A few words and pictures

Austin on his first day of Kindergarten. This was finally a good smile. I had tried all morning to get him to smile at the camera, as you'll see from the other photos!
Derek's in 3rd grade and ready to go! Austin....not so much!

Why is it so hard to smile?

Brylee got her bangs cut by Mrs. Debbie. She was such a big girl! She LOVED the pink camo cape!

Don't pass out!!!

I know, I know.....you thought I was dead. But no, I'm still alive a kickin', just not bloggin' ;) Quick update: I am now teaching full time at Northwest 2nd grade. Love it...I have a great class! Derek is in 3rd grade, Austin started K, and Brylee is being kept by aunt Julie! We are doing great! I really check facebook all the time when I get on the computer and the blog has taken a back burner. Not promising more frequent updates to this blog but I was just hanging out on the computer on this lovely Saturday and thought I do a quick post! :)

From the mouth of Austin

Sara posted this with answers from her daughter, so I thought I would to it with Austin. He did pretty good but was wearing down toward the last few questions! :)

1.What is something mom always says to you? is it room time yet?
2. What makes mom happy? for me to clean my room
3. What makes mom sad? when I do bad things
4. How does your mom make you laugh? do silly things
5. What was your mom like as a child? I'm not sure cause I didn't know you!
6. How old is your mom?33
7. How tall is your mom?33
8. What is her favorite thing to do? going on a trip
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? play with Brylee
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? having a bunch of money (ha ha!!)
11. What is your mom really good at? typing
12. What is your mom not very good at? drawing a car
13. What does your mom do for a job? work at the church
14.What is your mom's favorite food? broccoli and salad (this memory must come from my skinny year)
15.What makes you proud of your mom?cause you do good things
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?Elmo
17. What do you and your mom do together?go to Wal-Mart
18. How are you and your mom the same?we have the same hands
19. How are you and your mom different?you have glasses and I don't
20. How do you know your mom loves you?oh that's easy....cause you hug me
21. What does your mom like most about your dad?having him in our family
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?Wal-Mart (I think I must go there too much...I know I go there too much!)

Update on Maddie

Julie and I went to LR today to see Maddie and family. We stayed at the hospital for around 4 hours just talking, laughing, cuddling Maddie, and a few little tears. Maddie has been diagnosed with RSV. The mucus is so thick it just chokes her up and she throws up all of her feedings. They placed a feeding tube down into her intestines, bypassing her stomach, last night. She was "unplugged" from the feeding tube for a real bottle at 11 a.m. this morning and she kept that bottle down. When 2 o'clock rolled around, I was lucky enough to be holding her, so I got to feed her the 2 oz. She sucked that bottle down quick as lightening! We were all thinking positively when she had kept that bottle down for 45 minutes, when she started coughing and up came the milk and mucus! UGH! So, the nurse came in to hook the feeding tube up again for nourishment. Please pray that these feedings, whether through the tube or bottle, will stay in her system. She is almost back to birth weight!!! Pray for Misti and Michael. As you might imagine, Misti isn't getting the rest she needs. Thank you for lifting them up to our heavenly Father. He is the Great Physician!

Please pray for Maddie

I talked to my mom yesterday and she told me that my cousin Misti's baby had been in the hospital since the weekend. After a few days baby Maddie was still not able to keep anything down and was not gaining any weight even with an IV, so yesterday Angel 1 from Children's Hospital flew to Jonesboro and picked her up. Please pray that the doctors and nurses will know just what to do to figure out what is wrong. Pray for Misti and Michael. They also have a son, Jacob who probably doesn't understand what's going on. Michael is the youth/family minister at Valley View church of Christ. They have a great support system and lots of prayer being offered up on their behalf. Will you join me in praying for them too. Thank You. This is Misti and Maddie on Christmas Day.

How is it possible...

that my baby girl is one? I so didn't want this year to fly by, but against my wishes...it has! God truly blessed me with a precious daughter. Yes, I love my boys and I really thought I would be the mother of only boys, but now I know there is something special about a mother/daughter relationship. And I am so excited to see my relationship with Brylee develop.

