The LaPorte Report

It's that time again!!!

2011-11-03T05:17:00.000-07:00

It's 6:30 in the morning and this is what I get to look at it. I love it! If you will, notice the bottom part of the tree. Yeah I have a one year old. Every time I look at this tree, something new is missing or out of place. I give, I give people!

I seriously can't begin to explain how giddy I get this time of year. I went grocery shopping at Walmart yesterday and somehow found myself on the opposite side of the store in the Christmas department with the cinnamon pine cones stuck up my nose. I could live in that part of the store. I love November 1st. The rest of the world finally catches up to my Christmas craze! There are a few Scrooges who give me the evil eye, known as a snarky comment on facebook. But who cares! If you love something so much, you tend to enjoy it.... in my case a lot!

We put our tree up, breaking a new record, on October 30th. Let me explain. I started working at Sam's Club last week. Well I always put my Christmas stuff up on November 1st. However, this year I had to work on November 1st AND November 2nd. It just would not be right for the tree to not be up. So we put it up early.There was only one major catastrophe. My nativity set broke :( It is my favorite! It's just really pretty. And it was a very good clearance buy at Hobby Lobby one year.

Kyle had originally said that we couldn't turn the lights on until November 1st. Think that worked? Actually he was the one to turn them on that night. So it was ok. I'm sure our neighbors are disturbed. That's ok too.

Things have changed a bit around the LaPorte house. Kyle broke his foot about 4 weeks ago. The story is either, My big, brave and strong husband was fending off a vicious bear from attacking his family, or he was turning off a light switch and turned and broke his foot. Believe whichever one you want. This has left him unable to work. Well, a huge ordeal with an insurance company and.... we get no money. So Mama goes to work :) I have not worked outside of the home in 6 1/2 years. So you can imagine. It's been interesting. I really really want to be home, but there's a weird feeling of joy in providing for my family. I'm getting to serve them in a way that I haven't been able to in quite a few years. So how does school work when this happens? Meet Headmaster LaPorte. Yep, Kyle took over. The kids love him as their teacher. I keep telling them that the mean teacher will be back some day!

I experienced one of the funniest things I have ever seen, yesterday. Salem was being his naughty little self. I have a little glass jar on our cedar chest in the front room. Salem is not allowed to touch this. So Kyle got up to give him a spanking after he threw it on the ground. Salem takes off running. So Kyle was chasing him on crutches. It was so funny. Maybe you had to have been there, but I was hurting from laughing so hard.

The kids are doing extremely well in school. We have two more classes left in Spanish. They have really loved that! Their reading is coming along very well. I'm impressed! They had a fall home school party a few weeks ago and they loved that!

Here's Salem. The boy always has to have a stick!

Well that's all I have for now.

Where have you been???

2011-09-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

We've been right here!

This little guy is getting so big! His personality is starting to shine through. It's so much fun! He is still climbing everything! He is also starting to understand different phrases. This stage is my absolute favorite! From about 14 months to about 24 months, I LOVE!

We are also on week 6 of school. We missed Week 3, 4 and 5 so here those are.

Kyle drew the kids pictures on their napkins and Grace and Simon thought that was the funniest thing. Grace crosses her eyes all the time, on purpose...don't worry, and that is what her picture is.

Week 3 we learned about the Nile River and Early Egypt. I love the History curriculum we are using this year. It's so much fun!

Week 4 we learned about the pyramids. We made a pyramid out of sugar cubes. It took 55 sugar cubes a person. At the end of it Simon asked, "Do you think you could put our sugar cubes in a bag so we could eat them?" Oh you bet Simon! That would be great!! No.

The finished projects. They enjoyed this. Not sure why Grace is dressed in her winter pajamas and Simon doesn't have a shirt on. Must have been one of "those" mornings. :)

The kids are constantly cutting and drawing and all that fun stuff. The other day in the pile of completed crafts I found this odd piece of art... hmmm.... I asked the kids what it was and Simon said, "Oh I made that. It's underwear for Dad." I laughed so stinking hard!

Here we are today. I won't lie, this morning wasn't the best of mornings. We started out rough! After it started out bad we all, yes mom included, went and had a time on our bed. We all said a little prayer and asked God to help us have a good day, to have good attitudes and to glorify Him. After that, we came out, hugged, asked forgiveness from each other, mom included, and started our day right. It went much better after that!

I have learned a lot of humility from asking my kids for forgiveness. I often find myself speaking down to my kids and on occasion yelling at them. The real kicker is when you yell, "You need to be kind!" They are probably thinking, "Be kind like you are right now?" How confusing! But often as the parent, we think if we ask for forgiveness from our kids or tell them that we were wrong, that it's a bad thing. I want my kids to know that when I say we are all sinners and all need grace, that it includes me. Then we can understand each other and have a better relationship. Then when we look at each other, we can have more grace with each other because we realize we both have sinful hearts. We won't be perfect. We will wrong each other. But the beautiful thing is, Jesus has given us much grace and much mercy, therefore, how much more should we have it with each other. One neat thing that happened today was, after all the happened, I opened our "Big Picture Bible" and it was about Jesus dying on the cross. Then I we did our "Leading Little Ones to God" and it was about Forgiveness of Sins, and finally I opened our "24 Family Ways" and the character trait to work on for the week was forgiveness. I love how those kinds of providential things happen. :)

This was Salem during school today. He was a very good boy :)

This weekend is the Fall Festival. Grace and Ally will be singing again with Grandma. They are so excited! So I'm sure there will be an update this weekend! Until then...

Martha wannabe!

2011-08-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Well hello there! I'm stuck in a rut and I can't find my way out. This is why my blog never lasts. My life seems really busy, but when I come to share it on here.... I have nothing folks! I need some ideas. What's something I can write about?

I decided it was time to teach myself to sew. My parents got me a sewing machine two Christmases ago. My dad told me that he knew it would be put in the attic and never opened. I was determined to prove him wrong! Well a year and a half later I'm doing just that. Maybe....
I read a ton of blogs about homeschool, cooking, cleaning, parenting, being a wife and sewing. I see all these adorable skirts and bags and I want to do that so bad. I'm pretty sure in home-ec class I failed the little square pillow we all had to make. I'm also pretty sure that was the last time I even looked at a sewing machine. A friend of mine came over last winter and showed me how to thread my machine and the bobbin.This would be opening the box for the first time. I thought then I would start sewing. I never did!
Last week I was looking on a few blogs and found a very very simple tutorial for little capri pants using bandanas. I figured two things, 1 it looked easy and 2, if I messed it up, bandanas are a dollar a piece. Not a huge loss. So I pulled Henrietta back out of the box. She was already threaded and ready to go. So we began. I have since made 6 pairs of these little pants. Grace loves them!! Here are her most recent pair. She says they are so comfortable to sleep in :)

I also made a pair for Kate and Ally to match Grace's. Then Simon picked out "army" ones. They are cute. Now I'm ready to move onto another project. Not sure what quite yet. Maybe a simple skirt. We'll see.

What else is new?? We finished our 3rd week of school and going strong. The kids are doing so well. I'm really enjoying and they seem to be as well. This is their third 100% on a spelling test and here they are showing them off.

DO YOU SEE HENRIETTA BACK THERE!?!?!

They make me smile

My handsome husband and I got to have a date night last night. Salem is 13 1/2 months and Kyle and I have not had a night alone since before then. We usually just take him with us because it's easier that way. My parents so kindly asked if they could keep all 3 of them, as well as my sister's 2 girls, over night. At first I was a little nervous at the thought of Salem being away from me. But then I thought about it a little more and I knew he would be fine AND the best part, I would get a full night sleep. I've had maybe three of those since he was born. So off we went. We ate at 54th Street with my sister and Bill. It was a great time! Then we headed to get coffee...that was until my husband, and avid reader, remembered that there was a book sale going on at the library. We made an hour detour there. Then I wanted to look at Hobby Lobby "real quick". That was another hour detour. By the way.....

...and that's all I'm going to put. Otherwise I am likely to go on and on about how there are only 119 days, 2 hours and 43 minutes until Christmas day. That will likely lead me into a post about how much I love Christmas, how today I was listening to my Christmas Pandora Station, which will then lead me to tell you how I found Home Alone 2, one of my favorites, the other day at Target for $5. $5!!! In a few months that movie will be probably $15. Then I will probably tell you that I've watched the movie 3 times since I bought. So for now, I will just post the picture and go on.

So back to our hot date! After we walked around Hobby Lobby's Christmas aisles, I picked up a few things and we left. We started for coffee and then decided to just come home and make an entire pot of coffee for about 1/100th of the price to buy one. It's so funny. I try to remember life before we had kids and I can't! We got home and we both we're kinda like..."Now what?" The kids keep us going. We did end up just talking for awhile. It was nice. We don't often get long uninterrupted conversations these days. We had a really nice evening. I did laugh when I thought about the fact that our date night consisted of books and craft stores... We're 26 and 27! Come on! In case you're wondering, I GOT A FULL NIGHT OF SLEEP! It was beautiful!

I'm thankful for my husband and his love and care for our family! I couldn't have asked for a better husband or father for my children. He makes me laugh and I still get those little girly butterflies in my stomach when 3:30 hits and I know he is on his way home. I love his passion for the Lord and his desire to lead his family in the ways of the Lord. So yeah I'm pretty blessed with him! He's a keeper!

Well I think that is all I have to report on for the day. It's time for bed! Church in the morning!

Let Them Be Little...

2011-08-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

I often find myself longing for a full night sleep. I tell myself that life will be easier then and I will feel like a human being when I am well rested, as opposed to the monster I can be. Take away my coffee like the storm did on Friday and you've got a mega beast! Watch out! However, I am really enjoying life right now. I get to look at this face every single day:

Breaking in his new top teeth

Who wouldn't love it?!

I often have to pray against the thoughts of excitement of my children getting older. I think I have a misinterpreted idea that when kids are older, they are easier. I need to remember that each age brings about their own hardships. But when you add lack of sleep to it all, it FEELS harder at this age.

This week I want to try and enjoy my kids more. To appreciate their different personalities and to really let them be little. Instead of letting the giggling and the noise get on my nerves, I'm going to join in and really appreciate it. Who knows, you may even see me running around with a wipe box on my head.

Or maybe I'll wear an Indian Bonnet

Who knows, maybe I'll wear the whole thing!

One thing I do know, I want to enjoy these years! They are going so fast. I need to appreciate them, cherish them and let my kids be little. Here's to a new week!

When Salem is quiet...

2011-08-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

You know those people who always have a story for everything? Yeah I guess I am one of them. But I'm talking about the people who, your story involves one thing and their story always has to one up it! ALWAYS! You had 3 kids, 2 dogs, 1 cat, a bird and they had 4 kids, 8 dogs, 3 cats and a goldfish. I always want to say, "Oh really? Prove it!" Well anyway, people probably think that about me. Only problem... I have pictures to prove it. My life is so crazy and eventful that I believe people think it can't possibly true. Some days I believe it of myself. I want to call the hidden cameras out and say game over. Surely, (Shirley, who's Shirley?) my life is on hidden camera. I mean this in a laughing way. I'm definitely not complaining. But my life is.... crazy! In a good way.

Salem is only quiet on a few occasions.
1. when he is sleeping
2. when he is eating
3. when he is doing something he is not supposed to

Today would revolve around occasion #3. I have been in the deep cleaning mood, as I told you earlier. In our bedroom we have a bathroom that doesn't get much use. So we decided to turn it into the place for the litter box and cat food. I took the litter box out, cleaned it and put in fresh litter(blessing #1), swept and mopped the floor and then I asked Grace to feed the cat. I came in the front room and started finishing up laundry. In the mean time Simon went out front to play. When he does that, Salem usually runs to Simon's room and watches him from out the window and yells at him. After about 5 minutes of folding laundry, I realized that I wasn't hearing Salem at all. So I go in Simon's room to see what he is doing. No Salem.... "Salem!" I hear him yell from in my room. When I walked in my room the first thing I see is the baby gate laying on the floor and not up against the bathroom door where the cat litter is. I closed my eyes for a moment and hoped... silently hoped....

One of those moments where you just want to take off running! Go where? I don't know! Anywhere!
So what's the first thing you do when you see something like this? Of course grab him and put him in the bathtub. Nope. Grab your camera! THEN take his shirt off and throw him in the bath tub. Grace said, "Mom his diaper is still on him." As if in that moment it really matters :) All I could think was how disgusting it was and hopefully he didn't put it in his mouth. Sick!

No worries though! We took a bath, put in new litter AGAIN ('cause that stuff is cheap ya know?), swept the floor AGAIN and then mopped AGAIN. All is well in the LaPorte home.

A bed of raisins...

2011-08-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

I love whenever Grace gets a song stuck in her head. She will sing it constantly. There's no sweeter sound than her little voice. It sometimes has a little twang with it. I credit that to her Grandma Donita. Today she was singing the song If I Die Young by The Band Perry. Her lyrics went, "If I die young bury me in Saturn. Lay me down on a bed of raisins." For those who don't know the lyrics are, "If I die young bury me in satin. Lay me down on a bed of roses." I love it!

Sunday before church I was fixing Grace's hair, you know 'cause it was broken, as my husband says. Anyway, we were DOING her hair. The flat iron was sitting beside us and I told her to be careful for it because it would burn her. Well of course that brought up a story that she will never EVER let me forget. "Mom do you remember that time when I was a little girl," (she's 6 now so I guess she's pretty much an adult now), "and you were curling my hair? Remember when you dropped it on my arm? I can still remember that pain. Didn't you just feel like the worst mom ever?"
Sheesh!!! This happened at least 2 years ago and it may have been 3. But she can still remember the pain and surely I must be the worst mom ever. :) I told her I did remember and I apologized for the 223rd time. She said, "Well I forgive you. Just please don't let it happen again." Scarred for life I tell ya!

Today started our second week of school.

It went great! The kids are really coming along in reading. I love it!! It has pretty much rained all morning. Gray and dreary. But these are days when I'm the most productive.

Has your front room ever looked like this?

We brought the toy box toys up from downstairs and in their rooms. We dumped them out and started sorting. There's a trash bag there somewhere. It was almost full when we were done. I love to clean out closets and toy boxes. It's freeing. I hate clutter!

Have you seen Kid History? If you haven't you are missing out. Here's one for you. Look the rest of them up. They are funny!

So long!

Mom of the Year!

2011-08-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

5 posts in one week? Surely this has to be a record, right?!

