Saturday the way they were meant to be

Have you ever had a Saturday where you thought it just couldn't get any better? This Saturday was absolutely wonderful. Seriously. I mean, I have never heard either of my kids laugh as hard as they did for as long as they did and be so happy.

It started with a double birthday party for my longest best friend Jamie's two girls Reese and Kate. It was at a jumping place called "It's My Party". It was absolutely wonderful. The kids had TWO forty minute jumping sessions and then a fun pizza party. Sullivan would like bragging rights and for you to know that he ate FOUR pieces. It was a princess party, and he had no problem sporting the princess hat and rings that were passed out. He even let his picture be made quite a bit, oh the poor boy when he reaches his teenage years.

Then, we all came home to nap while daddy prepared the backyard for a splashpark and barbecue. Some of our new neighbors came over, and a bunch of our families. We had a GREAT summer afternoon grilling and watching the kids play. I have honestly never heard Sullivan laugh as hard as he did for as long as he did. They just had the best time ever.

And, if that couldn't be enough, my parents took them to a hotel to spend the night. Aaron's brother and his wife stayed while we watched a movie KIDLESS (which is obviously the way to go), while the kids ended their day with MORE swimming. It honestly was perfect!!! So much fun!!! I LOVE BATON ROUGE!!!

Photo Story

For another masters class I am taking, we had to create a photo story of an important or life changing event in our life. I chose to create mine on the week that Sophie was life flighted with croup to Temple's Scott and White Hospital. Take a look and let me know what you think I should change. It's not due until Monday, so you can tell me what's missing, too long, or short, etc. I had a horrible time with the microphone (but you use what you have available), so you probably have to turn your speakers up kind of loud. Thanks friends!!!!

I enjoyed making the personal story. I used Microsoft's Photo Story 3, which can be downloaded for free. It took me a while to decide what I would create my story about. Once I decided, I used an index card, and wrote all of the important things I wanted to say about that week. Of course, I could have filled four or five index cards!!! I then came up with a "script", but had to revise it about ten times because it was really long!!! I finally decided that the important part was to emphasize the point that that week had changed me forever. It still haunts me everytime I see a life flight helicopter in the sky!!!

The software is pretty easy to use. The only problem I had was recording on my microphone the voice overs loud enough. I ended up turning the background music down as low as possible, and realizing that my microphone just isn't that great. The video is produces is pretty big, so I ended up having to post it to youtube (which I really did NOT want to do), in order to link it here for you guys to see.

Anyway, leave me a comment and tell me what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPTyNyQQzEM

An Update of Epic Proportions

What? Why do you want to take my picture when I am trying to have fun here?

I had a funnel in my car from moving, you would not believe how much fun a funnel is at a splashpad.

Sullivan at the bottom of a waterslide.

Sophie took her turn at breaking the pinata. Doesn't she look cute in a blindfold?

My parents came to town and took the kids to spend the night in a hotel. In the process, they took them to the store and let them buy anything they wanted. Sophie got a monkey to hang around her neck. It has hung there for over a week.

Uncle Charlie gave Sullivan five bucks when he saw the ice cream truck. Sophie looked like this after enjoying an ice cream sandwich in the sun.

This is how you cool off in the summer! Notice how big Sophie is, she looks like a kid now!

Hooray! I am not sure what he is cheering for, but he is excited!

We had a pinata at a going away party. Sullivan didn't break it, but he looked really cute in the blindfold.

Sophie found some stuffed animals and thought she had to carry them everywhere at the party even though they were twice her size.

Now this is gonna be fun!!!

Not sure if she wants to get wet, but about ten minutes later, we couldn't get her to leave!

Nanny let them make and decorate their own cupcakes. Sophie found them and ate the icing off of about six before we realized what she was up to.

Well, apparently being a working mom is WAY more WORK than I thought. I am definitely adjusting. The thing is, school is now out, I am home again, but living around friends and family keeps us very busy. I am trying to steadily unpack, and follow the lead of my ever growing children. In my organizationally challenged world, I have yet to unpack the camera cord. I know that technically I have lived here long enough to be unpacked, but we have aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends, and every kind of grandparent a kid could want living very close now- we stay VERY busy. Or, I should say, my children stay busy. They get taken out to eat by aunts and uncles, out to movies by grandparents, and invited to lots of parties to which we must drive. I'll fill you in more about our new lives in Baton Rouge soon, but for now, I'll share some pictures my dad has captured of the kids lately so that you can have prove that they are alive and still growing well. Oh yeah, and they are still really cute!

We've Moved!

Hello all! Its been a long while. We have officially moved to Louisiana! Baton Rouge, to be exact. Alot of things are changing, but all for the good! I have started to teach, and love it. We have

a great babysitter that comes over here and stays with the kids (Sullivan was really worried the first day that she would actually sit on him). Anyway, we are around family and long time friends, and it feels just right! We love watching the kids getting to know their family and cousins and everyone we refer to as our family. Its really great. This weekend we had a crawfish boil to celebrate my dad's birthday. It was my kids' first time at one (Sullivan has been, but before he was old enough to understand). They were both totally grossed out that we were eating the crawfish. Sullivan said "But that looks like dirt on them." I told him there was dirt. He said "Thats disgusting, why would you ever eat that?"

