BB Guns and Tornadoes--July 2014

I'm a year behind on the blog again, (not that you would expect anything else!) and have had a lot of trouble with Live Writer, my long-time trusty blogging program, and have finally given up on trying to get it to work.  So I am back to creating my posts actually in the Blogger program.  I don't like it as much, but that is where I am.  So let's get this party started!

Last July, Jim finally got a chance to give the kids (well, the boys...Reagan wasn't interested) some shooting lessons with their BB gun.  It was a fun time, one that should be repeated more often than it is!

We also had a tornado warning which sent us to our safe place.  It's a rather small space, so we were quite cozy, especially after adding pillows and blankets.  I can't remember if the electricity had also gone out or we had just turned the light off to keep down the heat, but we took a few pictures and we are clearly lit up by a lantern and not the ceiling light.

Don't worry, Thomas was not as scared as he appears in the picture!  Don't we look prepared?  Even Jim has a helmet to protect his head from falling debris!  If only we had thought to make Thomas put on a shirt!

The last pictures from last July will give you a shot of our summer garden harvest, and Zachary in his second favorite socks.  Second favorite?  Yes.  He has identical yellow ones and THOSE are his favorite!  He picked them out on a birthday shopping trip in Memphis with Bud and KayKay.  Never have you seen kids so excited about new socks!

Much Ado about May—Lots of small things lumped together

Woohoo!  I’m closing in on summer and catching up to the present day!

Here’s a shot Jim took of us on Mother’s Day, all eating dinner together on the patio.  Eating outside on the patio is one of our favorite things!  I’m so glad we were able to do it on Mother’s Day!



A few days later, the kids had field day at school, and I was able to run over there and see them for a little while.



After that the boys had their crossover ceremony at cub scouts where they were promoted to the next scout level.  I think that makes them Bears this upcoming year.



All the scouts had spent the last couple of weeks building rockets, and they blasted them off that same night.  I think they were much more excited about the rockets than the ceremony!

Here are the boys’ rockets (Thank, Uncle Clay!).  Never fear, Reagan had one too!
 

Thomas had a fancy two-stage rocket, so powerful it blasted all the way across the field and got stuck in a tree!
 

Jim went after it to try and get it down, but to no avail.  Sorry Thomas!
 

Clay and Carey and the cousins also came back in May for a quick visit one weekend.  The special occasion was the wedding of Jim and Clay’s good childhood friend, Jason!

Handsome Jasper boys!
 

A family affair—Jason, with his two kids, and Kelly, with her two kids
 

I was in charge of senior luncheon at school this year.  Here is a shot of The Foundry, minus all the kids.  Isn’t it beautiful!  Big thanks to The Foundry and Janine for helping make it a fantastic luncheon!
 

Red, white, and blue popsicles!
 

Fun times with Jake, John Pierce, and Avery (and their parents) Memorial Day evening
 

Spiderman strikes again!
 

Stopping a moment to take a picture outside our favorite Target!
 

Men on a mountaintop!
 

Jim, with Michael, Bryan, Graham, John, and Brian on Mt. Le Conte

I have one more thing to blog for May, but it’s big, so it will get its own post!

Oops! Missed a few! Camping, Artwork, Safety City, Lysa, and RISK

I should have known that I would miss some pictures!  These came off my phone and didn’t make it into the correct folders.  Now they are in the right place, and I’m ready to share them with you!
First, in September 2013 over Labor Day weekend, we took the kids on their first REAL camping trip.  That is, we camped in a tent for more than one night  somewhere other than our back yard!  It was miserably hot, but the KOA had a pool and our camping buddies, Josh and Cris and their kiddoes, had a camper with air conditioning, so we managed to survive and have a great time!

Jim holding the big fish Cris caught.  She used hot dogs as bait, and now my kids think that is the only bait anyone should ever use!

All the boys on the playground—clearly it was a game day!  Go Vols!

Actually, I know it was a game day because Jim and Josh worked their tails off in the heat trying to hook up a TV to watch the game!

Also in September, Thomas painted this picture for me.  He said it was a blood machine and told me all about how the different parts worked to carry blood to people who need it.  He’ll make an excellent blood donor someday!

In October, the second graders went to Safety City, and Jonathan and Zachary’s sweet teacher snapped this pic of them and sent it to me.

In November, I went out of town one weekend with my friends Michelle and Katie.  We went to hear Lysa TerKeurst speak and even got to meet her.  It was a great weekend!

Jim also taught the boys to play RISK!  (Reagan and I were gone to ballet and a birthday party.  She wasn’t purposely excluded!)  They had to take a couple of breaks, but they finished the whole game!

Okay, now I think I’m caught up! 

News, Love, Snow, and a Friend—January 2013

The cub scouts went on an outing to a TV news station.  It was a trip that Jim worked hard to set up, only to be set out-of-town for training, so he didn’t even get to go!  It was pretty cool to tour the studio and watch the filming of an actual news broadcast.  All the kids had to sit very still and very quiet for the whole taping.  They did a FANTASTIC job.  I was impressed (and surprised! The boys’ troop is pretty big and rarely quiet!)