We are coming to the end of our first week of school. It went great! It looks like Fridays are going to be our easy days. Yesterday was so beautiful outside so after school, and Salem's well check, we went to the park. We have been stuck inside the house since July 5th, due to Heat Advisories and disgusting humidity. Of course we went to the pool a few times and went outside in the early morning hours a few days. But other than that, we've been in the house! We turned the air off on Tuesday and opened up the windows. That always gets me in the mood to clean with all the toxic chemicals. Deep clean the kitchen I did. Top to bottom, it was sparkling. After school on Tuesday the kids played outside most of the day. Yesterday they played outside after dinner until it was almost completely dark. So we woke up today. Beautiful morning. Finished school, ate lunch, I started laundry and the kids went outside. In 10 minutes they were back inside. One asked to watch a movie and the other asked to play on my phone. Are you kidding me?! It's 84 degrees out with no humidity and you want to play inside? No way! So I told them that they needed to play outside. The first whine, "It's TOO hot!" The second whine, "It's boring!" Oh really? Ok. So the rule was if you're inside you are cleaning.

These may or may not be clean clothes waiting to be folded. Come on, label me a really good homemaker that always has her laundry caught up.

Now Simon lasted about 5 minutes before he realized that playing hockey on the driveway sounded like more fun. Grace? Sorted all of the laundry and then started to fold her clothes. She is a funny one. I told her that it was going to start getting cold in a few months so she should play outside as much as possible. This brings me to my next paragraph.

While the said laundry was being folded, I had my Pandora mix playing. Of course I have a Christmas playlist on my mix. I would be so ashamed of myself if I didn't. Well I had the music turned up pretty loud as well as the windows open. The next song that comes on was Winter Wonderland by Frank Sinatra. A few of our neighbors were outside when it came on. You know how some songs automatically are played louder than the other? Yeah, this song was that way. So I'm pretty sure our neighbors may think we're crazy. That's ok. They will know for sure on November 1st when our Christmas tree is up. I can't wait for that time of year!

I just found this... LOVE! The video may be one of the most beautiful videos I've seen. Just give it a chance!

I did forget to mention one thing in my update that quite frankly is a big deal. A big deal in the life of a 6 year old. Grace lost her first tooth on August 4th. I'm pretty sure she has shown me it every single day since she lost it :)

One final thing I want to share with you. One thing in school that the kids will do a lot of is poetry memorization. This week they memorized the poem, The Caterpillar.

A picture just to make you smile!

Have a good day everyone!

40 Something

2011-08-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated this lady:

No she is not my sister. Knock it off! She's my mother, and I'm proud of that. She's residing somewhere in the 40's and nearing the 50's camp. I'll leave that to her.

I had a few words of wisdom for her, now that she's almost 50!

Please stay off of tricycles.

Singing and Dancing on tables is NEVER allowed!

Let Dad drive

That one is so important it deserves 2 videos. Let Dad drive!

AND most of all keep rocking it Lunch Lady Style!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful mother! I love you with all my heart!

Back to School

2011-08-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are. We completed our first day of school and I would call it a success. My morning began around 4:30 when Salem decided it was time to get up. Nice. We got up for about an hour and then he was ready to go back to bed. So around 5:30 I finally got in the shower and got around for the day. It was nice to spend the morning with Kyle. He usually is my alarm clock as he's leaving for work. After he left, I got the rest of the stuff organized for the day. I'm not normally a morning person, but having over 2 hours to myself, in the quiet of the morning... I may be turning into one.

I told the kids I would wake them up at 8:00. I want to have them on a schedule. I want to get them used to getting up at the same time and keeping on a strict schedule but flexible when need be. I know my kids and they function really well when they are able to know what is coming next. This summer there hasn't been much structure. It's obvious :) It's when the disobedience starts to creep in. The little curiosity of the sinful heart flares up. "Why exactly am I not allowed to do this? What will happen if I do it?" We've dealt with these questions quite a bit this summer. But this morning went really well.

We have been starting our mornings for the past couple of weeks with the book Our 24 Family Ways, which is a book about teaching Christian values, and Leading Little Ones to God, . They are family devotions that we are really enjoying.

What? What's so funny about this picture? Simon is so excited and Grace's hair... There's a story behind the hair.

Grace has a little cousin Ally who has hair like this on the left. Grace always wants her hair to look like this. One problem. Grace's hair is stick straight and will not hold any curl at all. I also didn't feel like sitting and curling her hair for an hour only to have it go flat within 20 minutes. So we decided to sleep in braids last night. That's the story.

When we took them out, we got this!

Nothing a little brush and side ponytail couldn't fix.

We brushed our hair, got dressed and did the annual 1st day of school pictures.:)

Most of the things we did today we're introductions to our new curriculum. The history we did, which is Story of the World, we got to make a timeline. We used pictures that we already had. This was a fun trip down memory lane. Simon decided the best place for this to hang would be in the kitchen above the windows. Hmm... Yep just what I was thinking Simon, *wink wink*

Pay no attention to the filthy blinds!! My mom would be ashamed!

Here they are working on some phonics worksheets. I was excited to see that they remembered quite a bit from last year. We're moving right along. I was quite proud of them.

Then it was the most exciting part of the day for them. Lunch! Gracie helped me pack lunches last night. I figured we would try it out and see if it helped make the day go smooth. (is it smoothly? Is smoothly even a word?) It actually did. I think we will pack lunches from now on. There wasn't a mess to clean up and it only took about 20 minutes. After lunch we finished up a few last things and we were done.

All in all we had a great day. This little guy below was pretty good as well. He took about an hour and a half nap. I did see that he has two new bumps and bruises on his head. He was exploring while we were busy.

I'm pretty excited about this year. It's much better than Kindergarten. I feel like the kids will enjoy the different things we have planned. Check back with me in about 8 weeks and we'll see if I still have this same attitude :) I hope!

This Momentary Marriage

2011-08-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

I want to share a book that I recently read that completely changed our marriage! This book was amazing! One of the opening paragraphs that John Piper writes says, "I mention this cultural distortion of marriage in the hopes that it might wake you up to consider a vision of marriage higher and deeper and stronger and more glorious than anything this culture-or perhaps you yourself-ever imagined."

"The world cannot know what marriage is without learning it from God." Then he writes, the goal of the book, "I pray that this book might be used by God to help set you free from small, worldly, culturally contaminated, self-centered, Christ-ignoring, God-neglecting, romance-intoxicated, unbiblical views of marriage."

This book constantly reminds us of the covenant relationship between, of course husband and wife, but more importantly, Christ and the church. One more thing he writes is, "The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God's glory. That is, it exists to display God. Marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church.And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists."

I can't encourage you enough to read this book. It is even a good one for someone that isn't married. You can go to his website, http://www.desiringgod.org/searches/This%20Momentary%20Marriage?utf8=%E2%9C%93 , and download the book for free, or you can purchase it. Sheesh, I will even let you borrow mine. It's so good! The thing I love about John Piper's books is the constant Scripture references. He shows you where he gets his answers. It's always from Scripture. So check it out!

Can it be????

2011-08-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ok here we go again! I may be at a little more stable time in my life where I can actually do this...more than once every six months... We shall see.

First we need an update. The last time I posted was in April of 2009, 2 years and 4 months ago. Since that time, I lost 60 pounds,

(disgusting I know!)

my children turned 3 and 4

I got pregnant in October, gained 60 pounds all over again, endured 9 months of pregnancy,

had children turn 4 and 5, delivered a beautiful baby boy, Salem, in July,

began homeschooling the kids in September of 2010, ran my first 5k in the Spring of 2011,

lost 50 of the 60 pounds,

had children turn 5, 6 and 1

and finally, ordered 1st grade and Kindergarten curriculum. This brings us up to date. So basically this blog will be the journey of a homeschooling mom of 2, a mom of a 1 year old that enjoys climbing and getting in to everything, as well as a woman who loves her husband a disgusting amount, loves the Lord with all her heart, and is trying to lose the last 10 to 20 pounds. :) Could be a fun ride.

Tomorrow we start our first day of 1st grade and Kindergarten. I'm really excited about this. Simon will be doing Kindergarten for Math and some of the phonics. Otherwise he will be doing all of the 1st grade curriculum that Grace does. Last year, I did all of the Kindergarten with both of them. I was really surprised with the way that Simon kept up. So it looks like he will be able to keep up with Grace for the most part this year. The nice thing about homeschool is you can be more flexible. If I feel that it is going at too fast of a pace, we will slow down, for either one.

We started doing devotions with the kids before they go to bed each night. We are using a book called Big Truths for Little Kids by Susan and Richie Hunt. We have really been enjoying it. Each night Simon has been starting it with prayer. His prayers are so sweet. The first night it started out, "Dear God thank you for this wonderful food." This of course created an occasion for obnoxious laughter. He got his composure and then started again, "Dear God, thank you for this wonderful.....day. Thank you for what you did. Thank you for dying on the cross. Thank you for giving my mom a baby. And God, could you make my mom have one more baby? Amen."

The next night it was the same except, "...And God could you make my mom have two babies? Amen." He built his way up to, "And God could you give my mom six babies? Amen." Finally he just says, "God could you give my mom more babies?" Crazy kid! I'm just thankful that Jesus intercedes our prayers for us :)

I think this will conclude the post. We have a big day planned tomorrow. Tonight we are going to pack our lunches, public school style :), line out clothes and have early baths and bed times. The kids are really excited. Hopefully I can get around to posting a blog and pictures tomorrow. Until then...

Back to it!

2009-09-27T13:37:00.001-07:00

Ok I'm going to get back to blogging. Hopefully soon! My favorite time of year is coming! I love to talk about that!

Still singing

2009-04-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

Here is another video of her singing. I love when she says "Oh, not from yourselves it is the gift of God." The way she says Oh...

Sounds like she has a little vibrato. HA! Seriously she talks better than it sounds. :)

La De Da

2009-04-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning the kids and I were hanging out at home. Kyle was at a Bible Study in Omaha and it was rainy. So we stayed in our pj's for awhile and did nothing. Gracie had my ipod and she was singing so loud! She couldn't hear herself. So I recorded her w/o her knowing it. I love when she realizes what I was doing. She got a little shy. Then there comes the wink. She does this all the time and it cracks me up. She winks ;) The song is by "Seeds Family Worship" and it's Ephesians 2:8 The verse says "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and it's not from yourself. It is the gift of God. It is the gift of God." Then the chorus goes "La De Da, La De Da oh not from yourselves it is the gift of God, it is the gift of God. La De Da, La De Da."

March Madness... whatever that means

2009-03-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Here's my March update. The weather has been amazing here for March. We've had 60's and 70's for alot of this month. So needless to say we have been outside alot! The beginning of the month we went to the circus that comes to town every year. We got to take Kaden with us. It was fun!

The kids always have such a good time together!

The nice thing about this particular circus is cheap light up toys and cheap cotton candy. So that's what we bought. Kaden has cotton candy too, I just don't know where it is.

There's his cotton candy. :) We only stayed for one half. The kids started to get bored.

Of course Gracie pointed out that the ladies were not dressed appropriately. She does not approve of bellys showing. Which we don't either but it's funny to hear her about it. I bought this workout DVD and the lady on the front is wearing a sports bra. She said, "MOM!!! She should not wear that shirt. I see her belly!" So we turned the paper inside out. Won't have to worry about her dressing immodestly!

These elephants were really neat.

Well Simon is completely potty trained which is so nice. He wears a diaper to bed for the night but not naps. A big step for him. He loves to go outside.

Of course this is usually a spectator sport by his sister. She was looking, you just can't see her. She doesn't get why she can't go outside.

My cute little guy! Always a messy face!

Yesterday morning before church I was going to hurry up and do the workout dvd. I put a headband on to hold my hair back. Well Kyle had told Simon that we were going to get ready for church in a little bit. Well here he came. Underwear, white socks, dress shoes and his headband. He said, "I will workout with you." It was hilarious! The best part was when he kept pulling his underwear up really high.

He wouldn't stop running from me so that I could get a good picture.

I think that's about it for March. I'm back to running and working out. So hopefully some results will happen soon. I've been doing this DVD called "The 30 Day Shred" by the lady that is the trainer on The Biggest Loser. Man it's hard but it's good! We'll see if I'm shredded in 30 days.... yeah right!

80 degrees in March?!?!

2009-03-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

Yes we broke yet another record in the weather department yesterday. It was 80 degrees and beautiful! So we took the kids to the park and we went and got an ice cream cone to celebrate. I didn't take many pictures but definitely had to show off, shorts and t-shirts in March! I love this weather and I'm dying for Spring!

Then it was time for a potty break. We don't normally do this in public but he couldn't wait.

School Days

2009-03-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

We decided to let Gracie go to a little Preschool at Ashland United Methodist Church. It's every Tuesday from 9:30 to 3:30. It's a long time! This was her first day. I'm going to homeschool the kids but we thought it would be fun for her to go once a week and have a little interaction with others. However I did think it was going to be a little more learning than I think it has turned out to be. I think it's mostly play. So we may not do it for much longer. We'll see. Actually she really isn't that excited about it. Both days when I ask her how it's going she says, "I don't know." I have no clue what she does because she won't talk about it. It's the funniest thing!
Here was her first day. Daddy called to tell her he loved her and to tell her to have a good day. She was excited! Notice the Dora lunchbox. We pack them a lunch.

Big girl going to school!

We're there

Little brother walking her to school. He thought he was staying too!

Easier than I thought. She started playing and could care less if I was leaving. Simon said, "Bye Mom. I'll be good." He wasn't to excited to leave!

Grace with Ms. Artie (However you spell it) washing her hands.

This was after nap time at school and time to go home.

A Weekend with the Cousins

2009-02-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

We had a really good weekend! On Friday, Kaden came over to hang out for the night. We decided to all go to Cici's pizza (probably the last time, yuck) and then we were going to go ice skating. Kendra came with us and Crystal & Bill brought Ally and then mom and dad came along as well. It was so much fun! The kids love to go ice skating. Bill decided to try his first time ice skating this night. It was hilarious!! One time around he told Kyle, "I only had to touch the side 14 times this time." HA HA! You should see his bruises! Oh my! I actually was taken out by a little kid. It was amazing! I was helping the kids and all of sudden I was up in the air and I seriously could see my feet up and I was headed down. It hurt! The same kid actually almost took Kendra out too. Punk! :)
After we went ice skating it was time to go home. We had Ally come over to stay the night too! It was so much fun! Then we woke up for pink pancakes. Then we took Grace, Simon & Kaden to see Madagascar 2 at the cheap theatre. Then finally that night the kids went over to play at Kaden's for a few hours while Kyle & I went out with our friend's Audrey & Fred. Then of course Sunday is always great. We really love our church and church family! They are amazing! So we had church and then the Bible study was at our house so 3 families with a total of 6 kids came over. It was a great weekend!! Here are some pictures.

