Chad with Ruffles

My Prince has come...his name is Daddy.

Tom Boy she's not.

I've got my straw hat for the beach; my baby and stroller for the mall; my pajamas for my nap; and my apron in case I want to do some cooking. You just never know what may come my way...got to be ready for everything!!

GO TEXAN!!!!

HOWDY! I don't know what's going on with the layout here, but I don't have time to mess with it. Here are my little cowboys and cowgirl. I do love a handsome cowboy, and female barrel racing does run in my family! Today is officially Go Texan Day. This means that we are celebrating Texas and the coming of the Rodeo. This is always an exciting day because the kids all get to dress up. Chase is actually wearing his uncle Kevin's shirt from when he was 4 years old. Aiden stole his hat before he could say "yonder". I remember Go Texan day when I was little too. The schools have a State wide Rodeo art contest as well. I always drew horses. I never won, but I always thought that I was going to...that this would be the year that my horses out shine the silly boots and cowboy hats and amateur cattle drive scenes, but no. I think I got honorable mention once...but who wants that? Not me. Not then...not now. Anyhow...I digress. Just thought Y'ALL may want to see how the Clarksons are celebrating Go Texan day. Have a great day...and y'all come back now, ya hear?

Soap Box

Enough is enough. I have been an American Idol watcher dating back to Kelly Clarkson. (People still ask me if I am her, by the way...for those of you that don't know...my first name is Kelly.) We have always watched it as a family and rooted our individual favorites on. However, last night I had my fill. I can no longer watch these kids, in most cases, be ridiculed, mocked and made fun of for a laugh from America any longer. I understand that they are going on their own free will and signing releases and so on, but in my heart, I believe that some of these kids are being hurt and damaged by the judges. The point of the show is to find the "diamond in the rough" who would not make it big in the music industry otherwise...not to make someone feel that they are worthless. I love the idea and the process and watching them compete and get the chances of a lifetime after it has been narrowed down to the final however-many. BUT, and I feel quite serious here, what I witnessed last night was painful and heartbreaking. There was one kid who had such a sweet spirit about him, who was genuine and kind (from what I could see) and one of the judges told him that he looked like a jungle animal. After he walked out of the room, all 3 judges proceeded to laugh at him hysterically. That was my breaking point. I will not sit by and entertain that. Now, I am aware that me no longer supporting American Idol is no skin off their backs, but I have to be honest and true to myself. I see no problem with telling them that they do not have the right voice for the competition, but to insult them to the core with cutting remarks that have no validity to the competition itself is wrong. Period. No one will convince me otherwise. We try hard to teach our kids how to treat people with kindness, and we sit back and wonder why bullying is so out of control in the schools, and why kids are committing suicide, and so many girls have eating disorders, and why our country is in the shape it is in. Well, I believe that becomming desensitized to stuff like this is part of some of our many problems. I can guarantee you this...NOTHING about the way that boy was treated last night pleased God on any level. Tonight, I looked at my own children and thought about how I would feel if I had to watch them being maliciously made fun of...one hurtful comment after the other...while they just stood there with tears welling in their eyes and realized that God must feel the same way when it happens to His children. I can tell you one thing...I would not take it if it were Colton, Chase or Aiden...and I'm not going to take it for anyone anymore. American Idol just lost a viewer.

Party On

well, we had colton's birthday party on sunday. there was a while there on sunday morning where we were unsure. colton said he did not feel good when he got up on sunday morning, and the weather was calling for freezing rain. i kept taking colton's temperature, and watching the weather forecast...going back and forth. is colton getting sick? is the cold front going to hit in the middle of pin the s on superman? how are we going to make this party work in the house? what to do, what to do? if we postpone until next weekend, colton will feel good, and the weather could be better. however, there is no guarantee of that. and, i did not have contact information for some of the kids in his class that did not rsvp...so i could not call and cancel. chad kept calling from chuch asking if we were on. i called and consulted with my mom and dad...which i tend to do in these situations. the counsel i got from everyone was to go ahead with it. so the party was on! and...it went really well and was really fun for colton and the rest of the kids. as some of you know, it was a superhero party. the kids came dressed as their favorite superhero and we were able to have it in the backyard, inspite of the ice storm that was approaching rapidly. the weather was supposed to drop 20 degrees in like an hour on sunday afternoon at some point, and the party was from 2:00-4:00. we were sweatin it, but it held out. colton dressed as superman, of course; chase was batman; aiden was lois lane; and chad and i each wore vintage style superman t-shirts. the boys were so excited. aiden was less thrilled, but enjoyed herself...mainly due to being spoon-fed cake and ice cream a lot of the time. here is what we did:

kids arrived and played in the batcave-(the fort that chad covered with black trashbags to make it into the batcave)

superhero training course-(my personal favorite!!) we made a phone booth out of a big appliance box and got clark kent glasses, an old dress shirt and tie. they had to put the shirt, tie and glasses on over their costume to start and run into the phone booth, take them off, and bust out a superhero. then, they had to climb through the spider web chad made with rope; dive through the hulahoop hanging from the swingset; climb up the rockwall into the batcave; drop the bat signal (we made that out of yellow and black posterboard) to let us know they made it into the cave; slide down the slide; run around the cones; tire jump through the batman inflatable intertubes; and then finish by completing the x-ray vision test. that was a mason jar filled with m&ms and they had to guess how many were in the jar by using their x-ray vision.

kryptonite pass-we had a superhero music cd with all the songs from batman, superman, etc. and we had a plastic kryptonite toy that you put a glow stick in. the kids stood in a circle and passed it. when the music stopped, whoever was holding it was "out".

pin the s on superman

find green lantern's ring-chad got 40 of those ring pops from sams, and hid them all over the front yard. each kid got to find 2 of them.

balloon game-we took the bat signal down, and put it on the ground. the kids stood in a circle around it, blew up their balloons and then let them go. whoever's balloon landed closest to the bat signal won. i had my doubts about this game, but the kids went crazy and loved it.

the superman and batman pinatas-these things would not break!! finally, on 2nd, or 3rd go-around, superman got beheaded. i had to run over and take down the crime scene really quickly to avoid nightmares for life. i literally threw my body in front of the pinata to keep the kids from really seeing what it looked like. let me remind you...it was hanging with rope.

superman cake and ice cream-colton got a little aggitated that one of the other kids blew out his candles before he had the chance, but decided that it was o.k. in the end.

presents-by this point, everyone was screaming...the kids, who are jacked up on cake, ice-cream, poweraide, and pinata candy at this point...and the adults who were trying to talk over the kids and keep them in line.

all and all...it was a great party. i highly suggest the superhero theme. the girls loved it too.

that was sunday. monday...colton came down with strep throat. we went to the doctor and they did a strep test which went way better than i expected...however i had to do it first to show colton that it was "no big deal". now i HATE strep tests. i would rather have a shot. but, anything for your kid...right? after seeing me do it, colton decided that he could do it better. and he did.

last night, i was making an early dinner for the kids because chad and i had a meeting we had to go to. they were having a babysitter, other than my parents, which rarely happens. colton was being a bit demanding in his tone of voice yesterday afternoon and evening and i reached my limit. i was at the stove and he came in demanding that i open something for him. i said, "i would appreciate it if you would change your tune." to that, colton SANG, "mom...would youuuuu...open thisssss...for meeee?" then he laughed and said, "you said to change my TUNE." all these commedians out of work...and he makes jokes!

expect a montage coming soon!!

Meal Time Bites...

