Best Shot Monday

Have you ever had one of those moments where you go to check on your sleeping child and they don’t appear to be in their bed?  That happened to me last night in 2 beds!!  Carter had come downstairs last night and informed me he couldn’t “breathe” in his room. (note to self—get the boy a fan—it is stuffy in his room).  Since the goal was to get him to GO to sleep I told him to go crawl in my bed knowing Clark would move him later.  A little after 9:00 I go to see if he’s sleeping (in my bed remember).  He wasn’t there so I went and checked in his room.  He WASN’T there either.  Now, common sense is telling me he’s gotta be up here somewhere because I hadn’t heard him come back downstairs.  I started turning lights on in his bedroom and mine and still no Carter.  Where can he be?  Well, I take a closer look in my bed and there he is with just his head sticking out between our pillows!  He was laying kind of sideways so I couldn’t even really see his body under the covers.

See what I mean?  When I first went in there the other decorative pillow was still at the top of the bed and the back of his head was turned toward me.

 

 

This one below is my favorite of the week!  Yes, I get to kiss that sweet little face each and every night!

I got carded!

Yes, Yes I did!!  We went to the store after church yesterday to pick up a few things for an impromptu BBQ with our friends the Cope’s.  I got in line to check out while Clark took the kids to the van.  When the cashier got to the beer she asked for my ID!  Woohoo, I’m 36 and she thinks I look 21!  (that’s what I’m thinking in my mind anyway)  Then reality hits me smack in the face.  I look up at the little display and it says —- DOES CUSTOMER LOOK UNDER 40?  Awwww geez louise—she doesn’t think I look 21!  The bright side—at least I don’t look 40!

Don’t worry, I didn’t let it get me down.  We had fun catching up with some friends and I must say Clark makes some of the best BBQ ribs on the grill.  They were amazing!  So add a little salad and some grillin’ beans you got yourself a BBQ!  Oh yeah, we topped it off with brownie sundaes.  Hats off to  Shealyn because she gets all of the credit for the brownies!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

This was our actual conversation around the dinner table last night.  It actually started out on a very serious note.  Shealyn was talking about a puppet show the school counselor had done.  It was about a little boy who was born to a mom who couldn’t take care of him.  This story has a happy ending; he now has a mommy that can take care of him and will love him!  This is all relative because we have been talking here at home reasons why kids are adopted. 

Anyway, this story led to reasons of why we love.  And this was the conversation from here that involved the whole family:

Me—Shealyn, I always love you—–even when I’m mad!

S—Yeah, I know

Clark—-I don’t love you (just waiting for a reaction )

S—Dad, yes you do—you have to I’m your first kid!

C—Why do I love Carter and P. then?

Carter—Well, dad you love me because I play football.

C—I do love football, but I love you more.

M—P, why does daddy love you?

P—because I’m a girl and he’s a boy

There now you know what happens at the McNulty dinner table!

I’m so excited…

I have visitors coming!  I’m expecting my little brother around Halloween—-book that ticket T.!  If he comes when he’s planning to he should get to see Carter’s last football game. 

Clark’s parents should be arriving that same week to spend the winter in Texas. 

Our dear friends, the Tharp’s are driving down to spend Thanksgiving with us.  Miss Kelly made Carter a countdown chart before coming down here and he diligently puts the stickers on everyday (well, sometimes he has to catch up on the weekend)! 

 We might possibly get to see my other brother, his wife and girls between Christmas and New Years!  I’ve missed seeing the girls and the kids playing together!

And I know this one is official because she booked the airline tickets today.  My mom, sister and other niece will arrive just in time for Carter’s birthday which also happens to be my kids’ spring break!

Hmmmmm, dad when are you coming? 

There’s also a rumor going around we might see some of Clark’s family in the spring, too!

Yeah, to be surrounded by family and friends makes my heart smile!

When we came down here in June I knew all of these prospects were there, but now that we’re almost in October it seems more real!!  But please, if you are a reader that sees my kids don’t mention these trips to them.  Can you imagine how many times I would answer “how many more days, mom until _______________ and ____________ get here?”  We’ve got the Tharp countdown going on and that’s exciting enough.  If you times it by 3 or 4 that might be rough on mom ;o)

My new header

I know she’s not going to like me for this, but she deserves the credit.  The header on my blog was done by one of my bestest friends, Carrie.  This was my birthday present from her — red AND polka dots — she knows me so well!  Thanks for your time and effort and being patient with me finding the pictures I wanted you to use!  I love it and it is so ME!

Crafty Tuesday

Payton has been up to some artsy kind of stuff.  All of a sudden she’s been having fun with drawing people.  I know I’m biased, but I don’t think she does half bad for a 4 year old that just decided to sit down and draw her mommy one day )  I drew her the body and hands and feet, but she colored me and did my face all by herself!  You can see where she drew her own hands and feet out of the existing ones )  I had my glasses on that day as well; she included it all.

 

She really impressed me with the one below.  It’s Arthur (I believe he’s an ant eater) from cartoons on PBS!  He’s a favorite in our house especially because he has a little sister Dora Winifred aka DW who really annoys him!  She did this one all by herself and didn’t want to show anyone because she didn’t like his shirt.  There are some preschool art classes down here, maybe I better more seriously consider signing her up to try it out.

