blessings all around...
my dad, step-mom, 2 of their awesome children, and one of their friends came to town. my boys played and played and just knew they were in the presence of greatness. uncle jake is a college baseball player and tate could not leave to go meet up with them at my brother's until granny ran over his ball glove that he left at her house the day before. she was sweet to do it and later that night at home, i found a note he had written to himself about meeting uncle jake and maybe asking him to sign something. i will be keeping that sweet note. it was a great visit!!! my sis took some wonderful pictures of the whole lot of us, but there are a few here.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=910265&l=a749d145dd&id=1137661532


as a family, minus wyatt due to no strollers aloud, we completed the YMCA hog jog. i must say that amidst all my -itis's i felt better that day than i had in a long time. it was a true blessing and at every turn, there were these great little groups of encouragers. we ran ahead of a group and they were yelling...'go farley's' i seriously almost cried. for one fleeting moment, i felt like rocky balboa or something. a must keep tradition!!

our next adventure for the weekend led us to a little town in NE OK who's name i won't mention for a gig that shane had gotten roped into. i don't normally feel like 'betty better than anyone' but i was a little scared there. i felt like shane needed some chicken wire up like on the blues brother's movie. luckily, my sister and her husband went with us and it served as great back up unless things got crazy but more importantly, we had some great laughs!! we may just laugh about that for years to come to keep from crying :) they were a very receptive crowd though...a few chords in to any hank jr. song and the whole place was howling!!! awesome!

we have recently also adopted 'Tony' our new elf on the shelf. if you have small children, these little guys are precious!! since shane works in international shipping, Tony arrived from the north pole with daddy one night when he came home from work.

if you don't already have it...might i recommend Jacob's Gift by Max Lucado. *tear* i love reading that to the boys this time of year!!!

life is good! thank you sweet savior for all of the things i count as blessings that i know i don't deserve...there is none like You!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

an all about Lane weekend...

when you are in the middle of three boys, you sometimes just have to go with the flow. you are not the boss and you are not the baby. this weekend, our little lane was everything! he was happy, excited, silly, fun, an athlete, a good friend, a superstar to say the least. we left baby with granny and headed to 'the city' for the Turkey Shootout soccer tournament with the cutest bunch of 5 year olds around. they ate at Toby Keith's, they rode the bricktown canal, they had ice cream, snow cones, kettle corn, swam at the hotel, jumped on the beds...i could go on all night. lane scored 6 goals and played some killer defense. his team went on to win the tournament! 6 and under champs!!! they have basically dominated the regular season aside from one team who they really had some good competition with and ended up losing one game by one. we came to the tournament not knowing how they would hold up in a different town and knowing we have a pretty young team...all but one are 5. they won every game and the scores sound more like football scores. in the last game they needed 17 points to beat the points total of another team from another bracket that was their same age. they scored 22 points. go Pride!! that other team had allowed 17 goals all tournament and we only allowed 9, so i think it is fair to say that they ROCK!!!!! :) yes, i am a PROUD soccer mom! our friends from 'the city' came to watch him and he was feeling very special to have guests, not to mention another amazing highlight...some of the team wanted to ride in our van, which is the right team color and offers movies! oh, to be 5 :) i thank God for my lane (and all my other boys who i get to share this wonderful life with)

awesome new warm-ups and a back-up black uni and socks in case we clash with the other team! thanks to a gracious donor parent!!

our coaches are amazing and love these boys! we also got a new popup bench...they all have their own backpacks. i've said it before - we look like little david beckhams. blue mohawks and all! :) Go Pride!

first stop...Grandma Billie and Papa's

our pirate with a five o'clock shadow compliments of daddy :)

never thought i would have the opportunity to sew with the shiny materials :) or spray paint black dress shoes white...but he had fun with it!

halloween happenings...

by the end of our short family trick-or-treat visits, Tate had Wyatt doing the 'stayin' alive' pose as well. he was still doing it tonight. so fun! we had a blast! we ended our night at a neighborhood block party outdoors, where shane was singing. there was a bonfire and good friends for mom and a jupiter jump for the boys. gotta love FALL!! we are so blessed!

Neva's Surprise 60th

I highly recommend animoto...super easy and a great result! My sweet mother-in-law does so much for so many people, it was nice to focus on her for one night!! She was SHOCKED!!! Success!!!!!

little stinkers...

wyatt is going to give us a run for our money!! two scenes here. 1) a nice innocent after church coloring session 2) it was way too quiet for a few minutes in the boys' room while i was trying to call all of the football parents to cancel practice due to the rain. Can you guess which is which?

the two big boys are starting to irritate each other from time to time. the other day i was doing laundry around the corner from their room and hear.

