Mother's Day

Following our annual tradition, we went to church with my Mom on Mother's Day.  (I was a little worried this might not happen, since Iris had a fever late the night before...but YAY!...it went away by morning.)

When asked where she wanted to lunch, Mom chose a local Chinese establishment that is always very yummy, filling and Lucy-friendly.  So we ate and then busted out the cards and presents.

Here are Sherry & the kids with the card they picked out for her.  I was quite shocked at how easily they all agreed on this one  for her...

Iris bought me a mug...she put great thought into this, because yellow is my favorite color, I love to drink tea, and I love TJMaxx.  And she made me a card...

Clyde spent a couple hours picking out my present, according his father.  A good bit of that time was smelling candles...he picked very wisely!!  Love the scents!  And he picked out a pretty funny card...a very Clyde-esque card :)

Lucy crafted me some flip-flops by tying bandana strips around the straps, using several bright colors she knows I like.  And she made me a card in her art class....

The three sweeties!!  I am so blessed!!  Can't even explain what a blessing EACH ONE is!!

Sherry got Mom several tops...that's always scary...picking out clothes...yikes!  She did SO awesome!

So, umm..I went a little over the top with garden decorations because I'm so willy-nilly, I couldn't settle on just one.  No, I am not trying to turn my mother into the garden sculpture lady.  But, to her credit, Mom found a home for each one very elegantly  :)

Lucy made Nena a card...

Clyde and Iris picked one out together...

And they all picked out this hummingbird window hanger for her, because she's fond of window humming birds...and window hangers...

Official 2013 Mother's Day shots...

We spent a good bit of the afternoon at a park and it was lovely!  I actually felt well enough to walk a little while, which was nice.

Then Stephen took me out to get a Mother's Day radio installed in the van!!  It was SO exciting to finally have one that works again!!  I've been putting it to good use.

Hope everyone had a beautiful Mother's Day!!

Game Day at Rita's

My Aunt Rita & Uncle Allen hosted a game day at their house recently.  My pictures were...blurry and stuff, but here are the good ones!

Stephen and Clyde became couch potatoes and watched westerns...

Lucy talked us into playing a game of BS....we call it Liar-Liar to keep it G-rated...

Aiden in the backyard laughing at Iris...

Mom, Sissy and Sadie playing pictionary...

Barry and April, about a month before becoming the proud parents of boy #2 who arrived a bit early and weighed in a little over 2 lbs!!  Hopefully he'll get to go home, healthy as a horse, soon!!  Be praying!

April Birthdays (Picture Dump!!)

Well, I'm still catching up, but you'll just have to forgive me...so there :)

Way back in the yesteryear of April, we celebrated David's birthday and Mom's 60th!! birthday.

Here's the birthday girl!  We don't normally do balloons, tiaras, confetti & such for adult birthdays, but it was a special one :) 

 All right, fine...maybe I photoshopped it a TAD.

Sherry & David made dinner.  (yummy yummy yummy!)
Adult table...

Kid table...

David opened presents first...
Here he is with Iris and her card...

David with Clyde and his card (it was a pretty funny card)...

David with Lucy and her card...

David with Nena and Papa...

All we got him was a measly balloon, but ask yourself, who doesn't love balloons?

Nena with Iris and her card...

Nena with Clyde and his card...

Nena with Lucy and her card...

Nena with Stephen & I...

Nena with Sherry & David...

Nena with Papa and the much anticipated digital frame! (It was a surprise to her...highly anticipated by the rest of us :)

Girls outside...

Boys inside...

Nena and kids...

Group Shot...

And hopefully all who had birthdays felt special!  Cause we love 'em!  Happy Birthday, Mom and David!!!

Life Lately

To those of you who have missed my blogging...I'm so sorry!!  With the weather getting warmer and my medicine not seeming to work any longer, I'm sleeping or lying down A LOT!  Any spare moment that I feel well is taken.  Time is flying past me...it's been over a month since I've blogged, but it feels like a couple of weeks.

This isn't a negative post...no worries! That's mainly because my husband is infinitely patient with my weepy, whiny self.  One of the things I've moped about so much was that I'm afraid that when the kids are grown, they will mostly remember their mom sleeping.  (How's that for borrowing trouble?)  So my ingenious and thoughtful husband moved the kids to a sort of second shift so I can spend more waking hours with them.  For some reason, I'm particularly bad in the mornings and I feel especially wonderful in the middle of the night. :)  It's actually been working fairly well.

We get up at lunch time and eat breakfast.  We eat our lunch when Stephen eats his dinner.  And they have a light dinner around 9 or 10.  They go to bed between midnight and 1am.  Stephen goes to bed at midnight, because he needs less sleep than us weaklings ;)  I still have spells where I sleep when they're awake, but they are fewer and further between :)

A few other things happening around here of late are as follow:

Everyone's been picking Mom flowers every chance they get...tis the season you know!

Sherry & David sponsored some swimming lessons...

The kids have found that lockers may be among their favorite play equipment...

I made Clyde's robe FINALLY!  He picked out the fabrics himself and told me what parts of the robe were to be which fabrics.  This is how he has looked everyday for the past couple weeks...

And every night...

Nena took the kids out and let them each pick out some plants...
Lucy got curry and lemon thyme.
Iris got some flowers (I see them all the time, but don't know the name).
Clyde got jasmine, because it smells so wonderful.

We've seen a couple of plays with homeschool friends...Rogers and Hammersteins Cinderella a month ago and The Miracle Worker just recently.  In prep for The Miracle Worker I made the kids each read a book about Helen Keller, which they thought they'd hate, but they did indeed enjoy.  The plays were great...

Also, I've been reading the Little House books to the kids and we're on #6 out of 9!  We adore them!!  The kids recently became interested in the Duggar family from 19 Kids and Counting and we've been watching the occasional episode of that together which has also been fun :)

And that's us lately....hopefully I'll post a few of the bigger events that I'm late recording very soon!
Thanks for keeping up with us....even though I've been a delinquent updater!