Birthday Girl!

Sadie turned 2 yesterday. The last time I dedicated a blog totally 100% to her, she was seven months old, give or take. My, how time flies.Kevin and I debated about what to do for her party all the way up to last Monday. We'd pretty much talked ourselves out of doing anything major when we agreed she needed something special. So we threw together a last-minute family party for her...and by last minute I mean I sent out a text on Monday afternoon for the Tuesday afternoon party. Lucky for us we have good friends and family who apparently have little to do the week after Christmas. Also lucky for us there was a bakery in town with very little to do on a Tuesday afternoon. I realize this is the last year I can get away with impromptu birthday celebrations...but it turned out swell.

Sadie is the quintessential independent child. Except for all the times she clings to my leg and wants to be held, that is. Her favorite words are "I did it!" which, depending on when she uses it, has different meanings. If she is in the middle of doing something and you try to offer assistance, she will say, "No, I did it!" which translates into, "No mother, I would really like to finish this task on my own, thank you very much." If she successfully completes said task, well, "I did it" needs no translation.

She spent thirty minutes today putting her pants on by herself.

Because she screamed "NO! I DID IT!" when I got within a foot of her.

But, in the end, she did indeed, do it.

She also wants to do everything Jackson does. Ev-ree-thing. Last week we went to the mall, and Jackson got to jump on that bungee trampoline thing. After five minutes of watching her big brother jump and laugh and flip, Sadie was all about the jumping. The harness was too big and she barely got a foot off the trampoline, but for those five minutes she was as big as Jackson.

She is our daredevil, our hardhead, our little charmer...the one we will probably have to bail out of jail someday. She will sweetly bat her eyes at you when you tell her to do something and say, "no thank you" before she walks away. She can stare down the best of us, and when you get that look just know her heels are firmly dug in. She is also the one who said, "thank you, momma!" about fifteen times while I assembled her baby doll bed tonight. She is our princess. Our big girl.

Happy birthday, Sadiebell!

Halloween 2009

Halloween was quite a "treat" this year! Sadie is still at that age where she doesn't really care what costume you put on her, as long as you let her join in the fun. I have wanted to dress her up as Raggedy Ann for a solid year now, and I really think her cuteness even surpassed the image I had of her in my head! Normally I would let you guys compliment my children without any goading by me, but look at this face...

Jackson opted for Spiderman this year. He is a huge fan of costumes, and loves dressing up to (and I quote) SAVE THE WORLD, which usually entails climbing on our bed and jumping into a pile of pillows. But the mask was a little confining for his taste, so it fell by the wayside pretty early. Eli and Joe were....can you guess?

Eli = ninja

Joe = turtle

GET IT?!

Those clever Carters...

They both had a great time trick or treating at our usual family stops...Nana and Aunt Robin, Mr. Bo and Mrs. Pat, Aunt Judy and Uncle Ronnie...

...as well as downtown. It is so nice of the businesses to provide a safe place for the kids to get their candy fix!

Happy holiday-we-celebrate-before-the-good-stuff-gets-started!

A Visit to Pappy's Pumpkin Patch

A few weeks ago, I received an email from my Aunt Judy about Bell Family Farm. Think small town, old school, family owned pumpkin patch. It was exactly the kind of place I'd been looking for, so we called up our buddies Janet and Clint, and Mark and Sheila, told them to load up Jackson and Sadie's buddies Reed, Eli and Josiah and headed out to Pappy's Pumpkin Patch. In a word, this place is fabulous.

It is just outside the Loop in Tyler, down a bumpy road and across the street from a new housing development...and yet, when you see the cars parked in the grass in front of the green barn, you just sortof know it's the real deal. For those of us who love those Kodak moments, this place has tons before you even get through the door.

And as soon as we made it out the back door (the barn is filled with unique varieties of pumpkins as well as other fall/Christmas gift items) the kids were in full-on farm fun mode.


Everything here is free. Yes. Well, almost. Face painting is cheap. Fish food, 25 cents. And of course, the pumpkins. But the kiddie train?

The one that made my daughter smile like this while it was STANDING STILL?

FREE.