Grace & Kaden at Cici's. They are buddies!

Daddy & Simon... seriously the best dad ever!

Grandma & Ally!

Grace & Ally. They are buddies too :)

Ready to ice skate. I think this picture was taken right before Simon pooped his pants. Not even kidding!

Bill & Ally ready for their big adventure!

These didn't turn out. I think Iwas trying to keep from falling myself.

I love this picture. Kendra was helping Kaden skate but in the background is Bill & Ally. I don't know why but this picture makes me laugh so hard.

Maybe this is why I laugh so hard at the first picture. Because I know this is coming!

This, I think, was Ally's favorite part :)

Bill got in line for Limbo

Bedtime! The pallet-- remember these Lori?

Yeah Simon ended up not sleeping with everyone. He couldn't behave!

The next morning, ready for breakfast! I love this picture!

Pink pancakes! We had the for valentines day so the kids wanted them this morning.

There always has to be bathtime!! They all love taking baths together. That night at Aunt Lori's house they wanted a bath again :)

2009-02-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

Please watch this video! It's a video of John Piper and what he has to say to Obama about abortion. It's amazing! I love this guy! It's only about 4 minutes long and very encouraging!

Seeds Family Worship

2009-02-18T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to teach the kids to memorize Bible verses for awhile. Grace & Simon both learn things pretty well by memorizing them to a song. Grace knows how to spell her name and she knows her address both because of a song. Today when I was looking at the Girl Talk blog that is below ;), I found this band called Seeds Family Worship on there. It just takes Scripture and puts them to music. I know my kids like to listen to songs that have kids singing to them and this band is an adult singing and then kids in the background. Surprisingly it is not annoying! There is alot of kid's music out there... and I would NEVER be able to listen to it. But this actually isn't bad. I think it will be good for me as well as the kids because I will be singing them and memorizing Scripture as well. We bought the yellow cd called Seeds of Faith. It's good! I love the song Grace. The cd's are $9.99 on iTunes.

Girl Talk

2009-02-18T07:37:00.000-08:00

Kyle recommended a blog to me last week that I have really enjoyed! I wanted to share it with the rest of you. It's a blog by C.J. Mahaney's wife, Carolyn, and his 3 daughters. It's a biblical perspective on just about every area of life. I think the current mini-series they are going through is on single living but if you go through the archives there are a TON of different topics that will relate to you and your life. I have printed off about 100 pages, :) , of articles that I want to read and hopefully will benefit from. http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/ is the web address. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

25 Random & Useless Things About Me

2009-02-09T20:13:00.001-08:00

Everyone's doing this and so I'm going to give in to peer pressure and do one as well :)

1. I LOVE to read obituaries. It's the part of the paper that I save for last b/c it's my favorite. We don't get the paper so one of the first things I do on the computer in the morning is read them. My mom said when I was younger that she found a book where I was doing games, who was the youngest and oldest, how they passed away, and who had the most survivors. ** A side note, Stephen King did this as well **

2. I HATE wearing shoes! I would wear flip-flops year round if I could so that I can easily kick them off.

3. I eat ketchup on alot of things including pizza & chips. It totally grosses my sister out!

4. I love harmonizing to anything and everything. On occasion I will harmonize to bands like Demon Hunter and a few rap cd's. I can't help it!

5. When I was in 6th grade, I lied about needing glasses. I went to the optometrist and faked my way through the exam. Ended up getting bi-focals that were really expensive. Sorry Mom & Dad. But I needed glasses. Like they were cool or something ????

6. On the subject of eyes, I used to love to put my sister's contacts in after she went to bed. I never could figure out why when I got them in I couldn't see myself. I wanted to see what I looked like. As if it changed my appearance.

7. I love to find new recipes. I follow about 25 blogs that are all about recipes. I don't know why I'm obese?!?!

8. I am obsessed with knowing the weather. Another one of the things that I do in the morning is check weather.com If you haven't noticed, on the right hand side of my blog is a weather tracker. I love it!

9. I think I will someday be classified as schizophrenic. I hold different situations in my head all day long. I think about "What if this would have happened?" "I would have said this" or "I should have said this". Or "What if this does happen?" I have been through every possible situation in life... in my head.

10. I actually do not like sweets very much.In fact I would rather have mashed potatoes than just about anything. That's where my daughter gets it.

11. I have had the same best friend since 1st grade. Kendra and I have been through just about everything together!

12. I am really close to my parents and my sister. I have never seen a family be as close as we are. Now my family has grown and we are all just as close.

13. For as long as I can remember, I have prayed and asked God to let me die before ANY of my family because I wouldn't be able to handle it. We often joke, as a family, that we are all going to get into a van and drive off a cliff :) Don't get too excited over this one. It's just a joke. It just shows how close we all are.

14. I do not like to drive over bodies of water. I hate it!

15. I can remember my dreams like no other. Sometimes I have to remind myself that they are not reality because they are so vivid and I get into them like they are true.

16. I have a noise in my left ear that is constantly there. When you hear your babies heartbeat while they are in the womb, that's exactly what it sounds like. ALL THE TIME!!! Just about makes me crazy!

17. I have the best husband and kids in the world! I love them so much and would NEVER change anything about them or about my life and where I am.

18. I really like to dance. I think this is a funny one because I don't think most people would know this. I love when the kids want me to dance with them. It's an excuse I make to do something that I actually like!

19. I played the viola in 6th grade. I only brought it to class twice out of the entire semester because I stepped on it and broke after the second class. Somehow I still passed.

20. My biggest accomplishment most recently was losing 30 pounds this fall. I built up to running 3 miles. Now I just need to lose 35 more and I will be happy happy!

21. I started using anti-aging cream this week. Underneath my eyes I found wrinkles. So this cream is supposed to tighten it.

22. I have never died my hair. I cut it, alot, in fact it needs it. But never color. The day I have more than 5 gray hairs is the day I die it.

23. In one year alone, I have met a few new ladies that I LOVE so much. That I know the Lord has placed in my life. I hope that these are relationships that I get to enjoy for a long time. 4 specifically have kids that are my kids ages and I look forward to growing up with them. I am so grateful to God for bringing us together.

24. I have never smoked a cigarette and I never ever will!!

25. The most important fact about me is that Jesus Christ has saved me! His blood covers all unrighteousness in my life and one day I will spend eternity in Heaven. You can forget the other 24 facts about me but please remember this. My number one priority in life is to love the Lord and to glorify and honor Him in everything I do.

Katelynn Rose Morgan

2009-01-21T04:51:00.000-08:00

Katelynn is here! My sister had her baby on Monday the 19th at 11:33pm. She was 8 pounds 1 oz and was 20 inches long. She is absolutely beautiful! Crystal was having contractions the entire day and then they ended up having to take her c-section because her heartrate had increased a little. So out she came and she is doing wonderful. Crystal is recovering well too. When I left yesterday she was sitting up in the chair. She is such a good mama. They are doing awesome!!!

Ice Skating

2009-01-19T14:35:00.001-08:00

We took the kids ice skating on Saturday with Kendra. It was so much fun! I think it is going to be a weekly thing around here. They skate from 1 to 3. Grace was really good at it. Of course she had to use the little walker thing, but she did it. She skated the entire time. The only time she got off was when we had to leave. Now Simon.... Kyle got him hockey skates b/c "My son will not wear figure skates!" and Simon couldn't stand at all. After awhile he was just dead weight and would not even try to stand up. So Kyle set his pride aside :) and got him figure skates. He could actually do it a little but he was just frustrated. So his first skating experience wasn't that exciting and it ended really fast. I didn't have as many pictures as I thought. I did take a LOT of video though. But here are a few from Saturday.

It was so funny b/c Grace was out on the ice by herself skating for awhile. We were standing in the box watching. She was so fun!!!

My new picture

2009-01-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

The new picture that I have above, is a plaque thing my brother-in-law Neil made. I LOVE IT!!!! My mother and father-in-law have one at their house and everytime I see it I tell Kyle that I would love to have one. We have even seen shops that do them but they are quite expensive. Neil made this for us. So it will mean even more that he made it. I LOVE it. It's on my baker's rack in between the kitchen and living room for all to see! My new favorite thing in my house :)

Winter Update

2009-01-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

Ok well this could take awhile. I haven't updated since November. What has happened since then?
Well we had Thanksgiving which was fun. I have no pictures from that. I turned 24 the 2nd of December. No big deal. Once Thanksgiving is over then everything is full force Christmas!!! Makes me excited on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This Christmas I had a couple of fun parties. It was a lot of fun. I had a Jar Party again that I have for just ladies. We really had a good time. We had dinner, a jar exchange, played some games, and sang Christmas carols. It was such a good time!! I just realized that I have no pictures from that either. :(
The weekend before Christmas we had a couple's Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. This was a blast!! There was a white elephant gift exchange. It was quite interesting. I DO have pictures from that. Here they are.

Then we had Christmas Eve. This is when we get our Christmas pajamas. My mom loves to get the flannel with the shirt and matching pants. Well this year I found her matching booties too :) My mom bought my dad pj's and they had matching boxers. It was hilarious.

Then of course we had what I had been waiting for, forever I swear. Christmas morning!!

Simon had a dinosaur filled Christmas. It was alot of fun! Simon also got a Spiderman bike. His first bike. Grace got a Jeep that she can drive. She loves it! This is all their presents just from Grandma & Grandpa LaPorte and us.

Then we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Swafford's and opened MORE presents. The kids loved it!!!

By about 12 that afternoon, Simon was done!

Until about 4:00. Then it was time to..... SLEIGH RIDE!!! It was a white Christmas. I love it! This is the second year in a row. This year it was warm enough to sleigh ride.

Uncle Billy went too!

When it was all said and done, this is what we ended up with, minus all the clothes.

For Christmas Grace wanted a Jack-in-the-box. She's so funny. So Santa Clause found one... way too expensive... but what do you do when that's the only thing they ask for, for 2 months. You HAVE to!
So Christmas night, here she was with her Jack.

After Christmas was over, Uncle Billy turned 30. We all went to Famous Dave's for dinner. Bill had a surprise visitor. :)

His visitor....

Family & Friends to celebrate

Little Ally

Papa Jim w/ a prop from the visitor

Grace & Grandpa

Kim & Jas

Roberto

Crystal & Poppa Jim

Ms. Grace

New Year's Eve we went to my parent's house and hung for the night. Since we stay late we always just spend the night over there so we're not out on the roads. We woke up and my mom made us a big breakfast. It was so much fun!

This was the next morning. My favorite!!

That brings us pretty much up to this past week or so. My little cousin Kaden came to stay the night for a few nights. We had a blast! There are a lot of bathtub pictures that I think I'll keep to myself. But they are so cute. The kids all play so well together! He's a fun kid! Here are some from those nights.

Of course a silly picture.

Then my favorite picture.
They are all buddies!

So today....
For Christmas the kids got new snowsuits and snowboots. Well usually by now we've had quite a bit of snow. Of course it hasn't snowed once since Christmas day. So they haven't used them yet. Well this morning we woke up to snow! Hardly any at all, but it was an excuse to use our new "kid shovels" and our snowsuits and boots. They helped Kyle shovel the driveway. Grace actually could do it. It was really cute! Simon, well..... he just likes to cause trouble sometimes.

Look how good she did

That's pretty much it.

Other things going on: My sister is 39 weeks pregnant and we are anxiously waiting for baby Kate to make her debut. I am really excited!! It's been a few years since we had a baby around. It will be awesome! My sister let me know this week that if she has her naturally then I get to come in the room with her and Bill. I am soooooooooooooooo excited! I can't even tell you. It will be such an awesome experience. It really means alot to me. If she doesn't go into labor on her own, then they have a c-section scheduled for the 30th. I will definitely have pictures and updates when that time comes. So check back because it could be any day now! Pray for Crystal and the delivery!!

Well if you made it to the end.... I'm so proud of you. This is really long. That's what I get for waiting 2 months to post. I should have more time! See ya next time!

Time for an Update

2009-01-16T21:03:00.001-08:00

Ok I haven't updated in a LONG time. So I am going to. Just in a little bit. But I promise :)
I deleted my facebook so I should have more time to update this blog.

Santa Clause is Coming to Town

2008-11-22T12:32:00.000-08:00

We went to the mall today for the annual welcoming of Santa Clause. Simon didn't get to go because he was sick this morning. He's fine now. So Simon and Kyle stayed home. But Gracie went. She was so excited! She even sat on his lap.

Don't worry, we will go back and get Simon's picture taken too! Ally and Crystal, Bill, Mom & Dad, and Nichole & Justin all went. We had so much fun! Now we are going to my parent's house for a Christmas movie day! FUN FUN!

Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

2008-11-21T10:54:00.001-08:00

Well today is my dad's birthday!!! I think he's 51 or 52. Man, I can't believe I can't remember.... I do good remembering my own age. Give me a break!

So I found this recipe online (I can't remember exactly where) and I'm going to try and make it. It's Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins. Sounds amazing huh?

Here's the recipe if anyone wants to try it.

1 c. butter, softened
1 8oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. fresh cranberries, dusted with 2 Tbsp. flour (I'm going to try Craisins in half the batch and see how that works)
1/2 c. pecans, chopped (or other nuts)

Preheat oven to 350
Beat together butter, cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and eggs
Mix together in another bowl: flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in cranberries and nuts. Add together wet ingredients. Stir until just combined - do not over stir.
Immediately fill muffin tins or cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter.
Bake until inserted toothpick comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes.
Let cool 3 to 5 min. before removing from pans.
Makes 18 to 24 muffins.

YUM!

Silver Dollar City

2008-11-19T12:46:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, we finally made it to Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. We went down with our friends Audrey & Fred and stayed at Audrey's parents house. It was amazing! It definitely got me in the Christmas mood!

This first picture was on the way to Silver Dollar City. It was in the mid 30's the entire day. So VERY cold! The wind blew quite a bit which didn't help. But I honestly think, if it would have been 70 or 80 degrees, it just would not have been right! Christmas needs to be cold to be Christmas. So we bundled all up. The kids had their new long johns on under their clothes and we kept, for the most part, pretty warm.

When we got there, we waited in line for the buses to take us to the park. Grace was so excited to see that she was finally going to get to ride on a school bus. When Marlene asked her, at the end of the day, what her favorite part was, she said "Riding on the white and yellow school buses." Of course!

Our first stop inside the park, the bakery. We had to get coffee and hot chocolate. The kids wanted a gingerbread cookie. These were the best homeade fresh cookies I've ever had!

This is the huge wreath at the entrance. It was beautiful at night all lit up. Too bad my camera died!

