Trisha's Marvelous Birthday!

We ate at our favorite sushi place out here, Miyori's. Thanks to my mom's gift!

They sang Happy Birthday in Japanese and banged on the big drum and brought us a pineapple boat with a candle.

This is the awesome cake that my friend Holly made for me.

Me and my buddy Mindy, and Jaxon

Happy 5th Birthday Sydney!

I was so excited to have a party for Sydney this year. We have never had a nice party for

her and since she is in school this year and actually has her own friends, I had been planning this for the past month. She wanted a BUTTERFLY party and there was so much to buy and do.

We had a blast and has been counting down the days since the 1st of September.

Being 5 seems to be a rite of passage for her. She can do anything now because she is 5.

I came home with her gifts the other day and I made her go hide in her room. I put the gifts in my room and went to the kitchen. She had come out and  I noticed she was gone and a couple minutes later she comes running out of my room and screams that she knows what she is getting for her birthday. So I had to return what I got her and and get her something different so she would be surprised.

She has been asking me to call her birthday girl for the past 3 days. "Mom, say goodnight birthday girl." "Don't call me Sydney, call me Birthday Girl!"

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Happy 2nd Birthday Sophie!

Yesterday was Sophie's 2nd birthday and I can't believe she's all grown up!

Happy Birthday Pilot Stud!

Jason had a good mellow birthday, which is what he wanted. He doesn't like getting old, and he doesn't take it very well. He and I went out to eat at a great sushi place we found here and then on Sunday we had cupcakes and some friends over to play games. Sierra made him a present of these little bottlecaps that she likes to decorate and she wrapped it in a pink toy bag, but didn't want him to have pink so she wrapped a baby doll's blue shirt around it. I wish I had taken a picture. It was so funny.

One thing I do notice about Jason getting older is his ability to loosen up more as you will notice in these pictures, he is actually smiling. He normally makes a funny face, but these have his natural smile! I love it!

First Day of School

Here are some tidbits of what the girls told me about their first day of school.

Sydney started Pre-K (since she missed the kindergarten cutoff by a week) and Sierra started 2nd grade.

Sydney's First Day:

*Did you sit by Layla on the bus?

No, I sat by this girl who fell asleep and then when we turned left she fell on me.

*You are only supposed to bring one snack and I’m glad you only put one snack in my backpack because I didn’t break the rule.

*You can’t have juice box because it gets sticky and all the flies come in.

*We getted to play and I was trying to do on the monkey bars.

*I wasn’t shy and I like my teacher. I was being quiet because she was writing something at my school. And we learned about no hopping in school, hop outside and scream outside.

*Layla got a bug in her hair and it dropped down and it was dead and she didn’t want me to tell the teacher. It was black and dead. It climbed up on her and stuck there and then was dead cuz it’s legs got all twist.  Only I saw it every minute so I said, “Layla there’s a bug on your hair”, the teacher was teaching about NO SCREAMING.

Sierra's First Day:

*When we went to PE I was running around the cones and I went really, really fast because my shoes were like these type of things that make your feet more stronger and it tightens your feet and makes you go fast. And when I was done I wasn’t hot, my arms felt good, my legs felt really wiggly and I felt really good.

*I made up a new friend named…Aleena. She is really nice, and she’s in my class and she sits at a different table. She sits across my table.

*When I went to school, it’s like a really big school and it has 2 big buildings that belong to itself.

*I went on a tour and saw all the rooms in the whole school and the school is really big. When we went on the playground, one part was closed cuz there was 4 huge piles of wood chips. The swings felt more good than the swings at my other school, because it had a bar for a seat. But we only had one minute for recess and all I did was start swinging and then it was over.

*At rug time we sat in a big circle and played a game to get to know everybody and we had to answer questions like what is something exciting that happened to you. I told them I like to go to Atticus’s house and play the Wii and the Xbox360.

*I like my teacher because she teaches me a lot of stuff and she’s really nice and if you raise your hand she’ll pick on you.

Things in Common

What do all these things have in common?

A Jar of Spaghetti Sauce

A bottle of shampoo

A poopy diaper

Make-up

Mashed potatoes

A cup of apple juice

Give UP?

They are all things that Sophia has dumped out and played in today!

Welcome to my life!

Sierra's 7th Birthday!!

We celebrated Sierra's 7th birthday last Saturday on the 27th. Our friends Holly and Chris and their 1 year old Madalyn spent the whole day following us around to all our festive activities. We all went out to breakfast in the late morning, then took Sierra to Barnes and Noble to pick out her favorite thing there. She came home with a Capsters book to decorate bottle caps and a book about horses!

We then headed home and took naps, woke up and took the kids bowling for the first time ever! It was a lot of fun.  Sydney beat Sierra by 2 points and I beat everyone by a long shot. Ha!

For dinner we headed to a mexican restaurant and by the time we were done it was even too late to have cake so we saved it for the next day and spread her birthday out over 2 days!

Mommy's Wall of Love

I came home from a girls night out, and the kids were in the office doing something sneaky! They finally told me to come in and this is what they made for me. A Wall of Love!

They colored pictures, wrote letters, made things out of paper and taped it all on the wall to show me how much they love me. I love my kids!

Sierra Receives an Award

Sierra was selected out of her whole class to be awarded The Citizenship Award! Way to go Sierra!

