Clark took this picture, but I absolutely love it!!
Archive for April, 2009
Oh dear, I fear we really may be in trouble with our youngest.
We were finishing up Payton’s birthday dinner the other night and started talking about her cake, which happened to be a haphazard High School Musical cake. Carter and Payton were talking about the fact that Troy and Gabriella finally kissed in HSM 3! Yeah, that alone should be your first clue…..my 5 and 7 year old talking about kissing! Anyway, Carter let us all know that he thought kissing was pretty gross, so then the following conversation ensued.
Mom —– Carter, are you going to kiss girls when you get bigger?
C—only you, mom
my heart is melting right about now
M—Shealyn, are you going to kiss boys when you get older?
S—No
I must tell you her reaction was slower than I would have liked
M—P, are you going to kiss boys when you get older
with no hesitation she rolled her eyes and looked at me and said
P—- OF COURSE!!!!
Heaven help us!!!!
Oh boy, did I hear myself in Shealyn this morning! The mornings have been cool here and she was reminding Carter that he needed a sweatshirt (yet she didn’t have one). I wasn’t too worried if they left without one today because it’s going up in the 80’s today. But this is kind of how the conversation went this morning.
S— Carter, did you get your sweatshirt?
C—I don’t need one Shealyn, it’s going to get hot today.
S–Yeah, but it’s cool now.
Remember, she’s making no efforts to grab hers.
C—I don’t care.
S—Well, I don’t want to hear about it when you’re cold. I don’t want you to come find me in the school and tell me that you wished you had brought yours.
I was cracking up because she’s heard very similar words pour out of my mouth pertaining to her as I have heard similar words from my mom’s mouth. Be careful what you say, I’m reminded daily in what I hear my kids say or role play. Nothing more eye opening!!
Happy “Fake” Birthday?
Published April 17, 2009 Payton , birthday , excitement , family Leave a CommentYes, we had a birthday party early for Payton becuase Aunt Trish and Jennifer were in from Michigan and Mallory was here from Florida. Oh….and grandma and grandpa are still here. Consequently, Payton has referred to it as her “fake” birthday. We enjoyed nachos, family, some eclair dessert and a few presents. Shall I show you the rest in pictures?
Waiting….patiently?
Yippeee…..High School Musical 3!
You sing.
Time for “FAKE” birthday dessert.
Hmmm….wish the calories were fake
Blow, baby girl!
Do you ever have those days where you have it planned out and you’re certain you will accomplish your complete “to do list?” Well, that was my intention for Friday. The kids were home because it was Good Friday and my nephew Mitchell was staying with us, too. So, my plan was to go to the grocery store, get the ingredients for weekend menus, come home, fix lunch, let the kids play and tackle my “to do list.” On the way to the store Shealyn asked if we could show Mitchell the park. I decided we would stop and the kids could have 15 minutes to burn up some energy and I also secretly hoped it would make the trip to the grocery store with 4 kids easier. We stopped, we played and then………….an alarm going off…………my alarm going off…………….I have no keys!! My keys have fallen out of my pocket. Shealyn and Carter retraced our steps in the play area while Mitchell, Payton and I retraced our walk to the pond and back. No luck. No keys. The kids keep playing, I keep looking and asking everyone on the playground if they have seen a single black key. Still, no luck. I decided to retrace my steps to the pond and back one more time (because that’s wehre I was coming from when I first heard the alarm.) As I’m coming back up from the pond this time I notice my alarm has stopped so I’m a bit excited thinking one of the kids has found the key. Well, that wasn’t to be the case. Instead, my alarm has stopped and my hatch is open and all of the doors to the van are unlocked. Nothing missing, just a wide open van. I grabbed my purse and locked all the doors except the driver’s door and went back to the playground to start asking if anyone had found my key. Still no key. Now I’ve come to the conclusion that some small child picked up my key and started pushing buttons and is probably long gone and mom and dad will discover the valuable treasure their child has hidden deep in their pockets either at bath time or laundry day.
