Yard Sale Finds Before & After

Me being Crafty

Not so fun vacation

SO we finally got ready to go on a little family mini vacay. Bags packed and we're off! We get to our destination 3 hours away in lovely Branson after a quick stop to play in the Buffalo River for a bit! The kids could have stayed there ALL day! They loved playing in the water and searching for crawfish under the rocks. So anyways, we get back on the road and finally arrive at the hotel. We had a bit of time before we were going to head for dinner, so we headed to the pool for a bit. All three of the kids absolutely love swimming. Paxton didn't have a floaty with him, so Brent and I had to hold him in the pool the whole time! That was tiring. After swimming we went to dinner at Olive Garen. One of Brent's favorite places to eat. Before dinner we had given the kids the option to go on to Silver Dollar City or to go see Cars2. They chose the movie, so we went there right after dinner. The movie was really cute. The kids all loved it. Paxton keeps telling everyone the line "Hey, McQueen, meet The Queen" It's too funny. After the movie we headed back to the room to get to bed since we were going to make a FULL day of Silver Dollar City the next day.

About 11 p.m. I started getting sickly. By 2:30 a.m. I was waking Brent to get him to go get me some medicine at a Walgreens that was up the road. I was miserable. I hurt SO bad. Finally about 3:30 a.m. was able to get to sleep but my early riser children had us up again at 6:45. I though I was feeling better so Brent took the kids down to breakfast while I got ready and got our room ready for us to leave. By the time he got back I was sick again. SO we headed to another pharmacy to try and find different meds. The pharmacist there told me I was the second person there that morning that had eaten at Olive Garden the night before and was now sick. YUCK! After my doctor called me in some meds, we ended up driving all the way back home. I was sick for 2 days! Oh my goodness. I have never been that sick in my whole life. Even today a week later, I'm still not one hundred percent. I'm so thankful that no one else got sick. I'm the only one that ate salad that night and my dinner. I'm so thankful that Paxton and I weren't sharing. He probably would have ended up in the hospital for dehydration.

SO that was our not so fun vacation! Brent heads back to work tonight and real life begins yet again!

Fire

Monday morning I got a very sad phone call. At 6:16 a.m. my mom called to tell me that their grocery store was on fire. They didn't have any details at that point other than that one of the managers came in to work early like normal and when he got there it was in flames. The store is a total loss. The building may or may not be a complete loss. Most everything in the store has to be destroyed. Food that would have fed thousands all put in the trash. Some stuff was salvageable. People have been so kind about helping out. I know that my mom and dad are so stressed out. They've been working so hard the past couple of days. They are so upset that someone came into their business and stole from them and then torched the place. Prayers for them and their employees would be so appreciated.

Summer Summer Summer

We had vbs two weeks ago! Two of our neices came and spent the week with us to go with the kids! So five kids all week! It was tons of fun! They were all really good and had a blast together!

Last week the big kids went to a camp with the neices at their church! We just switched off kids for 3 days! Their church offered a free sports camp. The younger kids went to day camp and the older ones actually spent the night. The both came home so tired, but had a really great time! Having cousins that are their age is just the best thing.

We also bought a new car last weekend. We flew into Houston on Friday night and bought the car Saturday morning and drove all the way home. We got back to our house at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Then I got up and went to church since I had baby dedication for Father's Day and Brent drove to meet my dad halfway from the lake.

First Day of Summer Vacation 2011

So far today we've been pretty lazy! It was so nice getting to sleep in til about 8 this morning! The kids are having sleepovers tonight to celebrate and our new ice cream maker came by way of Fed Ex today before lunch!

Xavier is already loving his treehouse and the creek. I told Brent earlier that I think this will be "the summer" of the treehouse. He and his best friend are sleeping out in there tonight! We'll see how it actually goes!

Naia is already missing school and is hard at convincing Paxton to play school with her. Most of the time she succeeds. He loves to do anything with her!

Paxton is being a turkey! It's going to be a long summer if he keeps up with his bossiness and just plain being rotten!! hahaha

We have lots of things planned for the month of June already. Not a free weekend in sight for a while. This weekend we have a family reunion. Next week is VBS at our church. The week after that the kids are going to camp with their cousins. The next week Xavier goes to church camp. And the final week of June we are going on a short family vacation! Hopefully somewhere in there we can hit the pool and nearby water parks with friends!

Many Many things going on...

Must find time to write! Lots has been happening. Last week was Naia's 7th birthday! We had a great turnout for probably the first time ever for her birthday. It always falls on Mother's Day weekend and Kentucky Derby weekend! She had 16 friends here! We had a bump and jump brought to the house and the kids LOVED it! She also had her first sleepover! She's getting SO big.

I"ll have to get pics up later, but also on Easter Sunday, Naia was baptized. I'm so proud of her for her commitment. I can see such a difference in her life already. Such a sweet time for her. I have pics of this too for later!

Tonight Xavier is testing for his blue belt in karate. He's pretty pumped! We're so proud of him for sticking it out in karate. He gets a bit bored at times with it, but has stuck with it and he is definitely seeing his efforts pay off lately!