This was one of the first stores we went into. There were probably 50 Christmas trees all decorated different. I think my theme for next year's tree will be a Santa Clause tree. You should have seen this one. It was awesome!!

Probably the coolest thing at the entire place. This humongous tree. It was amazing! Don't we look like big dorks in that sled. Wait til you see the next picture.

I hate this picture of me. But the rest of the family looks good so I'll suck it up.

There were some really cute kid rides. Grace was hanging on to the little brother. I loved this!

This should tell you how cold it was. The kids were putting the hats over their faces to keep the wind out. We were waiting in line for hot chocolate so it was ok after this.

This store is exactly how every store looked. The entire thing was lit up. Much prettier than the house on National Lampoon's Christmas. Trust me!

This was the light show at the end of the night. This is the big tree all lit up at night. They have it and the rest of the trees surrounding it, lit up and synchronized (sp?) to music. It was amazing!!!

This is Fred & Audrey and little Solomon that we went with. They are SO much fun! Audrey and I rode together then entire 6.5 hours (which is supposed to only take 4 but our husbands had to drink 10 gallons of liquid between each gas station so we stopped quite frequently) there and the whole way back. I'm pretty sure there wasn't but about 5 seconds of silence the entire time. I don't know about Audrey but I had such a good time!!

Then here we are! Kyle flashing his gang sign. Big dork! But I do love him!

If any of you ever get a chance to go during Christmas, I HIGHLY recommend it. It's amazing! Silver Dollar City is Christian owned and they are so big on family. We went to a live Nativity show and it was amazing! The Gospel was given and not in a cheesy way either. They told how Jesus died for sin and gave the greatest gift: GRACE! It was awesome! Then we went to a show of Frosty the Snowman and they turned Frosty's story into how our sins are washed white as snow. They sang that song "White as snow, white as snow, though my sins were as scarlet...." It was amazing! Yeah that part brought me to tears.
Then they had a light parade. People were dressed up as all different things with lights all over and they walked through the entire park. It was so neat!!!
So this is definitely something we are going to make an annual event. We loved it!

Family Pictures

2008-11-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

My friend Audrey took our family pictures for us this fall. I'm sure most of you have seen them on Facebook. But here they are if not.

It's Christmas Time

2008-11-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

We put our tree up last night! I used gold this year and it turned out better than I thought. I liked last years better, but I like this one too. It's a change!

These are a few of the ornaments on the tree that I really love! The Merry Christmas one is my favorite!

This was last years tree. I like the color.

Why I LOVE (understatement) Christmas

2008-10-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

1. JESUS

The most important reason I love Christmas is because is it is the time that we remember the birth of our Savior Jesus. Why this King would choose to clothe Himself in flesh and become a baby, a baby born to die for the sins of God's people, is the most amazing thing to think about for me. To satisfy God's wrath on sin and allow away for sinners to be justified by God. He was born into this world, and lived a perfect life and then was killed for this. But all in the perfect and wonderful plan of God. AMAZING!!!

Luke 2:8-14 v.8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. v.9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. v.10 Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tid- ings of great joy which will be to all people. v.11 "For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. v.12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." v.13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: v. 14 "Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward
men!"

2. The Music!
Christmas is never complete without the lovely trio of Simon, Alvin, and Theodore. Annoying at times yes, but definitely a classic.

What is Christmas without Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. This whole cd is great!!

All growing up, we would go to Krug Park and drive through to see all the Christmas lights. We had one particular cd that we always listened to. To this day all of those songs remind me of those times. My sister and I knew every word to ever single song and would sing them the entire time through the park. Some nights that we went through, it was stopped cars all the way to the entrance. It's a mile around the entire park so you can imagine how long that could take to get through there. But it is some of the best memories that I have growing up. This year I bought several of the songs off of that cd and I'm really excited to carry them on with my family now. By the way, the 22nd Krug Park turns their lights on. :) Some other songs are: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause by Jimmy Boyd The Little Drummer Boy by Harry Simeone Choral Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer by Gene Autrey or Burl Ives
And my all time favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night. I remember one night, just a few nights before Christmas, there was a Christmas show on where a bunch of famous singers sang Christmas music. I remember seeing Martina McBride sing O Holy Night. I have loved it ever since. I remember going in the bedroom and singing this song as loud as I possibly could and trying to sound just like her. When I first started buying Christmas music, I wouldn't buy the cd unless it had this song on there. I'm really excited because tomorrow (HALLOWEEN), they start playing non-stop Christmas music until Christmas day on 2 Kansas City radio stations!!!

3. The Movies
1. Santa Clause 1, 2 & 3
2. Charlie Brown Christmas
3. Home Alone 1 & 2
4. Polar Express
5. Santa Clause is Coming to Town
6. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
7. The Grinch
8. Frosty the Snowman
9. The Christmas Story
10. Elf
11. A Christmas Carol
12. Miracle on 34th Street
13. Pee Wee's Christmas
14. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
15. It's a Wonderful Life
And channel 32 which is ABC Family, plays Christmas shows & movies starting December 1st thru Christmas day. I LOVE IT! That's one big reason we recently got cable. (At least for me)

4. Decorating the Tree
Growing up we always made decorating the tree a big deal. I will as well in time. The kids are a little small for it. We always had the really pretty traditional tree at home. It was fake but now I know why. Much easier to take care of and less of a mess. We used colored lights, lost of homeade and different color balls, and then silver tensil. It was soooo beautiful. Our first couple of years together we did this as well. 2 years ago I decided to do something different. I went with a snowflake theme. So it was red ribbon with white snowflakes on it, silver beads for the garland, white snowflakes and red balls with white snowflakes. I love it! But this year I'm doing something different. I'm doing gold and red. I'm not quite sure if I like gold or not, but this year that's what I'm doing. I will be putting up the tree within the next few weeks so I will post pictures for sure!

5. The Memories
Definitely not in this order. But I have sooo many awesome memories of Christmas time. When I was really little we used to go to Granny's on Christmas Eve. I always remember Granny would have a tv on that would play old Christmas cartoons. I loved that! She also, poor thing, had some of the ugliest little Christmas trees I had ever seen. But that's what she loved :) I remember going back into the back bedroom and playing with all of our cousins. Usually Aunt Rhondi would come back there and sing Christmas songs with all of us kids. Then we would bust open a pinata. Seriously if you could have seen how small this room was with about 8 to 10 kids in it, with a broom stick... oh my. How someone did not get hurt, I don't know. Then the most exciting part was when Santa would come. We would sit on his lap and tell us what we wanted. I have this really weird thing where I look at people's hands and think about them. Yeah let me explain. (Off track here, I remember looking at both of my grandparents hands when they both were diagnosed with cancer and thinking to myself, "I want to remember these hands and never forget who this person was." To this day I can remember distinctly what my Grandma Swafford and Grandpa Osteen's hands look like.) But anyway, I remember looking at Santa's hands and thinking, "These hands will be in my house tonight!" I remembered thinking about how they were going to hold my presents and put them under my tree. Isn't that funny? Those memories are the best....

Then we would wake up Christmas morning, that is if I ever even got to sleep, and I would wake everyone up. For some reason I was always scared to go out into the front room. I don't know if I thought Santa was going to be there or what. But it scared me. So my mom would go in and plug in the tree. We would come out and there were always SOOOOOOO many presents. My parents were the best parents ever at Christmas. Well they are always the best parents ever. But they always made it so special. When you have a family like ours that loves each other soooooooo much, you understand what I mean. We have always enjoyed each other so much and that's what made times like this so special. I was always the one that would pass out everyone's presents. My sister and I always had on new matching pajamas that we got for Christmas Eve. A fun tradition my parents started for us.

A Christmas I really remember was our New Kids on the Block themed Christmas. We had everything NKOTB. Sleeping bags, barbies, pillows, books, tapes.... you name it we had it. I could go on and on and on about the memories from Christmas. There are so many of them. My sister and I love to get together and look at old Christmas home movies. We watch them over and over. We know when our favorite parts are coming up b/c we have watched them so much. My dad has always been the funniest guy in the world. But Christmas morning, he is... I don't know. Just the Best EVER!!! I can't explain it. If I can find old pictures from Christmas, I will scan them and put them on here. There are some good ones.

So this is just a tiny insight to why I love Christmas so much! I don't know if anyone will make it reading til the end, but it was fun typing it out anyway. :)

I just found this picture. One of the kids got it and bent it all up. But it cracks me up. The kids were scared to death of Santa. This was December 2006.

Christmas in Branson!

2008-10-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.bransonsilverdollarcity.com/mini-section/default.aspx?id=55

Go to this website and see. November 14th, 15th & 16th we are going with our friends Audrey and Fred to Bransons. I believe on Saturday we're going to go to Silver Dollar City. It's all about Christmas. So you can imagine how I feel. I'm soooooo excited!!

Go to http://festivals.bransonsilverdollarcity.com/mini-section/?id=55 and watch the little video

Pictures

2008-10-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

I just realized that it's been a really long time since I've put up pictures. I thought I had a post up from when Kyle's parents visited but I guess not. At least no pictures anyway... Well I just went to find them and I've already deleted them. My sister is burning all of my pictures from Picasa for me and I haven't picked them up from her yet. Maybe this weekend I will.

I do have pictures from a Pumpkinfest that we went to in Weston, MO. We got there and ran into my Aunt Lori & Scott and Kaden. The kids LOVE Kaden so this worked out perfect! They all rode the ponies together. It was fun!

We had to have the hats to ride the ponies of course :)
This picture makes me laugh so hard. We were trying to get the kids to get together by the tree to make some cute fall pictures and we looked at Kaden doing this. Lori and I were laughing so hard. He's so cute!!!
What better than a wagon wheel
He always has to be trying to make people laugh.

Waiting for the pony rides

I hate that this picture is blurry! It's my favorite. I love his little hand waving!

This one is probably one of my favorites too! If Grace was a little more to her left it would be. Kaden in the background cracks me up! They are buddies!

Leaving the pumpkinfest w/ kettle korn.

I just like this picture. It's from summer but I love it!

30 POUNDS

2008-10-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you all read my facebook status. But I, as of this morning, have officially lost 30 pounds. We started the diet as you remember on July 14th and we began walking. We have since started running. We started a 10 week program where by the end of 10 weeks you run 3 miles or 30 minutes straight without walking. So far we have worked up to running 8 minutes, walking 2 minutes and repeating that 4 times. This Sunday we start running 9 minutes, walking 1 minute and repeating that four times. If anyone is interested in the running plan please let me know. It's awesome and somewhat easy. You start out running 2 minutes I believe and walking 3.5. Or something like that. You would be surprised how fast you build up. I ran a few weeks ago as far as I could and I ran 2 12 minute miles consecutively without walking. The awesome thing was that I could have kept going but I didn't want to push it too far and hurt myself. So that was pretty exciting! I have dropped 2 sizes. The size I began in was pretty darn tight so technically I should have been in the size above that. I've probably lost 3 sizes. But we'll just say 2 for now. I'm so excited! I have been this size in 4 years. When I got pregnant with Grace. I'm actually 5 pounds lighter than the day I had my first doctor's appointment with Grace. So I'm excited!!!

oh yeah...

2008-10-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that it's 37 degrees right now at 8:08am???? That's why I'm thinking of Christmas so much!

Christmas Trees

2008-10-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

So I had this dream last night about Christmas trees... I just may try some ideas from my dreams.

I went to Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago with my mother-in-law and they have this fake tree that is BEAUTIFUL!!! It's green of course, with red berries on it and fake snow all over it. I never thought to put that goopy white cheesey looking stuff on my tree. But I think I am going to try this year. Oh I can't wait for Christmas! We will hopefully put our tree up on Nov. 14th. Pictures for sure! I'm really excited!

I'm going outside!

2008-10-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Today is supposed to be 75 degrees out and I don't have any of the kids that I watch today, so we are going to the park. The kids and I are going to take Grace's bike and Simon's "motorcycle" and go out for the day. I'll take pictures and post more later.

I haven't been on in the internet in about 3 weeks so that's why there haven't been any posts. We tried to switch from DSL with a home phone line to Direct Internet, that was supposed to take 3 hours, and it ended up lasting 3 weeks. That's ok, we're getting free internet service for a month so that'll do.

Kyle's parents were here for a week and we had such a good time. We actually didn't get very many pictures but I will post more later of what we did take. The only bummer of the visit was that Granny passed away. She had a massive brain hemorrhage the 2nd night they got here and she hung on for 2 days. So that was hard. But other than that we had such a good time with them. Pictures to come....

Just an Update

2008-09-16T06:24:00.001-07:00

Ok my little friend Anna gets pushy if I don't update regularly, so this is for her :)

Ok what's new.... Around the house we have done a few things. Grace has a new big girl bed. We bought her a full size bed with really really bright bedding. She loves it and will only sleep in that bed now. I'm really excited about this b/c we were having 2 visitors in our bed quite regularly. It was not fun. So now I have my husband back and occasionally a Simon will sneak in.
I'll put a picture up later of this. She's in bed and I don't want to wake her up.

We bought a baker's rack at Nebraska Furniture Mart last weekend. I LOVE it! We had this big open space in the kitchen that was really awkward. So that's filled and it's decorated for fall. I love this time of year. Christmas is just around the corner!!!

We also painted the living room. It was just a plain cream color but now it's a brown. We had this purple wall that I have hated since we moved in. We finally painted over it. Here's a before and after picture of that. Wow, I really hate the purple wall after seeing this!!!

Before:

After:

I think that's it as far as the house. This Thursday, Kyle's parents are coming out for a week. They will stay with us. That was another reason in getting the bed for Grace. Now they will have a place to sleep :) We are so excited for them to get here! The kids have been talking about for a few weeks now. I think we may go to the Weston Red Barn Farm and take pictures and pick out pumpkins. I love the farm there and it's always decorated for fall. So I will have plenty of pictures next week I'm sure.

I'm still on the weight loss/running. Kendra and I this week started a 10 week running plan. By 10 weeks we should be able to run around 3 miles or more. I'll let you know how that's going. We have both lost at least 20 pounds. It's such a good feeling. Now I just have to stick with it and resist those dumb temptations of good food. I'm really sick of healthy food. But I have to do it!

Well I guess that's it. I'll post more pictures of the Grandparent's visit when I get time next week! I hope you are having a great week!

American Idol

2008-08-31T00:28:00.000-07:00

My sister, Kendra, Nichole and I all went to the American Idol concert tonight. It was the top 10 from the show. It was in Kansas City at the Sprint Center and it was AMAZING!!!! Kendra and I sat in the floor, section 3 row 18. Now to you that doesn't sound like too good of seats but they were awesome!!! Part of the stage came out and we were about 8 rows from that. It was crazy!!! They were all really really really good. Everyone sounded great. It was too short though. Here are some pictures!!

