Great Weekend!

Although we had a very successful first week of school the boys were really looking forward to the weekend! They were so excited to find out that two of our favorite people - Tina & Emily Shelton where coming for Emily's soccer tournament and we were going to get to see them. We met them on Saturday for both of Emily's games. It was really, really hot but the games were exciting and best of all they won both!! (Here is a picture of Emily at the game [she is so pretty!] and of Christian and Joel - Caleb had made some friends at the playground and that is why he is not in the picture.) Joel was able to fill Ms. Tina in on his ENTIRE week of kindergarten and I really enjoyed spending time with my friend!!



Sunday after church we were invited out to eat with 3 other couples. We had a great time! It is nice to begin to meet people and develop friendships. The best part was they were able to give me some information for sports and birthday parties!! We were able to locate a Park that has a spray park and playground that is very near to where we are building. Soooo we will do Caleb's party at this park on Saturday, September 20th from 1:30-3:00pm and then have Joel's party at the McDonalds at 5:00pm. It will be a very busy day but EVERYONE is excited about the partys. (This a picture of Caleb playing at the park where his party will be).
The other information I received was to check out the YMCA for youth sport events. When we moved here to Frisco I asked Caleb & Joel what they would like to play and they both said flag football. Well when I researched it they do have flag football for Joel and real football for Caleb but we had missed both deadlines (as well as soccer and baseball). But the couples we where with today told me to look into the YMCA. They do have Flag Football for the fall for BOTH Caleb and Joel and I have until the end of this week to get them registered - YIPEE!! So, tomorrow we will try and go get them registered to play. They play 8 games on Saturdays from Oct. 4 - Nov. 22. To say that they are both excited is an understatement!

God has been so faithful is getting us settled and established here in Frisco. He has answered many prayers!

One More School Story!

I promise I will not post every day about school BUT this has been such a HUGE transition for all of us that I had to share one more time about everyone's day. EVERYONE had a great day today! Hallelujah! Christian hooked up with the boy who goes to our church and sat with him in the morning and at lunch!! Yes - this is a picture of him on the way home from school and I haven't seen him smile like this in a while.

Joel ate lunch in the Cafeteria and says again his favorite part of the day is Recess!!


Caleb said he had a great time in Math despite a slow start this morning. I think we are on our way. God is always faithful! These are picture from the drive home from school - do you think some of them are tired?

School Success!!!!

We'll we made it! Joel did great this morning. Got right out of the car with Caleb and never looked back. Caleb broke his standard record of refusing to go back to school on day 2 and it looks like we are off to a great start!! The only problem Joel had was he refused to eat lunch. His teacher walked him out to the car and said he didn't eat anything at lunch. She said I really tried to get him to eat something but he started to cry so I just backed off. He did eat his snack I sent him in the afternoon. When I questioned him he said the food they had was NASTY - YIKES!!! We had a talk tonight about the menu tomorrow and hopefully he will be fine. He told Craig that his first day was awesome and that he really loved Recess and P.E.!!

Caleb seemed a little more subdued this afternoon but after I got some food in him he perked up. He said that if he ran 8 laps in 12 seconds in PE that he would get a special award. (Now I am sure he has confused the number of laps and the time he has to complete them!) I said oh Caleb you are such a fast runner you can do that no problem to which he responded probably but I might have to TRAIN! I thought train - yeah right you going to do laps in the apartment!??

Christian is seeming to adjust fine. He has met a boy who goes to our new church and is also in the 6th grade - YEAH! That was one of our biggest prayer during this transition/move is that he would give Christian like minded friends and that Christian would go to school with some of the same kids he goes to church with! Such an answer to prayer. This boy is also involved in the Jr. High ministry at the church and will be at the meeting tomorrow night that Christian will attend. The only problem with Christian is the girls. He said mom I had a girl come up to me at my locker and say "my friend thinks you are cute." I said what did you say and he said I didn't say anything because she giggled and ran off. Then he said in the afternoon another girl walked up to him at his locker and said "you have beautiful eyes." I said what did you say to that and he said I couldn't say anything because she giggled and ran off as well - Oh my goodness we are just in 6th grade. So in my infinite wisdom I said Christian you should always be nice and not hurt anyone's feelings but we don't like girls! (Now Craig has instructed me not to say that anymore but so far Christian has not shown any interest in girls at all and that is fine with me....I am not encouraging it at all!) So I am sure you will hear more on this as the year goes on. This is a picture of him practicing his trumpet outside on the balcony at the apartment. We are probably going to have to figure out another practice place!