The kids actually sat in the train for a while, waiting for the driver to fix the tractor that pulled it. But when it became clear that whatever ailed the tractor might not be fixed soon, the kids moved on to other things. Like the rubber ducky races at the water pumps.
And the play set. Let me just say that my daughter loved loved loved sliding down this slide. A hundred times.




The face painting was just too tempting to resist. The ladies wielding the paintbrushes were super talented and while we waited our turns, we watched kiddos walk in the tent and super heroes, animals, and fairies walk out. I was so proud of how good the boys were during their transformations...sitting still as rocks and doing exactly as they were told.

Jackson was super (no pun intended...oh, who am I kidding?) excited about the end result:

While we waited for the hayride to return from the pumpkin patch, we took a wagon ride to the pond to feed fish and dress scarecrows. Or children. Details.

Finally, our turn on the hayride arrived, and the kids were, well...see for yourself:

The pumpkin patch itself was its very own Kodak moment. Or two. Or twelve...

Jackson wore his John Deere boots on this excursion, which are two sizes too big. Turns out he was a big fan of that little flaw, because he could kick them off at any given moment. And apparently there's nothing more relaxing than kicking back with your buddies in the middle of a bunch of pumpkins.
Right before we headed home, miracle of miracles, the kiddie train started running. Sadie was happy to just watch, but Jackson, Eli and Reed couldn't possibly leave without taking one last ride!

This is the kind of place where family traditions are born.

See you next year, Pappy!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Our Daddy had a birthday on October 6th. We made him his favorite cake. Momma helped a little, but the secret to this cake is having plenty of holes poked in it...and we are really good at poking holes!

Daddy was really excited about his cake. We really wanted to put a snowman candle on the cake, because that would make it extra special. Momma said snowman candles are a little hard to come by in October, so we settled for Spiderman...which is pretty special too.We helped Daddy blow out his candles. It was so much fun we did it twice...birthday song too.

Presents came next. Jackson got Daddy this cool hat, but Daddy already knew that because Jackson isn't very good at keeping a secret! I got him a hunting watch to replace the one I broke a few weeks ago. Momma got him some clothes. Good thing we were around to give him fun stuff.

Our Daddy had a great birthday...but that's because our Daddy is a great Daddy!

New Starts

This school year has started out with all kinds of new and exciting changes for our family. For me, a new subject to teach. For Sadie, getting used to going to day care four days a week (But who are we kidding? She loves going to Mrs. Tanya's, and it isn't like day care at all.). Kevin recently began a new project with a new company. And Jackson?

Jackson started pre-school.

Kevin and I joke about the fact that our children are equally ours: Sadie looks like me and has a mind like her Daddy. Jackson looks like his Daddy and has a mind like me. He has been excited about starting Sunshine Friends since he went to story time there one day last October. When we went to Meet the Teacher night the week before school started, he didn't want to leave. This kid LOVES school. I still can't get him to tell me what they do there (another indicator that he is most definitely my son), but he loves his teachers and is always excited about going back.

And these last pictures? This one here, where my children are hugging and looking like they like each other?

And this one? Where they are looking happy and smiling in the SAME PICTURE?

That's a new development too. Good stuff.

Changes

I'm not a fan of change. For those of you that know me, this isn't a big shock. Rearranging furniture in our house is almost always my husband's idea, because, frankly, furniture is heavy, and once you find a good place for it, why move it again? I've owned five cars since I turned 16. If I hadn't totaled one of them, the number would be three. My husband laughed hysterically at me the other night while we watched the 10 o'clock news...he was waiting for me to start twitching because we were watching channel 5 and not channel 8. Obama's campaign slogan was not geared towards people like me. If you're going to ask me to change, darn it, you'd better have a fantastic reason.


I change my hair, my clothes, and my mood. That's about it. The whole fact that Jackson is starting preschool tomorrow would normally be my change limit for an entire year (more to come on that note later).

And yet, when my boss called in the middle of June asking if I wanted to change teaching positions, I said yes.


Huh?

Who is this person?


I have taught the same subject since 2002. I liked it. I was good at it. I was comfortable.

But still.