This building was right by the Sprint Center just as you get off of the Broadway bridge. Welcoming David Cook. It was really cool!

Chikeze was really fun!

Ramielle I didn't like during the show, but tonight she was actually really good.

Michael Johns was fantastic! He was really funny! Dancing and really good. He did the Queen songs that he did on the show and there were amazing! Each singer did 3 songs and then the 2 David's sang about 5 or so. It was great!

Kristy Lee Cook was probably my least favorite. Of course she had sparkles on.

Carly Smithson was next and she was amazing! She has such a powerful voice. Her outfit was a bit disturbing but her voice was good!

My camera died after I got one picture of Brooke White. My sister and Nichole were so nice and gave us their floor seats. They sat in the back in the bleachers. They said that they were old lady concert goers. Just fine with sitting and enjoying the show. Kendra and I were the annoying girls yelling and standing through the entire show. Hey if you come to a concert you better expect that stuff!

but anyway, here's Brooke White. She came up through the floor on the piano. Oh by the way my sister gave me her camera to take the rest.

Then Jason Castro! He's always been one I really really liked. His voice is so soothe and pure. He did really really well.

Then came Sayesha. Besides almost falling out of her dress, her voice was good.

Now for the BEST!!!!
David Archuleta was awesome! I can't even tell you! He, like Brooke, came up through the floor with the piano. I have so many pictures of him and David Cook. Here are just a few!

This was his best song. Stand By Me w/ cello.

And finally.................. DAVID COOK!!!! I can't even tell ya!

Yes he's looking at me :)

Everyone came out at the end. It was awesome!!!

Congratulations Robbie & Cori OMeara

2008-08-28T13:38:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Robbie & Cori! They are pregnant with their first child! We're so excited for them!!!!

2 miles

2008-08-25T12:18:00.001-07:00

I don't want to get obssessed or annoying about this but I'm excited! Kendra and I did our first 2 mile run last night without walking. Exciting! I've lost 18 pounds as of today!

5 weeks, many many many miles later, and dumb muscle mass!!!

2008-08-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at the computer with Shrek playing in the background, my legs have never felt like this in my life, I'm tired, and I am in desperate need of a shower. Kendra, my mom and I walked from Hyde Park to Bartlett Park tonight. If you don't know how far away that is, it's a little over 5 miles. We ran some of it. Kendra and I have walked at least 4 times a week for 5 straight weeks. Sometimes we have done all 7 days. Yesterday started 6 weeks. The frustrating part is that the scales say I've only lost 14 pounds, but I have lost an entire size in my pants and most of my shirts that I couldn't wear in public because they looked absolutely sickening, I can now wear!!! So that's encouraging. I can also finally run 1 and a quarter mile without stopping. Maybe more if i would really push myself. So we're still sticking with this. I have a size 8 dance that I do. You'll have to see it. It's quite cute. Tomorrow I am getting an Eliptical machine from my sister's Mother in law Diane and then my parents are giving me a Total Gym. So I'm definitely ready for the winter. We've started recently trying to run more. Last night we went to the highschool track and ran 9 laps. We would run one, walk one and so on. It was nice. Our new goal we set tonight was to run the 5k in the Apple Blossom Parade next Spring. So that we are going to do. There will be pictures. No pictures now, I'm still a fat cow :) We're getting there though right Kendra? Ok well I can't stand the smell of myself any longer! I'm going to take a shower!!! If anyone has any healthy recipes they can pass along, Please DO! I'm sick of chicken!!!

Butterflies in the tummy

2008-08-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

Today I went to my myspace page and viewed my profile and I'm not kidding, my stomach started getting the giddy feeling. Go to http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=100895552
and you'll see why. Don't think I'm stupid. But I love that time more than anything in this world. The music just gets me in the mood. I went to Walmart today and smelled some candles; warm apple pie and mulled cider. Made me even more excited!!! 134 days!!!!

Gracie quote

2008-07-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

My cousin's little boy, Kaden, came over to spend the night tonight. We were making our final potty break and they were all in there together. Simon sits on the potty and goes, then Kaden stands up to the potty and goes. Grace is watching and taking all of this in. She says, "Mommy, when I get bigger, I'll have a wee wee and I'll pee standing up too."

I Love Christmas

2008-07-24T20:12:00.001-07:00

Do you know that there are only 153 more days until Christmas? That's not many!

Quote

2008-07-24T07:52:00.001-07:00

God gives imperfect women to imperfect men so they can be heirs together of the grace of life and become something more together than either one of them would ever be alone.
----------From the book Created to Be His Help meet by Debi Pearl

Clarification for my sister..... NERD :)

2008-07-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

No the doctor did not give me bubblegum flavored medicine. That was a fake scenario but it's what I felt like. She just gave me an antibiotic and sent me on my merry way. She said if it was Strep then the medicine would take care of it.

After my blog, my sister messaged me and said, "Did she really give you bubblegum flavored medicine." HA HA! Poor Crystal, she's special huh?

Am I 5 or 23?

2008-07-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah so I have an ear infection and strep throat. Ok no she didn't swab me for strep but I've had strep throat (and I'm not kidding) probably 15 times in my life and I know what it feels like. I've had a fever for a few days and I can't swallow, there's white pockets and it's red. Why haven't they taken out my tonsils?!?!?! Anyway, I went to the doctor and saw the nurse. So I was telling her that I get ear infections all the time and strep throat. This is the 2nd time in about 3 months I've had strep this year. So she says "well you could get your tonsils taken out but you're a little old for that. I'd also say you could get tubes in your ears but you're a little old for that." Ok talk about feeling like an idiot. She in no way tried to make me feel like that but I felt like that.

Jessie says: "Hi I'm 23, I have an ear ache and it hurts when I swallow."
Doctor says: "Hmmm, let me take a look...... Yep.... It's red.... Let's swab that and see."
Doctor comes back in...
Doctor says: "Yep it's strep and you have a pretty good ear infection. I'm just going to fill out this prescription for you. Don't worry it doesn't taste yucky, I gave you bubblegum flavor. You should feel all better in a couple of days."
Jessie says: "Thanks Nurse Kelly! Can I have a sticker too!"

THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!! I'M 23 WILL THIS EVER GO AWAY!!!!!!

Ear Infection.... AGAIN!

2008-07-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

Are you kidding me?! I have another stinking ear infection! I have already had one this year and I am not happy to have another one. I've been up since just after 4 this morning in pain! I hate pain! So I'm going to make a fun trip to the doctor and then I'm going to ask them to put tubes in my ears like I'm 4. I got online this morning to find out ways to prevent ear infections (which by the way there really aren't many ways) and everything talks about when your child has ear infections. There is nothing online on adult ear infections. (There probably is but I didn't search long.) So I'm tired and my ear hurts. This should be a fun day :)

VBS

2008-07-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first night of Vacation Bible School. I have never experienced a VBS like this. All the adults and all of the kids dress up like Bible times. The downstairs is totally transformed into a marketplace in Jersualem. You can only imagine how cute I look in a costume, lol! But everyone looks awesome! They sing songs and right now everyone's looking for the King of the Jews. Everyone's been saying that the King is coming but we're not sure who He is or what He's like. It's so cute. The pictures aren't so great. I turned my flash off and they aren't as good. But you get the idea.

Slugger

2008-07-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Well we're going to try the whole dog thing again. As most of you know, we've had 3 dogs with no luck. Moses was crazy and went to an old man, Charlie got a new home and Champ.... well he's dead. He was 13 or so though. It was time.
This time we have Kendra's dog. He's a year old and he's a black Scottish Terrier. He's so cute! He's doing awesome so far! Besides pooping in my room while I was vacuuming and Simon stepped in it. But I seriously think I scared the poop out of him. He didn't like the vacuum. The kids love him. Here's some pictures of Slugger.

1 week, 15 miles and 9 pounds later...

2008-07-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yep that's the scoop on the diet so far! Kendra's lost too but I can't remember how much. Today is supposed to be 98 degrees and 103 with the heat index. So I knew I wouldn't walk in that kind of heat. So Kendra stayed the night last night and we got up at 7 this morning and walked 3 miles. Now that's dedication! :)

Diet time again

2008-07-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

Ok I'm at it again! Just go with it ok?
I've walked 12 miles in 5 days. I'm trying to walk 3 a day. Yeah it doesn't add up but I walked one mile the first day 2 the next, and then 3 from there. I'm going to try and jog with it some too. We'll see. Kendra has been my walking buddy and it helps SOOOO much! We walk from my house to Krug Park (where we got married) and around the entire park and back. Exactly 3 miles. We'll add more when the time is ready. First my poor blistered feet have to heal. We started eating healthy July 5th and I've lost 9 since. I always lose a ton right off the bat and then slow down to 1 or 2 a week. But that's alright. Oh and if you were wondering, the last time we dieted I lost 20 and I've since gained EVERY BIT of it back. So I'm back to it. Pray for me! It's really hard and I want to stick to it.

4 Years!

2008-07-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

Today is our 4th Anniversary! Happy Anniversary honey!
We had a great evening. We went to dinner and then went for coffee and hung out at the bookstore. My parents kept the kids and we had a nice time to ourselves.
I can't believe we're already celebrating 4 years. It has went so fast. But it's been an awesome ride. I can't wait for more years!
Yeah you can see the camera in his glasses. Oh well!

Finger Painting

2008-07-07T21:32:00.001-07:00

I think most of you have seen these pictures. In case you haven't I'll share them. I decided to let down my guard a little and let the kids make a mess and have fun. SO here's what you get. Don't forget to watch the video at the end.

2008-07-07T21:18:00.002-07:00

Ready to go swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's "resort".

Simon swimming away. I love these colors!

A little Grandpa and grandson bonding time.

Laura in the ring. This was hilarious!

Grace & Amber! We miss her and Jesse so much!

At the beach. The water was a bit cold!

Aunt Michelle (Best Friend) & Simon. He didn't like it much!

Time for the sandcastles.

Kyle at Lake Elsinore with Simon. I've heard it's called Lake Smell-some-more

Kyle's pedicure. Yes I said pedicure. Just ask..

This was Needles, AZ. $5.19 A GALLON!!!!

All the grandkids with Grandma LaPorte. Or as Simon calls her "Big Grandma." She's nowhere near big! Under 5 foot. :)

I love this picture. Grandma and mini me

A little spiritual discussion time with Grandpa!!

5 generations with Grandpa & Grandma Line. Marre's parents.

Our cousins!!!! We miss them so much! The kids played so well together.

My sister in laws!! Love you guys and miss you! I have discovered that Alicia and I are alike. Big babies... ha ha!!! I'm totally kidding Alicia! We're just softies. And that's a good thing. :) For some reason I have such a hard time leaving Kyle's Grandpa Line. He's such a sweet guy! I really really like him. He reminds me of my Grandpa Osteen that passed away in 2004 and I don't know if it's that or what. But dang I cry every time. Well Alicia and I would just look at each other and the tears would start back up. HA HA HA! We had so much fun with you guys. We can't wait to get back out there!

This was the day of Simon's birthday party. Rain rain rain!!! It was awful!

They took his spoon away from him! What a mess!!

His new "bike"! He's a maniac on this!

Scooter! Spiderman!

Well we are going to Worlds of Fun on Wednesday and Grace's birthday party is on Saturday so I will have new pictures soon hopefully!

Update a month later!

2008-07-07T20:59:00.001-07:00

Wow! It's been awhile. A quick update!

We had an awesome time in California!!! I want to go back! We saw almost all of the family. We got to go to Arizona and see his sister Alicia and Gabe and their girls Hannah and Emily and then we saw Kyle's grandparents and his aunts and uncles. It was so much fun. I'll post pictures later. We got back and had Simon's 2nd birthday party. He got of course way too much stuff. Then most recently we had the 4th of July, as did you. We had so much fun. We went to my parents house and spent the entire day. No one was hurt, too much money was wasted on fireworks, and best of all it was a perfect day weather wise. It was about 80 degrees and no humidity. This is VERY rare for July for us. A perfect day! The next day we went back over to my parents house to eat leftovers and hang out. Well Simon decided that he needed to touch the burning hot BBQ grill. Well he blistered his hands. Then we came home and Simon was playing outside. He can't stand to have his shoes on. So of course he kicked them off. Well I was reading a book while they were playing and I saw him run real fast off of the swing. Before I could tell what he was doing, he started squishing a bumblebee. One of those big fat yellow ones. Then he came screaming and crying to me. So we looked at it and he cried quite a bit. No big deal we thought. Well about an hour later he started throwing up everywhere. He threw up about 5 more times. So I decided to call the free nurses hotline we have in town. The lady told me that he was starting to have an allergic reaction and that I needed to take him to the emergency room. So we took him there and he continued throwing up about 4 more times. So they gave him a shot to help with that and told us that he's allergic to bees. So we have to be really really careful outside now. I have to carry medicine with me wherever I go. Just in case. Then we found out today that Grandma LaPorte (Marre) also got stung on Saturday and she too is allergic to bees. So thanks Grandma for passing this to Simon :) Just kidding. This is such a random update and it's long and kinda boring. SO I think I'm done. I might post pictures in a minute... I don't know.

I Love California

2008-06-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

Hello my little blog buddies; from California! We got here Thursday night and will be here until the 15th. If I don't post pictures before I will have plenty to share when we get home. 10 days!!! We are having a great time. The weather is perfect and the pool water is GREAT! We are going to get to go to the beach this week then at the end of the week we are going to Phoenix to visit Alicia and the rest of the family. We are looking forward to that!!! Talk to you all soon!
Jessie

DAVID COOK!!!!!!

2008-05-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

Oh I'm so excited he won!!! Although I kinda felt sorry for Archuleta after it was over. They both were awesome and neither one of them will be finding their selves working at McD's anytime soon. So it's ok. You should have seen the Kansas City Fox 4 news after it was over. It was awesome!!! Hurry up boys and get out your cd's. I want one!

American Idol

2008-05-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

I can't take it!!!!!AAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! Who's going to win, who's going to win?!?!?!?!?!?! I hate this!!!!
They were both amazing tonight! I want David Cook a tiny bit more than Archuleta. Actually I don't care b/c I think they both will be stars and I will buy both of their albums. SO..... who cares! BUT I STILL CAN'T TAKE IT!!!!! I think Archuleta out sang Cook but oh well. I love them both!!!! Til tomorrow night!

Grace's Words

2008-05-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

A Random Grace Question:

Grace just said to me, "Mommy, I have a question for you!" "What is your question Grace?" "I love you Mommy." Those are my favorite questions!