Mom made it fine today being by her self for the first time. I didn't even cry! To be honest it was really kind of nice. I was able to go and walk and spend quite a bit of time with the Lord uninterrupted and then run some errands. Plus since it takes me an hour to drop off in the mornings and a HUGE hour in a half to pick up (due to the different times their schools let out and the traffic picking up - gone are the days of everyone walking to/from school) my day seemed to go by quickly!

Thanks for all of the calls today to check on us!

1st Day of School!

Today was our first day of school for everyone except Joel. For kindergarten Frisco ISD only does a 2 hour parent/child orientation for kindergarten and then Joel's first full day will not be until tomorrow.

Christian got right up, dressed and ready to go. He was a little quite but said he wasn't nervous until he found out that we would have to drop him off to school early in order to get back to Joel's school for orientation. He did not want to have to wait in the cafeteria by his-self. I will admit that I cried after he got out simply because I know it was very hard for him and how much he didn't want to move because of his friends in Sugar Land. I am praying when we pick him up that he has already made some friends. (I will update on everyone's day tomorrow!)

Caleb whose MO is by day 2 he is done with school was surprisingly excited to go this morning. In fact when we got to the school the majority of the parents were walking their kids into school but Caleb just hopped out and ran all the way to the cafeteria by his-self. Craig looked at me and said well I don't think he needed you to walk him in. Of all the boys Caleb is the most social so going into new situations not knowing anyone is not a big deal to him. (Again I will update on Caleb tomorrow)!

Joel's day did not start out well. He cried and cried this morning about not wanting to go to school. Once he got it through his big head that he didn't have to stay all day he perked up a little bit. At the orientation the principal informed us that all of the kids could go with the PE teacher to the gym to play while we listened to all of the presentations. Joel went with all of the kids but 3 minutes later he was back and said he didn't want to go. Then he started crying again. Craig told him he would go back with him until he felt comfortable and he seemed fine with that. Craig waited with him for awhile and then came back - but it wasn't 2 minutes later that a teacher brought Joel back crying - YIKES!! He did seem excited to take Craig and show him his room. This is a picture of him sleeping on the way home (we left the school and ran several errands before coming home.

So be praying for us tomorrow because Craig will be working and I will be by myself - that Caleb will change his MO and WANT to go back to school on day 2 and that Joel will WANT to go to school for his 1st day!!!



*Side note for Family - we did book Joel's birthday party for Saturday, September 20th at 5:00 pm at the McDonald's close to where we are building. I still don't know what we will do for Caleb but we will do it the same day just earlier in the day. I know it is close to 2 weeks past their actual days but with the move and Craig's work schedule that is the first Saturday we could do it. This is a picture of Joel in the play area. The whole play area is a Pirate theme - I think that is the only way I was able to convince him to do McDonald's (because he thought it was too babyish!).

Oh What A Wonderful Day!

For those of you who read the previous blog entry I have an update - we now have CABLE! One week before we left Sugar Land we contacted DISH network to set up service through them. We wanted to go with Dish for 2 main reasons: 1 - it is cheaper than cable; 2 - we could still get our beloved Astros!! We had been waiting anxiously for August 13th to get here to hook up our service. In fact Tuesday night as I sat on the floor holding the rabbit ears so I could see the Women's Team Gymnastics I thought I can do this, just think tomorrow night I can actually record the Olympics and pause them and rewind them! So Wednesday morning the DISH guy arrived at 8:40 am. At 8:42 am he informed me that because our apartment faced North and not South he could not hook up our DISH. I am like let me understand this - I have waited all of this time and you are saying you cannot hook it up? Yes, he said you have to a line to the South to pick up pictures. I graciously let him out and called Time Warner. Desperately I told them - I do not want internet or phone or anything else - I just want cable and as soon as I can get it. They said how about between 8-11 tomorrow morning -I said I will take it. So the cable guy arrived around 9:00 this morning and had us going by 9:45 am. This best part - although we will not normally get the Astros because they were playing a day game today it was showing on cable. So this is a CLEAR picture (notice no rabbit ears on the floor) of the upcoming Astros game. Kids are in their room quietly watching Boomerang, Craig is at work; and mom is watching the Astro's - What A Wonderful Day!