My next dilemma, I have no phone. Once I was ready to head out the door to the store with 4 kids I went and didn’t grab my phone. Anyway, some nice lady let me use her phone and my first call was to my insurance agent because I have roadside service. My luck did not turn around……………the number I had did not work. Hmmmm……what to do………..Clark is 40 miles away and the one friend’s number I know by heart is gone all day? I had no choice, I called Clark, explained the situation, told him he had no way to call me back, and trusted he was going to get to me or find someone to get to me and the 4 kids. Did I mention it’s now lunch time and I have nothing? Oh yeah, and Mitchell is allergic to bees and I didn’t grab his EPI pen because it was a quick trip to the grocery store. So, we sat and waited and waited. The kids are still playing and enjoying the extended play time, but that soon turns into cries of “I’m hungry, what are we going to do for lunch?” I’m still thinking I hope Clark can get here soon or found someone to come and get us. I decided to make one more trip to the pond and as I was down there I hear, “are you Kim?” Clark had called back the number that I had called him on and the lady happened to be getting ready to leave the park, but found me. He had gotten a hold of his mom and she was on her way. Great! At least I know a time frame now. Then I start thinking ….. where are my keys? Remember I was in a hurry, so it was my spare key I grabbed this morning because I wasn’t sure or didn’t want to take the time to find my regular set of keys. Judy got there, brought us home and it took all of us coming in to look. Shealyn found them for me….whew! We went back to the park, got the van, came home and ate lunch and I started mentally preparing to make the non stop trip to the grocery store while I was finishing up my lunch when Clark walked in. Yes!!!!! The kids got to play and I got to go to the store by MYSELF! It wasn’t at all how I planned for my day to go, but in the end it all turned out okay.
Shealyn had her competition yesterday. Since I had been through one a couple of days before she had the butterflies for both of us. My co coach and I had to take a whole different approach with the older girls. Yes, we were an all girl team!!! Number one, their books are much more involved and you’re just kind of hoping that you managed to touch on any possible detail that might be asked. We also made it a point to really talk about the concepts, settings, and characters with the girls so they would be better able to decipher a question by reasoning if they were confused by a question. Again, we (my co coach Michele and I) had no clue what to expect. We were new to this as were our girls. There were only 4 teams at this age level and many of them with experience since they had been in Kindergarten. At the half the girls had missed 3 and if Shealyn had had the confidence to challenge a question she would have been right. It was cute, she came up to me at intermission and told me about the question. It was too late to challenge it then, but I told her to go tell Mrs. Warren (the question reader) and SHE WOULD HAVE CHALLENGED CORRECTLY!!!! Chalk it up to a learning experience! Shealyn and another little girl were pretty frustrated that they had already missed 3. We encouraged them, pepped them up and told them to keep working together as a team and to HAVE FUN!!!
I believe they missed another 3 during the 2nd half (I was judging again). Needless to say they didn’t win, but at least 3 of the girls had fun and the coaches daughters…..ahem….I won’t mention names are still a little frosty with each other. Michele and I spent the afternoon together yesterday, have burned the phone lines and talked at their softball practice again last night and have decided these are growing pains and with encouragement from mom’s will have to work through this.
Each girl thought the other was shooting dirty looks at them trying to get the team captain to pick their answer. Both of our girls are bright and paid more attention to detail and were right more than the captain was in instances when the team was divided on an answer. In my mind I believe they were both truly more frustrated at the captain and just are uncertain of how to voice that to each other. And, I’ve been trying to tell Shealyn that we all perceive things differently i.e. facial expressions. I keep reminding Shealyn this is not a big deal and nothing to lose a friend over…..they’ll work through it and I’m sure all things will be fine when they play their game tomorrow.
Side note: I’m so glad I have found a friend down here that we can talk candidly about our daughters and their imperfections and still maintain a friendship.
Regardless, all the drama aside, I think they had fun and have definitely learned a lot and know how to better prepare themselves if they choose to do this again. I know Michele and I learned how to better prepare them! We had a great group of girls and until competition day all got along…..sigh!
