popcorn, bike wrecks, and muffins

we've not been up to much today. this morning we left the house at 9 a.m. so my son could go door to door to sell his cub scout popcorn. yes, i told him a lot of people would not be at home at this time. 9 a.m. was actually a compromise from 7:30 a.m. - when he originally wanted to go.

as predicted two of our neighbors (the ones that live right by us) purchased popcorn, but no one else did. most people were not at home. the others just politely declined. i was proud of my son though because he did not give up or get discouraged. he realized 9 a.m. was not the best time and asked he if he could go later on in the evening.

i did think he looked pretty cute in his cub scout uniform though.

after an hour of selling popcorn, we came back home. it was so nice outside today. i let the kids ride their bikes for about 30 minutes before we started school. my daughter crashed and "hurt" both her legs. no scrapes or blood, but she has been complaining about pain in both her legs. i'm only mildly concerned because the pain has migrated up and down her legs as she sees fit.

while we were eating dinner (steak stir fry the officer made), i was making some pumpkin spice chocolate chip muffins.

my daughter was informing again that her legs were hurting. she also told me her stomach was hurting. she didn't know if she could eat all her steak stir fry. i politely informed her perhaps the one scoop of ice cream and pumpkin spice chocolate chip muffin would hurt her stomach too. she said, "you know what mommy, i think my stomach is going to feel better faster so i can have that ice cream!" i rubbed her legs for her, amazingly they felt better after 3 minutes.

i got the recipe from my friend, mrs. s. they sounded delicious. only three ingredients: 1 spice cake, 1 can of 15 oz. of pumpkin puree, and chocolate chips. mrs. s. said, "just add as many chocolate chips as you want.", and blogger friends i added the whole package.

the officer wasn't crazy about them. i think the first batch was a little undercooked. however, i really really liked them. i think the second batch was better, not that i had two of them or anything!

she catching on....

my daughter crawled into bed with us last night. she always comes in sometime after 5 a.m. this is okay because the officer is usually in the shower and getting ready for work. so when i felt her moving around this morning, i figured it was after 5 a.m. i rolled over to look at my clock and it said 4 something. when she comes in the in the middle of the night, she will tell me she can't sleep. i take her back to bed (and sometimes fall asleep with her). if i let her hop into the bed with us, it's inevitable she will move around too much and the officer will wake up and take her back to her bed.

last night when she came in, she stealthily made it into the bed without either of us knowing. as i said before when i felt her moving around, i figured it was almost time to get up, looked at the clock, realized it wasn't time to get up, and went back to sleep.

when she woke up, i asked her when she came into our room. was it when the officer was in the shower? she said, "no i came in in the night. daddy was still in bed. i crawled in bed beside you and tried not to touch him."

"why did you try not to touch him?", i asked.

"because when he feels me moving around - he doesn't like fidgety fish (wiggly kids) - he always picks me up and carries me back to my bed! i didn't want to go back to my bed!", she answered.

she also told me once that she liked the hair on her daddy's legs.

why in the world???

"i like the hair on daddy's legs because when lays down with me, it keeps me warm!"

this past week on the island

we have been busy this past week but it's been a great busy. we've loved just about everything we've done! i haven't kept up with posting the new love dare challenge this week because we've been gone most of the weekend so i apologize. i will just start with the next dare on the post.

we've been busy playing in the rain.

we've been busy with the usual school, tae kwon do, and gymnastics.

the kids decided on wednesday night they would like to sleep outside. the officer had to work the next morning so we decided they could sleep outside until we went to bed. right before we went to bed, we would bring them in. i figured they would be asleep, but they weren't. we put their sleeping bags on the the playground and gave them some glowsticks. we tried to turn out a lot of the lights so it would be dark for them. i heard a lot of giggling and whispering. after a couple of hours, my daughter came in with her pillows and glowsticks because she said, "i don't want the squitoes to get me!" she's allergic to mosquitoes - we all are. my son came in right behind her because "sister came in and i didn't want to be alone out there!" they had fun! in the picture, they have pajama bottoms on their head "to keep their heads warm".

on friday we went to the fair with our homeschool group. we all met up together and started together, but quickly dissipated. i thought we would all be together doing this special "academy" thing the fair had set up. however, we were able to go wherever we wanted, so it didn't turn out bad.