She is so sweet and funny. If we are out shopping she will do anything to get fellow shoppers to look at her. She'll squeal, laugh, or most recently...yell "HHHHHIIIIII". She is a great sleeper. Most nights she goes down around 8:30 p.m. and doesn't get up until 7 a.m. She loves to eat and she loves her bottle. We will slowly be weaning off our morning and night bottles and exchanging the formula for whole milk. She is not walking yet but she gets anywhere she wants to go. She loves her "Dadda", "D" and "Bubby". They can make her laugh like no one else.

Today she faced the front in her new car seat for the first time in my van. She didn't know what to think of the view! She makes me smile everyday. I'm proud to be her momma. I love you Brylee. Happy 1st Birthday!!!!

A Fabulous Five Year Old

My baby boy turned 5 today. My how the time goes. Austin was born in El Dorado at 10:02 a.m. by c-section on February 9, 2004. From that day on our lives have been forever changed. The spunk, intensity, and humor this child has daily amazes me. Kent and I've watched him grow over the years, but this last year he has truly matured into a great kid. Of course he is still learning how to control that pesky temper, and sometimes it still rears its ugly head, but he's really making progress. Austin loves sports like Derek, but he is a redneck deep down. He knows most, if not all, the NASCAR drivers, their number, and main sponsor. He has also enjoyed 2 monster jam shows this year. Austin now says he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up. I can't think of a better job for him, my daredevil. We met with his pre-school teacher last week for our mid year conference. One thing I was happy to hear was that he is a leader. A "good" leader at that! He wants to do good, and most times he tries to do the right thing. His teacher also said he can do anything "if he wants to do it". We toured the elementary school Austin will be at in the fall. He was so cute walking around acting shy. Wow, I can't believe he will be in kindergarten.

One funny story to end with. At pre-school the other day there was a chair tipped back but not falling over because it was being held up by the table. Austin looked at it and said, "Well look at that, the chair thinks it's going to get baptized!" Maybe a firefighter/preacher!

Derek's famous!

Derek said he was interviewed the other day at school. I thought it was for the news paper until I asked my friend "Ms. El Dorado" Magen Parker what it was about. The El Dorado Promise was revamping its web site and interviewed several children. I got on the computer this morning and went to Magen's blog and see a picture of my handsome son and the home page. Check it out! www.eldoradopromise.com

Playing catch up

We did enjoy a wonderful Christmas with our families. It has just taken me awhile to get in the mood to blog about it, I guess. We went to Bismarck in mid December to celebrate with the Michigan Jobes. So good to see them! It was so fun watching Andrew and Brylee, who are only 8 days apart, play with each other.

We stayed in El Dorado for Christmas Day. This is only the second time we have done this. Charlie and Lesa drove down Christmas Eve to be with us, too. Usually we are either in Pocahontas or with Kent's parents. After a good breakfast on Christmas morning and some good play time with the new toys, we packed up and drove to Pocahontas to be with our family there.

Here is our favorite gift and the following pics are what Santa brought the kids. My parents got us a "family gift" this year. We have had SO much fun playing with our Wii. We bowl, play tennis, and golf mostly. Since we are a competitive bunch, this is right up our ally.
Santa got Derek a soccer goal. He loves it!

Santa gave Austin a Nascar race track. Lots of fun!

And Brylee bear was given this fun ride on toy from Santa. She mostly pushes it around instead of riding, but fun none the less.

I do have more to blog about. Basketball season has started and both boys have played their first games. I'll post videos soon!

Shout out!

I know, I know I'm so behind on blogging about our holiday haul, but I can't sleep and so I'm doing a quick post about my AWESOME Razorbacks! We've beat 2 ranked teams in one week! If anyone had had a video camera recording in my living room an hour ago, we would have been on AFV. Derek and I were beside ourselves with excitement. And remarkably we didn't wake the 2 sleeping children. I promise to post soon about Christmas, New Year's yada, yada. Until then......WHOOOOOOOOO PIG SOOOOOOOOIE!