Best Shot Monday

This was taken a while ago I just never had a post to put it in. 

I call this my sleeping trio!

 

First let me tell you it was probably one of the evenings it didn’t go below 80 and P. thought fleece was needed.  Second, yes Carter is sleeping parallel to his headboard!  Third, Gert gets the hand thing from her dad and Grandpa H.   So, imagine 3 little furnaces nestled that close together and what do you suppose you get?  A sweaty, ruin your night before bath kind of morning!

Dad’s Day – “Creation Station”

After Kimmer and I had bought our new home, I stayed here by myself for over a month. During the long nights, I sat in each room and tried to visualize what it would look like when Kimmer and the kids moved in. Remember… We got rid of all our living room furniture in Michigan and now we have two living rooms! Thankfully, my parents brought down the living room set that we had in the apartment that Dad and I lived in during the work week. One down, one to go.

The upstairs “gameroom” in our new home presented the biggest problem. It is a pretty big room and Kimmer and I both visualized it as a true FAMILY room. It has a huge closet to store all our games and toys and we purchased a huge couch that all of us can fit on without being right on top of each other along with a big entertainment center that holds our TV, our DVD collection and my lighthouse collection.

The BIG Brown Couch!!!

Only one thing was missing. As children, we didn’t have a billion channels on TV to choose from, or a cabinet full of movies, and Playstations weren’t even invented yet! All we had on a rainy day was a box of 16 crayons and some notebook paper, if we were lucky Mom would pull out some pasta and Elmer’s glue and we were in business! (Was that so bad?) With this in mind, Kimmer and I wanted a place for the kids to draw, paint, do their homework, or just sit and use their imagination. I used some “down time” to draw up what I called a Creation Station, giving each of the children their very own cubby that includes a cabinet (with a drawer to hold their supplies and a large area below to store their creations) all to themselves. I included a larger cabinet on the end for community supplies and Mom’s scrapbooking stuff. Add three barstools and you have yourself a pretty cool little area, right? Well, I am happy to announce that it turned out as well as I visualized it!

So here it is…..

The Creation Station

Shealyn and Miss Payton's Test Drive

Carter Wouldn't Join Us!

So far Miss P has used it the most and we think this will be a wonderful area for our children to hang out and use their imaginations.

Have a great week!!! (Hey, anybody seen my glue?!?!?)

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I was starting to fret that I wouldn’t have anything cute or funny to share with you this week when alas, my boy came through in a blaze of glory!  This might be my favorite edition yet.

It all started with this:

 

 

My first thought, great—it was a good day in music!  He just wanted me to smell the scratch ‘n sniff cookie sticker.  I did and then the conversation was dropped…….

 

until supper time when Clark started asking the kids about their days.  Carter showed Clark his note and then proceeded to explain to him that he’s been using his TALKING voice instead of his SINGING voice in music class.  Mrs. C. told him to practice at home in the shower where no one could hear him.  Well, trust me—-we didn’t hear him!  So, he went  to school on Wednesday and told Mrs. C. he’d been practicing in the shower.  Of course she asked him what he had been practicing.  Are you ready?

 

 

SURE?

 

 

 

 

REALLY SURE?

 

 

 

 

I’M LAUGHING!!!

 

 

 

 

OKAY, HERE WE GO…

 

 

 

DRUMROLL PPPPPLLLLLLEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEEE!

 

 

 

 

DON’T YOU WISH YOUR GIRLFRIEND WAS HOT LIKE ME?

 

Mrs. C. promptly told him that was enough.

Leave it to my boy to leave a good first impression for the new family in town!  Actually I think it’s quite hysterical and am positive if Clark or I had been taking a drink at the moment that the other would have been wearing it!!

I hope you know this song so you can appreciate the humor behind this and sing along )  For the record, he got it from the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks.  As an added note he also told me he was doing the little dance that Alvin does in the movie, too—–all in the shower! 

Shealyn’s first softball game in Texas!

Monday night was the night.  There were 8 scheduled practices prior to the first game and they only got to practice 4 times because of rain that left the fields unplayable.  So parent and coach apprehension was high.  Actually, I’m not sure how high coach’s was—-he obviously got strong armed recruited into this by a friend or someone he knows in the league becuase he told me that prior to the first practice he didn’t even know what an 8 year old girl looked like!  He’s great with the girls; not hard enough in my opinion, but they seem to be responding to him.

Anyway, back on track—Monday night was the Lady Tiger’s debut.

 

They did really well at the plate.  All of the girls had at least 1 hit.  My tiger had 2 singles and a double that she smacked right down the 3rd base line!  Go Gert!  Defense left a little bit to be desired!  I think we need to put some glue in our gloves.  Actually, it really opened the coach’s eyes as to what they need to work on.  So it was a learning game.  They lost by 1 run, but I loved the coach’s response to 1 little girl.

Little Girl—–Hey Coach, did we win?

Coach—- ____________ did you have fun?

Little Girl —Yeah!!

Coach— Then we won, __________!

Love it!

And yes, they worked on their defense pretty much all night at practice last night.  Get ‘em next time Lady Tigers!  Sorry for the quality of pictures, but it’s really hard to take pictures through a fence )