MY LIFE

My life with Sophie...consists of cleaning up a gallon of grape juice which she spilled all over the kitchen because SHE enjoys climbing on the counter. It consists of chasing her little bare butt around the house trying to put a diaper on her, only to end up watching her climb on the toilet herself and go tinkles! It consists of me tiptoeing around a big, muddy puddle and then turning around to see her drudge right through the middle of it, shoes and all. It consists of walking into my room to see her with my hot pink nail polish painted all around her mouth and eyes:) It also consists of finding her in my purse for the 100th time eating all my gum. Needless to say I am always on my toes and constantly laughing at the cute way she reacts to each adventure she pursues! If Sophie could be a topping on ice-cream, she would be messy chocolate sauce!
My life with Billy...consists of hugs, snails and puppy dog tails! He is a hugging machine and can be so sweet, and then the next minute he is walking around the house with a strange pet that looks like a type of Beetle, calling him Tommy. It consists of watching him pick up any bug, snail, ant, or spider. And it also consists of the word STOP, stop hurting the dog, stop pulling the dogs tail, stop laying on the dog, stop wrestling the dog. It consists of the easiest potty training endeavor known to man (way to go Billy), along with hearing all day long, "Your stupid, your poopoo!" Needless to say I laugh my head off watching what he will do next and wondering what goes through his mind! If Billy could be a topping on ice-cream, he would be gummy bears!
My life with Sydney...is never dull or mundane. She keeps me in line and protects our family from anything bad; spiders, dogs, other people. With her, my life is patterned. She helps with the dishes, but hates picking up her room. She helps with the dog, but hates picking up her room. She helps with bringing the toys in when it rains, but hates picking up her room. I hear a lot of whining and complaining all day long mixed with a lot of bossy undertones and intensified wants! My life with her feels as if I am the daughter and she is the mother. With the way she gently and forcefully tells everyone what to do and her constant love of family. She carries those dolls around and gives them all names like they are real to her. No daughter has ever been so dutiful! If Sydney could be a topping on ice-cream, she would be rainbow sprinkles.
My life with Sierra...consists of DRAMA! It consists of unconditional love and a constant willingness to help others. I can see myself through her eyes. With the way she talks back and yells at everyone (do I do that? Never!) to how forgiving she can be. In my life with Sierra I am constantly reminded of how soon I am going to make Jason buy a shot gun to ward off all the guys. My life consists of hearing about who is marriage material and who is secretly flirting with her and listening to why Missy Prissy on the bus just stares at her weird. And lately I have grown to love all the meaningless conversation she gives to me since she is now on summer break. I forgot how wonderful it is to have her home all day long to listen to her explain how things work and why things happen and wondering how many minutes she can talk to me without taking a breath of air! Then there's the drama of what she should wear for the day, and me explaining ten times why she should wear shorts and not pants in 93 degree, 100% humidity:0 If Sierra could be a topping on ice-cream, she would be bananas, chocolate sauce, whip cream, and don't forget the cherry!
My life with a pilot/flight student...amazing, stressful, roller coaster ride. It consists of more love every day, learning patience, and much helicopter vocabulary: collective, throttle, auto rotation, mast bumping, torque, engine failutre, etc.
WELCOME TO MY WORLD!

For Memorial Day Weekend we took a trip to Atlanta. It started off miserable, but ended up being a lot of fun. Like 20 minutes before we were to leave, something bad happened to Jason's servers and he couldn't fix it. So I had to drive to Atlanta (4 hours) by myself with the kids. It was pouring down rain. Luckily, our friends the Aylstocks, were going with us and they followed behind me. Jason met us up there on Saturday night, which meant I had to take all 4 kids to the really crowded aquarium without him. It was hard to push the stroller around with all the people. It's amazing I didn't lose anybody!

Jason made it just in time for the best part, which was Six Flags over Georgia. Of course, he made us get there the second the park opened, but we were a little late, and he was rushing through ahead of everybody, including his family and friends! We saw a good portion of his "behind" the whole day. He's like a little kid at a theme park. Me, I am like an old lady. My hips hurt, my back hurt and my head hurt after going on one roller coaster.  We got thunder and lightning and lots of rain toward the end of the day, so we missed a lot of the rides.

Needless to say, it was a great family trip!

I can now cross Georgia off of my 50 states to visit before I am 50!

Sierra and Madalyn

Jason and the girls on a ride

Sweet Sophia

Our friends Holly & Madaly, Daffy Duck, Bugs, and Sierra

So cute...watching the kids look at the fish

Sweet Trisha, with a view of Holly's baby

Sierra in front of the Georgia Aquarium

Family Day

This is Jason flying!

The Pilot

Jason has finally finished his 8 weeks of Primaries. He is officially known by the army as a pilot.

He received good scores on his check ride with a few bumps along the way, but he did better than he thought he would. Now he's onto instruments until July.

We are very proud of him.

We were able to go to one of the airfields for family day and watch him fly. I haven't gotten the pics yet off my camera, but it was amazing and the kids loved watching him.

Our Little Plumber

Sprite or Not Sprite

I brought Billy a sippy cup of water tonight for bed. He started telling me all the drinks he likes.

Water, Milk, Orange Juice, Apple Juice, and Sprite.

Then he told me about the water in his cup. I told him it wasn't water it was Sprite.

He says, "No mommy, it's water, there aren't any bubbles. Sprite has bubbles."

What a smarty pants!

Happy Easter