If you didn't get the email from Kyle the other day, here is something that I thought was so sweet. This is in Kyle's writing.

The other day I was sitting on the couch with my Bible next to me. Grace came and sat next to me and said, "daddy, will you tell me about the Bible?" I answered yes and opened to John 3. I started to read verse one. "Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nick, a ruler of the Jews." Grace immediately turns to me and says, "Juice? I like juice. Do you like Pepsi?" In her head she heard "a ruler of the juice." I laughed hard. Then I tried to read more to her but all she could think about was juice. I will remember that every single time I ever read John 3 again.

Big Boy Bed

2008-05-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

Simon will be 2 in one month exactly. And all this time he has been in a crib. Just this week I thought to myself, "Man he could really climb out of this if he figured it out." He's a boy, he climbs on everything. I just knew it would be a matter of time. The time has arrived. We fed the kids lunch and put them down for a nap today after church. Then we sat down to eat and heard a door open. Grace's door stays open so we thought she was maybe going in his room. No, here comes Simon in the kitchen. Kyle and I looked at each other and started laughing. So Kyle went and hid in Simon's closet and I peeked through the door. And sure enough, he was climbing over and letting himself down. So that's the end of the crib. We went to our friend's house and got a toddler bed. So we'll see how that goes tonight. Please say some serious prayers for us. If you know anything about Simon, you know he is a very difficult and strong willed child. So we may be like the families I've seen on the Super Nanny, where they are after 2 hours still putting their child back in their bed. But he WILL fall asleep in that bed. I'll post pictures later.

I'm going to be an aunt again!!!!

2008-05-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

My sister is pregnant!!!! She is due in January probably! We're so excited for them. A long awaited baby! A miracle and blessing from God!

Full Name

2008-05-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Grace knows that her full name is Grace Noel LaPorte. So today I heard her and Simon playing in her room and she was getting mad. She yelled "SIMON NOEL LAPORTE! I said to stop it!" Then she said, "Did you hear me?" Man I must say that alot.

A big juicy onion....

2008-05-07T08:01:00.001-07:00

Ok can I post a stinking serious blog here? Last week I decided to take the kids to the park. So we decide to start at the slide first. Grace was already at the top and I was walking up the stairs behind Simon. He put his hand on the rail and all at the same time he started to cry and I heard some big type of wasp or hornet fly away. It had to be huge. Yeah Simon put his hand on what ever it was and it stung him on the finger. He was saying, "Ow Mommy, ow Mommy!" But not really crying. So we went down a slide and he kept messing with his finger. I looked at it and it was twice the size as it normally was. All swollen and red! Then his entire hand started swelling up and from his wrist to his elbow had red splotches all over it. So naturally I freaked out! I started walking to the car, figuring that we were getting ready to take an ambulance ride to the hospital. I was seriously soooo scared! Well there were these two people sitting on a bench as I was walking to my car by myself with two kids and one whose arm is falling off and his throat is probably swelling shut because he's allergic to whatever stinking bug just stung him! So I quickly said, in a panicked voice, "Do you know anything about bee stings?" Kinda expecting them to look at it and say, "Oh my that's not good" or "Oh that's natural, I've had plenty in my lifetime." They were however probably in their 60's. But no, I didn't get any concerned response. All I got was, from the gentleman, "Well whatcha do is get a rrrreal juicy onion. Cut it up so all the juices run out and put that on 'er." .............. SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?! So the lady starts in and says, "Well I aways (no I did not spell that wrong) put a good ol' bakin' soda paste on 'em." If I wasn't so scared and in so much of a hurry, I probably would have said, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!" So I just politely said, "Oh ok, thank you." And rushed to my car. Isn't that hilarious?!

So end of the story, my dad got to the park (we were meeting him there) and the splotches were going away. Simon also started acting fine. So we just kept playing. But I thought that was the funniest thing. I felt like I was being video taped. It was crazy! Hope you liked that story :)

No More Binky!

2008-04-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Simon has been done with the binky for 6 days and 5 nights!!! YAY! It actually wasn't as hard as I thought. He even has stopped holding our ears. It was binky and ears or nothing at all. He's getting so big!

2008-04-25T11:20:00.001-07:00

2008-04-24T09:36:00.001-07:00

American Idol...

2008-04-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't posted one of these in awhile so I will. We're getting close to the end and I think it's such a good season! I still can't believe Michael Johns isn't in it. I didn't want him to win but he's definitely better than Jason Castro or Brooke White. Which I believe will join Carly Smithson for the bottom 3 tonight. I think that Brooke White or Carly will go home. I did like Jason last night but he's close to being done. I love David Cook and David Archuleta. My vote is for David Cook. I just think he's awesome! I believe he's going to win it as well. Well actually I think it's going to be VERY VERY close. I definitely think they will be the top 2 though. We'll see. I think last night showed David Cook's versatility. And it was amazing! Some of the words he pronounced were dorky but hey he's still great! We'll see. A few more weeks. What are your thoughts?

In Springtime....

2008-04-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

A little song for the day from my good buddy Willy Wonka!

IN SPRINGTIME THE ONLY PRETTY RING TIME
BIRDS SING
EH, DING A-DING A-DING
SWEET LOVERS LOVE
THE SPRING

Ok--- can I ask you a favor??? Can you please read this from the bottom up? Otherwise it's going to be alot of work for me and it's 12:00 am and I don't want to do that. I just want to go to bed but I want to upload some pictures. So please if you would, start at the bottom of this blog and scroll up. Thanks!!

It's supposed to be in the 70's until Friday (then it's 50's and rain, big surprise) so I'm sure there will be plenty more spring pictures to post. Thanks for reading this difficult blog!!!

The bestest buddies ever!!!!!!!

Volleyball with the kids Care Bear's ball. They were saying "Can we play with our ball now?" We were like, "No net yet." So mean!

Ally laughs so hard at this!

Just a little thing the kids constantly do!!!! They love it!

Isn't she adorable?!?! I love her so much!

SPRING TIME!!!!

She was looking a Rollie Pollie. Of course she's scared of those too. Ally came up later and stepped on it. So it was over :)

Yeah this is a once in a lifetime photo. Ally and Simon have this love hate relationship. I'm sure either she knocked him off this swing in 2 seconds or he got off and told her no.

That's definitely a Coke and definitely a Pepsi uniform!

Can he get fired for this?!?!?!?! Pepsi uniform and a big fat Coke in his hand. There's no denying that that's a coke. I see the white swirls.

Simon wanted in that swing so bad but there was bird poop in it. Even after it's cleaned he won't get in it. He's scared of bugs and birds and basically anything that moves.

Aren't they cute. Of course we had to do there hair the same too!

Macy's a little bit happy. Ally's getting there. Grace still hates me :)

I love these pictures so much! The girls all had the same shirts on. Well gosh that was a dumb statement. Like you can't tell. Grace was ticked off at me, Macy was confused, and Ally was just tired of the camera.. They kinda look like orphans in this picture. HA HA! I love it! (look at Grace's bruised up knees.)

When you see corn-on-the-cob you know it's almost summer time!!!! Ally, Grace, and Simon having a picnic

Yeah the grass needs cut, but our mower broke so we're waiting on the Bush checks to get a nice self propelled one. :)

This one too!

For some reason I love this picture. Her little chubby legs!

Kyle's lovely idea! Let's let the kids write on the side of the garage with sidewalk chalk! Brilliant! So here they all are.

Woops--- one more Transformed picture. This was probably the highlight of the trip. We got to meet Todd Friel who is from Way of the Master Radio. He's hilarious!!! And amazingly tall. They call him Todd "Freakishly Tall" Friel

And FINALLY!!!!! I think Spring is officially here. From all my previous blogs, you know that I have been ready for this FOREVER!!!! We have been outside for 2 days straight. From the time they wake up, til they take a nap, from the time they wake up, till the time they go to bed. It's been awesome! Today was overcast but in the upper 70's. I didn't even think about sunscreen. my kids got a little red today. Sorry guys! But they had so much fun!

This is the drive home.... Beautiful guys!

The beloved Red Robin again. Too bad Bill got hit on by the waiter. And yes I said waiter. HA HA!

The typical Transformed pictures. If you have facebook, you can see the Transformed we went to in Kansas City. Familiar picture above. Of course I think I'm fatter! :)

The picture below and above were outside of Red Robin. The drive was 5 hours and we were crazy by the end of it. Oh yeah, and my camera had a smudge on it and we didn't realize it until half way there. Sorry!

This has been such an awesome weekend and beginning of the week. On Saturday we went to Transformed in Arnold, Missouri. Most of you that read my blog read my sister's blog so you already know what that is. If you don't go to www.wotm.com. It involves Kirk Cameron, you may have seen it before. It's amazing! I can't tell you what it was like this time we went. My best friend Kendra and I have been talking alot lately. And I've been praying for her like crazy!!! Saturday she decided to totally turn her life over to Jesus and live for Him. Understanding the faith and repentence. Praise God! I lost it. She stood up and I was in tears. It was the coolest thing! Please keep her in your prayers. As you guys know, it's so hard when becoming a Christian at first. The enemy goes crazy! So please keep her in your prayers. I'm so excited for her! Kendra you'll never know....

Music

2008-04-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

Music has always been a huge part of my life and I have changed through out my life with music. Growing up it was country music and classic rock for the most part. Then as I got a little older it changed to Christian music. But I think music has definitely made me alot of who I am today. I cannot go anywhere without having the music on. I cannot have the music on without singing along. I am so thankful to God for giving me a passion and love for music. I seriously, could not imagine life without music. If I'm somewhere and I hear the music, I have to follow it. The more I think of it, I don't just love to sing, I just love MUSIC. I love it all. Some people say how you can see God's character through a beautiful sunrise or through a beautiful sunset. They say you can see Him through a scene of the mountains or through a child's laugh. But, when I hear music and I think about the Lord, I am amazed! We will someday be in Heaven and be worshipping Jesus, and I can only imagine what that will sound like. Perfect voices, perfect songs, to the Perfect King! Amazing!!! He created music and loves it and that amazes me too!

This was a song that my mom and a friend of hers wrote a long time ago. It's probably my all time favorite song and alot of times I can totally relate to it.

When the trials in life start getting me down
I go far away where no one's around
Somewhere where I can be all alone
I go and I get lost in a song

Get lost in the sound of the music
Taken away by the song that they play
Leave all my worries behind
Be only aware of what I hear in my mind
Lost in the sound of the music

A song can brighten a cloudy day
Make all the dark clouds seem to go away
So whenever your troubled and everything's gone wrong
Just turn on your radio and listen to a song

And get lost in the sound of the music
Taken away by the songs they play
Leave all your worries behind
Be only aware of what you hear in your mind
Lost in the sound of the music

I think I relate most to this song b/c (and you know it b/c you do it too :P ) when I'm really mad about something I can turn the music up really loud and sing as loud as I can and I feel like something is accomplished. Or if I'm being all sad and sappy I can listen to a sad song and cry just for the heck of it. Alot of people say that smells can take them back to something or bring back a memory more than anything. But music does to me. The Nora Jones song reminds me of the first time I saw Kyle when we were dating and the long horrible plane ride home. The Bebo Norman song reminds me of meeting him for the first time outside of Crystal & Bill's apartment. I could do this for ever. Also, I could probably have a conversation with someone by singing different lines to songs. And I probably would sing about 5000 of them. Kyle probably gets sick of it because most of the time when we're talking, I'll break out in a song b/c he just said a line of a song I know.
Ok this is probably a dumb blog but I was just thinking about music and how much I love it and got all weird and emotional. no I'm not crying and no I'm not pregnant yet :) If I ever learn how to play guitar, I'll record my mom's song and post it... well maybe.

Other stuff...

2008-04-11T14:01:00.001-07:00

Here's the picture I promised you a week ago. They actually slept almost the entire night together in Simon's bed. She ended up getting in bed with us. They're so sweet!

These are uncle Billy's glasses. Bill seriously went in Walmart with these on and asked an employee for help with shoes. Can you even imagine?!?!?!

The next two pictures show my kid's OCD. Grace usually has to get things and line them up perfectly. Usually she does it by color or size. Well Simon has recently taken on this roll. He lined up all his cars and they are all facing forward. Crazy kid... Then the picture under that is Grace's food. I gave them a lunchable, grapes, and a piece of angel food cake. Well before I could get the camera, she had her lunchable stacked up, cracker, turkey, cheese etc. She had them stacked as high as they could go. Then she had to take them down, eat all the turkey, the she started on the crackers. Well she didn't want the grapes or the cake or the cheese. So she shoved it all aside. She tried to put the cheese on but it wouldn't fit. Maybe it's not weird to you, but it's the weird quirks they do. Funny.

It's a twister, it's a twister!

2008-04-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

It was a fun night last night. There were huge storm clouds and we knew we were going to get pounded with a big thunderstorm. Well it ended up being more than that. We were watching the news and they were showing the radar with all the storms. We only have a sever thunderstorm watch. Nothing about a tornado or anything. Then all of a sudden the tornado sirens start going off. It was really weird. The meteorologist on tv was saying " Why are the sirens going off? We don't have any warnings of tornadoes." So then he says that there was a tornado that touched down in the south of St.Joe. It touched down, picked up a house and moved it off of it's foundation 30 feet. It was crazy. My parents were less than a quarter mile away from this tornado in their car. No one expected tornadoes. It was crazy. Praise God no one was hurt. There was a family inside, 9 of them. One person got hurt but nothing serious. It's crazy. There's never been a tornado actually touch down in St. Joe since I've been alive. I don't think there has been since my parent's have been alive either. So of course with the other 80,000 people in St. Joe, we had to go see it today. It was crazy. For those of you that were at our reception, it was about 3 blocks away from that. There was alot of debris and quite a few roofs were messed up. Here are some pictures

Yes another American Idol Post...

2008-04-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

Well I'm definitely bummed that Michael Johns went home. Kristy Lee Cook should have at least been in the bottom 3 and she should have went home. Michael Johns may not always have picked the right songs but he still was consistent and sang them well. Dang it I'm mad! Oh well... David Archuleta and David Cook will be the top 2 and that's all I care about! But I'm way excited that they actually gave glory to Jesus last night in saying his name in Shout to the Lord. Man that's awesome! I can't believe they picked that song. I'm excited about that!

Shout to the Lord!!!!

2008-04-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

Are you kidding me?!?!?!?! Shout to the Lord on American Idol. I'm sorry but that was amazing! I hated it that they said My Shepherd instead of My Jesus, but still... glory to God! I was excited!

A long awaited update...

