Just pictures....3+ months worth!

Ok well these pictures brings us through July anyway. Everything is in reverse order because I wasn't smart enough to upload them backwards and too lazy to flip them all around....so you'll have to go back in time....sorta.....anyway here ya go. If you are on Facebook some of these will be familar. And once again I will promise that I will try to get better at updates.



playing at Chuck E. Cheese



Anniversary canoe trip

front porch swing of our cabin in Eureka Springs

Meara got a new playhouse

reading the paper with daddy

1st Haircut, 19 months

Emma with sparklers at July 4th party

Austyn and a sparkler

Meara and Daddy watching the 'snakes'

Dagan sparkler

Meara's cupcake

Dagan's ??? cupcake

Austyn's cupcake??

Emma's cupcake??

Beautiful flowers

dagan climbing wall

Austyn gets a little higher on the climbing wall

Emma wins the prize!

My new (but very messy) scrapbook station

Two pretty girls

crafty projects

Easter picture

Miss Taylor on the big screen

Dagan took all he could take

3 cute cowboys

the cell phone lit up has now replaced the lighter

Watching the concert

Just waiting

Emma, do you know where we are??? We got tickets for Taylor Swift!!!

Meara in her "waggy"

Playing with Uncle Scott at Grandma's

The layout I made to display at Grandma's funeral

Austyn won 2nd place in an art contest at school

Well I really don't have a good excuse for not posting since Christmas so I won't even try. All I can say is worlds of changes. So.....lets see......I finished out the year at the High School, packed up way too many books but had a great time there. Kinda bummed we don't get to use the new school that we heard being constructed on a daily basis but we are on to other things now. The last month of school or so Ty was "commuting" back and forth between Arkansas and Kansas so he could go ahead and start working at the Chiropractic office in Gravette. The first part of July we all moved to Gravette into a 4 bedroom duplex in the middle of a neighborhood FULL of kids. The neighbors and kids have been great. We love sitting out in the front yard in the evening, when its not too terribly hot. School starts next week for the kids and I'm really looking forward to some one-on-one time with my baby girl. We've taken a few short trips this summer, but mostly stayed pretty close to home. For our anniversary this year, the middle of July, Aunty Carol and Gram generously offered to keep all 4 kiddos so we could have some time together. Anyway, we took a weekend trip to Eureka Springs and went canoeing one day and basically just hung out together for a week and enjoyed the quiet. We spent a week in Texas visiting grandparents and a weekend in Kansas for Ty's school reunion. Funny it seems like we were gone ALL the time but when I write it down it doesn't seem like a lot. All in all its been a great, although very hot, summer. We are enjoying Arkansas a lot and already feel at home here. I guess that's it for now. I have a bunch of pictures and I'll try to get them off my phone and on to the computer so I can get them on here.....stay tuned, more to come.

pictures to go with last post...

As promised here's the latest photos.....

This is Meara in her Christmas dress just being cute little Meara!


Kings and Angel from nativity play at church program last week.

photo shoot for Christmas card photo

nope...

nope...

no....

almost there......

decorating the tree, it was Emma's turn to put the angel on top!

Dagan and Ty braved the freezing cold to decorate the outside of the house.

We did family photos last weekend so hopefully we will have some of those up here soon to show everyone. Fingers crossed we got some good ones. We had so much fun doing them I can't imagine they aren't great.

We are now all done with Christmas programs, piano playing, singing and picture taking at least until all the Christmases and birthday we have coming up.....

Watch this space for more of our crazy lives!!!

Missed a whole month!

Ok so apparently I missed the entire month of November. Let see what's been happening since I posted last when we were all sick! Hmmmm we were home for a full 9 days stuck in the house so I'll blame the non-posting on that!!!

Lets see.......since then, I started a job, Ty started a job, I went to CO for a girly weekend away, Ty went to Arkansas to help a friend work for a couple days, Ty went hunting, I went to mom's early to help out because my grandma is in the hospital, Ty drove down to TX by himself with the 4 kids in Thanksgiving traffic and OK construction.......phew! That's about it! That's the short version at least.

I started working at the High School library and its been fun so far. It is a different dynamic at the school as a staff member than as a parent, so its been interesting (in a good way). Ty started working as the Parts Manager at the local Chevy dealership. He's been getting them in order and organized (*gasp*) over there and I think he's been enjoying it too. So different than anything he's done before but I think he likes it. About a week after I started working I went for 4 days to Colorado for a scrapbooking weekend with friends and it was SO much fun. I had a great time, relaxed, laughed, got a lot of work done (amazingly enough) and spent some much needed quality time with one of my very bestest girl friends! You can take a look at what I got done here: http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=galleries&u=388043&a=222815&page=1

Hopefully that works. I know there is a probably a really good way to do that and make it look better but I don't know how so you get the whole address.

