Pretty Princess

We all know how Sienna loves to play princess. As I was trying to set the computer up Sienna came running in telling me to get the camera and come see. She was soooo excited but I didn't really want to stop what I was doing. Everyone knows what a pain it is to set up the computer. All the cords and plugs~ not to mention you have to crawl under and behind your desk, it's just such a hassle. At the moment when Sienna came in I happened to be under the desk with 2 cords in my hand, 1 cord in my mouth and the tower tipped sideways and propped on my leg. So you could say that I was kind of in the middle of something. But she was just so excited so I asked her what she needed me and the camera for. She said, "Me and Daddy play pretty princess!!" Now, I had to pause because I knew that Dave was napping on the couch. So I finally said to her, "Well, isn't Daddy sleeping?" She replied with a very excited YES followed by lots of hand clapping. So I grabbed my camera and went to see Pretty Princess Daddy. Sienna was so happy with how pretty she made Daddy look. And Dave must have been so exhausted from the move because he slept right through the whole thing, even me taking about 50 pictures!

Finally

Here's the cheerleading video, finally! This new internet is not as fabulous as I had hoped! Enjoy!

Sienna is 4 years old!

It's so hard to believe that Sienna is 4 years old already! It really is amazing how fast the time goes by, especially considering that it seems so slow in the moment. February 3 marked the 4th year of my amazing princess. This is a picture of her all dressed up in one of her new dress-up outfits. She even made Aunt Shell take a picture of the shoes. It's so amazing to me that her little feet are a perfect fit for those shoes. A true Cinderella. :)

She had such a good time at her party! All of her cousins came (except Brandon due to a basketball game). Sienna really enjoys getting together with ALL of her cousins. Birthdays is really about the only time when all the kids from both sides of the family can get together. We had a princess pinata for her. We always do pinatas for all the birthday parties and usually the kids doing really well with looking out for each other and not being crazy about getting the candy. (I make them all share it anyway.) But for some reason this party Sierra lost her mind over the pinata. She tackled Levi to get to the candy! Maddie had to jump into the pile of children and pull Levi out from the bottom!! I was completely and totally shocked. I still am. I don't even know what to say about it.

It was a really nice day. I was afraid with only having a week to get the house together and do a party that I would be all stressed out but I wasn't, thankfully. Dave was a big help. He put up the decorations and hid the last few remaining boxes for me. Sienna is such an amazing person and I am so blessed to be a part of her life. She inspires me everyday. Happy Birthday Sienna! We love you so much!!

Mini-Cheer Clinic '08

Yeah for the mini cheer clinic. One of my absolute most favorite times of the year! We all remember from the football cheer clinic that Sienna didn't enjoy the three practice days but she loved the performance. So when the basketball cheer clinic rolled around I really didn't know what she was going to want to do. She decided with ease that she definitely wanted to do it. She promised that she would go to every practice and not cry. I was still pretty nervous about what she would do especially since they were doing 4 practices this time. Day one came around and she said she didn't want to go. I'm talking it up and going through all the usual reassurances when she pops out with, "Mom, if you give me an ice cream cup I'll go to cheerleading and not cry." I gave her the ice cream cup and she went to cheerleading with no tears. Now, I know that she totally worked and manipulated me there but it was worth it. An ice cream cup is a small price to pay for no fight and not wasting $40. She went to practice everyday and loved it. She even won a high five ribbon award for being the most spirited on her squad on day one and won a bear on the last day for being the most spirited on her squad overall.

Sierra loves the mini cheer clinics. She has done every single one since she was in kindergarten. They do 2 a year. Sierra has always given a 110% at every practice and every game. She is such a good cheerleader. It's really impressive that she remembers almost every cheer, dance and move long after the clinic is over. Sierra won a high five ribbon award for being the most spirited on her squad. Her big cheerleader (that's the high school cheerleader who is in charge of her squad) even gave us her phone number for babysitting. That's worth the registration fee alone!!

They both did such an awesome job and I am so proud of them both. Here's a little video of their performance.

Edit: You'll have to check back for the video. I can't get it to upload right now and it's late and I'm tired. I'll try to get it on tomorrow.

For the Love of High Speed Internet!

I'm finally back on line! Yeah!! For those of you that don't already know we moved into a different house at the beginning of this month. Apparently, I now live in the middle of no man's land corn county where it is virtually impossible to get high speed internet access. I called every cable and phone company I could find and none of them were able to service us here. We do have Verizon for our phone but their DSL "wasn't serviceable at our location". Just let me say that I find it very interesting that my father can build his home into the side of a mountain in West Virgina and can get Verizon DSL but me in the middle of a corn field~ just not reachable! I'm still trying to figure that one out. We finally had to go through HughesNet which consists of a HUGE satellite dish with a weird looking rod sticking out of it, sitting in my yard.