2008-04-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know I know... what's taking so long? I don't know. It's definitely not because there's nothing exciting going on. There's always something going on.
Let's see an update on Simon. He peed on the potty one time. YAY! Still far away from potty trained. We're not really even trying. We're just getting acquainted. A new funny story about him. When we go to Walmart, he calls the cart pusher guys "Pumpkins". One time we saw one of them w/ a full orange ski mask and Grace said he looked like a pumpkin. So from that day forward Simon has called them pumpkin. We went tonight and when we were walking out Simon says, "Bye bye pumpkin." He cracks me up.
An update on Grace.... well yesterday we were all downstairs watching a movie. Grace said she was going to go upstairs and find her milk. So I said ok. She was gone for about 10 minutes and finally I told her to come downstairs. She did and she sat on the couch with her cup. I saw her kinda sitting there thinking. Then about 5 minutes later she says, "Mom I gotta go find my blankey." So I told her she could but to hurry up. She comes back down a few minutes later and I smell something really strong. Fingernail polish. I turned around really fast and said, "Grace what did you do?" She holds up her hands and says, "MOM, I did it by myself. I painted my fingers." Grace's entire hands and feet, not just her fingers and toes, the whole things were painted with bright red/pink nail polish. I just knew it was going to be everywhere. So I said, "Grace, take me upstairs where you did this." She said, "I did it on your bed." WHAT?!?! We have a really expensive blanket on our bed and I just knew it was going to be ruined! We ran upstairs and I have NO IDEA HOW, but the only spill was about the size of a quarter on my bedside table. I don't know how she managed to get it all over her hands and feet and not on my bed or the carpet. So I had to go into discipline mode and tell her that she can't do this and she was in trouble and now she needed to go sit on her bed (after we used up pretty much all of my nail polish remover), and she looks up at me and said, "But Mom, I wanted to do it by myself." I wanted to laugh and just let it all be over because it was hilarious, but I had to stick to it. So she went and sat on her bed and ended up falling asleep. So I guess that story was to tell you that Grace is in the "I can do it by myself" stage. Everything is, "No I'll do it by myself." I like her little independence, but she's taking it a little far sometimes. She's awesome though! She's so much fun!!! I love her to death.

Update on us, well, we think we've decided that we want another baby!!!!! We're still in the thinking about it process. Not 100% sure. But pretty sure. So that's exciting. Grace wants a baby sister and she wants to name it Caroline after Caroline Potts. She babysits the kids every now and then and Grace loves her to death!!! I keep saying, "But Grace what if it's a boy." And she'll tell me, "No I want a sister. A girl one. Caroline." She is set on a girl so if we decide to have another one and it's a boy, I think we'll have to send it back. Some friends of ours just had their baby last night (Praise God!!!) and I know once I hold that little guy, I'll be hooked. So look forward to the exciting news in the near future I guess :)

Tonight Simon went and jumped in Grace's bed and Grace wanted to sleep in Simon's room. So I did that, well then Simon wanted to get in his bed with Grace. So that's where they are right now. Both in his bed. Each one at one end. We'll see if that lasts.

Kyle has recently discovered nice clothes. He CRACKS ME UP! Seriously he wears button up collared shirts with sweaters over them. He wears sports coats and suits. I'm not even kidding. Trust me, I love it! Much more than the old Grandpa pants he used to wear. It's really handsome and good looking. It's just hilarious!!! Here's a picture of him in his new sweater. I'm not even kidding, this is how he dresses all the time now. He wore this to Walmart tonight. It's just funny! I love it though! And I know his mama is proud :)

Easter came and went. I cannot believe I didn't get pictures of Simon in his little suit. Here is one of Kyle in his and Grace in her dress. Ridiculous, me and Bill and most of the men at church were dressed exactly alike. Isn't that dumb. I should have worn a dress. YEAH RIGHT! That reminds me of something. Grace LOVES dresses. If I would let her, she would be in a dress every single day. This makes me think she's not my kid. I've never liked dresses. This summer I know that's what she will be in all the time. We've bought her several little summer dresses. She's so excited to wear them. It's going to be in the 60's tomorrow and she's so excited to wear her new dress. Anyway, here are some pictures!

We had an easter egg hunt. They loved it!!!

We got the kids some bubbles, Simon was hilarious with them.

Me and Bill matching.

This picture cracks me up. Today it was cloudy and rainy and there was thunder and lightning. Well I was driving and I kept seeing lightning behind me. But it was actually Simon with my camera. I went through the pictures and here's what I got. HA!

This is my favorite picture!!!! I love these guys so much. Man I'm blessed!! Thank you Jesus for my awesome family!

Here's a picture of Kyle and me. Yeah I look huge and fat. Get over it!

Ok I'll try to update more often. It's going to be nice out this weekend so we're hopefully going to get outside. I'll probably take pictures and I'll try to update more!

Isaiah 53, Matthew 27, Mark 16:1-7 ---- HE IS RISEN!!!

2008-03-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Download the song Highly Exalted by Robin Mark... it goes with Isaiah 53...AMAZING!!!

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

9 And they[a] made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.

11 He shall see the labor of His soul,[b]and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.

Matthew 27:26-66

26 Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.
The Soldiers Mock Jesus 27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. 28 And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 29 When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. 31 And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.
The King on a Cross 32 Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross. 33 And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, 34 they gave Him sour[e] wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink. 35 Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots,[f] that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: “ They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.”[g]
36 Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there. 37 And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
38 Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.39 And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders,[h] said, 42 “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel,[i] let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.[j] 43 He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.
Jesus Dies on the Cross 45 Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”[k]47 Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!” 48 Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink. 49 The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.” 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 54 So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!” 55 And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar, 56 among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses,[l] and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.
Jesus Buried in Joseph’s Tomb 57 Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. 58 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. 59 When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. 61 And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.
Pilate Sets a Guard 62 On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, 63 saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night[m] and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.

Mark 16
He Is Risen
1 Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away—for it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. 7 But go, tell His disciples—and Peter—that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”

Update....

2008-03-18T07:01:00.001-07:00

SORRY! I haven't blogged in awhile about anything important. So you get a bunch today. What's new w/ Grace. She's getting taller. I noticed in the past few weeks that she was losing weight. Now I understand... she's growing taller. She cracks us up. The stuff she says. I'm constantly saying to myself, "What?! Where did she get that?" The other day she said, "SIMON, RIGHT NOW! Do you understand me?" Kyle and I started laughing so hard. Hmm... wonder where she hears that. I took her out of dance class. I don't think she's ready yet. We'll try again in about 5 months or so. She sat on the Easter Bunny's lap the other day. No we don't do the Easter Bunny, but she of course likes him. I was surprised, she ran right up and got on her lap. However, I was totally disappointed in this rabbit. No fun at all. But Grace loved it!

She still sings all the time. She is really such a good kid. She minds very well and plays well with Simon. For about a month or 2 she has been sleeping in her bed but in our room. She got scared of her room all of a sudden. So we decided that we weren't going to fight that battle at that time. So now we are. Well Friday night we told her that if she slept in her big girl bed in her room all night that we could get a surprise at Walmart. She said she wanted an "Easter Bunny Rabbit." So I told her ok. Of course she slept all night in her bed. So the next night we're at Walmart. I told her to pick one out. What do you think she picks? Oh yes, the biggest bunny there is, it's pink and it sheds like crazy!!! It's almost as tall as her. It goes w/ us everywhere. Even to church, but we left him in the car. Now his back is ripped open (cheap junk!) and the stuffing is coming out. So I need to sew it. YEAH RIGHT! Seriously I can't sew. I don't even know if we have a needle or thread. Here's the bunny though. Ooopps... I mean Easter Bunny Rabbit. Yes, lovely picture of Grace, I wanted you to see how big it is.

Onto Mr. Simon. Goodness! Simon is getting much better. Still very much a boy attitude, and still very much defiant and stubborn. But not as bad as it was. He is in this new thing where he wants to make us laugh all the time. Silly stuff like falling down on purpose and hitting himself in the head, or making faces. He's hilarious! But when it comes time for a spaken or timeout, he thinks he needs to do it then. But we show him, NOT NOW! Simon is probably half an inch taller than Grace. He wears a size bigger in shoes and a size bigger in shirts than her. They are in the same size jeans. Isn't that amazing?! 11 months apart, he caught up fast. I think he's going to be tall like Kyle. Poor Grace, short and chubby like mommy :) Last week we colored Easter eggs. Well Macy (the little girl I babysit) was getting ready to leave w/ her Grandma. So I took my eyes off of the kitchen for seriously 30 seconds. I hear the eggs cracking. I ran in there and Simon wanted to color them by hisself. Well his hands were died purple and pink for about 2 days. The best part was, we had to go to a visitation that night at Meierhoffer, and this nice dressed older man was holding his Granddaughter. Simon LOVES babies. So he wanted to touch her. She was like his age. And of course he grabbed her hand w/ his purple hand, and I saw the Grandpa looking at Simon like, "Yeah right, touch my kid w/ those hands." I was so embarrassed. But here's a picture of that.

This is probably dumb, but recently I've noticed how stinking red his lips are! I want them!! With his big blue eyes and his plumb red lips... man he'd be a pretty girl!

We get together with cousin Ally and Aunt Crystal quite often. The kids love each other so much! Ally's hair is incredible!!! These pictures really show it. We are anxiously awaiting Spring!!! We had a few days last week that were in the 60's or almost. So we definitely took advantage. I didn't take any pictures, but trust me, it was awesome! The back yard is still really muddy from the like 10 months of snow. RIDICULOUS! So once that dries up it will be awesome. I"m pretty sure that won't be anytime soon. The forecast is rain, rain and rain.

Coffee from the trash... yucky

2008-03-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

Well yet again we found Simon w/ caffeine late late at night. I think it was around 10 or 10:30 and we found him w/ Kyle's Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks. and of course we had to grab the camera first.

American Idol again....

2008-03-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

OK.... I'm getting scared this year. I think it's a toss up. I really like David Archuleta and I still think he's going to win. But I don't think he has it as easy as I did think. Man I am really liking David Cook! Last night he was awesome. I like Brooke White, Jason Castro and David Archuleta too. It's turning out to be alot better than I thought it was going to be. I think David Hernandez or Sayesha or Ramielle will be going home tonight. I don't really care. As long as those 4 I like aren't going :)

Seriously I need to post more things than this. I have some videos to post. I need to get on it. Ok i'll do it later!

American Idol

2008-03-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

What did you think about the guys? I have to say that I really liked Jason Castro and David Cook tonight. I still love David Archuleta, but he wasn't my favorite tonight. After hearing the latest news on David Hernandez, I'm not a fan. He has a good voice but his morals... yuck! I think that Chikezie and Luke Menard will go home Thursday. The guys for the most part, all did really well. I won't be watching the girls tomorrow night, I'm going to church. But you can leave your post on this one for tomorrow night. Til then!

A suit to suit

2008-02-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

Tonight Kyle and I had to go to a visitation of one our friend's mom. Well of course Kyle took longer than me in the closet trying to find clothes to wear. I always tell him that he's worse than most girls when it comes to getting ready to go somewhere. I bet he changed his outfit 10 times. So I'm downstairs on the couch with the kids all ready w/ our coats and shoes on. Here he comes. In what???? Well remember quite a few blogs ago when I sent out the "FUNNY" pictures of him in the suit. Well I thought we were all on the same page that, that was a joke. The suit was "FUNNY". Well it was funny to everyone except for Kyle. He comes down wearing the stinking BROWN 60's suit jacket w/ a button up shirt and jeans. What shoes does he put on with his Brown suit jacket? His BLACK slip-on Vans. (Marre I wish you would have thrown that suit away long ago like you wanted :) ) We were quite the sight at this somewhat fancy affair. I had on a black pea-coat and gray pants. I didn't help matters much, I wore my Chuck Taylor's... but at least the colors matched. Pictures will follow soon. My mom took a couple.

So we decided to run over to Dillard's and JC Penny's and find him a suit. It will be a suit he can wear for Easter this year and then if we ever have weddings or funerals to go to, he won't have to change a million times or look like he came in his Grandpa's prom outfit. So here it is. We got it and realized that we didn't get a tie. So he thought he would be cute and he put on SImon's tie. HA! I think he looks so handsome!!!! I love it!

Then of couse the kids thought that they should get in a picture with Daddy.

Congratulations Amy & Austin!!!!

2008-02-24T15:56:00.001-08:00

We're so excited for baby number 2 coming!!!! Congratulations to Olivia too on becoming a big sister!!!
Love you guys and miss you!!!

Let's talk about amazing

2008-02-21T11:02:00.001-08:00

I got 4 kids ages 1, 1, 2, & 3, down and asleep in approximately 8 minutes. Now is that amazing or what?

American Idol

2008-02-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

I'm putting my thoughts on American Idol to the far right and the bottom of my page if you're interested. It would be fun to see how the outcome is vs. my opinion. Also you can put your opinions on here and I will add them to my page as well. Just fun stuff for us that have no lives on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. So let me know what you think about Idol so far and I will add that. Cool! That's all.

Just an Update....

2008-02-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

Just a little update on our life. Simon is doing much better now! Praise God! Here was his last breathing treatment. He hasn't had one for a few days now. No fever and he sounds so much better. He looks so pitiful when he has to do it. But he's good now :)

My aunt Lori is having surgery so I watched Kaden on Friday. Well when it was time to lay down, I laid between Grace & Kaden. Then Simon woke up before they fell asleep so I told them to lay down and go to sleep by themselves because I had to get up with Simon. I didn't hear anything for awhile, and then I heard giggling. So I went back in there, and here's what I found. They are buddies!! Of course Grace is holding the book and not Simon.

Friday night Kendra came over. Kyle went to sleep and so did Grace. Kendra and I were looking at the new American Idol contestants online while Simon was watching tv. Let me remind you that it was around 10:00 PM!! I heard Simon say "Yummy Yummy" and I turned around and found this!

Simon drinking a Mountain Dew AMP! For crying out loud it's an energy drink. I know it was almost empty but still! He was drinking the leftovers. At 10:00 at night. So I figured that it was going to be a really late night. Thankfully it wasn't. An energy drink..... goodness!

Then yesterday we went to this Chinese restaurant with none other than Nanny K (Kendra). So Kyle got some fried rice and Grace thought it was her. Her new thing is "Can I do it by myself?" So the only way Simon could have some was if she could feed him.

Then finally, we woke up this morning with more stinking snow! Probably 4 inches or so at our house. Maybe more! It was a really slick snow. We almost went through a couple of intersections today. But here's a few from the snow! It's getting really old now! Come on Spring!

