The Annual Carnival Trip

I missed posting so many pictures in the Fall . . . so tonight I decided to go through my old pictures and put together something fun.

Every year in the Fall, the carnival comes to town. On opening night, the carnival holds a "family night" and all the tickets are super cheap. So, we always tell our kids that when the carnival comes to our town, that's when they get to ride the rides. THIS was that lucky night!

The first ride on Nathan's agenda was the merry-go-round. Jeremy opted out and forced me to ride with the kids. Ooooh, this ride makes me so sick! That's why this happy, smiling picture was shot before the carousel started up.


Next up, little cars! The funny thing about this ride is that I think the kids truly believe they are driving these cars. Every time a turn comes up they frantically turn their steering wheel to avoid a collision.

Nathan and Alexandra are taking it easy on this little train ride. I think it's boring, but it seems to be the best thing that ever happened to them. I just make sure to be on the same corner whenever they come around so they can watch for me and call my name as they pass.

The climbing "ride". This year Nathan enjoyed climbing with the girls. I used to feel like this was a waste of a ticket, but for some reason the kids look forward to this "ride" every year. I need to lighten up a little and let them have their fun.

Here are two sisters who have made a very grown-up decision to go on a BIG ride and are watching in anticipation for their turn to try it out.

This is the ride. I can't believe how big my little girls are getting! Here they are sitting with all the teenagers.

Whooooooo!

While Athena and Samantha were riding their grown-up ride, Nathan and Alex decided to ride a grown-up ride of their own. Nathan was a very nice big brother and offered to take Alex on the dragon roller coaster. Neither of them were very sure of this, but Nathan stepped up to the plate and helped Alexandra get settled and comforted her as the ride got going.

As soon as momentum hit, however, it was everyone fend for yourselves! Poor little Alex was really freaking out and as you can see, Nathan was no longer much of a helper. Somehow they made it through the 4 times around the track.

We had to hit more calming rides after that, so . . . back to the climbing "ride". Alexandra decided to try it this time and couldn't make it through most of the obstacles because she was too little. This very nice little girl saw her plight and ended up helping Alex all the way to the end. CUTE!

Now this is little girl heaven!

Our kids all had a great time at the carnival and Jeremy and I had a great time watching them. When it was all done we ran home to watch fireworks in our backyard with all of our cousins who came over to join in the fun. Then we ate our annual root beer floats.

I think I'm hitting some "old" milestones. I've hit the stage where it's more fun to watch my kids go on rides than to go on them myself. I'm more than happy to sit by and watch, and it is actually fun to see them enjoying themselves so much. Time spent with family is good time.

Why Does My Head Think It Up?

Last night I was fortunate enough to have another funky movie playing in my head while I slept. I haven't posted a weird dream for awhile, so I guess you've all been on pins and needles wondering when it would come up again . . . here it is!!!

OK, so I dreamed that Jeremy and I walked to Mexico (it was a short walk) and we ended up at this big place to go snorkelling. It was like a small inlet of fast-moving water that opened up into a bay. I was scared to jump in at first because it looked like the water was moving really fast, but there were other people out there in the bay, so I decided to go for it.

I jumped in the water and swam to the swift water. It carried me quickly out into the bay where the other people were. All of a sudden something big clipped onto my leg and wasn't letting go. I looked down and saw that it was a great big sea tortoise and it's head was almost above the water, next to mine. It just stayed clipped onto me as I floated in the water. I looked at the other people and they all had tortoises holding onto them. There were also several tortoises in the water that were waiting for people to come out.

I figured it was just part of the experience to come out and swim with the tortoises, so I didn't try to get mine off or anything. Then I tried to ask the person next to me a question, and my tortoise answered me. Then it started talking to me and we carried on an interesting conversation in my dream.

After I left the tortoises, I swam over to where Jeremy was and the water was all really choppy. I put my face down in the water with my snorkel mask to see why it was so choppy and there were hundreds of fish all around me, hitting into me and flopping into my face. I hurried and put my face back up and everyone was laughing at me. I felt really dumb!

Then later, Jeremy and I were walking around in Mexico and I told a lady where she could find the bathroom. The end.

Also, the night before that I dreamed that my hair was growing in different and it was stark black.

Confused? Me too. At least I'm not bored when I'm sleeping.

My Newest Niece

My sister, Lisa, finally had her baby! :) Lisa is my sister who is 4 years younger with me and this is her 5th baby. She beat me. I'm done with 4 - for sure. She had baby Grace on Saturday morning and both are doing well. Half of my family had the opportunity to go and visit her in the hospital. Unfortunately the other half of my family had to sit and wait in the car. Samantha was throwing up the night before, and then while we were driving to the hospital, Nathan started throwing up in the car. Thank goodness we had an empty cup in the car that he used for the next couple of hours while we were out.

Here I am holding Grace. She is so cute and tiny!

She has lots and lots of hair. This is a family trait - ALL of our babies have lots and lots of hair.

Athena was one of the lucky ones who came into the hospital with me. She really enjoyed holding Grace.

