Jasmine's Sleepover Success

So Jasmine had a sleepover for her birthday with a total of 9 girls in the house. What you saw in the video was pretty much what the night consisted of. TOTAL CHAOS! There was music, dancing, karaoke, movies, cheese cake, 3 pizzas, a meat and cheese tray and I must report that we have about 30 pieces of Halloween candy left. It was really cool for Jasmine to actually have a friend sleepover. We have had cousins and a couple of friends and one of the times there was 13 kids but I must say that nothing compares to having 9 girls in the house. Sometimes they do not all get along. I think I had to defuse about 6 different situations where different girls at different times were feeling left out, but we survived. Jasmine and 2 other of her friends stayed up ALL night and let me just say they do not have "inside" voices. I think it was about 4 o'clock in the morning when I decided I was done with the insanity, that and the fact that they woke up Kennedy. Screaming, laughing, running....I thought it might never end. They pulled the usual sleepover pranks where they drew on each other as they dozed off, one girl got toothpasted, which I was not so happy about since it did end up on my carpet but the funniest thing is that they all WILLINGLY soaked their bras and froze them, and yes a few of them actually put them on in the morning. I did warn Darren not to open the freezer in the morning just to spare his sanity. So, about 8 o'clock in the morning when Darren and I came out of the room, we made our way to the surround sound and turned on the tunes, really loud and wished everyone a GOOD MORNING! Darren made pancakes, bacon and sausage links while we all watched The Strangers, which I must say was a totally freakingly scary movie. It was a blast though and we will probably do it again even though at about 4 that morning I swore to Darren that we never would again. Oh and poor Darren ! After we watched the scary movie a few of the girls had a hard time going to rooms alone to get dressed, which I am all too familiar with, so I look up in the kitchen and one of the girls is standing there in her undies. I said, you're naked and about that time Darren hung his face into his hands and was like, what in the, and waited for clearance to lift his head. That was just one of the 3 mishaps of the sleepover that he was unfortunate enough to witness. If you could have only seen his face, it was too funny! He is a really good sport though and we love and cherish him. He is by far my favorite person on this planet.

Now moving on to my new look on the blog. I am one of those people who are annoyed with the fact that Thanksgiving isn't over and already Christmas takes over, but I figured I would go ahead and change my background while it was fresh on the brain which also led me to add some Christmas music and some hymns that I love and not to mention some of my favorite songs from the Sister Act movies. So don't hate me for doing it so early, like I said the mood struck me.

We will be going to Pigeon Forge this Saturday so that Jasmine can sing with Celebration Show Choir, an activity that suits her well since she can sing her little butt off. They will be singing at The Christmas Place, a very popular attraction up or down there which ever direction it may be. She has a solo and is very excited about it. Who knows maybe we will get to see Dolly, that would blow my mind. Well, that's all I've got!

Lucy's Big Day

Well yesterday was Ladybug's 4th birthday. We pretty much lazied around until about 4 o'clock. I sang happy birthday to her about 3 dozen times throughout the day yesterday. She became shy and modest the more times I sang it to her. We then went to my mom's for her birthday party. We ate hot dogs for dinner and then had some cake. After that we went to the hospital to see my grandma Copas, she had a knee replacement done earlier that morning. We thought it would be nice to take her some cake to eat when she has a sweet tooth. Then from there we went to see my mamaw Boring and also took her some cake. Lucy had a lot of fun playing with mamaw, they even boxed a bit. It was very entertaining, poor Darren was so tired though as you can probably see in the picture.

The girls are out of school today and are enjoying the toys that Ladybug got for her birthday. I have parent teacher confrences sometime today and show choir and I must go vote. It will be my first time doing so and I am pretty excited about it but am still torn on exactly who to vote for since they both appear to have ideas that I can agree with and some that I can disagree with. As I have been saying for months now...Willie Nelson for President! But seriously, if he was running that is probably exactly who I would pick. So everyone go and have a great day today and do not forget to go make history!

Halloween 2008

Let me start by saying that I have many pictures to share with you and hope you enjoy them.

