RAELYNN'S SUPER FUN WEEKEND & MY SWEET BOY.....

Well Raelynn's visit with Aunt Steph went really, really well. Not only did Raelynn have a fantastic time but Steph and Cody did too. As much as I hate giving up a weekend with Raelynn, I love that Steph wanted to keep her. It turns out my little city girl got to do some fun country things and loved it. Check out her outfit on the farm pics!!!
Steph and Raelynn after Steph let Raelynn play in the water at the park in her clothes!Steph, Raelynn and Cody making pizzas after their fun day! Cody snuck on one mushroom for Raelynn even though Aunt Steph DOES NOT like mushrooms!Cody and Raelynn fishing. Cody caught a HUGE catfish according to Raelynn. Raelynn on the way to the farm!Lori and Raelynn picking tomatoes. She even got to bring home the tomatoes she picked. Thank you Lori!

Raelynn and the enormous dogs! Nice Raelynn, cowboy boots and shorts!
There were so many more great pictures you can see on facebook.

So while Raelynn is having adventures, Coop and I did some bonding....well sort of. Sunday Coop got sick. He ran a fever and did nothing but sleep all day. Any second he was not asleep he was in my arms snuggling close which I did not mind at all. At around 6pm he came back to life and was ready to go. Because of the fever I wasn't able to take him to daycare until Monday afternoon. So Coop came to work with me for a few hours and then spent an hour or so with Terry and then off to Mary Beth's. He has not slowed down one bit since waking up Sunday night. Even at night he does not seem to be slowing down. Matters of fact last night I am not sure he slept at all. He was up hourly. Terry and I took turns getting up but it seemed like we were both up all night. At one point Terry had just laid him in our bed out of exhaustion. After a bit, Terry picks him up and takes him back to his bed. Minutes later he was back in our room. I took him back to his room and he says, "You lay with me." I agreed just happy to lay anywhere. He puts his little hand on my cheek and says, "I tired Mommy." I said, "Yes Boo, Mommy is tired too. Can you go to sleep and stay in bed?" He simply smiles and says, "I wuv you Mommy." That was the first time without me saying it first that Coop has said he loved me. It was completely unprompted which made it mean so much more. I smiled and realized that being up all night was worth it just to hear that. So at that point Coop goes back to sleep and stays asleep. Of course it was 3:50am at that point and I knew my alarm would be going off in 25 minutes so I started my day a little earlier than usual. However by 6am I had ran, done some muscle conditioning, went to Walmart, swept the floors, water the flowers, had medicines ready and was sitting down for breakfast. By the time I made it to work at 9am I was pretty sure I was ready for a nap! Anyway, although we are hoping for a peaceful night tonight, we are really just thankful that we have Coop here to take care of!

YOU ARE AN AMAZING MOM...............

Friday at work I got the following two pics from Mary Beth.....

It was the perfect "pick me up". Friday night we had Raelynn's VBS program which is always fun, followed by a little ice cream social. Raelynn has been going with Aunt Bonnie to VBS for 3 years now and each year likes it a little more. Next year Coop will get to go too. I just hope Aunt Bonnie can handle that :)


So after a pretty long week with Raelynn at VBS until 8:15pm every evening, we got to pick her up and take her to stay with Aunt Steph. Raelynn was so excited but I knew I was going to miss her terribly. Heck I have missed having any real time with her this past week. We were meeting Steph and Cody and we got there a couple minutes before them. I was reminding Raelynn to be good, use her manners, take her vitamins, etc when she says, "Hey Mom?" "Yeah" I replied. "You are an amazing Mom!" Wow, I had to fight back the tears right there. I thanked her and reminded her the she was an amazing kid.

Raelynn is having a great time with Aunt Steph and Coop and I have had some time together. With Raelynn being gone this last week it has giving me a lot more one on one time with Coop which I don't get often. He is such a funny and sweet boy. He loves to be silly now and will sometimes just run around the house laughing. I also have seen his imagination which you do see often or at least independently because most of their play is dominated by Raelynn. Anyway, today Kaden came over to play this morning and then we went swimming with Cayman this afternoon which did not leave us much time for him to miss "Tissy". I knew if I did not keep him busy he would do nothing but ask me when she was coming home. Coop is finally starting to like the water and was so much fun swimming today. He was jumping off the side and going under the water over and over again. It was a good day other than some potty mishaps that I find very frustrating. This potty training continues to test my patience. But I will gladly take these frustrations because the hugs and smiles that come along with them when we do have success are worth all the frustrations in the world!
Tomorrow we get to pick Raelynn up and I can't wait! It is great though that she is so independent that she can go and have a great time. She called me tonight to read her a bedtime story. We didn't make it very far because a bedtime story just isn't the same without pictures, but I convinced her to tell Aunt Steph a bedtime story instead. I can only imagine how that story turned out!

