Big brother Austin

The other week I showed you Tyler playing "Prince" with Carli, now here is Austin reading to and coloring with Carli in his room!They always play, watch tv, and color with her, and read to her!
Melts my heart!
Thank you boys!

When I grow up

At school, Carli has been learning about community helpers. They were given these bears to take home and dress them up as what they want to be when they grow up. Carli's is a mommy. More specifically, ME! She wants to be me when she grows up! Too cute! What an honor!

Birthday girls!

How special is it for a mother and daughter to have the same birthday? Wow!!
Well, today, Anthony's Grandma and his Aunt Rachel are celebrating their birthdays!! The kids wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREAT GRANDMA!
and HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT RACHEL!! We love you girls and hope that you have a wonderful birthday!!
BIG HUGS AND KISSES FROM US TO YOU!!!!!

Weekend wrap up

(Tyler-such a help! With Carli and Austin.)

Austin had basketball practice this past Saturday. He enjoys going. All of the Special Ed kids from the junior highs and highschools in our town are divided up into four teams based on ability not age. I'm not sure when games start, but when they do, they will play teams from other towns. I have to tell you, we sit in amazement at these guys. They all play so hard!
When we were done with practice, we headed over to Ant's bank to meet up with him, since he worked that day. We then went out to eat lunch, came home, and Carli and I took a THREE HOUR nap! WOA! Not sure why? That made us stay awake until 11:30pm, actually, the boys were up that late too, without a nap. Anthony had gone to play cards, so I think they were'nt able to go to sleep without him home.
Sunday was church, lunch, groceries, Tyler confirmation, etc. A litte side note about church: You know how at church you have your row (when you're a family of five, you take up a whole row) that you always sit on. Always. WELL, we were a tad late, maybe more than a tad, but our row was GONE! They were even out of chrurch bulletins! SO, the usher was looking for a row for us. He found one. Yay! We wouldn't have to sit seperate! Any guesses where it was? THE VERY FRONT ROW! Now I do love our church and I MYSELF wouldn't mind the very front row, but with the kids??? OH how nervous I was! Carli and Tyler were great, Austin we had a few incidents. Maybe it was a little lesson on being on time and not getting to comfortable in your spot!
Hope you had a great weekend!

Winter Ball

Not quite sure how my SECOND born child was old enough for a middle school dance, but he sure did go and he sure did love it. You know, my boys are quite the social butterflies, so Tyler was all into this! He even asked a girl to go! UGH! Excuse me while I try to hold myself up! They met there. So I can still say there was no date, right? I so wanted to chaperon, but, I thought I'd let Tyler be there on his own. Plus, he acted like he was going to throw up when I even mentioned it. Ha!
After I picked him up, we headed to Dairy Queen and he told me all the details. I'm so glad he had a great time. Oh, and was there any dancing? NO! Not by anyone! Remember, 6th grade! Ha!

Realization

We eat at Mc Donald's way too much!

Take out!

Well, we had to order some take out! Last night at supper, I had just fixed the kids' plates, when I heard a loud POP! I turned to look and saw glass absolutely covering my kitchen, including our food! What happen was, when I took the chicken, that was in a glass baking dish, out of the oven, I set it on top of the stove, on a burner that I forgot to turn off! DORKY me! UGH! I was so mad at myself! Thankfully the kids weren't in there, they were actually walking toward the kitchen. I wasn't hurt either. It just scared me at first.
I wish I would've taken a picture of the glass I swept up!

Happy Birthday Joni!

Today is my friend, Joni's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONI! Hope you have an incredible day filled with cheer and cupcakes!

Special Olympics

This past Saturday morning, Austin started playing basketball through the Special Olympics here in town. They had "try outs" that day to see who would be placed on what team. They should start official practices and games soon and we will for sure take lots of pictures!He is really excited and we are too! He's already got his cheering section ready to go!!

"All About Me" Bag

Last Friday, Carli got to bring the "All About Me" bag to school. It's a bag that their teachers give them to take home and fill with their favorite things. There's even a little questionnaire. Then they get to do their show and tell in front of their class. Carli was super excited and couldn't wait! She quickly started loading up the bag with her toys, but I had to make her stop, because the bag was over flowing! She took Baby Doll, Baby Doll's rattle, Fifi the poodle, microphone, little kitten, precious horse, Mr.Frog the puppet, Zsu Zsu Hamsters and their car, Tinkerbell movie, Care Bear Bedtime Book, a picture album. Just a couple of the things on the questionnaire was: favorite color? pink and purple, favorite food? mac and cheese.
Here she is with Ms. Rose, ready to go! We were a bit nervous and wondered if she would even go up in front of her friends and tell them what everything was and answer all the questions about her. She's so shy! To our surprise....CARLI WAS ALL INTO IT! She did WONDERFUL! We couldn't believe it! Sure, Ms. Rose has seen her outside of class and knows how she really is, but her other teacher Ms. Rachel and her classmates had not seen her like this!I was so happy!Once again, I'm so thankful for my job! I was able to go to Carli's classroom, which is right next door to mine, and take these pictures. I'm so happy to have been able to see my shy little girl come out of her shell! I'm so proud of you Carli!