They are good!!!!!

Well, hopefully I'll be able to find the cord to download some pictures off of my camera and prove to you that my children are, in fact, still alive! I can hopefully get some pics of the new house once there aren't boxes everywhere!!!

Assignment

Okay loyal fans, the following is not an update on our family (although I promise to sit down and write one tomorrow). The following is an assignment for a class I am taking for my master's degree I am working on.


I recently visited www.itse.org. It is a website for the organization called "The International Society for Technology in Education." The website is full of useful links, helpful information, and invaluable resources for educators. I was particularly drawn to the "Educator Resources" link. It has quite a few VERY useful links with helpful project ideas, online seminars, training classes, and other tools that could prove to be invaluable to an educator in today's technology savvy classroom.

The website seems very easy to navigate and search, and honestly, I can't find too many negatives about the site. This is going on my bookmark list, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a new site with fresh ideas for incorporating technology into their classroom.

A few things that really intrigue me about the site are the fact that you can access it and all of the resources with or without membership in their society. I feel that this will allow a broader range of educators to actually use the site. I also appreciate the fact that you can make suggestions on the site and feel like they may actually be heard and help others. The career section seems like a great idea in today's economy as well.

All in all, I am thoroughly impress with this site and plan to visit it quite regularly. I would definitely recommend it to anyone!

The Power Of Magical Hands

We had such an eventful weekend. It all started with Buster Brown getting neutered on Friday. I know I have told you how intuitive Sullivan is, well..... yeah. He wanted to understand it all. When we went to drop him off Friday morning, Sullvian asked the nurse- "don't you think its gonn hurt to cut his wee wee? I mean, can't we just keep him without you cutting it?" She told him they would put him to sleep so that he wouldn't feel anything, to which he replies "Yeah, they put me to sleep before, only thing is, I played really hard the night before so I was really tired, and he didn't." He kept asking question after question. And then, when we picked him up, Sullivan noticed right away that two things were MISSING! It was interesting to say the least- the things they don't tell you about when you get pregnant!

Then, Saturday morning, we went to our dear friend Brooke's fourth birthday party! It was fun because we have known her since she was 15 months old, and its neat to watch them grow! I'll fill you in on the rest of our weekend a little later.


Best Friends Forever- these were our first friends in College Station- Brooke (the birthday girl), and Trinity.

The boy had no idea it was a pink princess jeep. It was good for off roading, as far as he was concerned.

We soon realized that the reason Sophie was being so good was that she was getting SPOONFULLS of the ranch dip and enjoying it without chips. She put a whole new slant on the term "double dipping".

At first, Sullivan was scared to watch the magic show, then he realized that the magician had magic in his hands, and had to figure out how he could get it too!

One of "those" bloggers

Well, I always swear I will not be one of "those" bloggers. You know the ones that forget all about blogging and actually lead their real lives. Well, it happened this month, and I apologize! We just have so much going on.

For starters, we have a new puppy. Not by choice- he found us. We were driving home from my parents' two weeks ago, when we almost hit him on the highway in the middle of the woods. We brought him home and cleaned him up, and tried to find him a new home. But, in the mean time, we all fell in love. He is such a sweet boy that we now realize he is ours. His name started off being Sawyer, but the kids could never remember is, so now he is Buster Brown. Sophie likes to tell everyone how cute he is. When she says cute, her word rhymes with "scoot". So, she always says "look at this cootie, come here cootie, what a cootie". Its adorable, I swear. Sampson loves him, Delilah doesn't belittle herself enough to play with another dog in fear that someone might think she is one as well.

I need to take some pictures of my children today so that you can actually know that they ARE, indeed, still alive and well. I don't want to jinx us, but we have been incredibly well lately- no sickos in the bunch. We have enjoyed playing outside for the majority of our days lately. Sullivan is finally enjoying his dumptruck we got him over two years ago, and Sophie loves riding bikes. She is quite the talker now, and its pretty funny to listen to. We met some of our friends at Sam's the other day. Her and I were pregnant with our girls at the same time, so it was crazy to watch them interacting. They thought it was really funny to tell each other that they were funny. So, Sophie would say "you're funny", then Evie would say "no you're funny." This continued for about an hour, and never got old to the girls.

Sullivan has started reading like crazy. Its kind of funny, but kind of creepy. I mean, he is supposed to be my baby. Yesterday, I took him with me to run a bunch of errands with me alone. We were driving, and he said, "Mom, what is fresh fish and seafood?" I was totally thrown off, and asked, "What?" He says, "Red Lobster says they have it, what is it?" I couldn't believe he had read that as we drove by, no time for sounding anything out! Then, last night, he saw Aaron on the internet looking at a termite page, and he asked him "Why would anyone call themselves a Bug Man?" Aaron was blown away that he is reading our stuff now! Man, time goes by quickly!

I'll end on this one piece of advice that Sullivan shared with me yesterday- "Humans should never drink too much milk, because their mouths would be on fire. Now, if you are an alien, you can drink as much milk as you want, because you like fire- you know, you live close to the sun."