The new house is great! I'm so loving it. It's so old and big. The kids are really enjoying it. There is sooo much more room for them to run around here. I have so many things I want to talk about~ Sienna's birthday, mini cheer clinic, the house~ just to name a few. So I'll be putting up some new posts in the next couple of days. I just wanted to make a quick post to let everyone know I'm still around (barely).

A Mother's Love

Sorry that I haven't been blogging much lately. I just haven't felt like it. I guess I'm sort of in a funk. Honestly, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. The kids have been soooo sick. Sierra just got back from Christmas break and she just missed an entire week of school. Again, she has back to back strep throat and then got the stomach flu (from Sienna) on top of that. Sienna had a NASTY stomach bug that lasted for a week! Levi is actually weathering the storm like a champ, much to my surprise. He does have a cough and runny nose but that's nothing at this point.

I have a very weak stomach. I know it's a mental thing, but still~ I'll hurl in a heartbeat for the right smell. Puke is one of those smells. As a mother we endure many things and would throw ourselves in front of a speeding bus for the sake of our children. This thought becomes incredibly real to me as I hold out my shirt or my hands for my child to puke in. All in a mother's love that you can never possibly fully appreciate until you are a mother.

I am soooo incredibly behind on my laundry. My washing machine has been pretty much monopolized by sheets, blankets and pillows. Any sort of free time has been monopolized by my Lysol can and scrub bucket. I've even had to pull out my emergency reserve of 'granny panties' (that are only kept for situations such as this). Again, all in a mother's love that you can never possibly fully appreciate until you are a mother.

I have seen the inside of the pediatrician's office 3 times within the last 5 days. I have verified my home address, phone, pharmacy and emergency contact at each of those visits. I have read approximately 20 books and identified each animal on the Ark too many times at those visits. I discovered (too late) that I wore the same sweatshirt to 2 of those 3 visits. And twice I discovered (again, too late) that Levi smeared cookie all over my shoulder. Again, all in a mother's love that you can never possibly fully appreciate until you are a mother.

Christmas with Dad

Going to Dad's house for a few days was a nice little get-a-way. That's not to say we didn't hit a few bumps along the way. I was a little concerned about everything fitting into the van. My van seats seven but it has zero storage area. There's only enough room for the stroller to fit behind the back seats. The stroller didn't get to go so that we could have some room for luggage and I told everyone to pack light. For some reason though, it never even occurred to me about leaving room for Christmas gifts that we would be coming home with us. I did manage to make everything fit but we were all pretty packed in.

The kids actually did pretty well on the way to West Virgina. About 2 hours from the 'hollar' they got pretty anzy and started bombarding us with 'are we there yet'. Dad has a beautiful home which you can see in the picture above. However, it is located down this po-dunk hollar. I've been down a lot of hollars in my life, but this one is 'special'. The first time I experienced this hollar (I say that because it is an experience) I screamed at Dave to SLOW DOWN after I just about threw up! The potholes in this thing could swallow the entire van I swear. However, this time I thought the hollar was looking great. Hilde has done a wold of difference by getting the state (or whoever) finally out there to take care of it. The potholes weren't nearly as bad or many, even though there were still a few. With all this being said keep in mind that it was pitch black out by the time we made it to the hollar. I was going nice and super slow (remember, I've drove down this thing at night before). I pothole turns up and move slightly as to avoid the pothole and every passenger in my van, including my sister, begins screaming at the top of their lungs. Scared the crap out of me! Well I had to slam on my break and stop the van completely and let everyone know to never again scream like that in the van. Apparently, they all thought I was driving them over the edge of a mountain.

Once we actually got there and got everyone out of the van things went a little smoother. The kids wanted to open gifts immediately (this is when it first occurred to me about taking extra things home with us~ duh). Dad and Hilde have the most beautiful BIGGEST tree I've ever seen inside someone's home. They have to use a 10 ft. ladder to assemble and decorate this huge tree. There is an ornament for each child and grandchild. Which is quite a few ornaments considering that between the two of them they have 5 kids and 11 grandkids!

The kids were up pretty early and ready to get their day with Papaw started. It was pretty cold out but they were able to put their coats on and play around outside for a little bit. The older kids the 4 wheeler for a little bit and then Dad got out Brandon's bb gun . Imagine my surprise when Sierra turned out to be a sharp shooter. She never missed! Too bad she won't have much of a chance to use this talent seeing how I am not a fan of guns or hunting.