Scooter girl

Carli... She LOVES her new scooter! She rides it all day long!PHEW...Good thing, 'cause Christmas morning, this is the look we got when she opened it!Not sure what her problem was with it? At one point she said "I just don't know if I'm big enough?" It sat for a day and then she became besties with it! Huh, go figure!

TWO Birthdays!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Uncle Robert (my mom's big brother)! Have a TERRIFIC DAY! I love you!It's also my adorable neice's SECOND birthday today! Happy Birthday Miss Amy! We love you!

Gamer

Tyler... You can find him with his XBOX 360.
Not every day. Monday through Thursday, no electronics, but you better believe come Friday after school all through the weekend, you can!

Artist

Draw. Austin will do this for hours. He makes everyone in the house a picture. His most favorite thing to do is grab one of his books and draw a picture of one of the pages.

I plan on doing an update post on how Austin is doing soon.

Uncle visit

Uncle Chris (Anthony's baby brother) came to visit us. He and his friend had some vacation days from work, so they came here. For four days! His friend's dad lives in our town too (small world), so he went there and Chris with us.
The kids were super excited to have their uncle here! He hasn't been to our house in two years. They sure kept him busy! He was always in a different room playing. Everywhere he walked in the house he had a kid glued to him! There was even conversations of who would sit by him at meal time! Carli was particularly attached to him and is still sad that he went home!
We stayed around the house pretty much. Ant and I both worked and took turns staying home with Austin. He did go to school on Friday. He's fine now. A post on him to come.
So on this uncle visit, there was lots of movie, games, football, and our beloved Band Hero!

And of course, lots of food! One of the meals was GUMBO! There was big 'ol shrimp in there and crab legs...No, I didn't make it. Although I will now, seeing how much was eaten!
That would be our famous Gumbo! Chris's friend brought it over one night. It was made by his Dad. His BIG dad! Come to find out, His dad is famous! He played Aggie football and a couple of NFL teams. One of them being the Dallas Cowboys! THEN, we find out he's got a few famous NFL uncles! Anthony 'bout fell out of his chair! HA! No, really, it was pretty neat! I don't even know a lot about football, but I sure knew those names! One night I did make beef stew. Then let's not forget Anthony's Saturday morning pancakes. There may have even been a late night run to Dairy Queen for Blizzards. Why is it when the temperatures are below freezing, you want ice cream?
Sunday morning, Anthony, Austin, and Carli took Chris and his friend back to Bryan. That left me and Tyler. Wow, one kid...nice! Ha! We went to church and then to out to lunch where we always eat after church. I didn't have my camera to take a picture of us at lunch. Boo! Then, we came home and enjoyed some quiet before the rest of the family came back home.
It was really nice getting to spend time with just Tyler and I and it was really nice having Uncle Chris visit! Come back soon Uncle!

Carli and her Prince

(not sure why those pictures were blurry?)Big brother Tyler is such a sweet sport for playing with her. Actually, all the boys in this house are! Or as Carli calls Tyler, Austin, and even Anthony, when referring to them, "My boys" or "My guys"! Lately, she makes Tyler be "MY Prince" and carries a sword, while she is of course the princess. I wish I had pictures of her from last night...she was the teacher and Austin was "my kids in my class". She told him, "Be very quiet. I gonna read you Three Pigs story!" As for her and her Daddy, she always has him sit in her room while she cooks for him and serves him tea. They also play with her Disney Princess Barbies. I can occasionally hear Anthony singing songs from the Little Mermaid.
She's eight years younger than Tyler and twelve years younger than Austin, so to have a girl in the house and to see the boys interact with her is so precious!

Chuck E. Cheese

Last week we went out to eat at Chuck E. Cheese. The kids had a good time!Carli seeing Chuck E.After we ate and played, we walked down to the pet store to JUST LOOK at the pets. They had just as much fun there too! It doesn't take much to have a good time! Just as long as we're hangin' together!