my kids were able to see a lot of the animals. the first thing we saw were baby pigs and chicks.

we saw huge clysdale horses and goats. a boy let us into his stall to pet his goats.

i forgot the name of center, but in a little agriculture town they had set up specifically for children, they had a movie playing. it was called the store wars. it was a play on star wars. the character's names were darth tater, obi wan kanoli, chewbroccoli, ham solo, c3 peanuts, and so on. it was only about 5 minutes, but it was pretty cute.

we passed by some loggers having a competition. they were log rolling. one was even in roller skates.

we also rode the og&e space tower. my son was concerned it was going to go very fast. it didn't.

as we were leaving we heard someone saying, "the pig races will start in 3 minutes." we couldn't miss that. so we watched several pig races. each pig had a piece of cloth on it's back. you cheered for whatever number the announcer gave you. at the end, he announcer put college teams on the pig's backs. just so you know, the OU pig beat the osu and texas pig! :)

after the fair, we went to my moms. my mother loves to write. she has started what i could call a creative writing class with them. it's not a long class. she is just teaching them about main character, plots, and the order of a story so far. she makes up stories with them. i think it will be a fun thing for her and the kids to do and my kids will learn something.

saturday i went to a family reunion. my batteries died in my camera and i couldn't get them charged in time so i have no pictures yet. when i get some from other family, i will post them. we had a great time. my kids love playing with their cousins. not everyone was there but there was a good turn out.

when i was little, we used to have big, long family reunions. we had it every three years. different families planned it every year, so we often traveled to different parts of the united states. for me and all my cousins, these are fond memories. we often camped along the way. we must of not had car seats back then because i remember being in the back of station wagons or playing on the floor of the car a lot. as the family has gotten bigger it has been harder to plan family reunions. our family reunions used to consist of my grandma's family and all her siblings families too. however, my grandma's family is so big now, we have to plan just her family's reunion. we have yet to travel anywhere but we hope to next year.

we had our reunion at the seminole community center. it was a great place to have it. they had a huge playground (much like the one they have at the zoo). they also had a baseball field, tennis courts, volleyball fields, and a golf course. i'm sure basketball was around there somewhere. we started at 10 a.m. there was a light breakfast served. a lot of the family arrived between breakfast and lunch. i lost in ping-pong 21/19 to my cousin, john. the queen lost her ping-pong crown. great job john!

before lunch, we had a meeting. the families gave their latest updates and we decided when we would have our next family reunion. i think we are going to travel somewhere cooler next summer for our family reunion! yeah!

after lunch our whole family played kickball. since it wasn't softball, all the older and very young could play. the only ones who didn't get involved was my grandma and a cousin, who is expecting. it was a lot of fun. i think all the kids loved being able to play a real game they could actually play with the "grown ups". after kickball came volleyball. after volleyball, we all ate at western sizzlin. everyone was exhausted by the end of the day.

zoorific day of character

saturday, september 26th from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. is the zoorific day of character.

what is that you ask?

here's all the info i know about it. you can go to www.characterok.org to find out information on it or you can just get all the info on my blog. all this info comes from a flier i have about it.

do you know how the beaver illustrates diligence, or the bobcat discernment? participate in this character-themed scavenger hunt and find out. at each stop, storytellers will share how these and other animals illustrate character qualities that you can also exemplify. you will receive prizes throughout and upon the completion of your hunt for good character.

for kids: a free souvenir t-shirt while supplies last

stop by the character council of central oklahoma booth and receive a coupon for discounted admission - while supplies last: 50% off zoo admission for children 3-11, $1 off admission for adults ages 12-64. (don't forget you can also go into the guest relations building for their zoo coupons. just look in the brochure section and find the brochure for the zoo. i believe the coupon is for buy 1 adult admission, get a child in free.)

there will be fun hands-on activities: face painting, sack puppets, spin the "wheel of character", plus many more fun activities.

hands-on activities are near the zoo's entrance and are free. regular zoo admission must be purchased to complete the scavenger hunt. call 405-996-8791 for more information.

