I got a new car!

Well, a NEW TO ME car!! I was so excited, I couldn't even blog about it. But my friend Brooke did!

For the big news story...click here. Just couldn't reproduce her eloquent words.

OHHHH...and you also gotta read up on another Brandon moment...click here. Again, Brooke's words are too hard to beat. We've had to have this last conversation again since that post. The kid forgets everything.

33 and FEELING IT!

Well, I had another birthday. There's a point in life where I think people are excited about birthdays, and then you get to a point where you kind of start dreading them. I was kind of in the middle of those 2 feelings this year, up until I found this.

A flippin hand freckle! FOR REAL??!! This might not be a big deal to most people, especially for my friends who are not freckle challenged, but for me it was huge. You see, my grandma has freckly hands. Now, my mom has freckly hands. Some might see them as cute, but I see old. No offense Mom & Gma, but it's my first one. The rest of them probably won't hurt as bad.

Besides that, I had a WONDERFUL DAY!!! I woke up in the morning to sweet cards from the hubby, kids & dogs. I also got a box of sham wow's! A whole box of them! (If anyone wants one, please let me know. I have 12) And inside the box was a check to go and get a new car!! YEAH!! My sweet husband rocks. So, now I am off to find the perfect car for our family!!

I was also blessed to have spent the day getting a pedicure with Brooke, got to have sushi with some of my great friends, and had dinner with my favorite boys!! What more could a girl with a hand freckle want??!!??!! (ok...maybe a maid. But we'll start with a car!)

Cam's turn

Brandon writes me love notes, Camron cracks me up. This is on the hall walking through the halls of Arlon Seay (the place to BE!) A "Who am I " project.

40 for Brooke on Saturday

My sweet & dear friend Brooke posted a comment about not making my 11 on Thursday post. So, this one is for her.

Frankly, I have had a REALLY hard time trying to come up with something to say about this sweet Brookie lately. She has really left me speechless for the last 6 weeks, so here is an attempt of her greatness.

1. You let me forget that I am 5 1/2 years older than you.

2. You are brilliant. And you don't let my non-brilliant self feel dumb. Well, sometimes you correct me, but that's ok, cause you could do it a lot more than you do.

3. You watch girly movies with me (and watch our husband squirm in the chairs next to us).

4. When I am making you NO sense, you understand me.

5. You can finish my sentences.

6. You are not a hugger, like me.

7. You made me somewhat of a runner. I still don't like it, by the way, but I NEVER would have done it with out you.

8. You call me to go for a walk/run.

9. You listen to me.

10. You help me with ANYTHING I ask you to do.

11. You help me when I don't even ask.

12. You watch my kids. A LOT.

13. You clean my kitchen all the time.

14. You never say I am a bad Mom, when you've seen me do lots of stupid things.

15. You love Jesus so much.

16. You taught me to love Jesus.

17. You are my #1 emergency contact on all the kids' forms. Have I even told you that one? Mental note, if you see that 980-8700 # come across...

18. You always have brilliant ideas when it comes to anything that needs to be done.

19. You are a very eloquent speaker.

20. You helped me get my baby weight off (even though it had been there for 5+ years)

21. You never, ever said that I had baby weight to loose until it was gone.

22. You calm my nerves when I am crazy.

23. Have I mentioned that you are brilliant?

24. You buy me gifts when you don't have to.

25. You call me all the time even though you don't like to talk on the phone.

26. You are one of the best mothers I have ever met.

27. You tried sushi cause I asked you to. (and loved it)

28. You threw me a suprise birthday party.

29. You are a wonderful cook.

30. You make desserts that make me want to put that #20 back on.

31. You lift me up when I am really down.

32. You keep me in check with myself.

33. You don't make fun of me.

34. We wear the same shoe size which is very convienent.

35. You will let me borrow anything, anytime.

36. You were the best pregnant person I've ever been around.

37. You recovered SO fast from the pregnancy!

38. You just turned in your 120+ page dissertation proposal!

39. You've been awarded 2 fellowships!

And last, for now, and the most important one...

40. You gave me the best gift in the WHOLE entire world by letting me be in when you had Eli. No words could ever express my gratitude!!!

11 on Thursday

11 things today...

1. Camron learned 3 new cords this week in guitar lessons. He's up to 8 cords. Yeah!
2. He played "Happy Birthday" & SANG to Harrison @ his Bday party. He's getting a little less shy!
3. Brandon got 4th place in the hand stand contest @ tumbling class. Yeah!
4. He now has to start practicing hand stand push ups. Ouch.
5. He is also VERY into spelling everything. He walks around all day long spelling everything he wants to say instead of saying it. It's quite cute.
6. The 2 boys & I got flu shots today. Yuck.
7. Cowboy is COMPLETLY healed! Yeah!
8. Blake works late...every night. Yuck.
9. Camron and I are running (and walking) The Loft's Soul2Sole 5k this Saturday!
10. Blake is the MC guy.
11. The chickens are out of control. They are stinky. Mini, the one with the growth, runs really really funny.

