Christmas Eve

I got my wish this year and we had a white Christmas, but that also meant hazardous road conditions. We had to change our plans and do Christmas Eve in the morning/afternoon instead of the evening. Kelly, Thaylia, Uncle Bill, Julie, Alyssa, and Susie made the trip to Grove to celebrate with us. We had a great dinner and lots of fun playing Wii Sports Resort. Everyone had to head out about 3 o'clock because the snow and blizzard conditons were moving in fast. Everyone made it home safely! The boys, Adam, Nana, Papa, and I had leftovers for dinner then we played the Wii and watched movies. The boys got to open their Christmas pajamas before they went to bed. Grandma and I had to stay up and finish wrapping last minute gifts. We headed to bed about 11 o'clock, but I was so excited I couldn't go to sleep. Adam and I stayed up until almost 1 playing games on the computer. We made a deal with Jacob that he could wake us up in the morning anytime after 7. This was the first Christmas in several years that we didn't have to get up at 5:30 to do gifts so Adam could get to work.

Here we are.....

It has been 5 months since I have posted anything on here. Wow, I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. Jacob started 2nd grade in August and ended the semester with perfect attendance! He played tackle football for the first time this year and LOVED it. He wanted to play basketball, but mom and dad needed a break before baseball season. Nana did sign him up for karate and he is really enjoying it. Peyton is ornery as ever, but he wouldn't be Peyton any other way. Pey has been going to karate with his brother, but will start a Mommy and Me class in January. He is going to play baseball this year and is very excited. Adam is still workig at Quiktrip. He has been in a north Tulsa store for about 6 or 7 months now. I am teaching special education at the middle school in Collinsville this year. I LOVE being in the same district as my children. I have had my challenges this school year, but I love where I am at. We had some chamges occur at semester, so I will have a new schedule when we go back in January. I will go from co-teaching all day to teaching 4 hours a day. I am very excited about the changes. Hopefully, I will do a better job at keeping this blog updated. I will put that on my New Year's Resolution list!

The Design Girl Giveaway

The Design Girl is giving away a free standard blog makeover! Go to http://designgirlblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/giveaway-5.html#comment-form
to read all the details and enter to win. The makeover is valued at $70.00. Hurry the last day to enter is Tuesday, July 21st.

Dallas Trip

Jacob and I headed to Dallas yesterday. I was a little nervous about the trip since I was coming by myself with Jacob. Jacob kept me entertained the whole way to Dallas. It was nice to spend time with him without Peyton trying to get all my attention. We made it to the hospital with no problems at all. Maq Quest directions took me right where I needed to go. We spent about 2 hours at the hospital with Baby Kate, Jason, Em, and their families. Baby Kate is absolutely beautiful and perfect. She made me want to have another one. She was so sweet! Leaving the hospital to head to Uncle James and Aunt Belinda's house was quite an adventure. Map Quest did not take into consideration all the construction and was sending me on exits that didn't exist. We were right in the middle of downtown Dallas and the last time Jacob counted we had turned around 6 times. The trip to North Richland Hills should have taken about 40 minutes and ended up taking us well over an hour. We finally made it and have enjoyed spending time with our family that we don't get to see very often. Jacob and Tyler have been playing World of War Craft on the computer the whole time, and Jacob is now trying to talk me into buying it. Adam and Jacob would become addicted to in no time. We will be heading to take newborn pictures of Baby Kate later this afternoon and then make the trip back to Oklahoma. Jacob really likes Texas and has repeated informed me that he wished we could live here. Maybe bringing him to another state wasn't such a good idea. :)