created for purity - part 1

**if you are under 18, please ask you parents if you can read this post about sexual purity. some of the content your parents may want to discuss with you before you read it. thanks!**

a couple of weeks ago we started new classes on sunday night at church. the officer is attending a revelations/end times class and i am attending a class called created for purity. it's about how to grow children who are sexually pure. the class does not cover just physical sexual purity, but emotional purity as well. i have been through the class before but it's been years. as we finished up our parenting/child training class in sunday school i was thinking to myself, "i wish my sunday school teacher would do the created for purity class again so i can take much better notes." then i notice it will be offered this semester on sunday nights. it's a 7 week long class. i was very excited.

my kids are 6 & 4 and i am sure some of you might think - do you need to take a sexual purity class now? your kids are still so young. however, i think now is the perfect time. okay well i admit i am one of those who likes to prepare - i went to the homeschool convention when my son was 2, i like to have 6 months to plan birthday parties (so i can find things on clearance/sale), and i read parenting books while i was pregnant. i like to have all the information now because it also takes me a little time to implement it into my brain. i have to figure out a way to do things before the time happens.

my daughter is turning 5 this year. she is soon moving out of the "baby/toddler" section in many clothing stores. have you seen some of the clothes they have for tweens? it's not too early to be thinking about sexual purity even at 4 or 5 years old.

i do not usually give out any kind of personal information about anyone on this blog. however, since my sunday school teacher has a site where you can purchase the created for purity i think it is okay to tell you a little bit about him. i'm not telling you anything you can't find on the website. his name is josh bullard. he is the headmaster of christian heritage academy. he and his wife, genel, have been married for 24 years. they have 10 children - no you didn't read that wrong - i typed 10 children. i take in every bit of advice he gives. i may not use it, but you can listen to the advice of a godly, christian man with 10 children.

as i said before, the study started about two weeks ago. the first week was an introduction. it was shocking. josh gave some statistics about sex in our society today. i am not going to tell you everything he said, but two things really stuck out to me. i went through junior high and high school in the 80s. it was a big deal to "make out" with a boy. back then "making out" with a boy was considered kissing - a lot (or at least that's what i thought it was at the time.) josh read several articles about today's youth. the common makeout session has gone from kissing a lot to heavy petting and oral sex. did your mouth just pop open? yep - you read that last part right. when josh read that, i couldn't believe it had come to that. there was another article that talked about "friends with benefits" - friends who have sex but were not supposed to have emotional feelings toward each other. josh has done this study for several local churches. after he did this study at henderson hills, edmond, he received an email from a lady. she said she was nervous about sending her son to middle school. she was nervous about all the older kids, what her son would hear about (regarding sex), and about the sex portable. what's the sex portable you ask? apparently one of the middle schools has a portable building the kids use during the school day to have sex. this is a known thing. those things just blew my mind. the youth today have advanced so far there's not much else left for them to move onto. they give so much of themselves away, when they finally give their virginity away, does it mean something - anything?

another thing discussed in this introduction session was "why don't we talk to our children about this?" josh polled us. he asked us "how many of our parents had talked to us about sex?" only one person raised her hand. she was an exception. she is an older woman and her mother actually talked to her about sex - what it was, why God wanted us to wait and so forth. josh said typically when he polls his audience about 5% of the group raises their hand on this questions. of that 5% whose parents talked to them about sex, approximately half of them said the "talk" consisted only of the "don't have sex, don't get pregnant" talk. most parents left it up to the kids to find out about sex. so where do kids find out about sex - friends, school, television, internet, and other avenues. how do you think these portray sex? the main reasons given in our class as to why parents do not talk to their children about sex were: they don't know how because their parents didn't talk to them, they don't know where to start, parents feel guilty about their own past, parents don't know exactly how they feel about sex - have not determined their boundaries, values or convictions, and it's just uncomfortable. josh had many articles that said children wanted to learn about sex from their parents. the kids may be completely mortified by parents talking about sex with them, but they still wanted to hear from them. the parents were the biggest influence on their sexual activity - not that they would always so what the parents would like, but they cared very much about what their parents would say/think. parents have more of an influence than they think on their kids.

that was the first session. i left there thinking, "yeah i need this now!" i don't want to wait until my daughter and son are 10 & 12 to talk to them about being sexually pure. the dialogue has to start now (more with my son at age 7 then my daughter, but i have to be open to any questions, get used to feeling uncomfortable, and get over it.) i think just covering all the "statistics" he covered was enough for the introduction session. :) i left there thinking i wonder why more parents aren't in this class. our church is considered "big", and we only have 8 adults (one adult is josh's wife, genel) and josh's 3 daughter are attending the class. maybe it's just too uncomfortable an issue.