Last night we carved our pumpkins. We did 3 of them. The girls really enjoyed digging out the "guts" and picking out their patterns and for Malorie and Lucy that is about all they cared about. Jasmine did an excellent job tracing the pattern and cutting out the design on her pumpkin. Darren, thank goodness really likes to do pumpkins and I must say is very good at it. I did half of Lucy's and he did the rest and he also helped Jasmine finish hers. She did not realize that she had picked one of the most difficult patterns to do. They all turned out awesome. Malorie's is the face, Lucy's is the cat and Jasmine's is the house.

Today we started getting ready for Trick or Treating at 11 in the a.m. and finally finished up at 2 in the p.m. It is a lot of work to get four children ready on any regular day and on special days it is a lot of work and then some. In the end it was and is always worth it. We started our candy adventure at 4 in the p.m. on Walnut St. where the local businesses all participate. I, sadly, did not have a stroller at that moment so was carrying Kennedy as we walked. Then out of no where, a knight on a white horse, or should I say a sexy man in a green Rodeo drove up and pulled out this beautiful double stroller and saved my acheing back and tired arms. While we were there we saw some of our friends and the girls got to sit in a fire truck. We continued our candy adventure till about 5:30 and went back to my grandma's house where we would then continue , but not before eating some pizza. We walked block after block after block after, well you get where that is going. One of the houses had made a Haunted house and they even went so far as to have a scary side and a not so scary side. Well, of course we did the not scary side since we have smaller children. Just to assure you, Kennedy stayed at my grandmother's with her and my mother. It was fun, not too scary, however Lucy did cry at one point and I am not sure if it was the people or the strob light that freaked her out more. We kept walking and walking and finally made it back to granny's at about 9:30. Yeap...9:30. Needless to say but I will anyway, our feet hurt, children were cranky and exhausted. I think we probably have about 5 punds of candy if not more. Lucy even scored a small pumpkin, which we thought was pretty cool.

So we are home and everyone is crashed out except me. I thought it wise to write my story while it was still fresh on the brain. I hope all of you had a funfilled Halloween, I know we did and I can only hope that the kids will be exhausted enough to sleep until about 10 in the a.m. Oh and as you saw we did get Jasmine's hair dyed and I must say I am fond of the color. I know she will be sad to watch it wash down the drain, but it won't be too long before she is 16 and dying her hair all sorts of crazy colors...I can't wait. Goodnight!

My Family

I would just like to state that

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

Plain and simple, straight to the point. That's all I've got today.

Peace

Just Because

So I thought I would put up a video so I hope it works ok. It is of Kennedy and Ladybug on an average day of staying at home. You have also noticted a ton of pictures, some recent some not. Enjoy. Things are going well here. The leaves are changing and we actually had to turn our heat on. I love fall and the crispness in the air. The girls are all doing well also. Today was Malorie's turn to take snack for her class so she took popcorn balls, individual bags of Cheetos and Candy Corn. Yum-Yum. Jasmine has her performance with show choir tomorrow at an assisted living home. She is nervous, but is going to do awesome. We went to Walmart and got the girls' Halloween costumes. Last year my aunt made them and the cost turned out to be the same so this year we just decided to purchase. Jasmine will be dying her hair for the first time this halloween, rockstar red. She is REALLY excited about that and I am as well. It is a temporary color and suppose to wash out, but I think we have all probably had an experience with "temporary" color. It pretty much stays a long time.

I just had a birthday on the 16th, I turned the big 30. How depressing! I told Darren my life is half over..lol. I really missed my friends in Idaho that day, sat in bed and watched a complete season of 30 Rock on the computer. No need to worry, I promise I fed children, changed diapers and made sure they were safe about every 5 minutes. I also realized that when I wrote the we're home blog, it was around the full moon. I am a firm believer in la luna making people a little crazy. Have been for years and am sure will never stop. Thank all of you for your kind words of encouragement. That means alot. Sarah you are right, that hour is ROUGH! I shall go for now. Have a fabulous day everybody!