Update

Baseball season has started! Jacob practices two days a week and on Sundays right now. He has his first baseball tournament the first weekend in April (his birhtday). We went to the lake last week to visit Nana and Papa during Spring Break. We all had a great time. Peyton went shopping in Joplin with me and grandma. He had to approve of the Easter outfits I picked out along with everything we bought for him. I am in trouble....he is the fashion police. Adam got a phone call on Friday that he was moving back to Tulsa starting Monday! We knew that he wouldn't be in Bartlesville forever, but the move came unexpectedly. He is excited to get back to the Tulsa stores and he is enjoying the change. I think not seeing family and friends everyday is the hard part for him. I have been substituting this week and trying to work on photography stuff. I am actually running behind...which I guess is a good thing. Our first ever Easter Ministry was a great success last Saturday. We had 32 children signed up, and the pictures turned out great. I just got them in a few minutes ago, and I am super excited. I will be doing that again this Saturday. God is being very good to us! We are all healthly again and enjoying life. Below are the Easter pics of the boys!

Peyton's Birthday Party

With all the sickness going around this week, I never got around to posting pictures from Peyton's birthday party.

Fighting Bad Guys

All of a sudden Peyton is into this "Bad Guy" thing. He is always talking to bad guys and fighting bad guys. He wouldn't go get his clothes out of his room yesterday because he said there were bad guys in there. This has been going on for weeks now, and I don't know what started it. We did sit down with the boys about a week ago and talk to them about strangers because of the incident in Owasso and Tulsa, but this started way before that. He tells the bad guys he is going to knock their heads off and his daddy is going to shot them. Adam does have his concealed weapons license, but Peyton just started this out of the blue. We are very careful about what we watch around the boys, especially Peyton. The only thing we can think of is he has gotten this off of some cartoons the boys have watched. It is pretty funny to watch him act out what he is going to do to the bad guys, but it worries me that he is constantly talking to bad guys and about bad guys. He informed us there were bad guys in bubba's room the other night, so he had to come sleep with us. He is definitely a handful, but I love the little handful very much!

A week of CHAOS

This week was supposed to be a good week since it was the last week until Spring Break. Monday I realized that I didn't have all week to get my taxes to my accountant like I had thought. They were DUE to the IRS by the 15th! I spent all day Monday and most of the day Tuesday trying to get all my business stuff together and personal stuff organized. Peyton woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday running a fever and coughing all over me all night. I woke up at 6:30 and called Wilson to let them know I had a sick child and couldn't substitute. Thinking it was just allergies and they needed a break (mom just being lazy), I let both boys stay home Tuesday. They seemed fine after sleeping in, so we went to Claremore to the accountant, Wal-Mart, McDonald's drive thru, then to Jacob's 1st baseball practice. Everything seemed fine when we put them to bed, but at 5:00 here comes Peyton into our room running a fever again. I checked on Jacob and he was also a little warm. They both stayed home again Wed. and went to the doctor at 3:00. My little Peyton tested positive for strep throat and Jacob's throat looked like he was getting it, so they were both put on antibiotics and couldn't go back to school til Friday. I called my doctor and told them what was going on and they were calling me in a prescription to for strep. We ran to Wal-Mart to get their prescriptions and a few groceries. After being in Wal-Mart for 45 minutes, I started getting hotting and fatigue. I went to the pharmacy to get the boys prescriptions which were going to be another 30 minutes and they didn't have our prescription cards. I went to get out the cards and Jacob's was missing. I called Adam and he said he didn't have it. I got mad and said forget it, I'll go to Walgreens. They informed me I would have just as long of a wait there and I explained that they had had the prescription for over an hour and that I would proceed to Walgreens. The boys had been pretty good up to this point, but they were getting restless and Mom was getting sicker and sicker. Peyton was trying to help unload the cart and broke the eggs all over the counter. Adam was calling me in the process of this to let me know he did have the cards and wanted to know if I wanted the number. Jacob is acting like a wild animal touching evrything and harassing his brother. I'm feeling worse and yelling at them so that wasn't helping anything. I called their doctor and had them send the prescriptions to Walgreens for me. I'm sure the people at Wal-Mart were glad we were leaving. We ran to Walgreens and Jacob's was ready but not Peyton's. I called Adam and said I'm going to Urgent Care, so he meet me there and got the kids. I waited at Urgent Care for an hour only to be told my throat looked like strep and my nose looked like the flu but both tests were negative today. He told me if I came back tomorrow they would both test positive. Luckily, he went ahead and treated me for strep and the flu, and saved me another $40.00 trip. The boys stayed home Thursday and drove me CRAZY all day. What happened to laying in bed watching TV when you're sick? Not my boys, they were just fine running and yelling through the house all day. I made them lay down and take a nap Thurs. afternoon and Peyton woke up with a fever again. I had to call the High School and tell them I couldn't sub Friday because Pey was still sick. My accountant called at 7:30 Thursday morning to ask a few questions on my tax stuff, so much for sleeping in. Her secertary called back Thursday evening to let me know that Adam and my license's had expired and that they would have to have a copy of current license before we could get our taxes back. Jacob went to school Friday and made a 100% on his spelling test after missing all week! Since I have a CDL license, I had to go to the Department of Public Safety before I could renew my license. Peyton and I waited for over an hour there and it was crazy. We went to the tag agency to get my license and then to our accountant's office. Peyton ended up with a pocket full of candy before we left there, so he was a happy camper. I had planned on stopping at Sonic on our way to Claremore, but Peyton feel asleep before we made it there so I just went onto Claremore. On our way to back I asked Peyton if he was hungry and he said Yes. I asked Peyton if he had eaten anything all day and he said, "No mom, no you feed me!" I felt so bad...I forgot to feed my child! We got Jacob from school and headed to Sonic before going to Bartlesville. We spent some time with grandma and grandpa and went out to eat then headed back home. The boys both crashed on the way home, but Peyton ended up in our bed again last night! We have a birthday party to go to today and then we are relaxing! Nana is coming to get the boys tomorrow and Adam and I are heading up to Grove Tuesday night. I am looking forward to a nice week and not a hectic one again!