I learned from this experience that Alexandra doesn't like hospitals. She wouldn't talk to anyone who was there, she wouldn't even look at the new baby, and when she thought we were close to leaving, she grabbed my hand and practically yanked me out the door.

Congratulations, Lisa, on your new baby! She is very beautiful and I'm happy we were able to come and see you both. :)

Singing in the Tub

All you can see here is nothing special. :) Pause the music at the bottom of my blog and listen on the video as Samantha tests her vocal limits in the bathtub. I thought it was really cute! The song she was singing is from Shark Boy and Lava Girl. I remember singing in the bathroom when I was little too. The acoustics truly are amazing!

Modernizing Myself

I'm so behind the times! I FINALLY set up a YouTube account when I got my Flip video for Christmas. The thing I really like about it is that now I can add a little more character to my blog and the internet instead of always going for the still photos.

Nothing against still photos, but I lost my Adobe Photoshop and have been mourning the loss. Thus, my blog has been quite empty lately because I don't want to face the fact that I have no Photoshop. I can hardly bring myself to open my photos in some dumb photo editor that only lets you rotate your pictures. So . . . now that I can do videos, I'm having all kinds of fun playing with my little video program! It's so super duper easy!!!

Anyway, YouTube just allows me to post videos to my blog so easily now. So I'll share the one I took today of Alexandra.

A little background on the video: I was sitting in the kitchen and noticed that Alex was sitting with Max having a little conversation and talking in a special "baby" voice just for him. I peeked over the table to see her going through Max's bag and showing him all the contents one by one. She sounded so cute sitting there talking to him that I just had to pull out the camera real quick. She didn't notice me at first, but as soon as she saw the camera she immediately struck a pose. It was so funny to me! What have we done to our kids?!! When I was little I HATED having my picture taken. Now it's just second nature for kids.

Scrumptious Bat Eyeballs

Yesterday I decided to try something new, again. I got out the black-eyed peas and created a new dish for my family that I had when I was little. When I was getting ready to cook them I told Nathan to come and look at what I was going to make. He said, "WHAT ARE THOSE? ! I told him, "They are eyeballs. We are having eyeballs for dinner. Do you want eyeballs for dinner?" "Yeah!"

We sat and watched the eyeballs boil and he and Alex got a real kick out of the beans boiling to the surface and "looking" at she and Nathan.

When Athena and Samantha came home from school, I passed the word along that we were having eyeballs for dinner. When I showed them the eyeballs, Athena was too smart for me. She told me that eyeballs aren't that small and they had to be beans. I said, nope! Eyeballs CAN be that small. These are bat's eyeballs. She still didn't believe me, but had to see for herself. She got a fork, pulled out a bean, and took it to the table to dissect it. After the dissection I couldn't really tell if she was doubting or if she had satisfied her curiosity.

When it came time to finally eat dinner I served up the black-eyed peas (bat eyeballs) over rice and guess who had the hardest time eating it . . . . Athena!


OK, it looked better than this when I first served it up. This is Athena's plate after she pushed it around and around during dinner time.
Here is Samantha working on her eyeballs.

Alexandra was the first one done with her dinner. She really liked it!

After awhile I was really trying to get the kids to eat because they were just sitting there wasting a whole lot of time messing around at the table. I told Athena to just EAT HER FOOD! She said, "Well then quit calling them eyeballs. I can't eat eyeballs. Tell me they are beans. I can eat beans." LOL! So I said, "Fine, then eat your "beans", even though they are eyeballs." Poor Athena. She did finally finish, by the way.

I also made my first batch of cornbread to go with the dinner and it was so good! When I pulled out my cornmeal to make the bread I realized I was about 1/4 cup short of what I needed . . . so it was a perfect chance to try making my own cornmeal! I got out my grinder and made cornmeal for the first time and it turned out to be so much better than the storebought corn meal. The bread turned out really moist - not the dry, falling-apart cornbread that I remember. Now I'll have to make it again. :) The picture doesn't quite do justice to how tasty it was.

Last of all, here is Nathan. He finished his dinner without much complaining, too. I think this is a dinner we will have to try again. Maybe next time I'll call them beans.

New Year's Resolutions

I've never really been one for New Year's resolutions, but this year we decided to set some as a family. We sat down together and talked about what we could do to strengthen our family, voted on our favorites, and agreed on them together. I really like that the kids helped us come up with them and that we worked together. I figure the more places I put them, the more I'll remember what I need to do, so I'm posting them to my blog! :)

Our church goals are:

• Have a morning devotional as a family. We get up at 7am and read a scripture, sing a song, and have prayer as a family. That's been going well. :)
• No playing on Sunday morning and only church videos

Our family goals are:

• 1 hour of deep cleaning together on Saturdays
• Do a family activity two times a month

My personal goal:

• I will take better care of my home FOR my family.

Seeing as this is really one of the first times I've made goals at the beginning of the year, I'm hoping to really stick to them. I don't have a record either way with resolutions, but I'm looking forward to the improvements within my family with these goals.