We got to see some family that we don't get see very often. We got to see Roney, whom I haven't seen in years and the same for Aunt Edna. We also got to meet Savanah for the first time, Mike's daughter. She is such a beautiful young lady who strongly resembles her daddy. It's always great when we get to see Aunt Tiney, Uncle Butch and Pam. As soon as the kids saw Aunt Tiney walk in they all went straight to the table and were ready to play spoons! I'm still wondering why I don't ever remember playing spoons as a child and why I still don't know how to play spoons?!

It was a really nice visit. Obviously, I'm leaving a few things out. Nothing major~ my small breakdown at Bob Evans, Levi's cold, nasty van attitude. It was a great visit but it's always nice to be back home, too. But even we when smack dab in the middle of the roughest part of the trip - those last two hours- I was already starting to think about the next time we would be able to visit again. Some of my best memories as a child was our trips to West Virgina. I always heard Dad refer to it as 'home' and that's what it always felt like to me. I always felt like I was home.

Merry Christmas To All...

Christmas was wonderful, as it always is. Long but great, as always. On Saturday we did Christmas with Dave's family at his mom's. There's a total of 8 kids ranging in age from 14 to 1. So all of the kids have a ton of fun together and I actually get to talk to the grown ups, since the older kids can chase Levi. It's pretty nice.

We stayed home on Christmas Eve and got ready for Santa. Sienna was very particular when it came to putting out the cookies and milk. I just followed her directions. I told the kids they could open one gift before bed. Sierra was pretty disappointed when I pulled her out from the tree and told her she didn't get to pick which gift, I already had the gifts picked out. It was their new jameys~ a Christmas staple. They all looked so cute ~ the girls in their pink jameys and Levi with his cars and trucks all over his. Simply adorable.

Finally~ Christmas morning. The girls came in my room at 7 exclaiming, "Santa came! Santa came!" We got up and woke Levi up and then the present unwrapping extravaganza began! Levi tore off that first piece of paper and brought it to me, like 'look mom'. He grew tired of unwrapping the presents pretty quickly. He just wanted to play. Even Sienna grew tired of opening gifts. She has been sick though, I think that had something to do with it. Sienna is at that great age where everything is great. She was opening the last few gifts (after the motrin kicked in) and she came running up to me with a clothing box in hand. She said, "Look Mom! A white box!!" How cute is that?! I told her to open the box and she was just as excited to find a pretty skirt with matching shirt inside. Like I said, it's a great age. Sierra had a great Christmas too. She knows the truth about Christmas now so there was no Santa magic for her. However, it was AWESOME to see that awe and thankfulness that is usually reserved for Santa directed my way! She got the mp3 player that she wanted sooo badly and an outfit that she instantly fell in love with. After those two gifts the rest were great no matter what they were.

Papaw Walt (Dave's dad) came over for breakfast on Christmas morning. It was a really nice visit for all of us. Of course, Mom and Shell (with kids) came over for dinner. Another lovely visit. It was a really nice day.

It was a wonderful holiday for all of us. (I got my Lost Season 3 on DVD :) ). We're leaving for West Virgina in the morning to spend some time with Dad and Hilde. Shell and her kids are going with us and all the kids are SUPER excited! It should be a really great time!

Christmas Programs

I love going to the school Christmas programs. I still remember how excited I would get as a kid for my Christmas program. I felt like a star. I felt special. So now to watch my children in their own Christmas programs is special to me.

First was Sierra's program last week. She always does such a wonderful job. However, I cannot say the same for my camera. Something about the lighting in the gym totally messes with my camera. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get a decent picture inside the school gym. I'm posting a picture any way so you can understand why I'm not posting more. The Lord truly blessed my life with Sierra. She is such a special girl. She did such a great job, like always. Here's a quick little video. She's in the third row, 6th to the right. Again, sorry about the camera. :(

Then there was Maddie's choir program. This is not your regular grade performance, this is 'choir'. Again, brings back good memories for me. I absolutely loved choir. I took it all 4 years in highschool, was in the Show Choir and even choreographed dance routines starting as a sophomore. Big ups to Emily~ she was definitely my choir homie! Back to Maddie~ she did such a wonderful job! She seems to truly enjoy herself. I know I enjoyed myself watching her perform, even when she made me participate (even if my evil sister was laughing hysterically at me). Sadly I don't have any pictures since I forgot my camera.

Today was Sienna's program at the preschool. She was absolutely adorable! They sang songs and recited a poem and then got a surprise visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus. She did such an awesome job. And I think it's safe to say that Sienna really enjoys performing for a crowd. She knows how to keep contact with the camera, that's for sure. I'm so proud of all the ladies in my life. They're all at different stages in life but all growing up so fast. They all did a wonderful job.