RAELYNN AND HER WIT

I think I have previously mentioned that Raelynn's personality has been changing and growing in the past few months. She understands sarcasm well now and is quite the joker. This all fits quite well in our household as sarcasm is a main source of communication around here. However, her wittiness catches me off guard sometimes now and constantly keeps me laughing. This morning was a perfect example. Our house is a "no shoe" house, shoes are never worn inside. This morning Raelynn got dressed and was headed down the hallway with her hands full of things she was taking with her, in my rush to get Coop's hair done and teeth brushed I noticed her shoes were on her feet and not in her hands to be set by the backdoor until we were ready to go. In passing I said, "Do shoes belong in the house?" Her response...."Well actually yes they do" which I interrupt at this point and say "Excuse me?" because I was sure she would not be talking back to me. She finishes her statement by saying, "I said actually shoes do belong in the house....just not on your feet in the house." How could I argue with that. I chuckled and told her to get them by the door. She new she had gotten me which always brings a smile to her face. Then we were headed to Mary Beth's. Raelynn was playing her DSi when I hear her say, "Come on people, can you make this a little easier I am just a kid!" Oh how fun she is going to be. The sarcasm is cute now, I hope I feel the same in another 5 years!

A FULL RAINBOW.......

Tonight after the worst of the rain, Coop and I picked Raelynn up from VBS. On our way home she spotted a rainbow. She was so excited she nearly jumped out of her car seat. She yells, "Mom look what God sent us! Isn't he amazing!" All I could respond as we gazed at the beautiful rainbow is, "Yes it is, yes he is and yes you are!"

FUN WEEKEND...............

Another great weekend after a "normal" week. It was so great to have a somewhat normal week last week. I actually made it to work everyday and the kids made it to daycare. It felt good to be back in a routine. Coop is finally progressing a little with the potty training and we will hope that continues. Friday night my Mom, Karli and Chandler were here again. This time they were here for Karli's senior pictures. She came here to have them taken by Amber Temple. Karli had so much fun taking them! Amber does an amazing job and is just such a sweet person. Karli chose to have a picture taken with Coop and Raelynn for Cooper's Cause and therefore we tagged along. While Karli was having her pic taken, I had fun taking some of the kids.



I cannot wait to see Karli's pics. I know they will be great....great photographer and beautiful girl.....you are bound to end up with amazing pics.

Today has been a little here and there. I am trying to get a few things done but boy is it hot out there! Mom and the girls will leave in the morning to do college visits for Karli at Washburn and Baker. I cannot believe she is already getting ready for college.

Next week will be a little busy. Raelynn has VBS all week. She loves it and has a great time. Coop is still too little but hopefully next year he will get to go. I am just spending the week loving life and loving that I have these 2 great kids!

GREAT VACATION....................

After being harassed I am updating the blog; don't worry Bill you weren't the only one harassing me :). Anyway, since my last post things have been busier than normal. If you remember my sister, Karli, was spending last week with us and then we were headed to The Ozarks for a little vacation. Well on Wednesday Karli got the flu. She was soooo mad. The kids and I stayed clear and fortunately none of us have gotten sick. She was feeling fine by Thursday evening and we headed out to Osage Beach. Tom and Jan have a place down there and are kind enough to let us visit. We got in late Thursday night in the middle of a huge rain storm but by Friday morning everything had cleared and we headed to the water park. Raelynn had such a great time. She is such a dare devil and we could not keep her off the huge scary slides. Coop on the other hand spent most of the day in our arms. The boy is going to have to learn to love water or our vacations are not going to be much fun for him.

Friday night Tom and Jan came down and Saturday we spent on the lake. This is our favorite day and we had a great time. The good thing is Coop does like the boat and and even took a liking to the sand.He also liked steering the paddle boat as long as we didn't let any water get in the paddle boat.Raelynn likes everything. She loves it there and it was actually she who asked if we could go this year.