so as i have done with any other studies i have blogged about, i will write all the teacher's notes in black and any of my thoughts will be in green. in a couple of days i will post the first session in the book - God's view on sex. there is good stuff already. are you ready for this? i thought, "okay i'm ready!" but after coming out of the introduction session, i realize it's still a completely uncomfortable topic and will always will be. the first two weeks in the study cover God's view on sex and God's view on sexual purity. the last three sessions cover physical purity and emotional purity. it gets into practical things we can do. josh said this study if for parents with kids you are not yet teenagers. it's never too late to take this study and apply it. he has a video series you can purchase on his website. if nothing else, this should prompt some discussion in your family. discussion that needs to happen. if you aren't telling your children about sex, who is? what are they learning? what do they think about sex? what do they think about dating? these are questions that need to be discussed.

**update** as my daughter was laying in bed , she yelled out, "how do babies come out of your belly?" yeah - this class is perfect timing.

daddy/daughter day

as i mentioned yesterday, it was a long day. however, today is a new day. i see the sun peeking through my blinds - which as you know has been a rarity these days.

my son is still asleep - i guess he's pretty exhausted from yesterday also. it was a very, very long day for him. i don't think he went to sleep until about 10 p.m., which is very late for him.

the officer and my daughter are having a daddy/daughter day. they are going to eat breakfast at the cracker barrel and the head to the officer's parent's lake place. they are going to do a little fishing. i think it's too cold to swim. the officer is going to winterize the boat. she has been waiting and waiting for this. when papa was working on the lake place, the officer and my son went down there for the day. the officer also took my son to grandma's place to ride dirtbikes one day. so my daughter has not let the officer forget it's her turn to spend the day with daddy. i love it how the officer makes the time to spend with the kids. there are a ton of other things he could do, but he tries really hard to make sure he spends time with them when he is not working.

so it's just me and my son today. if you are wondering, i did tell him he has to do school today also. we'll see how it goes. since he's so tired, it really could go either way. he's yet to wake up.

i'm going to choose good thoughts today. i'm thanking the Lord everyone came out relatively unscathed yesterday. i'm thanking the Lord the officer gave me a quick break to go get the vanilla coke from sonic - yes that's worth thanking the Lord.

one of those days

it's been one of those days. you know one of those days where homeschooling literally take all day. one of those days you feel like you are banging you head against a wall repeatedly. one of those days where the kids are both whiny. one of those days you think you have something conquered just to turn around and realize you don't, never did. you can only rely on God to get you through these days.

i never broke down and cried, which i am very surprised about; however, i did have to take a break and go get a vanilla coke during happy hour at sonic. i must admit it did make me feel a little better.

i am exhausted. my daughter was suppose to be cleaning her room. it often takes her a long time because she is easily distracted. when her room is dirty, she gets distracted even more than normal. she is gathering all her polly (or potty) pockets and sees her dora doll. oh there's that dora doll i was looking for, now where is the blue flipper that goes on her foot. she has abandoned all polly pocket gathering to find the missing blue flipper, but finds the screw that connects the handle to her baby seat. where's the baby seat. you see how this can take forever for her to clean her room.

well i guess she got tired. this is how the officer found her. then he let her sleep for an hour and a half. i

guess i'm not the only one exhausted.

free shutterfly cards

have you been to shutterfly yet? they have some of the cutest photo gifts. of course they also sell cards/stationary. first of all if you don't have a shutterfly account, it's easy to sign up. for signing up, you get 25 free 4 x 6 prints.

they have a special promotion going on right now. you can get 3 free 5 x 7 folding cards. they have a huge selection of cards. you can put any photo you upload on a card. you can get invitations, thank you cards or holiday cards. here's some samples of their holiday cards.