Here's a couple of videos of Sienna's progam. In this first video, pay attention to the little girl next to Sienna. This little girl is one of Sienna's best friends. She puts her arm in front of Sienna's face. Notice how Sienna handles that!

The First Family Portrait

I know it's sad to admit, but this is the first year that we've actually done an entire family picture. It was quite an adventure. Well, here's our first ever family portrait and pictures of the kids.

A Little Christmas Joy

Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday! I LOVE it! It's such a special time of year. Thoughts are filled with family, friends, love and memories of the past. And Christmas is the holiday we do at my house. Shell gets Thanksgiving and I get Christmas.

We did a family portrait this year. It's actually the first time that Dave and I have both been in the picture with the kids. I'm really excited to get the pictures back. I'm hoping they'll be in any day now. The portrait technician was amazed at how quickly we did our pictures. We have three children - everything we do is expedited. It took us longer to get service from the picture tech to make our selections and pay than it did to actually take all the pictures. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, was quite irritating to me. Levi was all over the place! There was about a million people in there waiting for their pictures and he was making friends with all of them. Sears had a Dora video going so Sienna was pretty content to watch the show. Poor Sierra. She tried sooo hard to keep up with Levi. She did a really good job. She's so helpful to me at times. She's truly a blessing!

After family photo time we went to see Santa. I felt horrible last year because we didn't even do Santa. We knew that Sienna wouldn't sit on his lap (she made that perfectly clear) so we didn't even bother. This year, Sienna was excited to go see Santa. She promised that she would sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas and even let Mommy get a nice picture. Which she did! I was so proud of her. Sienna isn't too smiley in the picture but I still think it's an awesome picture!

Our Christmas tree has been up for a couple of weeks now. Sienna LOVES the tree. The first thing she does every morning is ask to 'turn on the tree'. ALL of the kids helped Mommy with the tree this year. We do the fake tree thing. I think it's a little disappointing to Dave. We tried a real tree a couple of times but it's such a pain in the butt! The needles are constantly falling off (choking hazard for small children and puppies), you have to keep crawling under the tree to water it (how many chubby girls do you know that like to crawl under things?), you worry all month about the tree catching on fire, and disposing of the tree after Christmas is always horrific. And I'm not even going to mention the torture you have to endure while attempting to snag this tree out of the wild!! Isn't it so much easier to just go down to the basement and drag out the box? I think so.

Anyway, all of the kids helped put up and decorate the tree this year. Sierra was a HUGE blessing with the tree this year. She went through the box and sorted all the branches as I started assembling. She read the directions and knew which branches were needed and when. She helped Sienna choose the right branches and put them in the right spot. Levi wanted to help with this part but I didn't think that was a good idea for obvious reasons (refer to my previous post which mentions Levi choosing weapons disguised as children's toys). Levi did get to help with the fluffing of the branches to fill the tree out. He seemed to enjoy this part even though the girls and I had to rescue several branches and put them back.


Decorating the tree was alot of fun with the kids. I took a very relaxed approach to the tree this year. I think it's the best tree we've ever had. It might have an empty spot here or there and there might be several red bulbs grouped together in one area and the bottom of the tree is a little naked but it was done with love and wonder by the three people who mean the most to me. Every time I look at this tree I see love. I catch myself just looking at the tree and smiling. All the Precious Moments ornaments are at the very top where Sierra ever so carefully put them. For each ornament she had a different question and wanted to know the story behind the special ornaments that are always at the top of the tree. It was nice to talk to Sierra about the times when she was my only princess. She seemed to really enjoy hearing about the way life used to be.

Sienna loves to put on the little drums and presents. You know the ornaments that come from the dollar general, $1 for 12 or something like that. I've had these things forever and now there's not as many as there once was. But Sienna was digging through every box looking for them and she would get so excited when she found one and come running to the tree to find just the right spot. And that's exactly what it was~ every single one that she found was special and needed a special spot. She would stand back and look at the tree and then say, "Yep, that's it". She was very careful with the glass bulbs too. She kept saying that she didn't want to break them.

Then there was Levi. We tried to let him help. Honest, we did. We tried to help his little hand get the ornament on the branch but he would just get too excited and start smacking the tree and making things fall off, much to the girls' disappointment. So we finally gave up on trying and he seemed much happier to sneak in and steal an ornament from time to time. But he's given the tree his own special touch too. He keeps adding things to the tree. So far I have found in the tree: disposable camera, 2 dog toys and a dump truck. How he's getting these things to actually just sit on the branches is beyond me.

