My kids last preschool program ever

It was a bittersweet night last Thursday when my kids performed for the last time on the Southlake Christian Preschool stage.  I was so proud of both of them.  Piper sang the fruit of the spirit song and she was wonderful  pineapple.  Christian sang a song about wherever you go god will be with you and it was really cute when they turned around and had the name of the school they would be going to next year.  It was an exciting moment for Christian to graduate from preschool and say he wanted to be a fireman when he grows up.  I asked him later why he wanted to be a fireman and he said so I can climb on the tall ladder and be way up high.  He is my little climber just like his mommy. Piper had loved having Ms. Kristen again this year and Christian had Ms. Amy just like Piper and Ms. Paige (they are amazing to be with my high spirited little boy). Piper will be leaving mommy after being in 1/2 day kindergarten this year.  I will miss her in my mornings as we watch TV or do a project and I will miss Christian and all the stories he tells me while we run errands.  It will be a quiet house and car next year.  I will miss them both as I am trying to figure out what to do with my life.  Enjoy the pictures

I am going to let my kids do that...

The kids were talking in the car on the way to school that they love Nathan Tatom's car because they get to watch videos anytime and in our car we only watch them on trips.  Piper said,"I am going to let my kids watch videos in my car anytime they want."  Just thought it was funny-she is not even 7 yet.

Today my baby is five...

I can't believe how time has flown.  I held a little boy in my arms and couldn't figure out what to name him.  He has been a ball full of energy and a true gift from God. 

A few things about my Christian boy or buddy:

*He has eaten a PBJ for lunch almost everyday since he was 1

*He still gags on a lot of meat

*He loves to play Wii and is really good at Mario Kart

*He loves to climb on things and see how high he can get-if we had a tree I think he would be in it

*He loves to play with all the action figures he has and make up all sorts of stories with them

*He love to take lots of mommy's paper and make a book-It must be a long series because I think he might be on book 10 by now, but has not finished a lot of them

*He is loving to learn to read

*He loves to do things with friends and his big sister

*Somedays he will just turn to you and say thank you or I love you and give big hugs and kisses

*He likes to give zerburts too

AGE 5 Months

One yearThree years

                                                                       Two years

                                                                Four Years

Candy Bar Tasting

Brian heard an interview with Third Day one day that they had a candy bar tasting just to see.  We decided to do the same in our family today and also to introduce our kids to new candy bars they have never tried.  We had 10 candy bars

Snickers
Milky Way
Twix
Reese's Peanut butter cups
100 Grand
3 Musketeers
Payday
Hershey's with Almonds
Butterfinger
Whatchamacallit

Surprisingly the kids liked them all.  Christian was starting to get sick so didn't finish them all.  Our favorites were

Piper-Reeses and 100 Grand
Daddy-Reeses and Snickers
Mommy-100 Grand and Snickers

Least favorites
Piper-Butterfinger(we told her she might like it in ice cream)
Daddy-Payday
Mommy-3 Musketeers

It was very interesting and a lot of fun and now our kids have tried a lot of different candy bars.  I wonder what we should taste test next?

Disney World

Day One

We got up at 5 am and got everyone dressed and ready to go to the airport.  We got through security just fine and got some breakfast at McDonalds.  We sat at the gate and played Uno, Piper's new favorite card game, and read.  It was time to board and unfortunately we didn't realize it, but we didn't get the kids window seats.  So Piper sat on the window seat and Brian in the middle and Christian on the end and then I got to relax on the other side of the aisle.  Piper had not flown since she was a baby and this was Christian's first flight and we were not sure what to expect.  They were great! Christian, Daddy, and Piper played Uno for awhile and then Christian fell asleep, Daddy read his book, and Piper discovered the radio stations on the plane.  She liked listening to the Spanish one and the classical.  We arrived in Florida and got on the Magical Express and it was so nice not to have to get our luggage and it magically arrived in our room a few hours later.  We checked into our hotel-which Piper and Christian loved all the big decoration.  We checked out our room got a little lunch and then off to Hollywood Studios.

We got to Hollywood around 2 and got right into Ariel's Voyage and then got a great seat for the Block Party Bash Parade.  The kids got to play with a parachute until the parade made it to us and got to sing and dance with everyone in the parade. We got to see all the great Pixar characters.  We then got to see Playhouse Disney on stage and the kids got to meet Handy Manny and the Little Einsteins, all except Annie.  We then we off to the Toy Story Mania ride-the kids were so excited to get to do this one.  The wait time said 110 minutes, but this is the only ride the kids really wanted to do so we thought we would.  Well, the great thing is 110 minutes ended up being 30-45 minutes and the kids loved the ride and so did Brian.  He would have played again to try and get one of the high scores if the wait was not so long.  We were then off to Star Tours, which they closed off some of the park for Fantasmic, and so we had a long walk to get there and on the way we stopped to say hi to Buzz and Woody.  We rode Star tours and then went to see Muppets in 3D, which was funny to see the kids try and grab stuff.  We were then going to try and make it to the buses before the Fantasmic people got out, but no such luck.  We made it back to the hotel and had a pizza in the room and crashed for the night for a fun day at Magic Kingdom on day two.