(i have no idea who these people are, i just cut/pasted them into this blog)

pretty cute huh? okay if you go to shutterfly (and sign up or if you already have an account) you can make your card and enter the special discount code when you check out. the discount code for the 3 free 5 x 7 folded cards is: 3freecards. if your order is more than $30, you can free shipping and handling using the code: ship30.

i had received an email for 12 free 5 x 7 stationary cards, then i used the 3 free cards promotion, so i got $15 photo holiday cards for $7.21. so i guess, as the officer pointed out, it's not "free" "free", but the final cost would have been over $35 had i purchased them without the codes i had.

just thought i would pass on the "free". try it out.

this week on the island

so what's been going on with you?

there's not been a whole lot going on - wait - i say that but actually there's just been a lot of little stuff.

my sister-in-law, c, came for a visit last weekend. she came on thursday, stayed a couple of nights, went to her parent's for a couple of days, and then came back. she and her two boys were able to be here for a little birthday party we had for the officer. c helped me out so much getting my house ready for the officer's party. it was the officer's uncle's birthday too so we celebrated it also. the officer's parents didn't know she was in town, so when they arrived for the party, we were able to surprise them! it was fun! we went to the natural history museum to see the dinosaur bones. it's always fun having them here because my kids love playing with their cousins. we don't to see them as often as we like, so we really enjoy any time we get to spend with them.

i got an email today for - bath and body works! the fall scents are out. have i told you fall is my favorite season? i love it! the cool weather, the trees changing colors, the cool weather. bath and body works is having a sale - their wallflowers are buy one get one free. i love their pumpkin patch, and their leaves, and their autumn apple, and their ginger vanilla, and their harvest berry - you get the idea. i love when my house smells all spicy - i have to do it with the wallflowers since i'm not a great baker either. you do what you gotta do. so if you ever come over my house and think you are smelling a pumpkin pie baking - don't kid yourself - it's my bath and body works wallflower.

what else???

my son lost his second tooth, but i already blogged about that.

i'm still working on the love dare. it is hard, challenging stuff. i think everyone should periodically do this. it's a good reality check to see the areas i need to work on, which is just about everything. however, the officer has said he has noticed i'm working on stuff.

we went to our second homeschool group today. it was a lot of fun. to tell the truth, i was very nervous about it. i'm not one to usually get nervous about things. i was part of this homeschool group last year, but this year is a new re-vamped group - very different from last year. i would say last year's was more of a support group. this year we are focusing on oklahoma history (great because i am not real fond of oklahoma history). we arrive at 9 a.m. the first 30 minutes, we do a character lesson. we have been talking about obedience. one thing i took away from the lesson today was delayed obedience is disobedience.

after the character lesson, all the kids (ranging from babies to 16 years olds) break up into groups (by age) and go to their classes. they have classes from 10-11:30 a.m. my kids have an hour of oklahoma history broken up with a 30 minute session of music, snacks, and crafts. while the kids are in class, i help set up tables for lunch and get to chat with the other moms until lunch. at 11:30 a.m., we eat lunch. you can either purchase lunch (for $2) or bring your own. from 12- 1 p.m., they have p.e. i'm the p.e. assistant (umm hmm fun times!)

i'm not sure why i was so nervous the first time. i guess because it was completely different. this time we had a school supply list. the officer joked with me if i didn't have all the school supplies i would get kicked out of the homeschool group on the first day. i obsessively made sure they had all their supplies. i put them in the kid's backpacks. binders, marker, colored pencils, ziplock baggies in the big pocket. glue sticks, glue bottles, pencils, scissors in their small outside pocket. my son came out his class the first day and say, "we didn't have scissors or glue!" "what? yes you did, they are in your backpack!", i said. he didn't know i put them in the small pocket. i was relieved we weren't kicked out for not having all our supplies.

i have met several new moms. everyone is very nice. i think the kids will make more friends as the year progresses.

i went out to eat with my sister last night - a little "girl's night out". i wasn't supposed to pick her up until 6:30 p.m. but i left at 5 p.m. i thought i would be able to get a few errands finished. i went to the movie rental place, two banks, the post office, the library and mardels (to laminate a poster) all before 6:30 p.m. there's no way that if i had my kids with me that i would have been able to do all that in an hour and a half. after we ate at the olive garden (they are having their never-ending pasta bowl promotion going on now), we went to barnes and noble. it's just nice to sit down and look through some magazines. i took her home and then went to wal-mart to do some grocery shopping - saved $18 in coupons.

this weekend, the officer and my son have a fishing derby with the cub scouts. the officer and i get a date night, sans kids saturday night. by the way if anyone wants to purchase some cub scout popcorn from my son, leave me a comment.