My New Haircut

2008-02-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

I want to put a picture on here to show you my new haircut. Seriously tell me what you think? Do I need to grow up? Ha! Also, I want to color it. A big change. What color do you think? Give me advise.Just to let you know, I'm not modeling. If I smile with a big smile, showing my teeth, I look like a cow. I have big cheeks anyway and so I look like a chipmunk. But enjoy. I also turned my head so you can see the back. Ok whatever... that's all.

Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T20:26:00.001-08:00

Oh what a great day we had. Today I got the kids up and the 2 kids I babysit came over. We made Valentine's for our parents and had a great day. Then when Kyle got home he took the kids to Crystal's house. We watched Ally last night and they watched our kids tonight. Kyle thought we were going to 54th Street for dinner but I had already made plans. I had him a steak dinner cooked w/ all the "fixins" (as we in Missouri say), and just a relaxing meal at home for him. So we ate dinner and then we decided to go to Border's for coffee. When we were leaving we ran into our friends Jim & Kacy and talked to them for awhile. Then when were leaving we saw our other friends Chuck & Amber, so we talked to them as well, then our friends Vera & Faraon walked in, and we all talked, then our other friends Audrey & Fred walked in. So we took over Border's bookstore. It was so much fun! We seriously stood and talked for an hour and a half. It was so nice to actually have adult conversation for awhile and not have to tell the kids to behave. It was awesome! It was also good to see friends that we haven't seen in awhile. Then we went back to Crystal's house and got the kids. Now it's time for bed. I had a great day! I love my husband, and I love my kids!!!

2 more

2008-02-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah and I lost 2 more pounds... up to 15 total lost!!! 9000 more to go....

Oh What a Night (and yes you have to sing it as you say it)

2008-02-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

If it weren't for drama, I don't know what my life would be. I don't mean that in a good way either, but it's ok :)

Simon has had a cough for awhile. No big deal, we have colds quite often. But Friday evening, he had a little bit of a fever. He coughed all not long. Then on Saturday he was just laying around alot and not feeling quite like himself. Sunday pretty much the same thing. He was warm and had a really barky cough. So I figured he probably had croup. Monday morning I took him to the doctor. She tested him for Strep Throat an Influenza and ruled both of those out. At this time he didn't really have much of a fever. Just sluggish and coughing like crazy. So she said she thought it was croup and told me how to treat it. So Grace and I went to dance class and brought dinner home to the family (yeah I cook alot, get over it). Then I took Simon to do a steam shower. Well that seemed to make it worse. He started coughing. Then he ended up throwing up all of his dinner. So for 40 minutes straight, without a break, he coughed. So I called the nurse's hotline and after starting an assesment and listening to him cough for another 5 minutes she said "Never mind, get him to the ER he needs a breathing treatment." So by the time we got to the ER he had been coughing for 50 minutes. It was so sad. He was so miserable! He was also so tired b/c he didn't take much of a nap due to coughing. So we get there and he had a temperature of 101. So they couldn't give him any medicine b/c I had given him some about 3 hours earlier. We get into a room and they had to draw blood and test him for other stuff. Then a few xrays. While we waited for 2 hours and while Simon coughed on and off for the entire time, his fever reached 103.6. After asking and asking to give him more medicine, finally the mother instincts set in and I just gave it to him. Then the doctor came in and said that he had RSV and w/ the fever he was going to go ahead and admit him. They also started the breathing treatments, which weren't fun. So they moved us up to a room. Since Simon is under 2 years old they made him stay in this huge old fashioned metal crib. Well of course he didn't like that. Let me tell you that I am 5 foot 5 and I think the crib was 5 foot 5 1/2. So guess who had to get in the crib and sleep with Simon? That's right Kyle did. No just kidding I did. Anyway, we had to keep giving him breathing treatments. It was so sad. He would put the little thing up to my mouth and say "You like it?" It was cute w/ his little raspy voice. Poor guy. Then when it ran out of stuff, we let him give his play lion treatments. It was cute. So anyway, to put an end to this very long rambling blog, his fever stayed up. 2:00 this morning it was up to 104. Then around 4 or 5 it broke, PRAISE GOD!!! So his doctor came in around 8:30 and said that we could go home. Simon was glad to be home. He's back to his old, natural, stubborn, defiant self. But the cough is still going on. We are still giving him breathing treatments and he's on Steroids a.k.a Roids :)

If any of you are reading this that knew about and prayed I want to tell you thank you so much. It's so sad to see your child totally helpless and looking for you to help them and you can't do anything but pray. But God definitely had the situation under control as He does everything and we were able to come home w/ a mostly healthy little boy. But as Kyle says "Simon is still the chief among all sinners" :)

Well here are some pictures. He had to wear this little gown w/ whales, dinosaurs and elephants on it. he kept saying "Cute" Then yes that's me in the bed with him. I'm seriously sore from sleeping in that thing! Oh the love of a mother for her child!

Miserable....

2008-02-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

Well we got almost a foot of snow last night.... Hawaii sounds soooo good right now! It snowed pretty much the entire night last night. Which in turn cancelled school. So that meant that I didn't have to watch 2 of my 3 kids I'm babysitting. Then the other girl I watch, her mom called and said she was going to stay home as well. So it was just going to be me and Grace and Simon. Kyle left for work and about 30 minutes later he was back home. His boss let him come home for the day b/c everyone else called in. I was soo excited! So we got up around 7:30 when he got home and had breakfast and anxiously waited for "family nap time", as Kyle called it. Well around 11, Kyle took Simon to bed and Gracie and I stayed up for about an hour. When we got in there, Grace and I started to lay down and we woke Simon up. After laughing and being goofy, Kyle finally put him in his own bed where he would hopefully fall back asleep. Yeah right! I was laughing so hard b/c I could hear him spitting (blowing raspberries) and talking. Then it started quietly..."Mom, mommy, mama" and a little louder..."Mom, mommy, mama" then about 10 times of this he was yelling at the top of his lungs, "Mom, mommy, mama." So Kyle went in there and put him back down and told him to go to bed. Then it started quietly..."Dad, daddy, dada"... a little louder..."Dad, daddy, dada" and you know how it ended, yep with him yelling it. (It was kind of like Will Ferrel on "Elf" when he's in bed going "Dad, Dad") By this time I was laughing so hard! So Kyle said he was going to take him downstairs and sleep with him. So that worked. Then we decided to go grocery shopping and out to eat. The snow is soooo deep and there are cars stuck everywhere. Including one out front in our ditch. Oh that's right it's Kyle's truck. I am so sick of this weather I could puke (as Diane Morgan would put it, ha!). Never in my lifetime that I remember has it ever snowed this much in a winter. I don't think since the beginning of December that we have seen the complete dry ground outside without any snow. It's awful! On top of it, we're still trying to pick up limbs and sticks from the ice storm before Christmas. We got so much of it that everytime it gets warm enough to go outside and do it, there's still too much snow on it.
It's cold, and it's snowy and my kids want to go outside and I want to go outside!!!! But spring is coming soon! I can't wait!!!! I will not be inside this house except for when I sleep once it hits about 60 degrees!

From dreams to reality....

2008-02-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

I had a crazy thing happen to me this morning. I was dreaming about being back in highschool and singing in choir. I really felt like I was there. Then before I woke up, I was dreaming about playing softball for my highschool again. I was really into this dream. I was pitching and then I was in the dugout doing all the stupid chants and cheers for my teamates. Well in my dream while I was pitching, I threw a fastball and I knew I should have threw a rise ball. Well anyway I woke up and in my mind was thinking about how I should have done things different in that dream. How the next game I play I wasn't going to make that mistake. I was thinking about all these different things and then I hear heavy breathing from Grace & Simon in the bed beside me and realized that there isn't going to be another game. When I woke up I thought I was still in highschool and going to play a softball game again this week. I don't think I've ever had that happen to me before. I realized how much my life has changed. And of course for the better. Sometimes I wish I could go back to such an easy life w/ no responsibilities other than myself and my job. But when I heard those little mouths breathing so loud as they were sleeping, I thanked God for my life. I love where my life is right now. Yes the kids can be difficult (especially Simon) and yes sometimes Kyle and I will argue. But God has blessed me with so much. 10 years ago I never would have thought that I was going to be here. I would have said you were crazy, but thank Jesus it's like it is. I am trying so hard to be a better wife and mom, to grow in holiness, and to read God's Word and know Him. I want to, out of obedience, do these things b/c I am so thankful and greatful to God for all He's done!!!

2 More!!!

2008-01-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

Another weigh-in took place tonight. I lost 2 more pounds! I wish it were more b/c I want the weight to come off faster, but hey, I'll take it. I'm just glad I didn't gain. So I've lost a total of 13. That's only 44 more to go..... man that's alot!

A Great Monday!!!

2008-01-28T18:57:00.000-08:00

We had such a good day today. It was beautiful outside!!! Somewhere around the mid 60's. So we went outside for a lunch of turkey hot dogs, string cheese and yogurt.

Hard to imagine that it's going to be in the 20's and 30's w/ rain and snow for the next couple of days. :( I definitely took advantage. When all the kids took a nap, I opened the front room windows and cleaned. It was awesome! I am really anticipating Spring. Today Grace and I also started our pre-pre-pre-preschool. I found some curriculums online and bought a few books to help w/ shapes, colors, letters and those kinds of things. The theme this week is cows, the letter A, squares and counting to 1 (we counted out 5 things instead, 1 was a little easy; she can count to 20 but actually counting things is different). We are also memorizing poems and nursery rhymes. She did way better tonight than the other night. SHE KNOWS THE COLOR RED!!!!! We also went around the house finding squares. She enjoyed that.
We had our second week of dance class. It was fun! I went out on the mat w/ Grace as soon as we got there and she said, "No Mommy, go sit by Daddy.... please." She made sure she got the please in so I wouldn't get mad for her bossing me around :) She felt pretty big b/c she wore her new leotard and she already knew the routine. The first picture is of her doing the crab walk.

The second one is them praying.

The third one was where I had to help her. She DID NOT like that.

The last one is her on the beam. She kept looking at us, it was hilarious. She would look at us and smile great big! :)

So this was such a great day. I'm sad that it's over. 9:13, I better get the kids to bed and it's time for me to go... Thank you Lord for a beautiful day!

Like Father, Like Son

2008-01-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Kyle found his old polyester suit hanging up downstairs. He decided to put it on, and was it handsome?! Oh my!!! Well tonight I got home from Walmart and Kyle had put Simon's little suit on him. It's a little big on him but it really is handsome! My little guys :) HA!

Smoovies

2008-01-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

I made what Grace calls "Smoovies" today. My sister, Kendra, Mikaylah and I are all doing a diet and we are putting in money for whoever loses the most. So far Kendra has lost 7, my sister and I have both lost 11, and I don't know about Mikaylah. We weigh in every Tuesday night before American Idol. It''s been really hard but I'm sticking to it! We took the before pictures but those will not be posted until I've lost about 50 more pounds so don't get your hopes up.

I thought I would share my smoothie recipie with whoever wants it. They were awesome!!! I cut up a banana, put in a half a cup of frozen pineapple, half a cup of frozen strawberries, 1/4 cup of light strawberry yogurt, 1/4 cup of skim milk and then 2 packets of Sweet-N-Low (you can use sugar but that's just more calories). I blended it all up and it was sooooooooooooo goood! A full 8oz. glass isn't even 75 calories. Kyle loved it and so did the kids. I think Grace thought it was ice-cream. Yummy Yummy!

The stinking colors....

2008-01-26T13:25:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to work with Grace on learning her colors. For crying out loud she can spell her name, say her ABC's, she can sing about 50 songs and not miss a word and she can count to 20 but she can not understand colors. It's making me crazy. I got a little preschool curriculum to start teaching her little things and hopefully it will help her. Well anyways, today Kyle, Grace & I were downstairs and I was trying to teach her the color red. I was going through Elmo, her backpack and so many more things. I would say, "Grace so what color is that?" And she would say, "I don't know what color it is." AAGGHHHH!!! So I just said nevermind. I thought she was engaged in a movie so I said to Kyle, "I don't get it. She can do all these things but she can't learn her stinking colors." Grace said, "I can learn the stinking colors." We busted up laughing. Then she says, "It's red."

Simon's 2nd Hair Cut

2008-01-24T19:14:00.000-08:00

Simon got a new haircut today. It's his 2nd one. It's really cute. Most of you probably won't notice. But I do, and it's cute. Tonight I was trying to get a picture of it. So I said, "Simon look at me and say cheese." This is the face I got... cute huh? He HATES his picture taken.

The LaPorte Report

It's that time again!!!

Where have you been???

Martha wannabe!

Let Them Be Little...

When Salem is quiet...

A bed of raisins...

Mom of the Year!

40 Something

Back to School

This Momentary Marriage

Can it be????

Back to it!

Still singing

La De Da

March Madness... whatever that means

80 degrees in March?!?!

School Days

A Weekend with the Cousins

Seeds Family Worship

Girl Talk

25 Random & Useless Things About Me

Katelynn Rose Morgan

Ice Skating

My new picture

Winter Update

Time for an Update

Santa Clause is Coming to Town

Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

Silver Dollar City

Family Pictures

It's Christmas Time

Why I LOVE (understatement) Christmas

Christmas in Branson!

Pictures

30 POUNDS

oh yeah...

Christmas Trees

I'm going outside!

Just an Update

American Idol

Congratulations Robbie & Cori OMeara

2 miles

5 weeks, many many many miles later, and dumb muscle mass!!!

Butterflies in the tummy

Gracie quote

I Love Christmas

Quote

Clarification for my sister..... NERD :)

Am I 5 or 23?

Ear Infection.... AGAIN!

VBS

Slugger

1 week, 15 miles and 9 pounds later...

Diet time again

4 Years!

Finger Painting

Update a month later!

I Love California

DAVID COOK!!!!!!

American Idol

Grace's Words

Big Boy Bed

I'm going to be an aunt again!!!!

Full Name

A big juicy onion....

No More Binky!

American Idol...

In Springtime....

IN SPRINGTIME THE ONLY PRETTY RING TIME BIRDS SING EH, DING A-DING A-DING SWEET LOVERS LOVE THE SPRING

Music

Other stuff...

It's a twister, it's a twister!

Yes another American Idol Post...

Shout to the Lord!!!!

A long awaited update...

Isaiah 53, Matthew 27, Mark 16:1-7 ---- HE IS RISEN!!!

Update....

Coffee from the trash... yucky

American Idol again....

IN SPRINGTIME THE ONLY PRETTY RING TIME
BIRDS SING
EH, DING A-DING A-DING
SWEET LOVERS LOVE
THE SPRING