I personally love the jet ski. I have several bruises to show how much fun I had on it! After our fun day on the water and the sun set we had a camp fire, made apple and cherry pies and smores on the fire, lit sparklers and then watched fireworks above the lake out on the boat. It was wonderful! I love being on the lake and spending uninterrupted time with the family gets more enjoyable every year. We headed back Sunday after a little shopping and just as we had came in during a storm, we left during one too. We actually had to hide out from a potential tornado at a quick shop is some little town. The kids were terrified but it passed and the rest of the trip back was fine. Then it was back to the real world on Monday. We are still working on potty training Coop which seems to take up a lot of time. This is definitely trying my patience. When we potty trained Raelynn, I told her a little before she turned 2 that in order to go to preschool she had to potty on the toilet; that was on a Friday and Monday she was potty trained. Oh how different Coop is! He is doing ok but just doesn't quite have it all quite figured out. I guess this is just another learning experience for us both :). I also can't help but remember this is the last time I will potty train one of my little kids so I should enjoy all of it, even the frustrating part!

Tonight we went to the Community Workout which I think is a great thing. We had a good time and visited Tad's Snow Cones afterwards which made suffering the heat all worth it. The rest of the week should be pretty normal and then my family is back for the weekend for Karli's senior pictures. I cannot believe she will be a senior! I still remember when she was born. Unbelievable! The scary thing is I will be saying that about my kids before I know it. Just one more reason I will cherish every little memory I can with them.

Well time to check in on everyone sleeping and give them all one last kiss before I go to bed. The perfect end to the day!

PHOTO TIME...........

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TISSY! Raelynn chooses Coop's present to start her day!Raelynn gets her first American Girl Doll!Mommy and the Birthday Girl! Raelynn's Birthday Cupcake! THE BIRTHDAY GIRLS! Raelynn is her Father's Daughter, she is ecstatic about getting a new shower head from Daddy! Don't Ask! Raelynn in her new rolling ball! Raelynn and Analise in their matching American Girl Doll Pajamas! TODAY WAS PARK DAY WITH AUNT KARLI!!!

THE GOOD AND THE BAD.................

If you have a weak stomach you may want to skip this post, but if you're looking for a good laugh......read on.

Friday started our crazy hectic weekend. After I got off work and got the kids we headed home to get ready to have a couple of Terry's old friends over for dinner. Things had been so hectic last week that I had not had time to get all worked up about having everything perfect and they were wonderfully gracious enough to bring sides and other stuff to go with our steaks and even have some left over for the weekend ahead. As soon as they left we got cleaned up and ready for my family to come in for the weekend. We were celebrating Cassidy's 13th Birthday and Raelynn's 5th Birthday with the family. Mom, Cassidy, Chandler, Steph and Karli all got in Friday evening. Saturday morning we started potty training Coop so in the midst of everything that happens from this point forward, every 30 minutes we are stopping to take Coop to the bathroom. Bonnie had arranged for everyone to go horse riding as a little treat especially for Raelynn and Cassidy. Cassidy and Chandler do not get the opportunity to ride much so of course they loved it and Raelynn and Cooper always love it so it was a fun afternoon. We did some shopping after nap time and got home late but did get some things ready for Sunday's birthday party and 4th of July Celebration. This is when the fun begins........Sunday morning I got up and started going non stop. I have a terrible problem of getting completely worked up about having the house perfect, kids perfect, me perfect, food perfect and on and on. Which it is nearly impossible for everything to be perfect when you are starting with a house full of people to begin with. I always tell myself to just let things go and have a good time but it never works out that way. Thank goodness for my Mom though as she always makes sure the food is perfect and my sisters try very hard to help me make the house perfect as well. So anyway, I am running around like crazy and finally head out the door to get the balloons and cake. I jump in my car and discover that when Steph had pulled my car in the garage the night befofe, she did not shut it completely off and therefore, my car was dead. So I go back inside, freaking out of course, and grabbed Mom's keys and off to the store. Just FYI, my car is still dead. We have been unable to get the battery to hold a charge. Anyway, so everything else in regards to the party goes pretty well. Cassidy and Raelynn both have a great time which is what it is all about. Afterwards we were to head down to Watson Park for the 4th of July celebration but it was raining. We held off for quite awhile and when it did finally stop raining we decide to head down. We get down there and just as we are dragging all our chairs, coolers and wagon out it starts to sprinkle. We continue and by the time we are in the park it is down pouring. We hold out for about 10 minutes and then it really cut loose. Even with umbrellas we were drenched. Raelynn announces that this is crazy and it was time to go home. We all agreed and headed home. By the time we got home we were soaked and freezing. We could not stop laughing though because everyone was just so wet. We got home and got in our warm, dry Pj's and decided to make a picnic in the living room and watched the fireworks on TV. We could see them out our sliding glass door as well so we still got a fireworks show. The rain even broke long enough that Raelynn, Karli and I did a few sparklers out on the driveway. Finally we got to bed around midnight. I heard Terry and Coop up around 6:30am Sunday morning and knew that Coop needed to go potty so I got up and took him in their bathroom. I flipped on the light and there all over the bathroom someone had thrown up. I quickly took Coop to our bathroom and then when he was done I got out the cleaning supplies. I had not heard a thing in the night but knew it had to be my youngest niece that had gotten sick. It wasn't long after that I heard Terry hollering for me and she was up sick again. I went and woke up my Mom for a little help and support :) I got the bathroom cleaned up and was headed to put the rags and towels in the laundry. I already had laundry going from the night before so I went to empty the dryer and there in my dryer was something I would later discover was gum that my oldest niece had left in her jeans pocket. So there I was, now cleaning up the dryer. I was almost done there when Coop walks up and says to me, "Mommy I pooped." Now remember we are potty training. I had actually changed him into actual undies because the pull ups had not seemed to be doing the trick. In addition, due to the medicine that Coop is taking, his poop is less than solid. So I stop cleaning the dryer and took him to the bath tub to clean him up. It is only 7:30am by this time. My Mom gets everything gathered and decides to head back to Scott City with Chandler sick because she wanted to get her home and we didn't want Coop exposed anymore than he already had been. Karli was staying here with us because each year she stays a week with us and goes on vacation with us. This week she was staying and then we have planned to head to the Ozarks at the end of the week. So she helps me scrub and disinfect my entire house and my children. We head down stairs to finish cleaning. My niece had been down there with a pail and let's just say apparently she didn't hit the pail every time and I got the pleasure of stepping in it. Seriously I wasn't sure that it could get any worse and it really didn't for me. My Mom however was another story. Remember she had headed back to Scott City with Cassidy and Chandler. She knew Chandler was sick but had not expected that Chandler would be sharing the pail with Cassidy. Yep, Mom had a 6 hour drive with 2 sick girls!!! The good news is they did make it and they did survive. As of now, there has been no other reports of sickies but we are all just waiting. So I guess you could say our weekend was anything but boring. I am only hoping the rest of the weekend will be a little less eventful.