As much as I love to write myself, in the seven years I taught writing, I only found a handful of students who embraced it like I did at their age. Some were beautiful writers and still hated the whole task of it. Most of the rest of them just hated it altogether. I could make them adequate. I could even make them proficient, competent, and maybe even good. I could not make them love to write. And I'm not mad at them for that. If anything, I'm mad at me.

I was being blessed with a job that I've wanted to do since I student taught twelve years ago. Am I nervous? Heck yes. I have big shoes to fill and high goals to obtain. I have to reach back into my student teaching days to remember what I learned way back then. I am doing something I've never done before. And that makes my hands sweaty.


But I'm excited too.

I get to finally commiserate with my students at least a little. I love to read now, but I hated reading in junior high. I was smart, but not a fast reader. I was terrified of reading aloud. I avoided reading as much as I could without getting into trouble.

I can finally give a speech to my class telling them I understand. I get it. But I want to change their minds. I think literature--good literature--can easily sway even the most reluctant reader. I want them to see that if I could be transformed into someone who loves loves loves a good book, there's hope for all of them.

What an adventure this will be!

A Day at the Redneck Waterpark

Who needs to pay $20 a person to get into some fancy waterpark when all a three year old (and his sister) really needs is a hose, some dirt, and his tractors?


Please note the fancy swimsuits.


And, yes, Sadie is eating the mud.

Where I've been...

I’ve been chastised lately by my legions of fans (well, all three of them) for being a negligent blogger. I confess. I apologize. Before this summer, time always seemed to drag just a bit once the heat set in. Then we had children. The thing about kids is they provide a wealth of material for blogging, but they refuse to let you sit down for two minutes to organize your thoughts! Couple that with a busy June and July, and summer practically slipped through my fingers.

As I type this, my kids are tearing the house apart while eating cinnamon raisin toast. They are multi-taskers. I am sacrificing my home for my fans (again, all three of you).

I discovered last night that Picassa photo editing (the program I use since photoshop got ganked) has a collage function that allows me to post several photos in one. Obviously the images are a bit smaller, but in this instance it was the only way I could tell this story in a thousand pictures or less. I hope you’ll forgive me.

Jackson has been a very busy three year old this summer. He started out with swimming lessons with “Miss Mwissa.” He loved her, he loved going, and as long as she didn’t let go of him or make him put his face in the water, he was a happy camper. Sadie also benefitted from his lessons in that she and I played in the water along with them. She has no fear. None. Slides? No problem. Face in the water? Piece of cake. Jumping from the side? Just say the word. I have no pictures of this adventure, because neither my camera nor my daughter are waterproof.

One of Jackson’s favorite adventures of the summer was his first ever Vacation Bible School. He loved everything about it: his teachers, his friends, and especially the songs. He still breaks into some part of “Boomerang Express” at least once a day. On the final day of VBS, his cousin, Hope, gave him a stuffed dinosaur just before the kids performed their songs for their parents. He was a little shy about getting up on the stage until he heard the music start and saw his buddy Maddi up there. It might look as though he’s not doing much, but if you look closely, you’ll see that the dinosaur is doing the motions.



My dad turned 70 on June 29th, and my sibs and I put together a surprise party for him. My mom took him to Tyler to get him away from the house while we decorated an area near the lake for the party. As a cover for all the cars my dad would see when they arrived home, my nephew, Mark, called Dad and asked if he could “bring a few Bible study friends fishing.” Emphasis on the word “few.” When my parents drove up and my dad saw ten or fifteen cars parked near the pier, he was beside himself. I learned that it’s pretty easy to surprise a 70 year old, because he had to get up close before he realized that he knew all the people “fishing.” Even though it was hot and sticky, we had a great time.


For the July 4th weekend, we drove north to Woodward to visit the Campbells. If you’re not familiar with them, visit the “Chasing Campbell” blog here. Sadie isn’t much of a world traveler yet, so she had a granddaughter weekend with the grandparents. Jackson got to be a real cowboy while we were there since Cody and Karen bought him a super sweet cowboy hat. We loved riding four wheelers, seeing deer up close, swimming and watching beautiful sunsets.

In between all the VBSing, birthdaying and traveling, the kids managed a few adventures of their own as well as a swim or two…

I really am still in denial about summer coming to an end. We're just getting warmed up!