We even got to wave at the camera as the show closed.  Pretty cool!

While Dad was gone, we tried to send him a picture or video each night before going to bed.  Here’s one of them.



It snowed a little that month too.  Everyone EXCEPT ZACHARY went out to play in it.



We also had the pleasure of having our friend (and pediatrician) Miss Molly and her daughter Bella over one night for dinner.



All in all, it was a pretty good way to start the new year!

The Goal is Fun, Right?

Or maybe it’s to see which kid’s team can beat the other one!
Like most things in our lives these days, this is a very belated post about playing soccer this past fall. This second season with AYSO brought some changes, mainly in the kids having actual teams and games on Sat. after a weekly practice. 
I loved the kids having their own teams, but practices and games certainly put a strain on our schedules, especially since Reagan’s team did not practice the same day as the boys’ team.  Plus, it meant Jim and I rarely got to watch all the kids play because their teams would play at the same time on different fields.
The other change was coaching!  Due to a change in the scheduled coach’s work schedule, his wife took over Reagan’s team even though she didn’t really know what to do.  Brave woman!  Jim stepped up to help her out as an assistant coach, and together they managed to pull off a pretty decent season!

The best day of all was when Reagan’s team played the boys’ team!  Although it was a real test of Daddy’s loyalties!  Especially when one of “his girls” played particularly well against his boys!

Coach Daddy watching Jonathan

Reagan, Thomas, and Zachary

Zachary, Jonathan, and Thomas vs. Reagan

It was a pretty intense game, cheering for both sides!  I hope the kids never compete against each other for anything really important!  They all did a great job, and we had so much fun!
After all, that’s what it’s all about, right?  Having fun!

Well, that and the fact that Reagan’s team beat the boys.
Not that anyone’s counting!

1 House, 12 Adults, 10 Children (age 5 and under), and 6 Dogs

Doesn’t that sound like fun?
For Memorial Day weekend, we went to visit our friends John and Sue, the parents of our good friend Matthew, at their thankfully-quite-large mountaintop cabin and take part in a get-together that used to happen fairly often before we all had children and spread our homes all over the world.  (We also went here and one other time that I can’t find a post for)
It was a jam-packed weekend, full of fun, catching up with old friends, and the joy of watching the next generation play together.
To give us all a break from a very full house, we went one day to Tweetsie Railroad, an amusement park in North Carolina geared mostly toward younger children.  It was PERFECT for our crew of kids and they LOVED it!

Thomas on the carousel

Cousin Avery, Zachary, Thomas, and Cousin Tyler on the boat ride

Thomas and Reagan on the rocket ride

Matthew and son Andy relaxing in the shade

Unfortunately for me, one of the early rides we went on was the Tilt-a-Whirl, a ride I will never go on again FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!  I should have known better and never ridden it in the first place!  BUT I THOUGHT I WOULD BE OKAY!  Most of my problems in the past have come from waiting in long slow-moving lines in the heat, so that I was sick before I even got on the ride.  This time, it wasn’t that hot and the line was super-short!  I thought I could do it.

I couldn’t.

Here, look at pictures of other happy adults riding with happy children!

Aunt Carey and Uncle Clay with Cousin Tyler and joathan

Jim with Reagan and Thomas

I rode it one time.  And apparently turned genuinely green.  I managed to not throw up, but was pretty much useless for the next hour or more while I tried to overcome my nausea.  There was a lot of sitting still with my eyes closed while whispering to the kids to please not touch me and motioning to Jim to please stop asking me questions.

Stupid Tilt-a-Whirl.

Anyway, I eventually got over it and was able to enjoy the rest of my time.  In addition to the rides, there were also shows, a music one and a magic one.  We watched both, and the kids even got to participate in the magic show!

For the big finale, the poor magician ended up with every kid in the audience on stage, all of them asking for keys because a couple of kids were asked to hold keys and then every other kid wanted one too.  It must happen pretty often because the magician handed out keys to all of them and didn’t want them back.  It was great!

Daddy with Reagan and Thomas

Reagan, Zachary, Jonathan, Andy, and Thomas

One of the highlights was the train!  An actual working steam engine that pulled a line of open cars around the park!  During the ride, we got to see re-enactments of a bank robbery, cowboy shoot-out, and Indian attack.  By the time we stopped at the fort, the train had been taken over by cowboy bandits who held us for hostage!  Jonathan actually turned to me and asked if the bandits were going to shoot us!  I assured him it was all pretend!  Then the cavalry came to our rescue and we returned to the station where the “bandits” handed out bullet casings to all the kids!

The whole gang, minus most of the dogs

It was a wild few days, but SO much fun!  Many, many thanks to John and Sue for allowing us all to descend upon their house and create mass chaos!

Oh, and big thanks to Carrie too for being so great at entertaining the kids and for inviting the Pirate Fairies to visit!  So fun!

Next up, JUNE!!!