'PLEASE stop, PLEASE be quiet!!,' said Tate.

'Be nice now. Talk sweetly to each other,' said Mom.

'Well, he will not quit making noises mom,' explains Tate.

'I was JUST singing 'Eye of the Tiger' mom,' says Lane.

hee hee!

me and kat von d

i heart l.a.ink. not because i love tattoos or because i love the minimal drama of the shop workers. what i love is that deep down inside, i know that kat and i have a lot in common. hardy har har some of you are thinking. well, among many other things she has shared on the show, recently she has been heavily burdened by the stories of her clients. she has begun to have one of the gals at the shop help her sit down and go through her journals to weed through her personal emotions after tattooing them and get down to their real stories in order to put them in a book. i have no tattoos, my husband on the other hand...well, he would finish covering his body if he had the time and the spare cash. i do appreciate the art behind them, but i also admire her genuine tone and respect when she is dealing with someone who's story behind their tattoo seems almost too heart wrenching to be true.

i feel like this in class almost every day. this year alone, i have 7 move-ins to my homeroom class only. that means 7 kids who have had to start a BRAND new school for their last year of elementary. it would not seem so bad except 5 of those are from such extreme situations that if i told you, you would question the truth. i will not only write about each of them in my own journal, but pray for their safety and well being every time they cross my mind. our moment of silence this year to start the day has taken on a whole new meaning to me. they don't know that i am using that time to ask the Lord to bless their day and make them feel safe and loved while i am on watch.

maybe kat and i can get together. i would tell her that i am proud of her over two years of sobriety. i can explain to her that she is right about writing helping to vent and express your true feelings. my 15 hours of graduate work taught me that...ha ha (as well as years of doing it). and maybe, just maybe, she could teach me how to apply rockin' eye make-up...but not permanently.

football and the flu...

our first game of the season and coach Shane told the parents that we made great strides! no one cried and we made 3 first downs!! :)

we took allergy boy to the doc thinking he needed something stronger and they sent us with a mask on to the hospital for an h1n1 test. he tested positive for influenza A and we will not find out if it is specifically 'swine' for 10 days. no sweat right? well, that is how they acted and even said if he is fever free to send him back to school on monday. my sweet boy...mommy is having a hard time, but he is fine!

nothing sweeter...

nothing sweeter than a hot, sweaty 8 year old after his first football practice. it has been a fun week getting to know the sport a little better. we always relied on these other dads to be in charge of teaching my brother the positions, etc. we were merely there to cheer him on. that became ironic later in life. tate is loving it and true to form, seems a natural at the concept of it all. he is a little bruised, which is making mommy upset, but he could care less.

another nothing sweeter...

a recipe box for my tree loving sister who found one similar on etsy. ever shop etsy? please do! such a favorite idea haven of mine and one of the only places i repeatedly shop online.

i did my best to reinvent what she saw and it was a ton of fun. i made the dividers and included a few of my recipes that she likes. i snuck a quote in, because that's what i do. it is messy, but i like it that way inside the lid as a little reminder to her when she opens it that she is beautiful.

"There is no spectacle on Earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking for someone she loves." - Thomas Wolfe

have a blessed weekend!

party pics...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30886&id=1137661532&l=ee801ac1c4

i have never tried this before, but loved all of these pics and my computer is goofing up. try the link for some birthday party pics. the boys' party was AMAZING!! they had a ball and one of my former students, peter kozma, signed autographs pre-game as well as some of his teammates. so sweet!! two things have happened since. lane, being that he is now 5, decided that he should no longer use training wheels and that he was going to lose a tooth. i told him we would work on the bike riding, but not to jump the gun on the teeth. :) tate lost his first one when he was 5 and i am pretty sure lane thought it was happening day 1. second thing to happen was tate deciding on his fall sport. lots of options and we still have a fall baseball team that wants him to come try out. it is a crazy world of sports for 8 year olds :) but mommy is the least enthused about the final decision. shane is coaching and is super pumped. they had 'the draft' last night and it should be a lot of fun!!! yikes!! lots of testosterone at my home. adding a pic of wyatt for good measure. he gets funnier every day. i love him and am already a little weepy about school starting.

tough enough?? mommy hopes so.

just took two times trying...now he's a pro!!

a little eddie haskell...this sweet picture, but we were just moments away from something ornery! he is a mess!!!

reminders...
sometimes we need them. like when we are sitting at a ballgame in July and it is hovering right around 80 degrees. wow! thank you Jesus. i have abundant blessings and don't hesitate to be thankful for them, but this was such a joy to read and stabbed me right in the heart.
have you called your father lately???

http://mamawantsmore.blogspot.com/2009/07/have-you-called-your-father-lately.html