Here's Brandon's note for today. Remember, he is still learning to spell.

Translation: Thank you for breaking the family. I climbed out the window. I moved to the Gilberts. Bye. Thank you for reading this note.

My sweet boy. He was mad @ Blake for making him go to his room when he couldn't calm down. What am I gonna do with this kid!?!?

Happy Last Day of October!

Another year down!

I think next year, we're going to get more creative with the costumes. The whole "going to Target and spending 30 minutes in the Halloween isle finding the perfect costume" thing is getting old. We did creative last year, and I missed it this year. They were still cute though, and they thought their costumes were pretty cool!

Bradie, Logan, Cam & Bran @ Bulverde Baptist Fall Festival. The cool thing about this pic is that we only had to worry about Bradie smiling! The masked kids didn't count!

Jamie, Elli & Cam

My favorite almost-10month old out there!!! (Brother was the cowboy and sister was the indian!)

Bran & Charis

Look @ that sweet face!!!

And NOW ON TO MY FAVORITE 5 Week Old!!!! Man!!! He's a CUTIE!!

We matched in our orange & black outfits. I did not have on velour pants though. Couldn't find any in my size.

Another note from this picture-this is the 9th halloween that I've worn this shirt. Got it when Cam was 11 months old. (side note from the first side note, was reminded of how old this shirt was from Jenny & Jessica's sister's blog-she has a boo shirt that she wears once a year) This shirt too gets worn once a year. And, it too is getting shorter & shorter every year, hince the under shirt. Are shirts shrinking? Am I getting taller? Are pants getting lower? Or is it just not as cool when you are 30 something after having 2 kids to have your belly hang out? Or your butt, for that matter!?

3rd note, Hi Cowboy sticking your head out from behind me! He wanted in the pic too!

Pre-halloween festivities

Well, it's that time of year again! The annual pumpkin carving...(this year Cam was really into his bald wig, and would not take it off)

Lights on

(Busted kid in background)

Lights off

Then it was time for the school version of dress up. They are to dress like a "book character" to keep it nice & clean.

Captain Underpants and Wolverine away!!

Always gotta put the Brandon/Madison pic in here!

Trip to Roundrock!

The boys & I decided to make a trip to Roundrock to visit Charlotte, Corey & the kids while Blake spent some good time in worship @ The Men of Light Conference.

This trip was 4 fold.

1. To visit one of my dear friends that I hardly get to see.
2. To watch Lincoln play t-ball!
3. To watch Gwenyth play soccer!
4. To watch Maison play volleyball!

Did I mention that we went to go watch some sporting events?! They all did SOOOO well, and it was really fun to see the Kosse's. We miss having them so close!

Lincoln & I before the game

Tatum

Char & I

Me & my favorite boys!

Lincoln running home!

The proud mama!

Piggy tails & a soccer ball!

One beautiful 9 year old girl!

I still have my french braiding skills!

We had so much fun, and can't wait till the next time we get to see them all!

Why I do what I do...

Brandon made me this at school. I love this kid! (And Cam too...but he's out of the "writing Mom special notes" stage already.)

you get chickens, you get chicken eggs!

So I thought to myself one day, I wonder if I can let the chickens roam throughout the backyard? Really, it's OUR training, not the chickens I was worried about. Can we be SO careful not to let the 2 dogs out, so that we can keep getting eggs and not have chicken stew?

So, after a phone call to my friend Rob & Kim, my chicken goo-roos, I decided to let em out of their cage! And man...do they LOVE it! They chicken around all through the backyard & have a blast! (These pics really pick up all the beautiful hill country rock we have in the backyard. It's free, by the way. Just come load & take as much as you want!)

Then, they do this strange dirt bath thing where they waller around in the dirt. It's weird.

And now they're coming up real close to the house! They're getting braver & braver!

Right after we started letting them out, they started laying more! I was so excited one day when I got this!

Then, a couple days later, we were up to this!

Needless to say, we eat a lot of eggs. And egg sandwiches. And omlets. And egg soup. And boiled eggs. Eggs, eggs and more eggs. Blake checked today, and found 11 more! Seriously!

Fun in the Rain & Favorite Shirts

This blog is about 2 things. Control and Fun.

1. I love control. One of my big control things is picking out my kids clothes. I pick them out. They don't have their own "style" they have "what Mom picks out style". I think this stems from all the pics of me as a child, not wearing the coolest clothes. I don't want that for my kids. So, I pick out their clothes.

2. Fun. I love for my kids to have fun. Especially if they can do it neatly and quietly.

This day was about NEITHER. There was NO control over what they wore, and it was very messy. But, they had a BLAST!!

There's nothing like playing in the rain, in what you picked out to wear. (At the time, it wasn't raining very hard, so we had to add the sprinkler for more fun.)

Camron has on a pink shirt. Go figure. The kid is starting to come out of his shell. He thinks pink on boys makes them real manly and cool.

Bran has picked out green shorts and an itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny power ranger under-roos top. Classic Brandon.

I just love these kids!! They are SO fun!