LANES: 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

LOGICAL

Tyke: mommy, I'm gonna keep my hands to myself...unless I have to punch Crewzer In the face.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas tree. One day it will be beautiful. It's all part of the master plan. Every year I buy the same silver picture frame ornament for each of the kids, and one for myself. A picture from that Christmas goes into each ornament. Then when they fly the coop- they get to take their collection of ornaments. Good, right? Anyway- I buy silver... and all the same. I figure that way they can mix in any additional ornaments (colors, and styles) that they choose. As I'm writing this- I realize that I didn't think this all the way through. In a few years, I am going to have a beautiful- silver ornament covered tree. Then a few years after that, they are going to all be living in new homes on new trees. Dang.

We bought the Tony Hawk skateboard/snowboard game from the game exchange store. It didn't end up costing us anything, because we traded an old iPod. Although- I would have paid money just to watch Tyke shred like a tiny little pro, and Crew yell "DANGIT SAUCE" over and over. Not sure where he got that... but it's funny. Speaking of phrases- it's lovely how the 2 year old in the family, is always the one to make you painfully aware of the things you actually say. According to Tyke, my phrase of choice is apparently, "crap! We gotta go!" I am reminded of how much I must actually say this, roughly every 15 minuets or so when Tyke randomly screams it. Great.

I love holidays... but after 7 solid years of EVERY single holiday without ANY family, it gets a little old. (okay- not entirely true. in 7 years we had one Christmas with my mom and her husband, A fourth of July with my aunts uncles and cousins, and a Halloween with my mom) There are a lot of things I love about it just being our little family. We do what we want, when we want. We don't have the craziness of travel. We can be as unorthodox as we please. BUT, our kids are missing out on cousins (most of whom they've never met) and traditions. They don't know they are missing out, but I do. Somebody please come visit us! They are pretty nice kids... I promise they will be on their best behavior.

Luckily, we are building our own little Texas family. Gabrielle is one of our "people". She owns the gym where I work... and we love her! She has let us use the gym as our own little (HUGE) playground. We Headed over there to take a break from our new toys.

Elle is turning into a good tumbler. (although she needs to point her dang toes!) It just took her deciding to WORK at it. Go figure.

Tyke is a CRAZY climber. I'm not going to list the horrific places I have found him, for fear CPS would show up on my doorstep.

We're all pretty comfy at the gym. Even Dale spends a great deal of time there. He ends up being the on call doc for the gym. He's gotten called a lot. (p.s. Dale- when you bury yourself in a foam pit, you run the risk of getting jumped on. And if you're really unfortunate, (which you seem to be) when you get jumped on- you will shield your head with your hand. More specifically- your hand with an amputated stub of a finger left. It WILL really hurt. Just sayin.

He's not dead. His back isn't broken. He's just hanging... happily.

Ryan and Carol (my aunt and uncle) sent us a FUN game. It's been played a lot. It's pieces are being closely supervised. For some reason, the girls are worried the boys will steal them- or loose them- or eat them- or flush them. hmmmmmm.. .

We ended our Christmas the way we always do- with a whole lotta love for A CHRISTMAS STORY.

Merry Christmas world!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

TYKE'S PRAYER...

Tyke: .... thank you for Jesus. I love Jesus. Thank you for my family. Thank you... mom what is today?

me: It's Friday.

Tyke: When is my birthday?

me: March 6th.

Tyke: thank you for March 6th. Is March 6th tomorrow?

me: No.

Tyke: Thank you for toys. I want a truck, and a big truck and a huge truck. I want 1,000 toys.

me: Tyke you are talking to Jesus, not santa.

Tyke: I love my mom. Don't forget my toys.... amen

Monday, December 5, 2011

YOU KNOW YOU'RE A TEXAN...

... When you FREEZE your kiester (how do you spell that? Why isn't it coming up in my spell check. It's a word... right? I'm seriously contemplating changing the word. Maybe hiney, or tushy, or booty? But at this point I have just put way to much thought in in... so it stays.) off in 40 degree weather. The girls and I had the annual Temple Christmas Parade tonight. COLD. Seriously. I seem to remember it getting a wee bit colder in Cleveland.(and Idaho, for that matter) I think I even used to WISH it was 40 degrees every morning in Cleveland when I walked the girls to school. But yet- by the end of tonight, I was pretty sure I had frost bite. PLEEEAAASE don't make me move somewhere cold. Is it wrong to commission prayers off my blog for Dale to get a job somewhere warm? Forget the being able to provide for the family- yada yada yada. I just want to be warm. Pray people. Pronto. I will even return the favor and pray for something frivolous for you. Either way- we are all praying for more worthwhile things than Tyke... he prayed for lotion last night.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

A YEARS WORTH OF PICTURES...

Don't get too excited. It's not all that interesting. And VERY long. If there isn't a caption on the picture... make one up in your head. I'd appreciate if it is witty, and more interesting than real life. Here goes. Once upon a time I bought a house while Dale was at work. We fit in it very nicely- until we moved our stuff in.

This was our first house guest. Our second was the burly man that I pulled off a lawnmower across the street. He was a little less squeamish than me- and was more than happy to help me out. (It may, or may not have had anything to do with the fact that I hadn't yet put on a bra)

Dale broke his toe moving in. Ironic, no?

Found out the boys would rather pee in the outhouse conveniently located at the end of our driveway.

Dale locked the keys in the car. He does this regularly. AAA is my friend.

We enjoyed the rain.

I don't know what this is- but she's gonna be mad it's in here. That is reason enough.

Elle got baptized... so proud of her!

Uncle Houston got to come! L-O-V-E

Dale's parents also came. Sheesh if I would have known that we would have our first and last visitors all in one weekend, I would have planned more fun. Turns out people don't like us.

Crew hated, and then loved the harness at the gym

Again. You're welcome pyp...

...and Elle

Crew started speech therapy. Even though he is only there for an hour, he insisted on packing a "lunch". It was 8am

We had a BIG snow storm

Tyke perfected his best picture smile.

There was lots of tumbling.

And some birthdays.

We even took a picture with all of us in it!

More speech therapy. Crew LOVES miss Cherie. He took her flowers.

More tumbling.

Look at the boys faces. hahaha

LOTS of dancing. Pyper did awesome on her solo... that I choreographed the night before her first competition. I have promised her I won't do that to her again this year. So far, it's not looking like that is going to happen. What can I say? The people that pay get priority!

She won about a million awards at school. Honor roll, presidential something another, citizenship, super duper kid. I don't know, I lost track. Ya ya ya... she's great. I already knew that.

LOTS of swimming. We might have died without our neighborhood pool.

More pictures

We found out what Tyke really does when he is suppose to be napping.

Kids growing up...

Looking older.

Master classes at the studio. Dance and tumbling cross over occasionally.

First day of school... Pyper got sent home for her big dress code violation.

We got new neighbors. Here are the boys getting to know them.

Halloween. 4 costumes in 40 minuets, for $20. Not bad.

And the boys cleaned their room... which apparently means emptying the contents of their room into the hallway. Technically their ROOM was clean I guess.

So that's it. I didn't take too many pictures. I was busy! Consider yourself sufficiently caught up. Except all my home improvement pictures... coming later.

LANES