last sunday night we started new classes at church. the officer is in a study that has to do with one of his all-time favorite things - revelations and the end times. i knew as soon as i saw that class listed he would not be doing any classes with me. i am attending a created for purity class - teaching sexual purity for my children.

next week we start all this all over again. it's been a good week or so. i guess that's it. i hope you all have a great weekend blog friends.

laundry buckets

as i sit amongst the laundry pile, i wondered why am i doing this all by myself? i think everyone can help a little. the kids often do. they put up the kitchen towels and some of their stuff. i hang all their shirts, dresses & pants, but i put their shorts, pjs, underwear and socks in a dresser. they can't hang their shirts up quite right yet - we're still working on being able to reach the top rung and hanging clothes properly. however, they can reach their entire dresser. i thought, "i need a more organized way to do this."

i bought dishpans at wal-mart - i think they were under $2. i let the kids buy stickers to decorate their dishpan. of course my son bought transformer stickers and my daughter bought little pet stickers. the stickers didn't stick to the outside of the dishpan very well or on the inside for that matter. however, they stuck better on the inside of the pan, so that's where they went.


now when i fold laundry i still hang their shirts, pants, & dresses for them (okay really it's a control/organization issue more than their ability to hang clothes correctly - i need their shirts to be organized so when i'm looking for that particular shirt when we are running late it doesn't take me forever!)

when i fold the laundry, i put all their laundry inside their bucket. i call them to put up their clothes and they are to bring back an empty bucket. they are to put up their laundry in the correct drawer and be able to close the drawer when they are finished. it has helped me out a lot. the laundry spends less time on my bedroom floor and it gives the kids some responsibility.

he lost another one!

my son lost his second tooth. wasn't it just yesterday when he lost his first tooth??? the very next week after he lost his first tooth, my son noticed the tooth right next to it was loose. he worked and worked on that tooth! the last two evenings he spent about 20 minutes in the restroom wiggling it around. saturday night the tooth was so loose it could point downward, but it wasn't falling out. sunday night, the officer offered to pull the tooth for him. my son was sooooo nervous about it. i love this video of my son because it shows exactly how jumpy he was. he said when he sticks his left hand up with his finger pointing it means to stop pulling because it hurts.



once my son actually let the officer get close to his tooth, the officer pulled it.



my son put his tooth in his little plastic tooth and stuck it under one of his many pillows. for those of you who are wondering, he got .50 cents for his tooth - from mom and dad.

it's freaky in there!

so the officer's birthday is this next week. i decided to throw him a little party. he loves OSU, but being an OU fan i couldn't just have a black and orange party. i decided to throw a "house divided" party. i just can't bring myself to not buy red and white.

i went to party galaxy to purchase the OU/OSU paper goods. inside party galaxy they have a lot of their halloween decorations out. these are freaky halloween decorations: two-headed babies, dismembered hands, scary skeletons, ghosts, witches, and decapitated heads. my kids do NOT like to go inside. when i bought the paper goods yesterday, my sister-in-law was with me, so the kids did not have to go inside. i came out with all my house divided stuff and went home. when i got home, i realized they rang some products twice. it was a significant enough amount for me to go back to the store. i had to pick up some balloons i bought, so i would just take care of it then.

today was a busy day of picking up the cake, going to my nephews birthday party and trying to get a couple of errands completed before the party. fortunately my sister-in-law helped me tremendously and it all went smoothly. after the birthday party, i went to pick up the balloons and try to get a refund. i told the kids they would have to go into the store with me. my son immediately became upset. he does NOT like all the halloween decorations. he begged and begged to stay in the car. i could not let him do that. it was only me and my daughter so there was no one to watch him in the car. i told him if i left him in the car someone could come along and take the car with him in it. so i went in the store with my two kids. i promised it would only take 5 minutes. my daughter was staring at her feet and my son had his hat pulled down over his face with a death grip on my hand. i was guiding him along the way. we picked up our balloons, got our refund, and got out of the store as quickly as possible.

when we got back in the car, my daughter said in her sweetest girly voice, "mommy we could have stayed in the car. we know how to fight! we know how to fight! we know how to poke eyes out and everything!" guess she can take care of her self.

so we headed back to our house and my sister-in-law had finished all the decorations! she added a little more orange and black than red and white. guess that's what i get for leaving it to an OSU alumni.