Desperate for the Olympics!

I do not know if you can figure this picture out but this is a set of rabbit ears WITH some foil on them in my desperation to be able to watch the Olympics. For some crazy reason we could not have our Dish TV installed until 12 days after we moved in. My main concern was the Olympics. According to my husband my obsession with the Olympics is strange but I have always loved them! I love gymnastics, swimming, diving and of course all of the personal interest stories they feature on the athletes! So after hearing me complain about missing them he finally said I wonder if we can get some rabbit ears and pick them up. Off to Wal-Mart we went and low and behold they still sell rabbit ears. We proudly picked up a pair and plugged them in. I now get a total of 8 channels - 3 of them are Spanish and 1 is some other foreign language that we cannot figure out!!! But most importantly with the rabbit ears on the floor toward the balcony and the foil I can get the Olympics - Oh happy day!! I think my husband may be thinking...you might be a redneck if you rig up rabbit ears in order to watch the Olympics!

In other news...apartment living continues...luckily we have not received any complaints but if I had a nickel for every time I said don't run, walk on your tip toes - JOEL - walk on your tip toes - I would be rich!! Christian has been gone since Thursday to my mom and dad's. All of the other boys got time over the summer by their selves so it was his time. He does not want to come home - and I can't really blame him -ha. ha -who would want to leave full TV, not having to share the computer, getting everything you want, and not having to be quite as you walk!! He was very sad to hear that he would have to come home Wednesday or Thursday morning because he has his orientation at his school on Thursday!

Finally in Frisco!

Well it took a total of 7 months, 91 showings, 3 contracts, an EARTHQUAKE & A HURRICANE but we FINALLY completely closed on our house in Sugar Land. We were supposed to close on Friday, August 1st at 10:00 am. We had the moving truck load us up on Thursday, July 31st (the only day they were not booked)and then received a call that our closing had been moved to 2:00 pm on Friday. Not a huge deal except Craig was driving the HUGE U-haul truck while pulling his car on a trailer and was not looking forward to fighting Houston Friday afternoon traffic. As we pulled into the title company's parking lot around 1:40 pm on Friday we received a call that we would not close on Friday. The holdup was the earthquake that had occurred in California. Our buyers were from California and their paperwork was slowed down because of office closures due to the earthquake. Craig and I left for Dallas around 2:00 that afternoon and arrived around 7:30 that night. He navigated that big rig as we affectionally called it very well and only had one mishap at a gas station!(Luckily someone took pity on us and helped Craig navigate out without hitting the gas pumps!).

Of course as we loaded stuff into storage and into the apartment we picked the hottest day in Dallas! But by around 3:00 on Saturday we had everything that needed to go into storage in storage and everything for the apartment in the apartment! We received a call Monday morning that we were to sign the papers on our house in Sugar Land at 2:00 pm in Frisco, then they would overnight them to Sugar Land for our buyers to sign. Our buyers were to sign at 10:00 am on Tuesday morning but due to the threat of the Hurricane which only ended up being a tropical storm they were able to sign around 3:00 on Tuesday and it was a done deal - YEAH!

The last couple of days have been spent registering the 3 boys for school and constantly saying walk on your tippy toes!! Did I mention that they only had a 2 bedroom apartment on the 2nd floor!?? So, we are constantly telling the boys walk softly, don't run, walk on your tippy toes and it will only be 4 months! They are adjusting but I know everyone will be really ready to move into our new home!

Haven't taken any pictures except for this one of Joel. He is standing in front of the sign for his school (of course Caleb will be attending there but he did not want to have his picture taken and you know Christian is way to cool to stand in front of his school for a picture)!!!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for our house to sale! We are really looking forward to plugging into our life here in Frisco!