...get it??? bites??? meal times at my house are not my favorite thing. i feel that there are 2 kinds of people in the world...those that live to eat and those that eat to live. i am the latter. i eat to stay alive, not because i enjoy it. don't get me wrong, i have a sweet tooth that wont' stop, but meals...not my favorite thing. and cooking...HATE it! well, colton and chase are similar to me. they don't particularly love eating meals, but snacks...keep em comin. anyhow, i have been having trouble getting all three of them to eat the same thing and making 5 different dinners definitely does NOT float my boat. chad likes meat; i like fruit and veggies; colton likes mac and cheese; chase likes pizza; aiden likes yogurt...and so on. i decided a while back that i was not going to be suckered into trying to please everyone, so i set rules. rule number 1...you eat what is in front of you. rule number 2...you take the number of bites of how old you are. (however, i don't make chad take 34 bites of broccoli.) january 1st, i added some new rules because, let's face it, it was not going well. new rule number 3...if you complain about the food that i prepared, you must help clean the kitchen. (this means pulling the chair over and washing all the dishes that go in the dishwasher and loading it...they already had to clear the table.) new rule number 4...you must ask to be excused before you can leave the table. making our children aware of the fact that there are many, many kids in our world that do not have food at all is important to me. i will not stand for complaining about the food that we have. chad let colton see some of the kids on the compassion international website that did not have enough food and water, shelter, clothing, toys, etc. and it made a difference for him. we had always told him that there were these kids out there...but until he put a face with it, he didn't really believe us. anyhow, here is how it is going...as soon as we sit down at the dinner table, chase says, "i clean kitchen tonight". colton says, "i'll help." then chase says, "no eat this" and colton makes some excuse about why he CAN"T eat, like it's "too spicy." while paying attention to them...trying to "remind" them about the number of bites rule...(refer to rule number 2) aiden has separated all her food in to sections and has thrown the "undesired" portion of the meal on to the floor. while i clean that up, colton and chase have managed to smear their food around and tell me that they have, indeed, taken their number of bites. how do i argue? maybe they have...i don't know. i need a video camera because i know as well as you do that i am getting played. i look to chad to see if they have eaten their bites or not and he normally just shrugs an "i don't know" shrug. he was busy eating his number of bites. i can't remember the last time i ate a hot meal. i am learning to prefer luke warm. i was thinking the other day about their different tastes and reactions to different kinds of kid friendly food. here is what i came up with...

Mac & Cheese:
Colton-loves it
Chase-hates it
Aiden-loves it

Pizza:
Colton-tolerates it (only without the sauce)
Chase-loves it
Aiden-loves it

Hot Dogs:
Colton-loves them
Chase-tolerates them sometimes
Aiden-throws them

Yogurt:
Colton-GAGS
Chase-loves the kind out of the tube
Aiden-will only eat it if she feeds herself (MESS)

Apples:
Colton-loves them (skin on)
Chase-tolerates them (skin off)
Aiden-loves them

Carrots:
Colton-tolerates them
Chase-loves them with ranch
Aiden-eats a couple and then throws them

Pasta:
Colton-only without sauce
Chase-CRIES
Aiden-throws

Cheese Sticks:
Colton-hates them
Chase-uses them for stirring his water
Aiden-throws

Scrambled Eggs:
Colton-loves them
Chase-GAGS
Aiden-pushes bowl away

Bananas:
Colton-hates them
Chase-tolerates them
Aiden-loves them

Here are the things they all eat without a problem:
CEREAL
PANCAKES
WAFFLES
BISCUITS
ANY KIND OF SNACK

i think i will title this blog...MEAL TIME BITES!!

off his back or over his head

well, we are busy getting ready for colton's birthday party this coming sunday. he wanted a superhero party so i guess the superman cake pan was worth the money. we are having the party in the backyard...i am praying for good weather, because he wanted to invite everyone in his class...and plan B is NOT inside my house. at first chad and i thought we should stick with the "1 kid per year" rule, but he was so concerned about kids in his class getting their feeling hurt that we decided to let him invite them all. i am busy trying to come up with superhero games to play and chad is developing the relay race as we speak. all the kids are coming dressed like their favorite superhero, so it should be pretty cute. i don't have anything for aiden to wear...we will have to come up with something. does super-pumpkin work??? how about super-christmas dress girl??? let's see...we have a tiger costume that i have yet to return to shannon...she could be super-tiger. well, we will see. chad was in iowa this passed weekend, so we spent saturday and sunday with my parents. that was fun. they have a game that the boys love to play. it is called A to Z Junior. it has 100 little red chips that you have to use to cover up letters, and you can imagine what chase's mission was. colton was totally into the game, and so was granna and i, and chase was too for the first 8 minutes. well, he got tired of waiting for his turn and decided to begin throwing the tiny chips all over the living room. i quickly put an end to that, but then we were all obsessively looking for all the chips so that aiden wouldn't get them and put them in her mouth. we found them all after a while. a little while later, they wanted to play the game again. i said, "o.k. but granna is in charge of the chips." colton said, "and colton...because colton is very careful." (he has started this thing where he talks in 1st person) and then he looked at chase and said, "but not chase...you're crazy...you're like a circus act," referring to chase's inability to control his impulses at times. lucky in that moment, things seem to roll right of chase's back. either that, or go right over his head.