mrs. courtney made the house divided cake. isn't it awesome?!!! oh it was also the officer's uncle's birthday. that's why there's a 34 (the officer's age) and a 72 (the officer's uncle's age) on the cake. the officer's uncle graduated from OU so naturally i put his age on the OU side.


i even had the kids dress up in their team colors. my son, of course, loves OSU because his daddy does. my daughter likes to be diplomatic and says she likes both teams. this is also because daddy will tickle her until she says she likes his team. i got her to dress in the red and white today though! :)


Happy Birthday OFFICER! We love you!!!

nice and relaxing

i don't have a lot of time to post today because we have company coming in from out of town. yeah! the officer's sister and her two sons will be visiting. we can't wait. anywho, yesterday we went to the lake. the officer was hoping this is would be an event free day.

we packed everything the night before and left by 8 a.m. on wednesday morning. it went pretty smoothly - until the engine on the boat kept swaying while we were driving. don't worry, nothing disastrous happened. however, the engine swaying broke the transom saver (have no idea if i am saying or spelling it correctly). we had to stop in the boat shop and purchase another one.

we were out on the lake by 10:30 a.m. the water was a little chilly. we went by the officer's parent's place to air up the two man tube we had purchased. we were a little worried about how we were going to travel with it aired up. it was no problem.

we got out onto the water and drove around for a little bit. since the labor day holiday was officially over, we were pretty much the only ones out there. we found a place to put the tube out and let the kids hop in. the two man tube is the kind where you sit down into it. we told the kids thumbs up for faster, thumbs down for slower, and a fist in the air to stop. it wasn't long before my son had both his thumbs up in the air for faster! they had a blast! the loved the bumping; however, the officer was very worried about them getting thrown out. we didn't go too fast.

we stopped by a shore to get out and swim and have a snack. i'm pretty sure something tried to take a bite out of my ankle (it was probably a minnow swimming by me, but i was sure it was a piranha!)

after our swim break, the officer wanted me to try the tube so we would actually know what it was like. i would only try with one of the kids because i knew the officer would try to toss me out! it was pretty bumpy but a lot of fun. my son kept saying, i think the weight of you is making us go slower! thanks son! we let each of the kids try it by themselves. we never went fast enough for them.

we went back to the officer's parent's place to eat sandwiches and headed home. i think yesterday was what the officer had planned for us when he bought the boat. it was a great, relaxing day for the whole family.

suggestions anyone???

need suggestions for things to do for 10 year anniversary. the officer has to work so we can't more than probably 2 days to do something. any ideas - suggestions????

leave comment PLEASE! i received some great ones on facebook. we have another month until our anniversary.

i have a great idea!

we were finishing up dinner when my son turns to me and says, "i have a great idea!"

"what son?" i ask.

"let's tie a hot dog to a string and tie it to me so the dogs can chase me around the yard!" he said.

not what i was expecting.

for some reason we agree. we do not have hot dogs, so we settle on bologna.

the officer ties it onto my son.

the officer give the dogs a piece of bologna to "get a little taste." and holds the dogs while my son comes out the back door. he starts running around the yard, but the dogs have no idea he has the "meat"!

my son lets the dogs sniff the bologna and he's off.

look at one of the dogs licking his chops!

the bologna fell off and the dog got it. i almost peed my pant laughing so hard!

my daughter didn't want to be left out.

she knew what to do. she called the dogs over to the door and let the dogs sniff the chicken.

the officer held the dogs and she came out running.

(i think you can click on the picture and see her facial expression better, the dog's, and the piece of chicken right under her left hand.)

one of our dogs took after her. when she rounded her dad, a piece of the chicken fell off. we were all laughing so hard.

now i know you are saying, "who ties a piece of meat to their kids so their dogs can chase after them for entertainment". apparently the "island" makes to do strange things.

labor day celebration at chick-fil-a

who doesn't love free stuff??? more importantly, who doesn't love chick-fil-a? combine those two and you have pure bliss! on september 7, 2009, from 10:30 a.m. to close, chick-fil-a is giving away a free chicken sandwich to everyone who comes in wearing a team logo. i know! we will be there at 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (wait the kids go to bed at 6:30 p.m. - guess we won't go at 7 p.m.) maybe we'll see you there.