing by herself already. Well, of course I did...just the other day, but look at how cute she is standing there!

Smith Park

Earlier this week, on Monday, we took my mom to the doctor, and then afterwards we went to a park close to my mom's house. The fun thing about this park is the water side of it. However, my kids are not big water kids. They are quite content to NOT get wet. In fact, when I told them that they had to take of their shirts to go to the park...they all freaked out. I am so not kidding. After a little convincing, all the boys got wet at least once. Blake and Luke loved it, and even Jakeb started thinking it was pretty cool. Makenna was fascinated, but Kaleb didn't like it at all. Even Grandma liked playing too. After playing a little on the wet side, we transitioned to the dry side of the park. (Okay, for some reason Makenna's legs look like she has some sort of horrid sunburn, but I promise that she does not.)

Children's choir

Our church just started a children's choir. My friend, Amy, is directing it. This was the first time the kids sang in church. They did such a good job, both the kids and Amy!!!

Father's Day

The boys loved helping pick out things for their Daddy for Father's Day. They ended up getting him a whole bunch of stuff for Father's Day...flashlights, t-shirt, shorts, game. I made him a small album that the kids wrote in. I thought it would be fun to have the boys tell their Daddy reasons why they loved him.

Forgotten pictures

I was deleting my entire memory card when I decided to check what was on it first. I had Christmas up until Easter on it, and that's when I found these. I think I took these just a couple of weeks ago, but then the memory cards got switched around, so I totally forgot about these pictures.

I don't even know what they were doing, but I love how it captures them all being goofy, yet loving.

Master Clubs Putt Putt

Today was our first Master Club activity. Those who worked really hard and received either a patch or a badge went putt-putting today. Afterwards we went to Chick-fil-A. Some of the kids had never been putt-putting before, so that was really fun to watch them.