It was a really nice time with the kids. It was a day that I'll cherish forever. I can't wait to remember that day with them next Christmas and so many more to come.

Getting Settled

Max is settling into his new home nicely. He really enjoys hanging out with Lola. They're so cute together. Lola is a little more aggressive than what Max is ready for but Lola is really good about listening to Max and backing off if he whimpers at all. Sienna of course is trying to carry Max around all day, everywhere she goes. And again, we're back to hearing her phrase "He's just a baby." Sierra is eager to see Max as soon as she gets up and then again after school. She's getting up better for school again (until the newness wears off again). And Levi~ what can I say about him? I think he might think that Max's bed is a new chair for him. He keeps flopping right down on top of the dogs. I'm afraid he's going to smoosh poor Max. When Levi is up and loose Max spends most of his time either on my lap or tucked away under my desk at my feet, trying to hide. I've tried soooo hard to explain 'gentle', 'fragile', and 'baby' to Levi, but he doesn't care. He just gives me this little evil (rather scary) laugh and then takes off (to find a new weapon disguised as a child's toy). So, pretty much all is going well. We have a few bumps here and there but isn't that what life is, one big bumpy road?

Meet Max

There's a good chance that I've gone completely crazy. We got another pug puppy today. His name is Max and he is 9 weeks old. The kids are very excited and happy to have him here. As for Lola, she is extremely excited too. She wants to play with him even though he isn't quite ready for Lola play yet. He's quite curious and exploratory for his first day home. He's going to make a lovely addition to our now complete family!

The Happy Village

Like every other female at Christmas time I too have a village. I have a toy shop, church, house, another toy shop and a couple other buildings. Of course no village is complete without the trees, carolers, ice pond, etc. Pretty basic. Starting last year, we put the nativity scene right in the middle of the village. It doesn't really belong there, I know. But the girls LOVE to play with it all. Normally this would be the type of situation that I would explain to the girls is 'Mommy's stuff that needs to be respected and not played with'. But they enjoy it so much and they're actually very careful with it. And honestly, I get way more enjoyment out of it by watching them enjoy it so much rather than just seeing it sit there so nice and neat. Plus~ let's be honest~ I'm pretty sure most of my stuff has been purchased at the Dollar General or Dollar Tree. We're not talking about fine collector item pieces here.

The kids and I put up our Christmas tree last week and we pulled out all the village stuff. By the time we got around to the village Levi was napping so it worked out nice. The girls set everything up exactly as they wanted and even honored Mommy's one request to put the manger in the middle. Levi got up from his nap while I was making dinner and he was playing nicely with the girls. Sierra was in the dining room with the little ones and I could hear them all so I felt okay to hurry along with dinner. Later, after all the craziness of dinner production time, I noticed that the village seemed strange from a distance. As I got closer I gasped in horror as I realized that the village had been hit by a tornado! A tornado named Levi! It was a complete wreck~ there was a dump truck right in the middle of town (I'm not sure if it was there for destruction or rebuild, but it was there none the less), a Christmas tree was on the manger roof, the angels had fallen from grace and were face down in the destruction -except for one that was placed neatly in the manger and has been left there just for Levi- Joseph was trying to get into the toystore, Mary was on the ice pond, Wise Men face down in the sleigh, and Baby Jesus was nowhere to be found. AMBER ALERT: BABY JESUS IS MISSING! I put everyone on the case. Sierra recovered Baby Jesus rather quickly but it was still quite the scare. I also found a camera on the scene, probably dropped by the insurance agent.

It's nice to see Levi enjoy the village as much as the girls but he's not as gentle as the girls. Maybe he thinks the Wise Men are 'action figures'. They sure have been flying around like super heroes lately. I had to get my carolers out of the garbage a few days ago. I'm very concerned for the village this year. Maybe I should just start collecting a 'mommy only set'. At least it's a happy village.

Snow Already

This was the view from my front door this morning. I love how the snow has been captured mid-fall. However, I hate the snow. I hate winter. I become a hermit once the temperature falls past 40. If I had my way, I would NEVER leave the house during the winter season. I do like to see snow on Christmas day, but that is the only day.

As I opened the front door this morning and pushed Lola out of it, my heart sank when I saw all that snow. Inside I was screaming NO! I was immediately devastated by the realization that I was going to have to bundle up all three of my kids and take them out in the snow and cold to get everyone to school. My first thought was let everyone stay home but then the responsible parent in me said no. My only hope left~ school closing or delay. Imagine my delight when I discovered that Western was on a 2 hour delay! Yeah!! I've been saved from one day in the cold! Yeah!! I'm starting to think that one of the best decisions I have ever made was getting my kids into a school that is located out in the middle of nowhere!