Karli is here and spending the week with the kids. We will head to the Ozarks at the end of the week and have a mini vacation. It will be great to relax outside of a hospital with the kids! There will be many pictures of the good parts of the weekend to follow :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY PRINCESS..........

Happy 5th Birthday Raelynn!!! I can hardly believe it, she is already 5! I have loved every age and have actually loved each year even more than the year before. Raelynn is so special to me. She is a huge ray of sunshine in my life, I really cannot imagine how I was happy before I had my family! I just cannot get enough of them.

Raelynn's birthday started off with a present of her choice. Of course she elected the present from Cooper to start her day with. Then at Mary Beth's she got to celebrate her birthday with the cupcakes I made last night. Then our friends next door invited Raelynn and I to go to Toy Story 3 with them. So we rushed home after work to make Raelynn's favorite items for dinner. This year her special birthday dinner consisted of Mac and Cheese, pasta salad and sausage. Oh yes, this is what she requested! After dinner we headed to the movie. We had not seen Toy Story 1 or 2 but I figured we would still be able to figure it all out. What I did not figure on was that the movie would make Raelynn so upset! If you have not already seen the movie, basically the old toys are taken away from the boy they have always been with and taken to this daycare where the children and other toys are cruel to them. Raelynn cannot handle any movie when people get hurt. She cannot watch Lilo n Stitch, 101 Dalmatians, Annie, Little Mermaid....the list goes on and on. As soon as I figured out what the bases of the movie was, I knew we were in trouble. She lasted about and hour and then it started. She started asking why the animals were being so mean and why they took the toys away and from there it just tumbled. By the time we left, about half way through the movie, she was sobbing. Upon her request, we left the theater. She could not quit talking about how we can never get rid of any of her toys and how they all were just so mean and on and on and on. I cannot even imagine what will happen next time I tell her to clean out her toy box! I felt horrible, the last thing I wanted was to make her cry on her birthday. By the time we got home she was doing much better. It was then present time and cupcake time.

This cheered her up greatly. We had gotten her her first American Girl Doll and she was more than happy. I felt much better. As I tucked her in tonight, she says, "thank you Mommy.....for everything. It's ok about the movie, just don't forget we are not throwing any of my toys away!"

Raelynn~

HAPPY BIRTHDAY....I LOVE YOU MORE AND MORE EACH DAY. YOU MAKE ME INCREDIBLY PROUD AND I THANK GOD NIGHTLY FOR GIVING YOU TO ME. I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE YOUR DEVELOPMENT IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS. I WILL WATCH EVERY DAY PROUDLY AND AMAZED THAT SOMEONE SO SMALL CAN TEACH ME SO MUCH!