Good Job Gert…I love you and am proud of you!!!!
Kids Say the Darndest Things
Published April 10, 2009 Payton , out of the mouths of my babes 1 CommentI really need to get more consistent with these because I know they will be priceless 20 years down the road!
The other day I was brushing Payton’s hair getting ready to put it up. She gets that little fountain looking ponytail on top of her head everyday because she is growing out her bangs. I’m fine with that, but my rule is I have to be able to see those baby blues :0 Anyway, Im getting ready to pull it up after all the tangles are out and I can only see one of her eyes at the moment. And she pipes in with:
Hey mom, look! Only one of my eyes is growed in.
Me–really, only one is growed in?
P–yep
I keep brushing and now we’re getting a glimpse of that 2nd eye.
P–Hey, now they’re both growed in!
Trust me, I correct my kids on their grammar because …………..just because, but this one was too cute and I had to go with it.
Someday, I’ll have to do a reflection post on all the cute words that are now part of our household and many other’s vocabulary thanks to our 3 munchkins!!
Both Shealyn and Carter are participating in battle of the books and I am co coaching both teams. Well, yesterday was Carter’s competition! I was nervous, he was excited! A nervousness only because I didn’t know exactly what to expect and also wondering if I had my team prepared enough.
First, let me fill you in a little bit about what takes place during the competition. The whole competition is a SILENT competition! Carter’s age group had 12 books to work with. The very first thing they had to do was work together to match all the titles with the correct authors. They did that no problem. Then the questions started. A sample question might be:
In which book was there a character named Mr. Drysdale?
Then the kids would silently point to the correct title card and when time was called the captain would hold up the teams answer. If it was right they got 15 points, if it was wrong they got the big ZERO!! There were a total of 80 questions with a short intermission after 40. My team had aced the first half. I was so excited for them and so proud of them!!! As a matter of fact, one of the judges came up to me and asked me if I had been up all night grilling Carter? Nope, he’s just a Type A kind of boy! He was totally in his element! I was judging at another table, but found myself and every other coach who was judging looking to their tables to see how our respective teams were faring. Because, I was judging it was hard to tell exactly how my team was doing in comparison to others, but I knew we were doing well. Anyway, we ended up missing 5 in the 2nd half and 5 for our total. We tied for 2nd place! I went over to my team after the tally and the first team had been announced and saw a couple forlorn faces. I let them all know how proud I was of them, all the awesome teamwork they had and to let them know we tied for 2nd. Well, this wasn’t good enough for 2 little boys, mine being one of them. Carter was more mad because he was sure they only missed 3 and that the judges scored them wrong. So, tears ensued for both Carter and mom. My heart was breaking for him because he worked really hard to prepare for this and I would have put him up against any kid in there (including the 2nd graders) and am confident he would have held his own. My captain was a little down also. The captain’s mom and myself made very certain to let each of our kids know how awesome they did, how proud of all the hard work they put in, how amazing their teamwork was and how proud we were that they didn’t talk for 60 minutes. Not an easy feat on the latter. I took Carter back to his class as he was trying to get his emotions in check. I wondered about him all day.
He was in a much better frame of mind after school. He was showing off his medal to Shealyn’s teacher (I forgot to mention each child got a medal just for participating) and telling her that his team only missed 5 out of 80 and that was really good! Yes it is little man!!
His disappointments are going to be so much harder to take because I know he has very high expectations of himself and is passionate about most things he chooses to get involved in. I also know these are life lessons and good lessons. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t mean that I won’t get emotional right along with him. After all—he is my 1 and only boy and my one and only Mr. Carter!
Can you believe it, the cute, curly haired, red head that ran down the aisle at our wedding to meet her Uncle Buddy (Clark) turns 16 today? We will see you real soon to celebrate in person. Can’t wait! Have a great day and we love you!
This is a picture from the actual celebration we got to have with her in TX!
April is full of birthday’s for us! Today, I would like to wish, my niece, Haylee Maye a very Happy 4th birthday! Wish we could celebrate with you. Have a great day and we love you!
Recent Comments