Ellie is 9!

For Ellie's 9th birthday she got to spend the day at Disney with her dear friend Charlotte.  What a day we had!  Nine hours of fun.  Charlotte spent the nite with us and the day started with presents, hugs from Daddy and brothers and hurrying and scurrying to get to the park.  This picture is taken on the ferry on the way to Magic Kingdom.

At Guest Services Ellie was given a birthday button to wear for her special day.  She must have gotten 50 or so "Happy Birthday, Ellie!"s throughout the day.  Disney cast members sure know how to make you feel special!

Rapunzel is a hard girl to catch!  She is a very popular character!  We headed to her castle first and ate snacks while we waited to talk to her.  She was so fun and sweet and talked to Ellie and Charlotte as if she had all the time in the world.

The Barnstormer!



Hanging out on Tom Sawyer's Island.

Daisy!

Me and the birthday girl. :)

Charlotte and Ellie struck up a quick friendship with Annabelle while waiting in line to see Aladdin and Jasmine.  She is from Houston and adorable.  They were sad when we had to leave her.

Aladdin is a great storyteller!

A stop in France for croissants and chocolate milk.  A perfect end to a perfect day. 
Happy Happy Happy Birthday sweet Ellie!

Randomness

Lazy animals.  Mudge was in the same position on the other side of the table.

Drew Preston played Upwards basketball again this year and had a great time.  He's gotten go good!  Craig was his coach again.  As we looked around the courts, we realized that all the coaches were homeschool dads. :)

Approach.....

Shoot......

In there, baby!  Drew Preston was on fire all season.

On the way to Brewster's in their jammies for free ice cream if you're in your jammies day. :)

We love this place.  Wish there was one in Prattville!

Orange chicken, vegetables and fried rice.  Plus cream cheese rangoons and egg rolls.  Super yummy.

Zip a dee do da, zip a dee day!  We always sing on the way into a park.

Ellie noticed the creature in the trees for the first time at the Norway ride.

I love Epcot.  I could spend a week there.  One year I, being the homeschool mom that I am and wanting to check off that day as being a school day, I had the kids come up with a questionnaire for the people working in the World Showcase.  Everyone there is from that specific country.  They work in a sort of internship for a period of time.  We chose one or two people from each country and asked them their names, what their favorite game was in their country, what they liked about the US, if they had a religion, etc.  When we were done we gave them a picture of the kids in a cotton field along with a little doll we had made out of cotton bolls.  We gave them our names and addresses and a request that when they returned to their country that they would send us a postcard.  Everyone was so fun to talk to.  Our favorite person was Peter from Africa.  He was a Christian and we loved the way he talked.  Later in the year we received a postcard from the girls we met in Italy and Norway.  Fun activity!

If You Hand a Mommy the Telephone...

 I found this in a box of stuff the other day and it cracked me up.  I obviously wrote this after a crazy day (or probably an every day) with my boys.  It had to have been when I was expecting Ellie because the boys started taking art right before she was born.  Enjoy!