Day Two-Magic Kingdom

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom a little later then we wanted, but made it there around 10.  As soon as we got there I was a little overwhelmed.  I then saw Snow White come out of a building and wave everyone in and so we went in too.  She was great and taught Piper how to curtsey.  We went around and met Pinnochio, Peter Pan, and Alice and the Rabbit.  The kids thought that was great and all the characters were great in character.  We then went outside and who did we see, Pluto and Daisy.  Christian has a great love of all dogs and the one person he wanted to see was Pluto and we could not go on without getting a picture with him and Piper wanted one with Daisy.  We spent our first hour not leaving the entrance.  We then went down Main Street and got to see some of the Dream Come True Parade and Move it Shake it Parade.  They were a lot of fun.  We decided to find were Cindrella's Royal Table was for our princess lunch.  We found it and then rode a Small World and then came back for our special lunch.  When we got in line for lunch, Piper asked, "Why are there so many people here?"  We said "We are not the only ones having lunch with the princesses"  I guess we didn't explain that to her, but she thought she was going to be the only one with the princesses and they would sit down and eat lunch with her.  She was a little disappointed.  We got to see all the princesses except Sleeping Beauty.  Piper also wondered why Belle was not in her pretty dress.  The food as very good and we had a good time and Piper was impressed that we were in the castle.  We then were off to Fantasyland to ride rides.  We rode almost all the rides in Fantasyland and Toontown-which the kids loved the Goofy's Barnstorm Roller Coaster and Peter Pan's flight.  We then got to go on the Tomorrowland Speedway, we had a lot of fun with the people next to us pretending we were going to run into them.  We got a little dinner at Cosmic Ray's and then off to the Spectromagic parade.  We got a great spot in front of the Hall of Presidents given to us by, Tourguide mike.com.  We then wanted to see Wishes and went through Fantasyland and Tomorrowland and onto a path that there we about 20 people on and got a great spot to see the fireworks and especially Tinkerbell come flying down.  It was cold, but we had a blanket to wrap up with. We then got a place at the Main Street bakery and had a treat and waited for the crowd to go and talk about our day and then off to bed.  I think Brian and I loved that we got to ride with both kids.  Piper is usually such a Daddy's girl and Christian a momma's boy that it was fun to be able to do things kind of by ourselves with each one.

Day 3-Another Day at Magic Kingdom

We now have the hang of this Disney World thing.  We took the Railroad around to Frontierland and rode the kids favorite ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  We rode it 3 times.  We did the magic carpets, Pirates of the Carabeian and the silly safari.  We were off to Tomorrowland and all the rides there.  Christian and I didn't like the Buzz Lightyear ride just because if you ride this after Toy Story Mania it is hard to see the tiny red light.  The kids liked the Laugh Floor too and we loved how they incorporated the audience.  We got to go back and ride a few rides over again and Brian got to leave us for a little while and ride Space Mountain.  A neighbor that used to work at Disney World said you would be amazed at the people that committed suicide on Space Mountain by standing up and so that made Brian nervous about everything.  I rode it years ago in Disneyland and a friend that grew up in Aneheim had his graduation party at Disneyland and said they turned on the lights and rode Space Mountain and that freaked him out.  We got to see Goofy and Donald and decided that we would eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern and got to see lots of characters, but our favorite was Chip and Dale.  They played Tic Tac Toe with the kids and hid their stuffed animals-Piper said I love this place.  We got a picture with the castle.  All the Christmas decorations were still up so we got to see a lot of the lights and trees.  We went back to the hotel to let the kids play at the arcade for  little while.  Then off to bed.

Day 4-Epcot

We got up and headed to Epcot.  We went on the Nemo ride and hung out at the Nemo exhibit and actually ran into some friends from church that we didn't know were going to be there.  We then tried to go over to Test Track, but it was closed.  We did some shopping for somethings and spent some of the kids money and got our traditional Christmas ornament from the trip.  We then headed over to the World Showcase and had lunch in Mexico, Brian was craving Mexican food.  We bought the kids passports to get stamped at each country and got them a craft and mask for them to get symbols added to at each country.  This was Piper's passion.  She didn't want to stop at any country or to explore any of them just wanted to move on and get to the next one.  She said we can just come back after we get all of them done.  So we went to every country and we also discovered the penny machines that give you a smashed penny souveir.  The kids had a lot of fun with those, and how to get those in a scrapbook I will have to try and figure out.  We stopped and listened to a keltic band and saw a few things here and there.  We loved England-I got to see Mary Poppins, one of my favorites, but my kids would not let me stop to take a picture with her.  We also saw Alice and Tigger and Pooh.  Tigger was the greatest and Christian really loved him.  We then went through Mission Space and had a lot of fun with the videos and games in there.  We were then off to Chef Mickey.  We got to see a lot of the character, but they seemed to much in a hurry there and didn't really spend much time-it was like take a picture and bye.  It was not as good of experience as Liberty Tree Tavern. .  We then made an executive decision to just to back to the hotel and not do Illuninations.  I think we would have really enjoyed it, but we would have paid for it the next day.  So we went back to pack and get to bed.