After I got back from CO on Sunday, Ty left for Arkansas on Tuesday early in the morning to help Eric out at his office there. While he was there I got a call from my mom saying that grandma had a stroke and was in the hospital. We were all supposed to go down there for Thanksgiving but instead of driving down with Ty I flew down a few days early to help mom with the driving back and forth to the hospital and to spend some time with my grandma. She is not doing very good at all. She had a massive stroke and has deep brain injuries from it. There is little to no recognition at all and when I looked in her eyes she just looked so scared and confused. I hated seeing her like that. Doing things like that are most definitely not my strong suit, I'm not good at it, I break down and hospitals make me nervous but I did it and survived. Two almost three weeks later there has been no change at all. She is not in pain so that is good but inside she must be miserable, not being able to speak or talk with her family has got to be killing her inside. I know it is out of my control, someone much bigger has it taken care of and when its time, He will bring her home to be with Him and my grandpa. In the mean time however I pray we all have patience and that she is as comfortable as possible! I was always really close to my grandma and grandpa both so its really hard to watch them deteriorate like this. She taught me how to sew, how to crochet (although I never could get the hang of that), she started teaching my girls how to crochet too and honestly they are better than I am! She was in the middle of making Dagan's and Meara's quilts to match Emma and Austyn's. She was the one that taught me how to love my husband and what a good marriage was all about. She taught me how to pray and that it was perfectly ok to just have a conversation with God, as if he was sitting next to you chatting. She taught me how to respect my elders and speak with respect, to appreciate what I had and to respect my parents. Even when I was angry at them as a child she would never let me speak disrespectfully about them, or anyone else for that matter. She was strict and opinionated and I adore her as much today as I did then.

ok on that very sad note, I have to go before I start crying! I will try to get pictures up here soon of us decorating the house and the tree for Christmas.

Sick....blak....yuck...hack...cough.....yuck!!!

Ok so the entire family is sick. Emma started all the fun over the weekend, her best friend was home from school sick on Friday so we blame them (hahaha only kidding Gina!) So it all started with coughs, dry, wretched sounding, horrible unproductive coughs, one by one each 'big' kid gets it, then the fevers start, nothing so high that its scary but high enough, then the mommy and daddy start getting it! There is little worse than an entire household full of sick whiny people. And then there is the poor sweet baby, she was so strong for almost the whole week, we were feeling like she was pretty lucky, on top of the fact she is likely the most healthy, has the best diet of anyone else and gets good sleep etc. But then yesterday the fever and poor but still a little cute sounding cough. Poor girl! Still though, even when we all know she didn't feel good she still smiles. Her little eyes are perfect windows to whats really going on inside, it is so clear that she doesn't feel well but she is still so smiley and sweet. I hate that she is sick but wow she is an amazing child to still be able to smile at you like that. I am really really proud of all the kids to be honest. I've never heard such terrible coughs, you'd swear they were trying to cough up their toenails from the inside out, but they have been so brave and helpful to each other, sharing the blankets and tissues, being a lot more tolerant of whats on tv and watching shows that one doesn't like just because another one does and hopes that will make them feel better. Emma has had the cough the worst of everyone but still very little complaints, she listens to what we tell her and does whatever she can, even laying down for a nap which she HATES, just to help in the healing process. Its been the worst for them at night when they lay down the cough gets worse. I could say, hands down, they have all had more medicine this last week than in their entire life times combined. Poor pitiful things. Thankfully we don't think it was swine flu but some kind of flu for sure. It was definitely a weird something for sure. All the symptoms started on Saturday, today is Friday so hopefully we are about finished with it all. The big kids coughs are slowly starting to ease up a little bit but it has been a painful process for sure. So far too the baby's symptoms seem to be not as bad or as rough sounding but we're watching it close. It was helpful that school was closed this week so they weren't missing anything but there are a million things I can think of that would be so much better way to spend a week out of school than staying locked up in a house with 5 and now 6 sick people. The silver lining....maybe we are getting it all out of the way now and we'll ALL be healthy for the rest of cold/flu season! Fingers crossed!!!

Happy 6th Birthday Sweet Boy

Six years ago today we were holding this sweet little guy! He was such a chubby little thing, with big chipmunk cheeks and full of grins! His two big sisters were SO proud of him.


On Dagan's first birthday he had WAY too much fun with his cake, it was everywhere, even up his nose!!!


Dagan always has a smile for everyone. Always full of energy and very silly and the first to try to make us laugh. Dagan is the most lovable little guy and is full of hugs and cuddles!

You are such crazy boy, flying around like an airplane or zooming your cars around the kitchen floor under my feet. You are full of life, high spirited and LOVE your race cars.
You were so excited, you could hardly contain yourself waiting for Cars to come to the cinema in town. We counted down the minutes til it started. This picture is of you right before the movie started. Your enthusiasm was just barely contained!!!

Such a handsome little guy. You are growing up way too fast! What happened to my cuddly baby boy?

I think you really wanted a baby brother when we had Meara but I've never seen a child more proud of anyone than you were at that moment! You are such a great big brother! I love watching you play with her, showing her your cars and letting her play with even your most prized race car and trains.

My sweet baby boy is 6 today and I have no idea where the time has gone. It still seems like you should be just barely toddling around and crawling up into my lap to 'read' a story and cuddle. I miss that little bity guy sometimes but you are growing up into such a sweet, loving and smart young man! Even though your energy can be overwhelming at times, it is what makes you YOU and I adore you sweet Dagan! I hope your birthday is full of fun today and the coming year is full of adventure and blessings.