Country Living Gone Wild....

Here we have what I'd call the "cons" to owning a hamster. I don't know all details, BUT I do know hamsters store food for later. Stormy had a bit saved up! I even felt it as I often do, YUCK!

Here Stormy's unloading his second batch of YUCK....ON KAITLYN!


Here's his up close n' personal shot...
He's cute huh??


Every hamster needs his very own convertible, right??


My beautiful front door area...I told my Aunt about that beautiful bush...now is the perfect time to show you it...


See we had a special guest this morning...on that very porch! I'd say she has four legs and weighs around 300-something pounds...she's super sweet hence her name SWEETIE!!







Grazing our carpet...didn't work well.

Kimberlyn decided to go for a ride as Sweetie browsed around. Sweetie was quite disappointed with that empty gumball machine.

Exploring the kitchen...at which time we realize Ruby was quite upset about her pal being treated like royalty, okay she was probably thrilled to not be in our home, but rather quite upset her pal wasn't by her side!

YES, two HOOF prints on our Turkish rug Larry brought home from Turkey a few years ago!!!!


All I have to say is what I was saying at the time, "GLAD IT WASN'T ME" ~ it was all HIS idea as he invited the sweet thing in. Honestly I'm not sure he really thought Sweetie would come in.

Wildlife...we're in the country now!

With show jumping in our backyard too!!
These two opossums ran straight in between our yard and the neighbors yard...for a slow moving animal, they ran fast!

Kaitlyn painting her jump poles...

Ruby is a known food hog, it is flooring us to see she allows Sweetie to share her food! If she hogs too much Sweetie simply pulls the bucket away and Ruby tolerates it!!

JUMPING...we finally have the jumps built!


And now HIGHER



Larry caught this neat shot and claims Ruby is smiling....Not so sure on this :)

A cute shot by Kimberlyn....of Kaitlyn riding Sweetie. Kimberlyn wanted to take pictures of Kaitlyn jumping Sweetie....KAitlyn did jump Sweetie a few times before the camera lady arrived, she also bit teh dust a few times and was DONE being dumped! Sweetie doesn't have MUCH of anything to hold on too! She had fun though!

Another cute shot by Kimberlyn...something about her angle, it's sweet!

Lost 1st tooth, got bang trim and rode bike w/o training wheels...what a day!!

May 14, 2009

So the day started with Kimberlyn looking precious as ever hopping on the school bus with a vase of three red roses she picked at the store for her wonderful teacher. She saw a vase at CVS when we ran to grab milk before dinner. She insisted we go back to the store and get Mrs. T flowers. For no good reason other than she saw flowers and wanted to get them for her teacher. Her teacher is the type that deserves flowers for no real reason everyday! We are blessed. NO!! I didn't get that picture, silly mother! I won't ever forget the sight though!

When the kids came home we had snack and headed to get hair cuts! It was a bit longer of a wait than most would like with FOUR kids, but all in all it went well.
Kimberlyn's lose tooth looked ready to come out and while she sat on my lap I begged to pull it...YUCK...I hate doing that job. She naturally wouldn't buy it. So I played and told HER to pull it and then we got some papertowel to help grip it. At first she wasn't touching the tooth barely and claiming it hurt and wouldn't come out. I was cheering her on and then saying she couldn't do it teasing her. About the third pull, she really got a good grip and after she did it there was a "spot" on her gum~where a tooth was missing~ ah, I screamed so loud! I knew it was ready to come out, but never thought she'd PULL it out THAT fast! We definitely provided some great, free entertainment that day in the salon!

Later that evening as if it hadn't been a big enough day...while Robby and I were at the Middle School orientation- side note I'm not old enough to have a middle schooler and I am not ready eaither. I do think Robby is ready, nervous and now even a bit excited after seeing the school! Back on track....while he and I were gone Kimberlyn convinced Daddy to take her training wheels off her brand new bike! And away she rode into the sunset! So I pulled in the driveway stunned!! I do believe she slept hard that night! She woke bright n' early and was super excited that the Tooth Fairy came to our house the next morning!

What a proud little girl!
Riding into the sunset...love it!
The TOOTH!!
The new smile! Gorgeous!

Marvelous May Memories!!!

May 6, 2009
St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Game
The 5th graders from two local schools joined up to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" - it was a fun evening!
Robby is the fifth kid in from the right in the bottom row.

The Arch...now that was cool!
The kid with the ball cap on is our neighbor Lucas...he and Kaitlyn are in class together and run for hours on end playing on the weekends too...