My Baby Is 3 Years Old

Peyton turned 3 years old today and he is so excited about not being 2 anymore. Mommy on the other hand is a little sad about the whole situation. Time has gone by so fast and it doesn't seem possible that he is already turning 3. Papa Greg and Grandma Jill called Peyton early this morning before papa had to leave for work. He didn't want to wake up and he pushed the phone away, but he heard papa say "Happy Birhtday Peyton" and he got the biggest smile on his face. He got up and came into my bathroom while I was getting ready. He wanted to take a bath in the "big" bathtub but I told him no. He looked right at me and said "Yeah, it's my birthday and Pey Pey take a bath in your big bath." I couldn't hardly argue with the birthday boy so he took a bath then Daddy fixed him french toast for breakfast. He took cupcakes to school today and played with his 2 friends, Jacob and Trace. They played outside this morning and wore themselves out because they slept for 3 hours this afternoon! Peyton had McDonald's for dinner and got to open his gifts after Daddy got home from work. He had a great day and just crawled into my lap and is ready for bed.

The last several weeks everytime I call Peyton a baby or say something about my baby he has looked at me and said, "No, Peyton a baby...Peyton a big boy!" When he came into the bathroom this morning he said, "Pey Pey be your baby mom." I think he knew mom was having a hard time with him turning 3. He had to reassure me that he would still be my baby. This child is wise beyond his years which really does worry me because he is quite a handful already. I can't even imagine what life would be like without him. He is a spitting image of me in so many ways, so I know I am definitely going to be paid back for everything I put my parents through growing up. He is already so stubborn and strong willed, but he is also one of the sweetest kids I know. Happy Birthday Peyton! We love you so much and can't wait to see what adventures we are in for this next year!

Campbell's 1st Birthday

I usually don't post my photography sessions on my personal blog page, but I am so excited about this session that I dedcided to post the slideshow on here. The cake pictures at the end of the slideshow are adorable! I hope you enjoy!