So Thankful...

To be the mom

To be the wife

To walk out the door, get to work, and discover snot on my pants at knee level

To hear, "I love you Mom"

To be living what often feels like a fairy tale

To watch them grow from babies to little people

To SNUGGLE them tight at bedtime

To smell them all clean and fresh right out of the bath

To be treated like the most special woman on earth

To come home to the dishes done and put away (even when I have to search for 20 minutes to find what I need to prepare dinner!)

To have a home that is OURS and that we fit in

To raise them in the same small town I grew up in

To live so close to their grandparents

To go to bed feeling like I did it all wrong, only to wake up and be shown unconditional love

To see PURE joy in their eyes

To watch him learn to read

To teach her how to be a lady

To try and keep him little forever

To have made it through a decade of marriage and still look forward to the next decade

To be THEIR mom

To be HIS wife

I am so thankful!

Guest Reader

In Preston's first grade class they have a program called Accelerated Reader, or AR for short. They have to read books and then take a 5 question quiz about them. For each answer they get correct they earn points. Their teacher, Mrs. Snyder, along with the kindergarten and second grade teachers come up with a theme and then set goals for the kids to reach. This year the theme is "Reading is WILD." Their goals are to make it to the W, the I, the L, and the D. Preston made it to the W and the reward was an animal bag or a finger puppet. He made it to the I and the reward was to sit in the LION chair for the day. On Monday he reached the L and the reward for that level is to ask a guest reader to come and read to the class. We were discussing this at dinner on Monday night and Preston knew that Aunt Janelle, Uncle Jeff and Jace & Jordyn were coming this week. He says, "Mom, do you think Aunt Janelle or Uncle Jeff will be here in time to read?" I told him that I didn't know but we could call and see. They said they wouldn't be here in time Thursday and since we don't have school on Fridays, it wasn't going to happen. Preston was a little disappointed, but he was trying to think of someone else he could ask instead. BUT, Tuesday morning, Aunt Janelle sent me an email that said they had changed their plans and would be in KS sometime Thursday afternoon and she could come read if Preston wanted her to! So yesterday about 3:30 Aunt Janelle and Jace showed up at our school. Jace was Preston's show and tell..

Preston says, "We kind of look like twins.  See?"

It was pretty entertaining to listen to Preston tell about Jace...
He lives in Des Moines.
They drove 9 hours to get here.
It seems like they get here a lot faster than we get to their house.
That's my Aunt Janelle.
Jace has a sister Jordyn.
She is two.
We are having a party for her this weekend.
My Uncle Jeff...he's BALD!

AND then the entire class erupted into laughter!

It was PRICE.LESS!!

Finally it was time for Aunt Janelle to read:



Jace said "Toot" while Aunt Janelle was reading...more laughter!!



What a fun day Preston had and how cool that his aunt and cousin could come all the way from Iowa to read!!

Better Late Than Never...Halloween

Here are the munchkins. Trying to get pictures with all three kids now is next to impossible. Westynn is much too mobile for photos!

We got invited to a Halloween party that had lots of scary food and fun games. Here are a few photos from our afternoon.













Now it's almost time for Thanksgiving...geez where has the year gone?

WEPAC

if you want to know more about WEPAC...what it is, what they do...go here.  you should plan to attend next year...it was AWESOME!!

this was girl's night out for me and Cambree.  we had the best time!  she may be a daddy's girl, but we can still have a lot of fun together when it is just the two of us.

me and cambree jane...waiting in line to go to our seats!

cambree and her friend, molly...who both had side ponytails and flowers...totally coincidental!

grandma robin was there too!

yay for girl shots!  thanks derek for taking this for us...do we all look alike or what?  well cambree, my dear, at least you know what you will look like at 29 and 50!!  pretty amazing, if i do say so myself.  i hope i am as pretty as my mom when i am her age.


great time with great people, all for a great cause...mark you calendars now for WEPAC Hoops for Hope 2011!!

Fall Fun

This is probably going to be one LONG post because I am going to try and cram a lot into it.

Why?  Because let's be honest, I don't really make it here much anymore!  And I don't want to forget these things, so here goes.

Let's start with the Pumpkin Decorating Contest at school...



Cambree won third place in her category, Prechool - Assisted.



Preston won first place in his category, 1st grade - unassisted.

What makes this story even better for Preston is that on Monday another kid in his class brought a pumpkin decorated like a hunter. This just about did Preston in because he was going to put camo on a pumpkin and an army hat and make him a soldier. Well the hunter was too close to an army soldier, so he had just decided that he was NOT going to participate. I tried to make several suggestions on the way home, ALL of which were rejected quite emphatically. Then all of the sudden he says from the backseat, "I can make a ladybug." PERFECT!! And he is a kid after my own heart, because when we stopped at the store to buy a pumpkin, he deteremined that one of the small ones we already had at home would be much more suitable than any they had at the store. So this ladybug pumpkin cost us $0 AND won first place...SCORE one for Preston!

Next up...The Pumpkin Patch



On Saturday, the 30th Grandma Robin went with us to Harvest Farms Pumpkin Patch in Turon. It was fantastic trip. How do I know? Because Mom and I were laughing so hard we were about to wet ourselves...AND we hadn't even made it there yet! Mom has some great captions to her photos on Facebook.



Waiting on the Pumpkinator to launch pumpkins...AWESOME if you are 7...pretty darn cool if you are 29!



One word...HILARIOUS!! I laugh out loud each time I see this. Preston "might" have been threatened into taking this picture...I don't remember for sure!



Be still my beating heart...Westynn loved this baby lamb. Westynn's mom loved watching him with the baby lamb!



Really lady? You want to take my picture? Fine, this is as happy as I am going to get about that.





Launching corn cobs...pretty cool!



What happens when you turn your camera over to your mother...she's as bad as the kids with the camera!



Westynn throws the sand all over the place...fun, but messy!



She played hard...her nose proves it!



She worked hard too. We made her milk the cows before taking her home!

Next time...WEPAC and Halloween!