C-H-I-C-A-G-O

Most who know me, KNOW I love this city!!! For Mother's Day Larry took us to Chicago for a quick visit. Although a quick viist, we're not short on pictures and this is just a small sampling of our pictures...

Our most favorite hotel...Omni Chicago~ Mom and Robby up on ledge above the bed in our room.

Tommy making a phone call already...

Robby liked this view so much, we made him a bed and he slept up on that shelf/ledge above our bed!

We visited the Sears Tower, I'd never been and Larry had childhood memories of visiting it and wanted to take the family there.
Kids at the top of the Tower...

and Mom and Dad at the Top too...

Kimberlyn left her mark on Top of the Sears Tower...somehow she shoved her PENNY in the view finder of this viewer....ugh, you'd thought it were her favorite stuffed animal we left there!

Tommy wanted to go on the carriage ride, while Daddy got this adorable picture of the girls peaking out the window, Tommy spilled fruit punch on my SHOE and I realized he came with a bad odor...he and his poo-poo butt had to go to the room with Daddy and Robby!
Waving bye-bye... By the way, Robby had a cool new book about making paper airplanes he rather look at than go on a carriage ride. Last time we stayed at the Omni was for Kaitlyn's 8th birthday which she was ill for, Kaitlyn wanted to ride in the horse drawn carriage BUT it was too cold for her to handle it.

One very TALL statue!

Millennium Park!

Mama loves her tulips...
Very interesting mirrored-like jelly bean structure....can make one feel dizzy almost going through all the pictures Larry took here!
The family in the mirror with a reflection of the city!

under the center looking straight up...



Don't even think for a second this was to be of me :) Larry thinks this building is cool! I do think the picture came out very nice!

Another reason for the visit was Garrett's Popcorn~

We learned we weren't the only ones that traveled so far for popcorn! We were told they opened at 10am, we arrived a bit before and decided to WAIT...until a worker walking in told me they didn't open until ELEVEN!! While waiting for at least 10 minutes we saw MANY just walk by after realizing it was closed. We came backa few minutes before 11am to find THIS LINE!!! We pressed on to lunch, and returned later for our popcorn. So upon our third time arriving at Garrett's we got some super YUMMY popcorn!!

Cute shot of Kimberlyn and Daddy!

A frustrated and tired Kaitlyn and Robby....this was BEFORE the rain and HAIL- OH MY, we had fun!

Tommy during a sweet, innocent moment...

Wearing one of my all time favorite outfits from his big brother!! Isn't it hard to believe this adorable boy can cause so much ruckus??

Yes, now you see why I document all this with pictures!

Good night!!

Another TROUBLE T post....

I still owe at least some fun cousin pictures we did with my nephews at Easter time...if I'm going to let EASTER slide....

But more pressing...as I downloaded pictures while at the computer intending to write a couple checks for a couple bills I saw these pictures that I -believe it or NOT- forgot about! I forgot so much, I honestly have no clue where I went or what I was doing....I do recall thinking I was gone about 5 minutes and thinking "how could he do this?"
Trouble T in action May 5, 2009

I KNEW when I left he was playing NICELY with all those large water bottle/cups...I didn't care, I figured if it entertained him great, I'll do (drawing a blank now)- you get the idea!

So, I walk in and find this boy yet with another KNIFE and what looked like dried BLOOD all over himself.

Obviously the cups got boring, so he started WASHING them with stovetop cleaner...that got old too, so he took some Greased Lightening to EVERYTHING. I've yet to figure out what and why the knife is on the floor in front of the fridge??? He obviously unloaded it out of the dishwasher and DID NOT Use it on himself, instead had a BROWN marker that he used to decorate his body! (the green on him is the stove top cleaner) Doesn't the snotty nose just top this off for picture of the year??


I do have to say the snotty nose scared me about his ears, I forget when he went to the pediatrician, but we did get an all clear and I was shocked. More shocking was yesterday the Children's Hospital in St. Louis Tommy had a hearing test, completely perfect hearing, more shocking was that the test to check for fluid, revealed his ears are fluid free. All exciting news! The specialist came in and took a peak in his ears. Completely healed from tubes falling out and perfect looking. So instead of a new set of tubes, for now we'll wait and check back with the ENT in the Fall. Praise God on this good news!
Please keep Tommy in your prayers, I do fear another ear infection in his future, ear infections aren't such a big deal for some, BUT for Tommy his ear infections have not cleared with one round of antibiotics. In fact his first infection never fully cleared until after getting antibiotic shots and tubes placed in his ears. This last infection he got in March took three rounds of antibiotics to clear it. I'm not content with him being on this much medication for an ear infection, I find it quite bothersome.