We're home

I will make this short and probably not very sweet. How is it that when a few of your children are gone for the biggest part of the day can come home and start this amazing whirlwind of chaos in a matter of seconds. Everyday my two oldest children go off on their way to learn and be taught things that I am sure I can not teach them. Everyday they come home and the chaos begins. I'm thirsty, I'm hungry, climbing on counters, entering rooms without knocking, constant fighting between siblings who have not seen each other all day, whining, crying, just complete CHAOS! What in the world happens from the time they get off that bus to the time they walk in the front door? I would just really love to know. My patience is tested daily from the hours of 4pm to 6pm. Right now, Malorie and Lucy are fighting and screaming and I hear banging, oh wait, I am going to tell on you, now the ever so predictable cry and screams and stomping of feet. Lucy delivers the tattle of Malorie leaving the zone which she was put in and now I must go. Any ideas on what happens or how to fix this frustrating time of day....I am all ears.

Fall is fun

So the last few weeks have been very educational for me. I have recently learned to can things and make homemade applebutter with a kettle and fire. Doing the applebutter almost made me feel like a witch at times, stirring the pot while the steam rolled out of the top and the smoke from the fire beneath, children running around screaming as if they might get tossed in. Applebutter has been a family tradition of ours since I can remember. My papaw use to make it when I was a wee child. My cousins and I would run around playing and screaming while the adults stirred and gabbed and shared wonderful stories. Yesterday was no different for us. We begun at 9 in the morning and finshed up around 9 that night. We peeled apples until our fingers were stained and our hands felt as if we had carpeltunnel. Then we proceeded downstairs to the kettle where we would spend the next five to six hours constantly stirring, making sure that the wonderful sweetness we were creating never stuck to the kettle. As we were outside enjoying ourselves thoroughly, I sprung the question, "Isn't is suppose to be kind of chilly outside when we make applebutter?". The answer was what I thought it was suppose to be, an obvious yes. As I looked at my dad with my big blue eyes, I said, " dad, the high today is 82 and we have a FIRE going." Yes, I love to state the obvious. Now, granted it was very hot while we were doing this but it was still a wonderful experience. I was learning something important. My father told me that this was his and mom's last year canning and doing applebutter because they are getting too old. It was time for us kids to learn how to do this stuff. I must say I am very glad that I did. The end result is delicious and not only did I learn how to make applebutter I also learned a little patience yesterday, which is sometimes hard to come by as a mother. Now I have something to pass to my children when they are older and they can pass as well.

Time to catch up

Well, hello everyone! Our year has been wonderful, especially the summer. We all did a lot of swimming this summer at Bethany's house. There were tons of cookouts...we probably consumed enough hamburgers and hot dogs to last us the rest of the year. Needless to say we are not starving by any means. We got to go on our 1st official family vacation to Topsail Island NC. It was a wonderful experience for all of us. It was incrdibley special for the girls since they had never seen the beach beofore, with the exception of Jasmine who was around 9 months old and too young to remember. We went crab hunting at night and let me just tell you Darren is a pro! He caught about twelve crabs the night we went. The crabs look exactly like the crabs on NEMO, hopefully you know exactly which crabs I am talking about, they were putting those claws in the air over their heads and successfully attached to D's flip flop in mid catch. Completely amusing. Here is a picture of the release of the crabs.

Please forgive me for the sloppiness of this blog but I am new at this. Moving on. Jasmine started the 5th grade this year and is doing very well in school thus far. Malorie started Kindergarden, Mrs. Forbes is her teacher and she is learning new things and songs and looks forward to school everyday. She also loves the weekends because that means daddy will be making pancakes. She actually cooked breakfast this morning and it was awesome. Lucy, Kennedy and I are home during the day and let me just say it is a very mellow house with only two children. The kindergarden classes go all day her which makes for a good break.

Kennedy celebrated her 1st birthday on the 14th of Spetember. She had a cookie monster cake for guests and her own personal doll cake. My mother made the cakes with the cake pans she use to use when we were little so it extra special to me for her to do them for her. Wow that was a VERY long sentence. Kennedy started walking 2 days before her birthday which was very exciting for all of us. She has curly hair like her daddy and her sister Malorie. Things are going really well here for us. We like the weather, do not miss shoveling snow, Darren is still working at a job that he likes pretty good, and I must say I love being around my family. It has been nothing but wonderful to talk to her everyday and drive over there and see her whenever I can. Now that does not mean that we do not miss all of you, because we do. Well, as I am typing I am hearing the children get more and more out of control so I must go for now and handle my business.