Day 5-Check out and Animal Kingdom

We got up and headed to check out.  It took awhile, but we made it.  We were off to Animal Kingdom.  We were off to the safari first and decided not to do breakfast with Donald,we had seen all the characters, except Christian wanted to see Hewey, Lewey, and Dewey, Donald's nephews, which we only got to see as statues.  We got to see some of the animals on the safari and saw the Lion King and Nemo shows.  Piper was excited that she got to ride Mt Everest-she had a lot of fun with that.  I think she has a new love of roller coasters since she had never been on one till now.  Christian got to ride the Dinosaur ride,where mommy lost his slinky dog keychain(he is still upset about that one), and the Tricertop spin, but loved playin on the boneyard playground.  We headed back to the hotel to catch the Magical express and made it just in the nic of time.  We then headed off to the airport for dinner and head home.  The kids both fell asleep on the plane and had a good PJ day the next day.

Goodbye Earl

Last night Brian's grandfather, Earl Shaw, passed away. He was 89 years old and ready to meet the Lord. I only knew him 11 years, but he was a good man.  He was living by himself and kept a garden until about 8 months ago when he had a stroke and then he just was not the man with the spunk that we knew.

I knew he didn't grow up going to church, but didn't know he didn't start going until my mother in law was about 7 or 8. He met Madeline, his late wife, at a tent revival that him and a friend went to to make fun of the holy rollers.  My mother in law said,  him and his brothers typically went to the bars after work and drank, but one day he could not remember things and decided that was not the life he should be leading.  My mother in law said it was a hard change for him to be a God fearing man, but he did.  He had some tattoos that he got while in the navy and I remember asking several times what they were, you could not make them out very well, and he would never tell me and just say"the stupidest things I did."  He was always busy doing something-gardening, clearing land, or playing dominos with friends.  He really enjoyed spoiling his great grandkids that live close him-you always get ice cream at Grandpa Earl's house even if you didn't eat your dinner.  He was a man that served people at church and had many friendships there.  His wife, Madeline, died 9-10-2001 and ever since then he has been waiting on the Lord to take him home and he finally got his wish.

We will miss him even though we were not that close to him-he was just a fun character to be around and would tell stories. When Brian and I got married he told us " I hope you have grandkids one day that make you come to Texas in the heat of August and watch them get married."  I don't think he liked driving all that way in the heat.  He always had a good hug for you.

Here are a few pictures I could find with my kids and Earl.  I know we have more recent ones, but just can't track down where they are.

It was the last of our grandparents to leave this Earth.  I am glad that God took him when he did and he didn't have to live like he was for long.  We will miss you!!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight

Why am I up at 11:46 p.m. on Christmas because I just had this blog going through my head.  It has been a good day and a very long one.   We sent the kids on a sacvenger hunt first thing for the big present, a trip to Disney World on Jan 10-14 and Piper amazes us with her reading-she read every clue with no help.  They didn't react the way I thought they would- they just wanted to open their other presents.  I think the most exciting part was finding the note Santa left and that he got us plane tickets to Disney-that got a good reaction.  They opened and played with all their presents.

The kids got to have a white Christmas, which has only happened a few times in my life.  I am sure it will happen less in their life as we live in Texas.  They had fun playing on the snow covered trampoline and throwing snowballs at anyone. 

We then set off to Oklahoma thinking the roads had cleared by now.  We got through Texas fine, but OK was hard.  We saw a car on the side of the road about every half mile.  What normally takes us about an 1.5 was taking us about 3 hours and there was not an end in site so after a lot of consideration we decided to not try and take a 10 hour drive to Tulsa and just head for home. So we took a five hour road trip to end up back where we started.  In some ways I love my own bed and my kids sleep good in theirs too.  I am sad to not be there for my niece and nephew's first christmas.  It will be sad to not get to see all of them open their presents and just hang out with family, but I think we made the right decision. I have never had to mail present, but I guess I will be doing that tomorrow.  However, on the way the kids started to ask questions about Disney and really get excited.  I told them once we got home we would look it up on the internet.

We got home and the kids wanted to see the rides at Disney world on the internet.  Piper and Christian had wide eyes as I went through all the pages and Piper said, "Dad, Disney world looks like lots and lots of fun."  They are so excited that we are counting down the days to the plane ride and all the things we get to see  and do at Disney.  We have 15 to go.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and to all a goodnight!