If you hand a Mommy the telephone before she gets out of bed in the morning she'll have a 5 minute conversation with a friend before she hears a screech in the living room.  She'll then remember she has 3 kids and get off the phone.  She'll go break up the fight and then notice one is following her around with an empty cup.  She'll go put some milk in the cup and realize there's almost no milk left.  So she sits down at the table to make a grocery list.  When she puts waffles on her list she'll remember no one has had breakfast yet so she'll make breakfast.  When she puts it on the table the kid who first asked for milk is done so she pours some more, which reminds her of the list.  When she writes down "m&m's", she'll remember she hasn't eaten breakfast :) so she fixes herself some.  Before she's halfway done the kids are through and running around with light sabers and one kid gets hurt.  While comforting the hurt one she notices that no one is dressed so she sends them to their room to get dressed and she heads for the shower.  Before she can turn on the shower, two are in the bathroom reminding her that they haven't had a bath in 5 days (not true!).  So they get in the bathtub and take a bath.  While getting their clean clothes out she sees the beds haven't been made and thinks she sure would like to climb back in hers.  To wake herself up she remembers she was going to take a shower.  She takes a shower and remembers she forgot to lock the door because she gets 6 or 7 visits from various kids who let in all the cold air.  This makes her think of the thermostat and reminds her she needs to pay the power bill.  While she looks for that she finds a picture one son drew and remembers to call about art lessons.  While on the phone 2 kids decide to make it snow and shred up all the tissues in the box.  After cleaning up the tissue mess she goes back to her list to write "tissues" and sees a note about the Post Office.  She sends the kids outside to play and finishes some packing so some boxes can be mailed.  She runs out of tape and goes upstairs to look for some.  While upstairs she sees the hammer her husband was looking for.  She takes it to the garage to put it in the toolbox.  While there she remembers the (Fisher Price) truck battery her son asked for so she takes it outside to put in their jeep.  While outside she'll see the two year old has somehow gotten all wet.  She'll bring him inside to change him.  After he's changed he notices his leftover breakfast and he has a few more bites before going back outside.  This will remind her she never finished her breakfast.  But right before she takes a bite the phone rings and it's her husband needing information from an old bank statement.  While in the closet looking for that file, she sees some clothes that need to be hung up so she begins to hang them up.  She finds a dirty shirt and takes it to the laundry room.  While there, she sees a pile of laundry and puts in a load.  She sees a chocolate milk stain on a shirt and once again remembers her breakfast.  But on her way to the table all three kids come in hungry for lunch.  Oh well.

Our Winter Garden



In early February we decided to plant a winter garden.  We collected lots of pots and bought some organic soil, organic seeds and organic bone meal.  We spent a fun afternoon filling the pots and planting the seeds.  I don't know what the ingredient is in the bone meal that made our dogs go nuts but they were after that dirt like a duck on a junebug.  We had to enclose our pots with our old baby gate to keep the dogs out.  We planted carrots, spinach and a variety of lettuce, all cool weather plants.  Since the winter has been so warm, we also planted some radishes, peppers, and some onions (for Sully, NOT for me~ha!).  Considering the weather since then, we should've just planted all we wanted.  It's been spring here since early January! 

The beginning.




Today:  March 16

Sullivan is 16!

Right before Sullivan's birthday, Craig had a meeting up near the College Football Hall of Fame.  So he took Sully with him to check this out.  They both got to see lots of fun Auburn stuff.  Fun beginning of a birthday week!

He should have left his hat there.  Well worn, well loved. :)

For Sullivan's birthday party, I took an idea from Joshua Harris' book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and made it work for Sullivan's party.  We sent out invitations that looked like scrolls, tied with twine and in a tube sealed with duct tape. Very manly.  The invitation looked like this:



I have a few pictures of Sullivan opening his tools and reading, but since Ellie and I left the party to the guys and went shopping, not too many were taken.  The consensus was that the barbecue was awesome, the tools cool and the words of wisdom amazing.

Happy Happy Birthday to our wonderful, amazing, lookin' good, miracle baby, tender hearted, funny, huge blessing of a son!  So thankful that God let me be your Mama. :)

Bread!

I have officially become a stereotypical homeschool Mom since I now grind my own wheat and bake my own bread!  Now if I can just get the kids to plant some wheat!!  The bread is really yummy. It took me 3 tries to get it right but I finally got all the bugs out. That doesn't sound right.  No bugs in my bread!  I finally figured out how to bake it right.  Thanks so much to my friend Tina for all her advice and encouragement!  And to Sharon for warning me to make sure the plastic cup is properly installed in the wheat grinder so it doesn't send flour all our the kitchen!

Homeschool at the Zoo

A Bunch of crazy homeschoolers hangin at the zoo.

Tucker helping Ellie on the spider web made of rope.

Feeding the giraffe.  He had a blue tongue!

Ellie and her dance "big sister" Katie and Katie's real sister, Joy. :)

Big kids still love to swing!

Ellie and Joy swingin!

Elephants are so cool.  This one ate a tree branch while we watched.

The girls!

The guys!

The whole group!